Paramount Deal Approved After Trump Settlement, Colbert Cancellation

The FCC has approved the Skydance acquisition of Paramount for $8 billion. This comes after Paramount settled its lawsuit with Trump, and the company paid the president $16 million, and also after CBS canceled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” as a purely “financial decision”. Which seemed pretty odd since Colbert had and has the highest ratings in late-night.

Trump sued Paramount, specifically “60 Minutes”, alleging that the show deceptively edited an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, leading up to the 2024 Presidential Election.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in his statement approving the acquisition that he “welcomes Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.” He also says that “Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change…These commitments, if implemented, would enable CBS to operate in the public interest and focus on fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage. Doing so would begin the process of earning back Americans’ trust. Today’s decision also marks another step forward in the FCC’s efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination.”

Canceling Colbert, settling with Trump, was likely done to ensure there were no obstacles

This news about the acquisition is pretty interesting, after what we’ve heard about CBS and Paramount in the past week or so. First, they settled with Trump. Then decided to cancel Colbert’s late night show. Legal experts say that this was likely done to ensure there were no obstacles for the merger’s approval.

Let’s not forget that Trump has had a contentious relationship with the media, and especially late-night hosts like Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon, and others. Trump was also very excited to see Colbert get canceled. Leading many to think that this was one of the conditions to get the acquisition approved.