Paramount sale gets a yes from Trump’s FCC : NPR

On Wednesday, Trey Parker and Matt Stone – the creators of the satirical show South Park -No announced that they had reached a five -year transmission rights agreement of $ 1.5 billion with Global Paramount.

That night, the debut of the Parker and Stone season in the Central Channel comedy of Paramount set fire to the company for canceling CBS ‘ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert —New that it has been done only to appease one of the frequent objectives of the jacket: President Trump. (In the episode, a cartoon of Trump, a naked show in bed with Satan. It is not an attractive representation. Nor was it destined to be).

Paramount Global has said that Colbert’s cancellation, as of June next June, was carried out only for financial reasons. It has not happened without a subway in the middle of a burst or raisins of the tasks of Paramount and Skydance Media, which has bones seeking to acquire the media conglomerate, to appease the Trump administration.

On Thursday, federal regulators announced that they had voted to approve the agreement valued at $ 8 billion.

Averages to eliminate bias in news coverage and more

Paramount paid $ 16 million to resolve a demand Presented by Trump as a private individual against CBS and 60 minutes. The Skydance CEO, David Ellison, promised to eliminate All US headquarters programs. UU. In Paramount and to create A new Ombudsman to ideological bias complaints In news coverage. Skydance has not denied Trump’s claims that the Network will execute public service anterns of $ 20 million with its ideological beliefs.

The president of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, cited Skydance’s promises to make “significant changes in the CBS transmission network once strident.”

“Americans no longer trust the Legacy National News Media to inform for full, precision and fairly. It is time for a change,” Carr wrote in a statement. “In particular, Skydance has made written commits to reure that the new company’s programming ram a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum. Skydance Will Alsoo adopte measures that can root out the bias this hashet that have that have that have that have made so has that have that hay have that have that has This do This beam This beam This is doing this doing this, doing this. ” “” “” “” “” “” “” “” “” “

In Fox News earlier on the day, Carr made a return of the victory over the cancellation of Colbert and other CBS concessions, as well as the Disassembly or Federal Public Media Funds. “You have exposed the business model of many of these outfits as nothing more than a partisan circus.” Carr said in Fox News. “All this is the decision of President Trump to stand up.”

Skydance and Paramount declined to comment.

Last week, Ellison with Carr to underline “Skydance with impartial journalism and hug or several points of view, principles that will guarantee CBS editorial decision making reflect the varied Idison perspectives of the American spectators after Inviewers. official.

David Ellison’s father, the founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, is financing the agreement to buy Paramount, owner of CBS, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central, among other brands. He had controlled the leg by Shari Redstone, who wanted to collect the participation in what remains of the fixed media holdings of his late father, Sumner Redstone.

Finally, he told Associates that the company was too small to compete with the largest digital titans Netflix, Amazon and Apple in an era of transmission and cable decline. There was no plan B, according to people with knowledge in Paramount and CBS who spoke with the condition that they were not named, since they were not authorized to talk about the sale.

“A chilling effect”

Trump’s demand that CBS and Paramount settled under Redstone was, for almost all accounts of external legal experts, incredibly weak.

Trump’s critics say that was never the point.

“It is mainly to exercise dominance and create a chilling effect for other actors,” says Law professor at Cornell University, Michael Dorf, a constitutional scholar. “It’s less than getting the money, but that the defendants have to bifurcate it.”

The media organizations, he says, will “think twice before presenting news that are advertising to the president’s own interest.”

DORF indicates the demands that Trump, as a private citizen, has been carried out against other media companies and the formal processes and demands of the administration against universities and law firms. Settlements, like Columbia University Agreement to pay $ 221 million When it has billions at play in the long term, it makes sense in an individual base, he says. But they leave others exposed to the same types of pressure.

“What unites all these cases is that the administration or Trump personally have a very weak case against the person or entity that is demanding,” says Dorf. “The more active an objective, the more vulnerable it will be.”

A group of legal settlements

CBS was the pressure point for Trump: the Redstone Plan to sell the company requested the approval of the FCC due to the transfer of more than two boxes of local stations.

Trump’s demand claimed that CBS News had committed electoral interference by cutting the response of Vice President Kamala Harris to a question about the conflict of Israel/Hamas two different ways in different shows. Tasks together, the two shows offered the complete response of the spectators Harris; Trump’s legal team argued that the network had tried to make it sound more consistent than it really was.

The lawsuit was filed in a Texas jurisdiction with a judge sympathetic To the president. Under Carr, the FCC revived the complaints dismissed against CBS and their local stations about the interview that a conservative public law of lawyers had presented.

The executive director of 60 minutes and the President of CBS News and Stations Both resigned earlier this year, saying that they opposed an agreement, especially if it contained an apology. CBS did not apologize as part of the agreement.

The ABC News parent company, The Walt Disney Co. ,, I had previously paid $ 16 million Towards the future Trump presidential library and legal fees. Trump had sued for George Stephanopoulos presenter, the mischiasaracterization of a jury legal findings in a civil case. That resolution included a repentance note.

The social media giants X and Meta paid to the Trump Foundation $ 10 million and $ 25 million to resolve the demands on their decision to get it out of their platforms after he claimed to have won the 2020 elections against Joe Bides. Elon Musk of X has billionaire contracts with the federal government; Mark Zuckerberg applications are highly regulated by federal agencies. Both have bone with the hope of a slight touch in the AI regulation, which Trump has indicated that he supports.

The FCC commissioner, Anna M. Gómez, the lonely Democrat of the Commission, attacked the agency’s decision to approve the sale. In a written statement, he said he marked the continuous erosion of journalistic independence.

“After months of cowardly capitulation to this administration, Paramount finally obtained what he whistled,” Gomez wrote. “Unfortunately, it is the American public who will finally pay the price for their shares.”

“In an unprecedented movement, this FCC once independent used its power to press Paramunt to negotiate a private legal agreement and in Erode freedom of the press,” he said. “Once again, this agency is undermining legitimate efforts to combat discrimination and expand the opportunity to exceeding Its authority and intervention in labor matters reserved for other government entities with adequate jurisdiction on these issues. Even more alarm, now he is imposing never forum controls on the decisions of the writing room and the editorial trial, in direct violation of the first amendment and the law. “