{"id":32819,"date":"2025-07-02T14:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T14:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32819\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T14:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T14:43:10","slug":"cbs-chief-george-cheeks-addresses-paramounts-trump-lawsuit-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32819\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS Chief George Cheeks Addresses Paramount’s Trump Lawsuit Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNine hours after Paramount Global<\/a> announced a $16 million payment to President Donald Trump<\/a> to settle his \u201c60 Minutes\u201d lawsuit, Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks \u2014 who is the head of CBS \u2014 defended the pact at the media company\u2019s 2025 annual shareholder meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCompanies often settle litigation to avoid the high and somewhat unpredictable cost of legal defense,\u201d as well as running the risk of \u201can adverse judgment\u201d that could produce \u201csignificant financial as well as reputational damage,\u201d Cheeks said, in a response to an investor question about why Paramount settled the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSettlement offers a negotiated resolution to allow companies to focus on their core objectives rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction,\u201d Cheeks said, in what appeared to be a scripted statement. He noted that the Trump settlement does not include an apology over the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d episode.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Cheeks cited the avoidance of \u201creputational damage\u201d as a reason the company agreed to a settlement with the president, CBS News\u2019 own employees are concerned that the $16 million payout will tarnish the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d brand<\/a> (even as they expressed relief that the Trump settlement did not encompass an apology).<\/p>\n

\n\tSEE ALSO: Paramount\u2019s Trump Settlement Worries CBS News Staffers, Who Fear Weakening of \u201860 Minutes\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tParamount and CBS had previously attempted to dismiss Trump\u2019s lawsuit and characterized it as baseless. Trump, who filed the lawsuit less than a week before the 2024 election, had sought a staggering $20 billion in damages.<\/p>\n

\n\tLate Tuesday, Paramount announced that it agreed to pay $16 million to Trump<\/a> to settle his \u201c60 Minutes\u201d lawsuit, which alleged the CBS News program had misleadingly edited clips from an interview with Kamala Harris. Trump asserted that the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d edited segments violated a Texas consumer protection law by distorting voters\u2019 impressions of Harris\u2019 competence. Under the settlement, Paramount and CBS will not issue a \u201cstatement of apology or regret,\u201d as Trump\u2019s lawyers had been pushing for.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cParamount has reached an agreement in principle to resolve the lawsuit filed by President Trump and Representative Jackson in the Northern District of Texas and a threatened defamation action concerning a separate \u201960 Minutes\u2019\u00a0report,\u201d Paramount Global said in a statement Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the annual meeting Wednesday, Paramount\u2019s three co-CEOs \u2014 Cheeks, along with Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime\/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, and Paramount Pictures head Brian Robbins\u00a0\u2014 provided remarks at the start and took a handful of questions. The virtual meeting started at 9 a.m. Eastern and concluded less than a half hour later.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c2025 is set to be our best year yet,\u201d McCarthy told investors during his portion of the presentation. Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone<\/a>, the company\u2019s controlling shareholder, did not speak at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe settlement is seen as paving the way for Paramount to finally close its deal that will see it merge with Skydance Media, led by CEO David Ellison. The pact still requires approval by the FCC, headed by chairman Brendan Carr, who is an ally of Trump.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs the FCC continues its review of the Skydance transactions, we remain focused on delivering high-performing hits, supporting our creative culture, and driving value for shareholders,\u201d Redstone and Paramount\u2019s three co-CEOs wrote in a letter to shareholders shared at the meeting. The letter didn\u2019t mention \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d CBS News or the Trump lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Paramount leaders said they \u201cexecuted our stated goal of $500 million in annual run-rate cost savings\u201d last year. That has involved several rounds of layoffs across the company, including a 15% reduction of its U.S. workforce<\/a>\u00a0last summer \u2014 eliminating about 2,000 jobs. Last month, Paramount axed another 3.5% of domestic staff<\/a>, affecting several hundred employees.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe agenda for the July 2 shareholder meeting included the election of Paramount board members, who \u2014 because Redstone holds majority voting power at Paramount \u2014 were already guaranteed to secure seats on the board.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe slate included three new directors<\/a>: Mary Boies, counsel to Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, who specializes in antitrust and corporate commercial litigation; Charles E. Ryan, founder and general partner of Almaz Capital; and Roanne Sragow Licht, a former judge and adjunct professor at Boston University and Roger Williams University. The current board members standing for reelection are Redstone, non-executive chair of Paramount Global; Barbara M. Byrne, former vice chairman of investment banking at Barclays; Linda M. Griego, CEO of Griego Enterprises, a business management company; and Susan Schuman, CEO of Kyu Consulting Group.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the letter to shareholders, Paramount touted \u201csignificant improvement in [streaming] profitability\u201d driven by topline growth. Paramount+ revenue grew 33% in 2024 and added 10 million new subscribers to reach 77.5 million at year-end, and direct-to-consumer streaming profitability improved by nearly $1.2 billion. The company reiterated that it expects Paramount+ to be profitable in the U.S. this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine hours after Paramount Global announced a $16 million payment to President Donald Trump to settle his \u201c60…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[69,171,16275,27574,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-32819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-paramount-global","11":"tag-shari-redstone","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114784174251850573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}