Greater than a 12 months after Skydance Media and its companions clinched a cope with Shari Redstone and Paramount International to merge the businesses, the FCC has but to behave on an software to approve the switch of CBS licenses to the brand new possession.

Earlier this week, Skydance chief David Ellison met with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and others on the fee to foyer for his or her approval of the deal — and notably, Ellison promised that CBS’s “editorial decision-making displays the various ideological views of American viewers.”

That’s important as a result of Carr, appointed by Trump, had reopened an company probe right into a “information distortion” grievance in opposition to CBS over the alleged misleading modifying of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris phase — the identical interview that Trump sued Paramount and CBS over, and which Paramount earlier two weeks in the past introduced it agreed to settle by paying Trump $16 million. In a Feb. 7 Fox Information interview with Martha MacCallum, Carr cited Trump’s lawsuit in opposition to CBS and stated, the president “has been proper on these media bias points.” Carr continued, “He got here out early and stated, ‘This factor [“60 Minutes” interview] appears prefer it has been fairly chopped up.’” The applying of the FCC’s “information distortion” coverage on this means was extremely uncommon, in accordance with former company officers.

On Tuesday, July 15, Ellison and his lawyer, Matthew A. Brill of Latham & Watkins, met with Carr, together with Carr’s chief of employees Greg Watson and Ben Arden, particular counsel within the workplace of the bureau chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau. In keeping with a letter from Brill posted Friday within the FCC’s docket for the matter, Ellison and Brill “emphasised the general public curiosity advantages” of the Skydance-Paramount transaction and “We additionally urged the Media Bureau to promptly grant” approval of the switch of the CBS licenses to “New Paramount.”

Among the many subjects Ellison and Brill mentioned on the FCC assembly was Skydance’s “dedication to unbiased journalism and its embrace of various viewpoints, rules that can guarantee CBS’s editorial decision-making displays the various ideological views of American viewers.”

Carr, in the meantime, has championed the Trump administration’s aim of eradicating variety, fairness and inclusion packages, calling DEI insurance policies an “invidious types of discrimination.” To that finish, Ellison and his lawrer “famous Skydance’s dedication to selling non-discrimination and equal employment alternative at New Paramount, guaranteeing the corporate is totally compliant with regulation.”

With respect to the Skydance-Paramount transaction’s “important public curiosity advantages,” Ellison and Brill “defined the Ellison household and RedBird signify recent management with the imaginative and prescient and expertise wanted to drive New Paramount’s long-term progress within the face of the challenges offered by at present’s media panorama, all whereas preserving and enhancing the legacy and broad attain of each the nationwide CBS tv community and the corporate’s 28 owned-and-operated native tv stations,” per the submitting.

If and when the Paramount-Skydance deal closes to create “Paramount Skydance Corp.,” Redstone, who’s Paramount controlling shareholder, is about to exit the merged firm’s board. Ellison would assume the position as CEO and chairman of the mixed Paramount-Skydance. The corporate can be managed by the Ellison household and stay publicly traded.

Pictured above: David Ellison, Brendan Carr