Federal Regulator Approves $8B Paramount-Skydance Merger After It Agrees To End DEI Efforts
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media after Skydance agreed to end DEI efforts. The settlement has removed the final step for media and entertainment companies to close the deal.
“It is time for a change. That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement, according to CBS News.
Carr mentioned Skydance’s plans to hire a CBS News ombudsman to examine complaints of editorial bias for at least two years. Skydance also confirmed that it will not have DEI initiatives.
Paramount’s transfer to Skydance Media progressed after the media group settled Trump’s news-bias lawsuit against its CBS News division by agreeing to pay $16 million for his legal expenses and a donation to his future presidential library.
FCC approving Paramount and Skydance merger
“Skydance has made written commitments to ensuring that the new company’s array of news and entertainment programming will embody a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum and that CBS’s reporting will be fair, unbiased, and fact-based,” Carr said in the statement.
CBS recently announced that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be going off the air in May 2026. The decision made by President Donald Trump came days before the announcement of the merger between Paramount and Skydance.
It also came days after Colbert called Paramount regarding its $16 million settlement with Trump, as reported by Al Jazeera.
The FCC pressuring companies to drop DEI
Appointed by President Donald Trump in January, Carr has taken an aggressive stance against corporate DEI policies. He has threatened to block mergers, opened investigations into companies such as NPR, PBS, Disney, and ABC, and praised firms that abandon DEI.
T-Mobile is the latest company to have succumbed to pressure from the FCC to drop its DEI initiatives, even though it framed its decision as voluntary, according to The New York Times.
In February, the FCC launched an investigation into Comcast and NBCUniversal, citing “substantial evidence” that they continued to promote DEI. Paramount, under pressure from the FCC, announced it would rethink its approach to DEI. Now, it awaits FFC approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance.
Image: Patrick Fallon / AFP / Getty Images
