Tag: CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Paramount Wins Bidding War for Warner Discovery After Netflix Backs Out
Paramount Global—now under the control of Skydance Media—has clinched a $81 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., outbidding streaming behemoth Netflix Inc. after the latter bowed out, citing the escalated price as no longer viable. The victory for David Ellison’s Paramount caps a contentious takeover saga, uniting storied assets like HBO, CNN, and the DC Comics universe under one roof, while raising fresh antitrust alarms in an industry already grappling with consolidation and shifting viewer habits.
Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters announced the withdrawal in a statement late Thursday, hours after Warner’s board deemed Paramount’s revised $31-per-share all-cash offer superior to Netflix’s $27.75-per-share bid for the studios and HBO Max alone. “This transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” they said, emphasizing fiscal discipline amid Wall Street’s scrutiny of Netflix’s ballooning content spend. The decision sent Netflix shares (NFLX) surging 10% in after-hours trading to $682.50, recouping some of the $170 billion market value erosion since rumors of its Warner pursuit surfaced in September 2025. Analysts at JPMorgan hailed the pullback as “prudent,” noting Netflix’s subscriber base hit 285 million in Q4, up 12% year-over-year, without the added debt burden.
For Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), the deal—pending regulatory nods—marks a lifeline under embattled CEO David Zaslav, whose cost-cutting regime has drawn ire but delivered hits like the Oscar-nominated “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another.” Zaslav, in a memo to staff, celebrated the merger as a value-maximizer for shareholders, projecting $6 billion in synergies through streamlined operations and shared IP like Harry Potter and Superman. “Once our Board votes to adopt the Paramount merger agreement, it will create tremendous value,” he stated. Warner shares dipped 0.35% to $10.85 in regular trading but climbed 2% after-hours on merger optimism.
Netflix Inc.
Netflix Inc.
Source: FactSet

Paramount’s path to victory was fraught. Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, prioritized Warner after Skydance’s $8.4 billion takeover of Paramount in August 2025, viewing the combo as essential to compete against Disney, Netflix, and Amazon in the $500 billion global entertainment market. Initial overtures were rebuffed, but Paramount’s hostile $30-per-share bid in December—escalating to $31 this week—prevailed. Key concessions included a $7 billion termination fee for regulatory failures and covering Warner’s $2.8 billion breakup payout to Netflix, plus an accelerated “ticking fee” of 25 cents per share quarterly starting September 30.
The merger creates a colossus: Paramount gains Warner’s film/TV studios, HBO Max (with 110 million subscribers), and cable nets like CNN, TNT, TBS, and Food Network—bolstering its Peacock and Paramount+ platforms amid a streaming wars projected to reach $240 billion by 2030, per PwC. Yet, hurdles loom. The Justice Department, already probing Netflix’s bid for anticompetitive practices, will scrutinize this tie-up, especially combining legacy studios and news outlets. Media watchdogs like Free Press’s Craig Aaron decried it as “unthinkable,” warning that folding CNN into CBS News could amplify biased coverage, particularly on sensitive issues like Israel’s actions in the Middle East—where consolidated ownership risks amplifying pro-Israel narratives at the expense of balanced reporting.
Ellison’s revamp of CBS News—installing Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief to target “center-left to center-right” audiences—has sparked concerns of editorial shifts, potentially tilting foreign policy discourse. CNN President Mark Thompson urged staff not to “jump to conclusions,” but the deal’s scale—creating a entity with $60 billion in annual revenue—invites FTC intervention, especially post-Trump antitrust relaxations.
Wall Street cheered the outcome: Paramount shares (PSKY) leaped 10.04% to $45.20, adding $12 billion to its market cap, while the S&P 500 Media Index rose 1.8%. “This is Ellison’s moonshot—scale to survive in streaming’s endgame,” said MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, upgrading Paramount to Buy with a $55 target.
As regulators deliberate, the merger underscores Hollywood’s consolidation imperative amid cord-cutting and ad market volatility. For Netflix, the retreat preserves cash for originals like “Squid Game” sequels; for Paramount, it’s a bet on IP synergy to challenge Disney’s $200 billion empire. But in an era of media monopolies, questions linger: Will this super-studio foster innovation or stifle diverse voices, especially on global hotspots like Israel-Palestine?
