{"id":57970,"date":"2025-07-11T22:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T22:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/57970\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T22:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T22:21:10","slug":"what-will-fcc-require-or-paramount-skydance-deal-to-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/57970\/","title":{"rendered":"What Will FCC Require or Paramount-Skydance Deal to Close"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn Monday July 7, representatives for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and its Hollywood Local 399 and the conservative public interest group the Center for American Rights met with staff of the Federal Communications Commission to discuss a deal important to both of them: The Skydance<\/a>-Paramount merger.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC<\/a> has to approve the transfer of Paramount\u2019s broadcast licenses to Skydance, and the Commission has spent some 238 days reviewing it. While a settlement<\/a> between President Trump and Paramount is widely seen as clearing the path toward the deal consummating, the FCC is still expected to demand meaningful concessions in order to approve the transfer, and those talks will heat up in the coming days, as Charlie Gasparino notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact Monday\u2019s meeting with the Teamsters and Center for American Rights underscored the concession issue, while also taking a tone that recognized that the end is near: \u201cIf the FCC approves the Paramount deal, the petitioners have provided specific, concrete ideas for how the FCC can improve the deal,\u201d the representatives told the FCC, according to an ex parte filing. \u201cAs part of its process, the FCC owes stakeholders and the American public a robust review of this transaction. Rubberstamping the transaction as-is does not serve the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Teamsters and the Center ended their meeting by reiterating \u201cour commitment to explaining and applauding a final license package that protects the interests of workers, consumers, and investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the concessions are strong enough, they are ready to publicly laud the deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, what will it take to get the Skydance deal over the line? A review of filings from the Teamsters, Center and other petitioners, as well as comments from FCC chairman Brendan Carr himself, paint a picture.<\/p>\n

\t\tNO MORE DEI?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tCarr has opened investigations into companies over the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and policies, and has repeatedly said that ending those programs will be critical to any company seeking FCC approval. \u201cAny businesses that are looking for FCC approval, I would encourage them to get busy ending any sort of their invidious forms of DEI discrimination,\u201d Carr told Bloomberg in March. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe companies are listening. Just this week, T-Mobile, which is seeking FCC approval to acquire U.S. Cellular and Metronet, wrote to Carr with a pledge to end its DEI programs:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou\u2019ve made clear that you expect companies the FCC regulates to have practices that are lawful, free from invidious forms of discrimination, and open to all,\u201d T-Mobile wrote in its letter. \u201cWe have conducted a comprehensive review of T-Mobile\u2019s policies, programs, and activities, and pursuant to this review, T-Mobile is ending its DEI-related policies as described below, not just in name, but in substance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC secured a similar commitment from Verizon earlier this year. Given the circumstances, it is all but assured that Skydance will need to agree to do the same.<\/p>\n

\t\tA CBS NEWS OMBUDSMAN?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tA filing from the Teamsters and Center for American Rights outlines the possibility of requiring CBS to have an \u201cindependent, well funded, empowered, balanced ombudsman or oversight board\u201d that would monitor for bias.<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch a move would surely anger CBS News employees, many of whom are already on edge<\/a> after the settlement. It would sting particularly hard at the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which has long held a level of independence from the rest of CBS News. In fact, a more hands-on approach from some CBS executives were one of the things that caused former executive producer Bill Owens to resign.<\/p>\n

\t\tSHIFT RESOURCES FROM NEW YORK TO LOCAL STATIONS\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Center for American Rights has asked the FCC to require Paramount to move newsgathering resources outside of New York and Los Angeles and toward its local stations scattered across the country, and then use more news coverage from local stations on its national newscasts. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith such a model, properly resourced, Americans nationwide could start seeing more stories from places like Detroit, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh,\u201d the Center in a letter May 6. \u201cIn other words, CBS should flip the script: rather than local stations as pass-throughs for nationwide content, viewers should see the best local reporting from diverse geographies being used on nationwide programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tNO MORE AMPTP?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSimilarly, the Teamsters wrote to the FCC on May 5 requesting that the Commission implement a condition that the new Paramount would not reduce staffing levels at its local stations, and even floated the possibility of having the company stop negotiating its deals through the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Teamsters prefer to enter into a private agreement with Skydance to address the treatment of workers at New Paramount,\u201d the Teamsters wrote in their letter. \u201cIn addition to other terms listed in previous filings in this docket, the Teamsters believe that New Paramount should negotiate directly with the Teamsters regarding current and future collective bargaining agreements, and not through the industry group, \u2018AMPTP.\u2019 Failing any such agreement, however, the Teamsters fully support a station-level staffing condition like the one attached.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tFORMALIZE PRO-WORKER PROMISES\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOn March 31, Teamsters president Sean O\u2019Brien (read The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s profile of the union boss here<\/a>) and Local 399 VP Lindsay Dougherty met with Carr, asking that the Commission \u201ceither should memorialize Skydance\u2019s pro-worker commitments as a merger condition, or encourage the parties to reach an agreement on how best to protect workers post-transaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Teamsters and Writers Guild of America have called for a commitment from new Paramount to maintain current staffing levels for full-time employees for at least eight years. Under the proposal, the company wouldn\u2019t be able to circumvent the requirement by consolidating operations across stations, outsourcing work or reclassifying employees in a manner that reduces their hours or benefits. This may run up against plans to slash $2 billion in costs, half of which would be realized in the first year, suggesting immediate layoffs once the merger is completed.<\/p>\n

\n\tSkydance and Paramount have pushed back on this restriction. \u201cRejecting the Labor Unions\u2019 requested condition would be consistent with the public interest because the Commission does not have sufficient industry-wide information to conclude that any particular level of employment at a broadcast station is necessary or appropriate at a given time,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso in play: conditioning approval of the transaction on sustaining current acquisition levels of union-creating programming.<\/p>\n

\t\tREQUIRE INDEPENDENT CONTENT ON STREAMING\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe niche streaming platform Fuse has asked the FCC to demand that new Paramount \u201cset aside a fixed percentage of programming services on PlutoTV and other streaming platforms for independently owned content providers.\u201d Such a requirement could be a boon for small, independent streaming and content companies seeking to cut deals for access to its streaming platforms.<\/p>\n

\n\tFuse\u2019s competition concerns relate to new Paramount potentially leveraging the technological resources of Oracle \u2014 owned by David Ellison\u2019s father, Larry Ellison \u2014 to squeeze indie networks in content acquisition and distribution on Pluto TV by self-preferencing its own content or completely boxing out competing content, among other things. By the company\u2019s thinking, Paramount\u2019s control of the distribution platform and insight into the available data it provides through Oracle would make it increasingly difficult to compete on visibility, ad revenue and audience engagement.<\/p>\n

\n\tFuse pointed to the launch of Shades of Black, a streaming channel aimed at African American audiences in 2021 available on Pluto TV. It said there was a drastic drop in viewership on the platform when Pluto TV started to promote its own proprietary programming aimed at the same audience. It added, \u201cOracle\u2019s AI could facilitate the creation of synthetic or semi-automated content based on performance data across their platform, drastically reducing the need for independent programmers\u2019 owned and licensed content libraries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday July 7, representatives for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and its Hollywood Local 399 and the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,36397,16275,26873,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-57970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-fcc","10":"tag-paramount-global","11":"tag-skydance","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114836936002935028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57970","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=57970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}