Paramount World and Skydance Media punched again at critics of their pending merger, saying that they fail to point out they’ll be harmed by the deal and as a substitute their calls for threaten free speech rights in a regulatory submitting Thursday.
For the reason that $8 billion deal was introduced in July, naysayers have pointed to potential liberal bias, overseas affect and lack of range, amongst different issues.
“These filings are procedurally defective, seek relief that raises constitutional concerns, and/or otherwise lack merit,” Skydance, Paramount and its controlling investor, Nationwide Amusements Inc., mentioned within the submitting. “Neither party identifies any transaction-related harm that could merit denying the applications or imposing conditions.”
Most not too long ago, the merger of Paramount, dwelling to CBS, MTV and Paramount+, with unbiased movie producer Skydance, has drawn criticism on the Federal Communications Fee by LiveVideo.AI Corp., the Middle for American Rights and Fuse Media.
The FCC should approve offers involving the sale of broadcast TV stations.
Incoming FCC boss Brendan Carr, who will take up the mantle when President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into workplace on Jan 20., has already expressed issues over the nationwide broadcast media’s function in eroding “public trust” within the information.
Of their submitting, Paramount and Skydance mentioned measures proposed by the Middle for American Rights could also be unconstitutional.
The middle, a nonprofit that has filed complaints about media bias at different networks, mentioned in a public submitting that the deal ought to solely be accredited underneath the situation that Paramount will keep away from overseas affect and promote range on its airwaves.
The group famous that China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. is an investor in Skydance.
“The center’s request that the commission force ‘New Paramount to commit to viewpoint diversity, with real benchmarks and expectations,’ would be anathema to the First Amendment, because it would put the government in the untenable position of supervising a broadcaster’s editorial policies and choices,” Skydance mentioned in its submitting.
Skydance mentioned Tencent will maintain solely a minority stake in nonvoting Paramount shares after the merger.
Final month, Fuse, a Latino-owned media firm, additionally accused Paramount of favoring its personal programming on its Pluto streaming service, which Paramount disputed.
LiveVideo mentioned Paramount and parent-company Nationwide Amusements ran a rigged public sale of the enterprise.
The businesses responded Thursday that LiveVideo offered “no factual support for its claims,” and requested the fee to approve their merger promptly and with out circumstances.
As reported by The Submit’s Charles Gasparino, sources near the megadeal, mentioned that Carr might make a slew of dramatic modifications to the deal earlier than greenlighting it.
One such change is that CBS could possibly be required to completely abide by requirements set for US broadcast licensees to be “neutral” information organizations.
In keeping with individuals near Trump’s transition crew, CBS might, amongst different issues, be pressured to show over a full transcript of the controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, which these within the Trump orbit imagine reveals the community performed soiled in the course of the 2024 election.
It could additionally embody broader calls for, similar to Skydance — a Hollywood film studio greatest identified for producing the latest installments of “Mission: Impossible” — to be requested to display to Crew Trump that CBS will turn out to be a good arbiter of reports, amongst different issues, The Submit reported.
In the meantime, Paramount World boss Shari Redstone is banking on her pleasant relationship with Trump to assist the media large skirt any FCC points in its merger with Skydance, in response to a report from The Wall Avenue Journal final week.
The media mogul can also be hoping that Trump’s longstanding relationship with Larry Ellison — the billionaire co-founder of Oracle and father of Skydance CEO David Ellison — will assist pave the way in which for the $8 billion deal.
Reps for Redstone and the Ellisons declined to remark on the time.
