FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said that the agency’s review of the proposed Skydance-Paramount Global merger is far from finished, as the two companies have said that they expect to complete the deal by the summer.
“At this point we haven’t made a lot of progress on any transaction at the agency,” Carr told reporters today. “We are a couple weeks in. We are still doing our deep dive briefings with the teams that are working on these.”
The transaction is on day 104 of the FCC’s 180-day “shot clock,” an informal timeline for the agency to review mergers.
The FCC’s review is taking place against the backdrop of President Donald Trump‘s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS over the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. CBS and Trump’s team are engaged in settlement talks. Even though a number of legal observers see the lawsuit as frivolous, CBS would be the latest company to try to assuage Trump, even if such a scenario has created plenty of consternation in the news division.
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Shortly after he became FCC chairman in January, Carr also revived a separate complaint filed by the conservative group Center for American Rights against the network over the 60 Minutes segment, claiming that it was a deceptive effort to boost Harris’ chances. In response to an inquiry from the FCC, CBS turned over an unedited transcript of the interview. While 60 Minutes said that it showed there was no deception, Carr has put the matter up for public comment.
Asked whether he has discussed the Trump lawsuit, the 60 Minutes complaint or the Skydance-Paramount merger with the president, Carr said, “I have had the chance to meet the president several times … In terms of what it is I discussed during those meetings, I leave it up to the president’s discretion to decide what to share or not. I am not going to be divulging the content of those conversations. What I can tell you with respect to that litigation, that is not something I am involved with.”
Later, Carr told Deadline that he did not believe that he had had any conversation that got to the merits of an issue, or that would trigger an FCC ex parte filing disclosure.
For his part, Trump on Wednesday was asked whether he believed that a settlement of the lawsuit and the FCC complaint would be linked.
“I don’t think it’s linked, but probably the lawyers look at it, because I know it is going along,” Trump told reporters. “The FCC is headed by a very competent person.”
In the weeks since he became chairman, Carr has launched inquiries and investigations of a number of media outlets, including NPR and PBS over their sponsor announcements, and Comcast over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He also has revived a complaint over the way that ABC moderated the presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris, and an equal time complaint over NBC’s featuring of Harris in a cameo on Saturday Night Live days before the election.
Appearing at a Semafor conference this afternoon, Carr pointed to the low trust in national news media compared to local news outlets. He said that he is trying to “re-empower the local broadcaster to feel like they have the freedom to serve their local communities, because they have these relationships with the national programmers that I don’t think is entirely helpful. So I want to re-empower local broadcasters to serve the public interest.”
Carr also defended the decision to open up a public comments period for the 60 Minutes complaint, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from media groups and Democratic commissioners as an effort to “weaponize” the FCC’s authority against news content it doesn’t like.
Carr noted that the FCC under his Democratic predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel, had moved to delay the renewal of a Fox station license in 2023 by designating a proceeding as “permit-but-disclose,” allowing for broader public input. The Media and Democracy Project had petitioned for a hearing on the license renewal, arguing that the Dominion defamation case had raised questions of the character of Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch told hold a broadcast license.
Carr noted that the FCC action in 2023 got much less coverage than the agency’s actions over the past month.
“How many of you remember writing stories on the FCC seeking comment on not renewing a Fox broadcast station license?” Carr asked the Semafor crowd. “I would argue that is the definition of media bias right there. It’s not just what you cover, but what you don’t cover.”
He added, “The FCC has this history of looking at broadcast or taking these actions, but it’s the last couple of weeks in particular that people say, ‘It’s unprecedented.’ Well, it’s unprecedented if you bother to actually look at what the FCC is doing.”
But FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, said that Fox station case “was a license renewal. It was not a complaint. That was acted upon as other license renewals are.” Rosenworcel dismissed the Media and Democracy Project petition just before she departed as FCC chair.
By contrast, the 60 Minutes complaint claims that the network violated the FCC’s news distortion policy, in which a station can be sanctioned “if it can be proven that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report.”
Gomez said that the unedited transcript and video of the 60 Minutes segment makes clear there was no violation of the news distortion policy.
“News distortion requires intentionality to misrepresent, to mislead, and that is just not present,” she said.
Gomez said that she was “concerned that [the 60 Minutes proceeding] is a clear attempt to weaponize our broadcast licensing authority to instill fear in broadcast stations and to influence network decisions.” She said that she has “heard from broadcasters who are already telling their reporters to be careful about they cover stories because they fear government retribution.”
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