Trump administration approves sale of CBS parent company Paramount after concessions

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On Wednesday, Trey Parker and Matt Stone — the creators of the satirical show South Park — announced they had struck a $1.5 billion, five-year streaming rights deal with Paramount Global.

That evening, Parker and Stone’s long-delayed season debut on Paramount’s Comedy Central channel torched the company for canceling CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert —implying that it was done solely to appease one of Colbert’s frequent targets: President Trump. (In the episode, a cartoon Trump is shown naked in bed with Satan. It is not an appealing depiction. Nor was it intended to be.)

Paramount Global has said Colbert’s cancellation, effective next June, was done solely for financial reasons. It has nonetheless occurred amid a flurry of steps taken by Paramount and Skydance Media — which has been seeking to acquire the media conglomerate — to appease the Trump administration.

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On Thursday, federal regulators announced they had voted to approve the deal valued at $8 billion.

Pledges to root out bias in news coverage, and more

Paramount paid $16 million to resolve a lawsuit filed by Trump as a private individual against CBS and 60 Minutes. Skydance CEO David Ellison promised to eliminate all U.S.-based DEI programs at Paramount and to create a new ombudsman to field complaints of ideological bias in news coverage. Skydance has not denied Trump’s assertions the network will run $20 million worth of public service announcements consistent with his ideological beliefs.

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr cited Skydance’s promises to make “significant changes in the once storied CBS broadcast network.”

“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change,” Carr wrote in a statement. “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. Skydance will also adopt measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media.”

On Fox News earlier in the day, Carr took a victory lap over Colbert’s cancellation and other concessions by CBS, as well as the stripping of federal funding from public media . “You’ve exposed the business model of a lot of these outfits as being nothing more than a partisan circus,” Carr said on Fox News . “All of this is downstream of President Trump’s decision to stand up.”

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Skydance and Paramount declined to comment.

Last week, Ellison met with Carr to underscore “Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers,” as Ellison’s lawyer later wrote in official filings .

David Ellison’s father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is bankrolling the deal to buy Paramount, which owns CBS, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central, among other brands. It had been controlled by Shari Redstone, who wanted to cash out the stake in what remains of the vast media holdings of her late father, Sumner Redstone.

She ultimately told associates the company was too small to compete with the larger digital titans Netflix, Amazon and Apple in an age of broadcast and cable decline. There was no plan B, according to people with knowledge at Paramount and CBS who spoke on condition they not be named, as they were not authorized to speak about the sale.

“A chilling effect”

Trump’s lawsuit that CBS and Paramount settled under Redstone was — by nearly all accounts from outside legal experts — incredibly flimsy.

Trump’s critics say that was never the point.

“It’s primarily about exerting dominance and creating a chilling effect for other actors,” says Cornell University law professor Michael Dorf, a constitutional scholar. “It’s less that he gets the money, but that the defendants have to fork it over.”

Media organizations, he says, will “think twice about putting on news that is adverse to the president’s perceived self-interest.”

Dorf points to suits that Trump, as a private citizen, has undertaken against other media companies and the administration’s formal proceedings and suits against universities and law firms. The settlements – such as Columbia University’s agreement to pay $221 million when it has billions at stake over the long run – make sense on an individual basis, he says. But they leave others exposed to the same kinds of pressure.

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“What unites all of these cases is that either the administration or Trump personally has a very weak case against the person or entity he’s suing,” Dorf says. “The more assets a target has, the more vulnerable they are.”

A bevy of legal settlements

CBS was the pressure point for Trump: Redstone’s plan to sell the company required FCC approval due to the transfer of more than two dozen local stations.

Trump’s lawsuit alleged that CBS News had committed election interference by slicing up then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ answer to a question about the Israel/Hamas conflict two different ways on different shows. Taken together, the two shows offered viewers Harris’ complete answer; Trump’s legal team argued the network had sought to make her sound more coherent than she really was.

The suit was filed in a Texas jurisdiction with a judge sympathetic to the president. Under Carr, the FCC revived dismissed complaints against CBS and its local stations over the interview that had been filed by a conservative public advocacy group.

