This can be a TVNewser evaluation piece.
Final Thursday morning, Skydance Media’s takeover of Paramount World from the Redstone household was finally complete.
The brand new house owners, led by David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, a Skydance company, have a gargantuan activity in revitalizing the media conglomerate’s shine because it not solely has to deal with its legacy opponents, together with Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox Corp., however newer ones from the streaming and tech area, reminiscent of Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, and Apple.
One space inside the firm that may undoubtedly obtain quite a lot of consideration is CBS Information, which grew to become a spotlight of the merger approval course of, and a number of other questions stay concerning the group.
In late 2024, the revered information group, dwelling of Walter Cronkite, Dan Reasonably, CBS Sunday Morning, and 60 Minutes, got here below the crosshairs of the then-Donald Trump marketing campaign, which accused the network of “deceitful” editing throughout a 60 Minutes interview with former vice chairman and then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
As soon as in workplace, the Trump administration continued with its scrutiny of the information outlet. And with the merger probably hanging within the steadiness, the state of affairs created strain for Shari Redstone, the previous non-executive chairwoman of Paramount World, who reportedly sought to make settling the case a top priority.
In July, a $16 million settlement was reached, with the vast majority of the funds going in direction of Trump’s future presidential library. This settlement was much like how ABC Information settled a lawsuit with the president for $15 million in December 2024.
As a part of the settlement, CBS Information issued no assertion of apology or remorse for the 60 Minutes interview with Harris.
Nonetheless, the method of reaching that settlement got here with monumental prices, with two key 60 Minutes executives, Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of CBS News and Stations, and CBS Media Ventures, and Invoice Owens, the longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes, departing.
The settlement, the departures of senior management, and the information that Skydance Media will install an ombudsman to assessment “complaints of bias or different considerations” and guarantee “viewpoint range” at CBS Information as a part of the merger’s FCC approval course of, have created uncertainty round what the information group appears like transferring ahead.
What occurs now
