With Trump go-ahead, Skydance and Paramount to complete merger in August
On Friday, the two companies announced the final stage of the year-long deal, which was first announced in July 2024.
The merger is considered a massive shake-up in the media landscape of the United States, drawing to a close the reign of the powerful Redstone family over the Paramount entertainment empire.
But the merger has garnered even more attention in recent weeks for its political backdrop.
On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave the green light for the merger to go forward, after a series of moves under Paramount that were widely interpreted as concessions to the Trump administration.
The FCC is technically an independent agency of the federal government, but since taking office in January for his second term, President Trump has sought to bring such agencies under his influence, including by appointing loyal allies to their leadership.
That put the fate of the Paramount-Skydance merger in question, particularly given Trump's combative relationship with CBS Broadcasting Inc, one of Paramount's premier properties.
Conflicts over content
Trump has long taken an adversarial approach to the news media, and CBS's flagship news programmes were no exception.
Some of those tensions came to a head in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election, when Trump, a Republican, was facing off against Democratic contender Kamala Harris.
The TV news magazine 60 Minutes had a tradition of interviewing each of the major party nominees for the presidency in the lead-up to the vote, and it had invited both Trump and Harris to participate.
Harris accepted the invitation, but 60 Minutes said Trump cancelled. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, disputed that characterisation.
'There were initial discussions, but nothing was ever scheduled or locked in,' Cheung wrote on social media. 'They also insisted on doing live fact checking, which is unprecedented.'
The back-and-forth escalated when 60 Minutes aired two different cuts from its interview with Harris.
One version, which aired on a sister programme Face The Nation, featured more of Harris's answer about her stance towards Israel. The other version, which aired on the 60 Minutes broadcast, was shorter.
Trump called the different edits evidence of deceptive reporting tactics and filed a lawsuit against Paramount, CBS's parent company.
'CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news,' his court filing alleged.
'That is false,' 60 Minutes responded in a statement to its website.
'When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment.'
While many media experts expected Paramount to prevail on the merits of the case, the company instead sought to negotiate an end to the case. Earlier this month, it agreed to pay $16m to Trump, to go to his future presidential library.
Shortly thereafter, another top CBS show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, revealed it had been cancelled, allegedly for financial reasons.
But the timing and unexpected nature of the cancellation drew speculation that it might have been an attempt to appease Trump and streamline the merger, given the fact that Colbert frequently lambasted the Republican president on his show.
Trump himself posted on Truth Social, 'I absolutely love that Colbert' got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.'
The Late Show was consistently the top-rated late-night comedy show, and it had won a Peabody Award and multiple Emmy nods.
South Park TV show takes aim
Within weeks of both the 60 Minutes lawsuit settlement and the cancellation of The Late Show, the FCC gave its blessing to the merger between Paramount and Skydance.
Under the merger, Skydance founder David Ellison, the son of Oracle Corporation CEO Larry Ellison, is expected to helm operations.
Upon the merger's approval, Trump's appointee to lead the FCC, Brendan Carr, released a statement echoing some of the president's criticisms of major news outlets.
He also hinted that the merger would result in changes to CBS's news output.
'Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly,' he wrote. 'It is time for a change. That is why I welcome Skydance's commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcasting network.'
'In particular, Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company's programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.'
To ensure compliance with that commitment, Carr said an ombudsman would be appointed to the media giant for a period of at least two years.
Carr added that the merger between Skydance and Paramount would also bar the new mega-company from implementing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, which are designed to create an equal playing field for people regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion or ability.
But hours after the FCC granted its approval, the Paramount-owned channel Comedy Central aired an episode of the animated series South Park that mocked President Trump and satirised its parent company's $16m settlement.
In one scene, an animated Jesus attempts to warn the show's characters about Trump.
'The guy can do whatever he wants now that someone backed down, OK?' the animated Jesus says. 'You guys saw what happened to CBS? Yeah, well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount! You really want to end up like Colbert?'
The Trump administration has since blasted the show as irrelevant.
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He has rolled back a steep tariff he had imposed on China in early April, even as a report by US intelligence agencies in March said that Beijing is now the US's top military and cyber-threat. And in recent days, he has turned his attention to Russia, trying to pressure it to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine. The West believes that Russia's Oreshnik ballistic missile – which it fired in Ukraine last November – violates the INF treaty. The missile has a range of 500km (311 miles). Last week, Putin announced the deployment of the missile in Belarus, which shares a 1,084km (674 miles) border with Ukraine. Russia also revamped its nuclear doctrine last year, formally lowering its threshold for use of nuclear weapons. Which other disarmament agreements have the two countries withdrawn from? The US and the Soviet Union – the two most militarised nations at the time – were engaged in an arms race until the collapse of the communist nation in 1991. The two sides, however, signed a number of agreements, such as the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the INF, as part of arms control measures. President George W Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, which was aimed at keeping Russia and the US from creating missile defences. During his first term in office, Trump also withdrew from the 1992 Open Skies Treaty in 2020. Two years later, Russia followed suit, walking out of the treaty that allowed countries to fly over each other's territory to conduct unarmed observation flights. Which security agreements are still in place between the US and Russia? The New START Treaty, which stands for 'Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty', remains the last major arms control agreement between Russia and the US. The treaty signed in 2010 caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads the two countries can deploy. It came into force in February 2011. Under the agreement, the two sides committed to the following: Deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and a maximum of 700 long-range missiles and bombers. A limit of 800 intercontinental ballistic missiles in deployment. Each side can conduct up to 18 inspections of strategic nuclear weapons sites yearly to ensure the other has not breached the treaty's limits. But in 2023, Putin announced Moscow was suspending its participation in the pact, accusing Washington of non-compliance with its provisions and of trying to undermine Russia's national security. That treaty expires next year. The Russian decision came months after the US stopped exchanging data on its nuclear weapons stockpiles under the New START Treaty.
