{"id":73502,"date":"2025-07-18T20:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T20:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73502\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T20:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T20:02:10","slug":"skydances-david-ellison-meets-with-fcc-to-discuss-paramount-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73502\/","title":{"rendered":"Skydance’s David Ellison Meets With FCC To Discuss Paramount Merger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSkydance<\/a> Media CEO David Ellison<\/a> met with FCC<\/a> chairman Brendan Carr<\/a> and other agency staffers this week to discuss the pending regulatory decision on the company\u2019s merger with Paramount Global<\/a>, where topics included news coverage.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to a filing with the FCC<\/a>, Ellison and his legal counsel, Matthew A. Brill, met Tuesday with the FCC officials, and they \u201cdiscussed Skydance\u2019s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS<\/a>\u2019s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe meetings with a CEO of an acquiring company and the FCC chairman can be an indication of a pending decision, but not always.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the filing, Ellison and Brill \u201cexplained the Ellison family and RedBird represent fresh leadership with the vision and experience needed to drive New Paramount<\/a>\u2019s long-term growth in the face of the challenges presented by today\u2019s media landscape, all while preserving and enhancing the legacy and broad reach of both the national CBS television network and the company\u2019s 28 owned-and-operated local television stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filing also stated Ellison and Brill discussed with Carr their company\u2019s \u201ccommitment to promoting non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity at New Paramount, ensuring the company is fully compliant with law.\u201d One of Carr\u2019s chief concerns has been corporate \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion\u201d initiatives that he has characterized as \u201cinvidious discrimination.\u201d He has suggested that companies that maintain DEI policies would have difficulty securing regulatory approval.<\/p>\n

\n\tCritics of the proposed merger also have been meeting with FCC officials. That includes Project Rise Partners, an investment group that had sought to make a rival bid for Paramount Global<\/a> after the end of the 45-day \u201cgo-shop\u201d period last summer. Among other things, Project Rise had raised concerns about China\u2019s Tencent\u2019s proposed ownership interest in the Skydance deal. <\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the Skydance filing, Ellison and Brill \u201crefuted erroneous claims regarding Chinese influence on RedBird and New Paramount and reiterated that Tencent will hold only a non-voting, passive interest in New Paramount of less than 5 percent (in the form of publicly traded shares it would be free to purchase on the Nasdaq), according it no governance or informational rights and therefore no ability to influence the operation of New Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC is on day 245 of its review of the transaction. The agency sets a 180-day timeline for reviews, but it is not bound by it.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this month, Paramount Global announced a settlement with Donald Trump <\/a>of his $20 billion lawsuit against CBS over the way that 60 Minutes<\/a> edited its interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount said the settlement was not connected to the FCC merger review.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Carr has said<\/a> that a complaint that was filed with the FCC about the 60 Minutes interview was \u201clikely to arise\u201d in the context of the merger review. The group that filed the complaint, the Center for American Rights, has also met with FCC officials, raising issues about alleged news bias, including recent comments made in a commencement address by 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarr has not given any indication of when the FCC review will be completed. An FCC spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, has urged that all commissioners weigh in on the merger, not just the FCC\u2019s media bureau. Ellison and Brill urged the media bureau to \u201cpromptly\u201d approve the merger, according to the FCC filing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skydance Media CEO David Ellison met with FCC chairman Brendan Carr and other agency staffers this week to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":73503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[15327,51396,15328,26871,32129,69,36555,171,36397,15329,16275,51039,26873,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-73502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-60-minutes","9":"tag-brendan-carr","10":"tag-cbs","11":"tag-cbs-news","12":"tag-david-ellison","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-electionline","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-fcc","17":"tag-paramount","18":"tag-paramount-global","19":"tag-paramount-skydance-merger","20":"tag-skydance","21":"tag-tv","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114876026000206842","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73502","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=73502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}