The merger between Paramount and Skydance misses a deadline, as it seeks to get approval from the Trump administration.
It took a long, long time for Paramount Global to find a new parent company, and there was a point where it looked as though an $8 billion deal to merge with Skydance Media (where Skydance assumes control) was pretty much done and dusted. However, you might have noticed, but there’s been a change of administration in the US, and that’s thrown a spanner or two in the works.
The size of the deal requires it to get Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval in the US. Brendan Carr is the chair of the FCC, and he’s already suggested that he won’t be looking to approve deals involving companies that have any kind of diversity initiative. That was see as a prod at the Paramount and Skydance deal.
The other element at work here is that Paramount Global owns CBS News, and CBS News is one of the outlets being targeted by Donald Trump. Trump is suing CBS for, sigh, $20bn over a 60 Minutes interview it ran with Kamala Harris. In an era where businesses and rich people are capitulating to Trump and lining up to kiss his ring, there are rumours that CBS is seeking to settle the case, presumably in part because it threatens the Paramount and Skydance merger.
The knock-on is that the agreement between Paramount and Skydance expired yesterday, and that’s triggered a 90-day extension to get it done. However, it’s cleared pretty much every other regulatory hurdle apart from the FCC, and so it seems to be a political issue now. Given that the FCC can in theory hold this up as long as it likes, the likelihood is that the current US administration will get what it wants. And, once again, get its ring kissed.
More as we hear it.