February 26, 2026
Trump may live to regret suing Murdoch for libel regarding Epstein’s birthday card
Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Rupert Murdoch in New York County Supreme edit. © Alan Woodward/The NewYorkBudgets
Donald Trump has never shied away from a fight. In fact, it’s practically his brand. But in launching a $10 billion libel lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, Dow Jones, and two Wall Street Journal reporters over a birthday card allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein, Trump may have walked into a legal minefield of his own making.
The lawsuit centers around a Journal story detailing a bizarre 2003 birthday card supposedly authored by Trump to Epstein. According to the article, the note contained several typed lines framed by the outline of a naked woman, hand-drawn in thick marker. The letter reportedly included a third-person conversation between “Trump” and Epstein, with enigmatic phrases such as “enigmas never age” and the cryptic sign-off: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump has vehemently denied authorship of the card. In a furious social media post, he declared: “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.” He further asserted the note was a forgery fabricated by “unnamed Democrats,” and called the Journal a “useless rag,” promising “a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved.”
For Murdoch, 93, and Trump, 78, this isn’t their first confrontation. The media mogul’s outlets — most prominently Fox News and the Journal — were skeptical of Trump during the 2016 primaries before eventually aiding his path to the presidency. Their relationship has since oscillated between strategic alliance and mutual contempt. But this lawsuit could mark a definitive rupture.
The legal hurdles Trump faces are towering. The landmark Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) still stands — despite Justice Clarence Thomas’s wish to revisit it. Under Sullivan, public figures suing for libel must prove “actual malice” — that the publisher knowingly printed falsehoods or acted in reckless disregard for the truth. That’s a near-impossible standard to meet when the defendant is The Wall Street Journal, not a tabloid like the National Enquirer.
Moreover, reports suggest the card came from Department of Justice archives. If so, the Journal’s sourcing may have been both legitimate and well-documented. Dow Jones has vowed to “vigorously defend” its reporting, stating, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our journalism.”
If Trump hoped to intimidate Murdoch into silence or submission, he may have miscalculated. Libel suits, historically, are double-edged swords — especially for the plaintiff. They often invite forensic dissection of the very allegations the plaintiff seeks to bury. Legal legend Roy Cohn, Trump’s onetime mentor, famously advised clients: “Never sue for libel.” The reasons are obvious. Oscar Wilde, Alger Hiss, Gen. William Westmoreland, and Ariel Sharon all sued — and saw their reputations battered further. Some even ended up in prison.
Trump’s reputation is already uniquely impervious to additional tarnish. A New York jury found him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll. He’s been convicted of 34 felony counts related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. His boasts about women and his own sexuality — including in the notorious Access Hollywood tape — are publicly etched in American memory.
So what’s the damage here, really?
Legal analysts suspect Trump’s motivations may have more to do with uncovering sources through discovery than restoring his name. His lawyers have already requested that Murdoch be deposed quickly, citing his advanced age and reported health concerns. “I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies,” Trump posted. That may sound like bravado, but it betrays an ulterior aim: flushing out who leaked the card and what else they may know.
But discovery cuts both ways. Murdoch’s attorneys will be free to interrogate the origins and nature of Trump’s long, checkered relationship with Epstein — one that spanned at least 15 years. How close were they? Did Trump know about Epstein’s illegal activities? Did he ever participate, enable, or turn a blind eye? Why did their relationship allegedly sour in 2004 over a Palm Beach mansion? Was that really the end?
Those depositions may expose far more than Trump bargained for — not just about his ties to Epstein, but about his broader conduct and associations.
Trump has filed and settled media lawsuits before. He reportedly reached a $15 million agreement with ABC after George Stephanopoulos mistakenly said he had been “convicted of rape.” A recent $16 million CBS settlement over a 60 Minutes segment seemed more about easing Paramount’s merger path than Trump’s legal merit. But those cases were relatively tame compared to what this Journal suit could unleash.
Murdoch’s legal team is not likely to blink. While The Wall Street Journal ran a curious follow-up story on Epstein’s “Birthday Book” that included letters from Bill Clinton and billionaire Leon Black, it offered little new insight — possibly a strategic nod or an effort to show editorial balance. But sources close to the matter insist Murdoch has no intention of settling.