The executive director of 60 Minutes and the president of CBS News and Stations both resigned earlier this year, saying they were opposed to a settlement, especially if it contained an apology. CBS did not apologize as part of the settlement.

ABC News’ parent company, the Walt Disney Co., had earlier paid $16 million toward Trump’s future presidential library and legal fees. Trump had sued over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ mischaracterization of a jury’s legal findings in a civil case. That resolution included a note of regret.

Social media giants X and Meta paid Trump’s foundation $10 million and $25 million to settle suits over their decision to kick him off their platforms after he claimed to have won the 2020 election against Joe Biden. Elon Musk of X has multibillion dollar contracts with the federal government; Mark Zuckerberg’s apps are highly regulated by federal agencies. Both have been hoping for a light touch on AI regulation, which Trump has signaled he supports.

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FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, the lone Democrat on the commission, attacked the agency’s decision to approve the sale. In a written statement, she said it marked the continued erosion of journalistic independence.

“After months of cowardly capitulation to this Administration, Paramount finally got what it wanted,” Gomez wrote. “Unfortunately, it is the American public who will ultimately pay the price for its actions.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal regulators on Thursday approved Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance, clearing the way to close a deal that combined Hollywood glitz with political intrigue.

The stamp of approval from the Federal Communications Commission comes after months of turmoil revolving around President Donald Trump’s legal battle with “60 Minutes,” the crown jewel of Paramount-owned broadcast network CBS. With the specter of the Trump administration potentially blocking the hard-fought deal with Skydance, Paramount earlier this month agreed to pay a $16 million settlement with the president.

Critics of the settlement lambasted it as a veiled bribe to appease Trump, amid rising alarm over editorial independence overall. Further outrage also emerged after CBS said it was canceling Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” just days after the comedian sharply criticized the parent company’s settlement on air. Paramount cited financial reasons, but big names both within and outside the company have questioned those motives.

In a statement accompanying the deal’s approval, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr hailed the merger as an opportunity to bring more balance to “once-storied” CBS.

“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change,” Carr said.

While seeking approval, Skydance management assured regulators that it will carefully watch for any perceived biased at CBS News and hire an ombudsman to review any complaints about fairness. In a Tuesday filing, the company’s general counsel maintained that New Paramount will embody “a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum” — and also noted that it plans to take a “comprehensive review” of CBS to make “any necessary changes.”

The FCC approved the merger by a 2-1 vote, and the regulator who opposed it expressed disdain for how it all came together.

“After months of cowardly capitulation to this administration, Paramount finally got what it wanted,” FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it is the American public who will ultimately pay the price for its actions.” Gomez was appointed by former President Joe Biden.

Paramount and Skydance have said they wanted to seal the deal by this September, and now appear to be on a path to make it happen by then, if not sooner.

Over the past year the merger has periodically looked like it might fall apart as the two sides haggled over terms. But the two companies finally struck an accord that valued the combined company at $28 billion, with a consortium led by the family of Skydance founder David Ellison and RedBird Capital agreeing to invest $8 billion.

Signaling a shakeup would accompany the changing of the guard, Ellison stressed the need to transition into a “tech hybrid” to stay competitive in today’s entertainment landscape. That includes plans to “rebuild” the Paramount+ streaming service, among wider efforts to expand direct-to-consumer offerings in a world with more entertainment options and shorter attention spans.

Ellison, who is poised to become CEO of the restructured Paramount, is the son of Larry Ellison, technology titan and co-founder of Oracle. Besides possessing an estimated $288 billion fortune, Larry Ellison has been described as a friend by Trump.

While Paramount sweated out regulatory approval of the merger, one of TV’s best-known and longest-running programs turned into a political hot potato when Trump sued CBS over the handling of a “60 Minutes” interview with his Democratic Party opponent in last year’s presidential election, Kamala Harris. Trump accused “60 Minutes” of editing the interview in a deceptive way designed to help Harris win the election. After initially demanding $10 billion in damages, Trump upped the ante to $20 billion while asserting he had suffered “mental anguish.”

