David Ellison doesn’t even own Paramount but he’s planning to grow it, On The Money has learned.
The Skydance chief – with money to burn from his billionaire dad, Oracle founder Larry Ellison – knows that in the new era of media, he needs scale to compete even when most other media companies are floundering.
Meanwhile, Shari Redstone is said to be willing to throw Donald Trump up to $50 million to settle a lawsuit with Paramount’s CBS News subsidiary to make it happen, On The Money can confirm. More on that in a bit.
Scale is something that Paramount – with a money-losing streaming channel and old media properties like CBS, Nickelodeon and MTV, plus a movie studio – just doesn’t have. It’s one of the reasons the controlling Redstone family is selling.
Put simply, Paramount is too small to compete with industry giants like Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery.
So the talk in media circles is that once the Paramount-Skydance deal is signed and approved by the White House (more on that arduous road in a moment) David and Larry will start buying stuff.
One problem is that Paramount has a relatively small international presence. That means David (or to be more precise Larry) will have to dip into his wallet to expand the reach of its streaming product outside the US if they want it to start making even a few bucks like rival Warner Bros. Discovery has accomplished in its foray into streaming.
Paramount could also use better signature media properties. CBS is not what it was, and as we will discuss, its news division is a bastion of trouble for all its history of great journalism. Nickelodeon and MTV have seen viewership decline because of cord cutting and competition from social media (think TikTok).
I am told Skydance’s new management led by the very capable Jeff Shell, formerly of NBCU, and currently with RedBird Capital (Skydance’s partner in the deal), can’t wait to get its hands on CBS Sports products and modernize delivery.
But sports are expensive. CBS pays more than $2 billion a year for NFL broadcast rights and the league has an opt-out option in four years.
Yes, the Ellisons have the money to make it work, so look for a deal or two or three, I am told, should the Paramount purchase finally get approved by Trump’s regulators at the Federal Communications Commission. (A Skydance rep had no comment).
But their problem isn’t with money. It’s with the Trump FCC and the inherent woke nature of Paramount, and CBS in particular, and it centers on charges of bias in its news programming that now face oversight from a White House that hates all things woke. It’s also with Trump, who is suing the company over the alleged bias.
Reporters have a First Amendment shield to express opinion and cover the news, of course. That extends to broadcast companies. But if those companies want to operate over public airwaves (as opposed to cable) they also have some responsibilities, including presenting programming in the public interest (news that is sans political bias). Plus, they have to comply with various laws, including those that govern employment practices.
Regulators review compliance with all the above when media properties change hands, as in the case of Skydance’s $8 billion deal to purchase Paramount from Redstone. The FCC wants assurances Paramount will no longer discriminate in hiring through Diversity Equity and Inclusion policies, which had dominated its employment practices for years.
Reviews also kick in when there is a credible complaint made that the news is tilted in a political manner, as was the case when a conservative legal group filed a charge with FCC that said CBS during the heat of the 2024 presidential election deceptively edited an interview with then-Dem presidential candidate Kamala Harris to make her sound more coherent than usual.
Both of those issues are being adjudicated by Trump’s FCC, while Trump himself has sued CBS claiming $20 billion in damages over the contested Harris interview.
Here’s where things stand: Paramount, even before changing hands, has been ditching DEI at least in name, and will continue to do so in practice once Ellison takes over, I am told.
The FCC recently met with the conservative legal group known as CAR, or the Center For American Rights, that filed the complaint over the Harris interview that appeared on “60 Minutes.”
CBS has publicly denied it did anything wrong, but the FCC’s meeting with CAR discussed remedies that would salsify the group and lead to regulators giving the deal the green light, sources told On The Money.
Those measures include moving some of CBS’ news operations out of deep blue LA or NYC and appointing an outside group to monitor left-wing political bias in its news programming.
Redstone is said to be willing to pay Trump tens of millions of dollars to settle the suit just so she can put the matter behind her and preserve some family wealth, even if it would dent CBS’ rep.
And it’s pretty clear why she’s in such a rush to put this saga behind her. Recall that in 2019, when she took over the media company created by her dad, the late media mogul Sumner Redstone, Paramount was worth $30 billion. The deal with Skydance now values it at $8 and when all is said and done, she will walk away with around $2 billion.
You do the math: Paying Trump $50 million will still allow her to preserve at least $1 billion of her inheritance.