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein with President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1993. © THE WILLIAM J. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY/MEGA
And perhaps he shouldn’t. Trump is often at his most reckless when wounded. Peggy Noonan aptly observed that “he fights even when he will hurt himself, because the fight is all.” But in this case, the fight may well invite ruin. Trump could inadvertently open the floodgates to evidence, testimony, and revelations far more damaging than a birthday card.
He may soon learn what every good trial lawyer knows: In libel litigation, the courtroom is often the last place you want your secrets to surface.
July 29, 2025
CBS canceled ‘The Late Show’ due to tens of millions in annual financial losses — not because of Stephen Colbert’s politics, sources say
CBS brass say they pulled the plug on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” because of its punishing losses — pegged between $40 million and $50 million a year — and claim politics had nothing to do with it, The Post has learned.
The 61-year-old host got canned just days after he took a dig at the Tiffany Network over its $16 million settlement with Donald Trump over a controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris as the network’s parent Paramount negotiates with the Trump administration regulatory approval for its $8 billion sale to independent studio Skydance.
“I am offended, and I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company,” Colbert said of the truce in his Monday night monologue.
“But just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.”
‘Gets no advertising’
But scathing jokes at the expense of CBS brass wasn’t the problem, according to insiders.
Instead, the network’s bosses could no longer stomach the fact that Colbert has been plagued with an increasingly dire shortage of advertisers.
That’s despite Colbert’s No, 1 ratings in his time slot and his status as a key face for the Tiffany Network.
In the end, Paramount’s co-CEO George Cheeks decided to kill the show, sources said.
“Colbert gets no advertising and late night is a tough spot,” said a person with direct knowledge of CBS’s decision.
“Colbert might be No. 1, but who watches late night TV anymore?”
Some Democrats voiced suspicion, citing the host’s left-wing leanings and CBS owner Paramount’s urgent need to gain an OK from the Trump administration for the merger with Skydance, the Hollywood studio behind the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.
People walk past the Ed Sullivan Theater, where “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is taped, in New York. (AP)
“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,” lefty Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on X.
“America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”
Skydance CEO David Ellison is the son of Donald Trump pal and tech billionaire Larry Ellison.
As The Post first reported, CBS just paid $16 million to Trump and has agreed to run millions of dollars more in MAGA-friendly ads to settle the president’s lawsuit alleging that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited its 2024 interview with Kamala Harris to make her look better.
Trump, meanwhile, celebrated Colbert’s canning in a Friday morning post on Truth Social.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” the president wrote.
“His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
Fervent denials
But despite Ellison’s Trump ties, sources said Skydance and its partners at Redbird Capital — the private equity firm that will help run CBS once the deal is cleared — only heard the news of the show’s impending cancellation just before it was announced late Thursday.
“Skydance had nothing to do with this,” one person close to the decision said.
“Colbert loses $40 million to $50 million a year, so George Cheeks just decided to pull the plug.”
The show’s dominance in its time slot belies sharp declines in viewership as younger viewers move away from traditional TV.
“The Late Show” boasts nearly 2 million total viewers and 200,000 viewers in the key 25-24 “demo” — making it No. 1 in its time slot.
Nevertheless, that’s a sharp decline versus the numbers it racked up in its heyday.
The ad data firm Guideline estimates that CBS’s late-night shows together drew $220 million in ad revenue in 2024 — just half the $439 million they drew in 2018.
RedBird’s Jeff Shell, the former head of NBCUniversal who will run the network once the deal is done, has been crunching the numbers and finding that CBS is a “melting ice cube” with its losses and cost overruns, a source said.
‘Truth-based’ turn
The plan is to enhance CBS Sports and invest in “truth-based” news at a network that conservatives have long ripped for its alleged liberal bias.
A Paramount spokesman declined to comment and would not deny that massive losses were tied to the show’s cancellation.
Trump’s lawsuit was impeding the approval of the deal by the Trump Federal Communications Commission.
The Post has learned that Ellison is now telling people that with the lawsuit settled the Skydance-Paramount deal will get FCC approval by mid-August.