The case quickly became a closely-watched test of whether a corporation would back its journalists and stand up to Trump. Editing for brevity’s sake is commonplace in TV journalism and CBS argued Trump’s claims had no merit. But reports of company executives exploring a potential settlement with Trump later piled up, particularly after Carr — appointed to lead the FCC by Trump — launched an investigation earlier this year.

By the start of July, Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million. The company said the money would go to Trump’s future presidential library and to pay his legal fees, but maintained that it was not apologizing or expressing regret for the story.

The settlement triggered an outcry among critics who pilloried Paramount for backing down from the legal fight to increase the chances of closing the Skydance deal. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, said that the deal “could be bribery in plain sight” — and called for an investigation and new rules to restrict donations to presidential libraries.

Concerns about editorial independence at CBS had piled up even in the months before the deal was announced — with Paramount overseeing “60 Minutes” stories in new ways, as well as journalists at the network expressing frustrations about the changes on an award-winning program that has been a weekly staple for nearly 57 years

In April, then-executive producer of “60 Minutes” Bill Owens resigned — noting that it had “become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it.” Another domino fell in May when CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon also stepped down, citing disagreements with the company “on the path forward,” amid speculation of Paramount nearing a settlement with Trump. CBS has since appointed Tanya Simon as the top producer at “60 Minutes” — elevating a respected insider in a move that could be viewed as a way to calm nerves leading up to the changes that Skydance’s Ellison is expected to make.

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Liedtke reported from San Francisco.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2025/7/1294590

Topline David Ellison’s nepo-baby start helped launch him out of the shadow of his world’s second-richest-person father to become one of Hollywood’s biggest players after Paramount’s merger with his own Skydance. AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

Ellison, 42, is set to become the chairman and CEO of Paramount once its merger with Skydance, approved on Thursday by the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission, is complete, setting him in charge of brands including CBS, MTV and Paramount Pictures. Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder worth $290 billion as of Friday, making him the second-richest person in the world, according to Forbes estimates. A University of Southern California film school drop-out, Ellison pursued a brief acting career before becoming a big-time producer of blockbusters like “Top Gun: Maverick,” which notched him an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Ellison made an offer to buy Paramount in 2024, and the companies finally agreed to merge in July of 2024—though the deal was not greenlit by the FCC until Thursday after a year of political tumult, including a pressure campaign by President Donald Trump that appears to have influenced CBS to settle a lawsuit with with the president for millions, and possibly impacted the decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show.”

What Do We Know About Ellison’s Family?

Ellison’s father Larry Ellison, 80, is a titan of Silicon Valley who co-founded Oracle in 1977. David Ellison grew up in Woodside, California, in the Bay Area, where he was raised by his mother. His sister Megan, 39, is a film producer who founded Annapurna Pictures and backed the Oscar-nominated films “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Her,” “American Hustle” and “Phantom Thread.” His mother raised him to love movies, and the family would gather in their living room and watch the same films over and over: “all three ‘Star Wars’ movies, back to back, ‘Jurassic Park,’ the original ‘Terminator,’ ‘Back to the Future,’” journalist and novelist Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote in a GQ profile.

Who Is Ellison’s Wife?

In 2011, Ellison married actress and singer-songwriter Sandra Lynn Modic, with whom he has two children. She releases country music under the name Sandra Lynn and has released multiple EPs, including “Sandra Lynn” in 2014 and “Fight” in 2018. Her most popular music video, for her song “Lose the War,” has garnered 1.1 million views on YouTube. Billboard premiered the video for her song, “I Think of You,” in 2019, describing Lynn’s song as a “stirring” and “vulnerable” ballad. She has not released music since 2019, according to her Spotify and YouTube profiles.

Ellison’s Brief Acting Career

Ellison briefly worked as an actor during the 2000s, with his first starring role in the 2006 war drama “Flyboys” alongside James Franco. “Flyboys,” bombed at the box office, grossing less than $18 million against its $60 million budget—which was reportedly financed by Ellison and his father. He then starred in the 2010 comedy “Hole in One” alongside “American Pie” actor Steve Talley, which largely flew under the radar.

