“I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” Carr said. “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.”
The merger has been the source of a political fight over the last several months due to concerns around CBS, particularly over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview last fall with former Vice President Kamala Harris as she was running for president.
Trump sued CBS, settling the case for $16 million earlier this month. Carr has a separate open investigation into the editing of the program.
Skydance’s concessions, unveiled in regulatory filings Wednesday, include the creation of an ombudsman, in place for at least two years, to field complaints about CBS News programming and a review of CBS programming to ensure “a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum” are in place. Skydance also committed that the new company would scrap diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Carr put the deal to a vote among the agency’s commissioners rather than allow bureau staff to decide it on delegated authority. It was approved 2-1, with his fellow Republican Commissioner Olivia Trusty voting in favor and Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez dissenting.
“I cannot support this order approving this transaction in light of the payout and other troubling concessions Paramount made to settle a baseless lawsuit,” Gomez wrote in her dissent. “After months of cowardly capitulation to this Administration, Paramount finally got what it wanted. Unfortunately, it is the American public who will ultimately pay the price for its actions.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill condemned the timing of the approval coming so soon after the settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against CBS.
“The FCC’s approval of the Paramount-Skydance merger reeks of the worst form of corruption,” Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said in a joint statement. “The stench of this transaction will linger over the Commission for years.”