How Steve Jobs Influenced Ellison—and Skydance

Backed by his father’s money, Ellison founded Skydance in 2006 and told Kara Swisher in The New York Times in 2022 that Steve Jobs, who was one of his father’s best friends, was an important mentor to him. He said Jobs initially told him it wouldn’t work. “I want you to come back up here and talk about how you guys are going to aspire to make movies and tell stories better than anybody else, because that’s what we did at Pixar,” he says Jobs told him. In 2009, Ellison raised $350 million, some from his father, to finance a five-year agreement with Paramount to co-produce movies. Brodesser-Akner described him in GQ as someone who “bought his way into Hollywood because he was rich and stayed there because he was good.” He notched his first big hit with The Coen brothers’ Oscar-nominated “True Grit,” the second movie produced under Skydance, which grossed more than $250 million worldwide on a $38 million budget. But he then began producing big-budget movies and veered toward well-known franchises. His third movie with Skydance was “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” which grossed nearly $700 million on a $145 million budget and was the first of five “Mission Impossible” movies Skydance backed. Collectively, Skydance’s “Mission Impossible” movies grossed more than $3.3 billion worldwide. Skydance produced two Oscar-nominated “Star Trek” movies—“Star Trek Into Darkness” (2013), which grossed $467 million on a $185 million budget, and “Star Trek Beyond” (2016), which made $343 million on a $185 million budget—and backed two Terminator movies, the financially successful “Terminator Genisys” in 2015 and the box-office bomb “Terminator: Dark Fate” in 2019, which reportedly lost Paramount and Skydance more than $120 million. “Top Gun: Maverick” is the studio’s biggest hit and the 14th-highest-grossing movie of all time. Skydance’s merger agreement with Paramount valued Skydance at $4.75 billion.

What Do We Know About Ellison’s Political Views—and Relationship With Trump?

In 2024, Ellison donated nearly $1 million to former President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, before he dropped out of the race. But since negotiating the Paramount-Skydance merger, Ellison was spotted sitting near Trump at a UFC event earlier this year, and Trump has praised Ellison’s takeover of Paramount. “Ellison’s great, he’ll do a great job with it,” Trump told reporters in June. Ellison’s Skydance has promised the Trump administration it would gut diversity, equity and inclusion policies and install an ombudsman to field complaints of ideological bias in CBS news coverage, in apparent attempts to appeal to Trump’s FCC to secure approval for the merger. Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Republican donor and supporter of Trump. In 2020, Larry Ellison told Forbes he had never donated to Trump but once let him use a property he owned for a fundraiser. “I don’t think he’s the devil—I support him and want him to do well,” Larry Ellison told Forbes. Larry Ellison joined Trump at the White House in January alongside other tech CEOs to discuss investment in artificial intelligence.

What Does Ellison Want To Do As Paramount Chief?

Ellison has said he wants to transform Paramount into a “tech hybrid” company, using artificial intelligence to “turbocharge content creation capabilities” and cut costs. Ellison said in a presentation to investors last year he envisions building a “studio in the cloud” in partnership with Oracle to streamline production processes, using AI and cloud computing to speed up film production and animation. He also said he wanted to improve streaming service Paramount+’s algorithms to reduce cancelations and increase the amount of time subscribers use the platform. Ellison also reportedly told federal regulators he would push CBS News to embrace “unbiased” and “American storytelling,” following Trump’s “60 Minutes” lawsuit and Paramount settlement. Ellison has reportedly held talks with Bari Weiss, the self-described “left-leaning centrist” and often divisive journalist, to acquire her media company The Free Press, and potentially fuse it in some with CBS News. Ellison’s possible embrace of Weiss comes as Skydance’s general counsel Kyoko McKinnon promised the FCC in a letter the new Paramount leadership will “ensure that the company’s array of news and entertainment programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum.” Weiss, a critic of diversity, equity and inclusion and “woke” culture, started The Free Press after quitting the Times over what she called its “illiberal environment” and its “new McCarthyism.”

Who Are Ellison’s Hollywood Supporters?

Ben Affleck praised Ellison at a CNBC panel last year, stating he is “not management class” and will approach Paramount “in a very different way as somebody who’s invested as an owner.” Billionaire filmmaker Tyler Perry, who has signed development deals with Paramount-owned BET, referred to Ellison by saying it would be beneficial to have “someone who loves this business at the helm of one of the most storied studios.” Jane Fonda, who starred in the Skydance-produced Netflix series “Grace & Frankie,” said the merger “ensures that I get to continue the collaboration with an incredibly talented and enthusiastic film family.” Ellison told CNBC his frequent collaborator Tom Cruise is “supportive” of the merger.

News Peg

The FCC commissioners voted 2-1 on Thursday to approve the Paramount-Skydance merger. The lone dissenting vote was from Anna Gomez, the only Democrat on the commission, who accused Paramount of “cowardly capitulation to this Administration,” referencing the president’s lawsuit settlement. Trump has claimed he received $16 million as part of the Paramount settlement and would be entitled to “$20 Million Dollars more from the new Owners, in Advertising, PSAs, or similar Programming.” After approving the merger, FCC Chair Brendan Carr said he welcomes “Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” stating “Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change.”

Further Reading

FCC Greenlights $8 Billion Paramount-Skydance Merger After Skydance Vows To End DEI Programs (Forbes)

How Will David Ellison Tackle the Big Problems at Paramount? (New York Times)

David Ellison’s Skydance Media pledged to abandon all diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Paramount Global in an attempt to win government approval for its $8-billion merger.

Paramount already had scaled back diversity programs earlier this year. In a Tuesday letter to Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, Skydance said it would go further to cancel diversity efforts.

“Paramount no longer will maintain an Office of Global Inclusion and will not have any teams or individual roles focused on DEI,” Stephanie Kyoko McKinnon, Skydance general counsel, wrote in the three-page letter to Carr. The appointee of President Trump, in one of his first moves as chair, dismantled the agency’s diversity programs and called on companies to do the same.

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Kyoko McKinnon said Paramount will remove “references to DEI in its public messaging, including on its websites and social media,” along with culling DEI language in “internal messaging and training materials.”

Last week, Ellison met with Carr to press his case that Skydance and its backer RedBird Capital Partners would be strong stewards of Paramount, which includes CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, BET and the Melrose Avenue movie studio, Paramount Pictures. Skydance needs Carr’s approval for the merger and the transfer of the CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family.

Skydance separately tackled persistent complaints by conservatives about alleged news bias at “60 Minutes” and other programs.

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Ellison’s firm pledged to “promote transparency and increased accountability” at CBS News. The company said it would install an ombudsman, reporting to the president of Paramount, “to receive and evaluate any complaints of bias or other concerns involving CBS” for at least two years.

Trump’s ire over edits of a “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview last fall nearly derailed Skydance’s takeover of Paramount. Carr opened an inquiry into alleged news distortion after Trump sued CBS in federal court in Texas.

Earlier this month, Paramount reached a $16-million settlement with Trump to resolve the dispute that caused deep divisions within Paramount and prompted high-level CBS departures. Trump boasted Tuesday on Truth Social that he anticipates receiving an additional $20 million worth of advertising and PSA time from the new owners.

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During his July 15 meeting with Carr, Ellison underscored “Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers,” according to an FCC filing.

Skydance’s Kyoko McKinnon added: “We further reaffirm that, after consummation of the proposed transaction, New Paramount’s new management will ensure that the company’s array of news and entertainment programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum, consistent with the varying perspectives of the viewing audience.”

Ellison recently met with prominent journalist Bari Weiss, reportedly to discuss Skydance acquiring her center-right online publication, the Free Press, as an alternative to traditional news sites. She started the outlet, which is often critical of DEI, after quitting her job as a New York Times opinion writer, citing intolerance of her and her more conservative viewpoints.

Also last week, late-night host Stephen Colbert learned his CBS talk show would be canceled in May. CBS has said Colbert’s cancellation was “purely a financial decision” and not related to the merger approval. Still, conservatives and liberals have widely questioned whether Colbert’s frequent criticisms of Trump played into the decision.

Skydance has said it didn’t have a role in the Colbert decision.

Skydance isn’t the only company under pressure to ditch diversity programs to win FCC approval for a deal.

Two months ago, telecommunications giant Verizon pledged to drop diversity efforts to gain Carr’s blessing for the company’s $20-billion takeover of Frontier Communications.

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Carr separately launched probes into Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp.’s workplace diversity efforts.

Hollywood Inc. In Trump’s second term, Hollywood sweeps DEI efforts under the rug Since President Trump retook office, entertainment and media companies have quickly moved to water down efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion both internally and in the content they produce.

After George Floyd’s 2020 murder in Minneapolis, Paramount and other Hollywood companies vowed to hire more people of color. Such moves were cheered by many, including those cognizant of Hollywood’s troubled history with diversity.

Paramount encouraged executives to make diverse hires and promotions, and progress toward the corporate goals was one of many factors considered when calculating bonuses. That program was dismantled last year.

For years, CBS struggled to shake its prime-time sitcom formula to build shows around white men, a la “King of Queens,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “Two and a Half Men.”

The network broke the pattern in 2018 with “The Neighborhood,” starring Cedric the Entertainer, and procedural drama “FBI,” starring Zeeko Zaki.

CBS also championed mentorship programs for writers and directors to build a more diverse pipeline of creators. That initiative dated to 2004.

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has made a priority of abolishing DEI programs. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Skydance promised not to set numerical goals related to race, ethnicity or gender of job applicants.

“The company is committed to ensuring that its storytelling reflects the many audiences and communities it serves in a manner that complies with non-discrimination requirements and other applicable laws,” Kyoko McKinnon wrote.

“I am very encouraged by today’s announcements,” said Daniel Suhr, president of the conservative Center for American Rights, which filed an FCC complaint about “60 Minutes” and suggested a CBS News ombudsman. “These are important steps towards better broadcasting that serves all consumers.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair in September, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone all but swore off satirizing Donald Trump, with Parker noting, “I don’t know what more we could possibly say.”

We found out what more they could say yesterday, in brutal fashion. The same day Paramount announced a five-year streaming deal with South Park, including 50 new episodes, the show’s 27th season premiere mercilessly mocked both President Trump and the network for capitulating to his demands, settling with him over the 60 Minutes lawsuit, and canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The episode, called “Sermon on the ’Mount,” did not hold back on crass jokes aimed at Trump, showing him with a “teeny tiny” penis both in animation and as a deepfake and portraying him as Satan’s lover in a style reminiscent of the gay Saddam Hussein character from the 1999 movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

The episode aired as Paramount is set to merge with media company Skydance. Politicians and media personalities alike are speculating that the company’s eagerness to keep Trump happy is motivated by gaining the US Federal Communications Commission’s approval of the deal, which was made official Thursday evening. Before being fired, Colbert, a late-night ratings leader, described Paramount’s $16-million settlement with Trump as a “big fat bribe” and on Monday’s show he said “the gloves are off” while telling the president “go fuck yourself.” Between Colbert’s remaining season, network colleague Jon Stewart’s scathing indictment of both Paramount and CBS, the new South Park deal, and a transformative merger, the company appears to be looking at a period where some of its biggest stars are openly hostile to both it and the president.

“I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” FCC chairman Brendan Carr—who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the telecommunications agency—reportedly said in a statement Thursday supporting the merger. “Today’s decision also marks another step forward in the FCC’s efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI.”

Paramount did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment. In a statement emailed to WIRED, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers derided South Park as irrelevant and derided “left” fans who liked the season opener.

“The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end—for years they have come after South Park for what they labeled as ‘offense’ [sic] content, but suddenly they are praising the show. Just like the creators of South Park, the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows,” she wrote.

“This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention. President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country’s history—and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”