While Ellison is predicting imminent regulatory approval, it will come at a cost: FCC chairman Brendan Carr is likely to demand conditions to remedy what he believes is left-wing news bias in programming that violates agency “public interest” rules that govern local broadcasting as opposed to cable.
July 18, 2025
CBS News Chief Ousted Amid Tensions With Trump
The president of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, was forced out of her post on Monday, the latest shock wave to hit the news division amid an ongoing showdown involving President Trump, “60 Minutes” and CBS’s parent company, Paramount.
Ms. McMahon told her staff in a memo that “it’s become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.” Executives at Paramount informed Ms. McMahon on Saturday that they wanted her to step down, according to several people with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to share private discussions.
Paramount is in talks to settle a $20 billion lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump that accused “60 Minutes” of deceptively editing an interview with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Many legal experts have called the suit baseless, but Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has said she favors settling the case. She is seeking federal approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to a Hollywood studio, Skydance.
The situation prompted the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, to resign last month. He has told confidants that Paramount executives, cognizant of the settlement talks with Mr. Trump, had pressured him over the program’s coverage of the Trump administration.
A new flashpoint between “60 Minutes” and its corporate bosses flared last week.
For its May 18 season finale, “60 Minutes” had planned to air a segment, reported by Anderson Cooper, about the Trump administration’s order for mass firings at the Internal Revenue Service.
George Cheeks, the chief executive of CBS and a co-chief executive of Paramount, considered an idea to broadcast an unrelated prime-time special on Sunday that would air instead of the network’s evening lineup, including the “60 Minutes” season finale, according to four people briefed on private deliberations.
Leaders at the news division were uncomfortable with that idea. The prime-time special was not pursued. Mr. Cheeks did not ask “60 Minutes” to modify or eliminate the segment, one of the people said.
By the end of the week, “60 Minutes” producers decided to cut the I.R.S. segment from the weekend’s show, but for journalistic reasons. The producers said they had learned of new information from the I.R.S. that required additional reporting. “Our team will continue to report on these new details and will broadcast the story in the future,” the show said in a statement.
Within CBS News, it was widely expected that Ms. McMahon, who took over the news division in August 2023, would not be at the company much longer.
Executives at Paramount had expressed concern about Ms. McMahon’s performance for months. Her detractors pointed to an overhaul of “CBS Evening News” that sent its ratings plummeting, and her handling of an October incident involving the “CBS Mornings” anchor Tony Dokoupil, who in an interview had challenged the author Ta-Nehisi Coates’s views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ms. McMahon’s critics also believed that the reporting at “60 Minutes” had become politically biased, exposing the company to unnecessary criticism. And it was clear that Mr. Trump was paying close attention.
On May 4, “60 Minutes” aired a segment that quoted some prominent lawyers criticizing the president for acting unlawfully when he issued executive orders targeting law firms.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers perceived those quotes, and the segment as a whole, as an attempt by CBS to gain the upper hand in the settlement negotiations, according to a person with knowledge of the internal discussions. They then countered by conveying a threat to Paramount: Mr. Trump might file a new lawsuit, accusing Paramount and CBS of defaming him in the “60 Minutes” episode, according to two people familiar with knowledge of the talks.
“CBS and Paramount’s attempts to subvert the legal process with lies and smears may necessitate additional corrective legal action, which President Trump reserves the right to pursue,” said Ed Paltzik, a lawyer for Mr. Trump.
A mediation session late last month ended with lawyers for Paramount and Mr. Trump still far apart on the terms of a deal.
Mr. Trump has regularly criticized “60 Minutes,” and declined to be interviewed by the program during last year’s presidential campaign. He has also continued to criticize the program’s reporting, which last month he deemed “fraudulent.” Mr. Trump has also urged his government regulators to strip CBS of its broadcast license. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post last month.
CBS executives have added additional layers of oversight on the program in recent months, drawing frustrations from some top producers, including Mr. Owens. “In a million years, the corporation didn’t know what was coming up — they trusted ‘60 Minutes’ to report the stories and program the broadcast the way ‘60 Minutes’ saw fit,” Mr. Owens said during an emotional meeting with his staff in April. Any change to that arrangement, he said, created “a really slippery slope.”
Mr. Cheeks said in a memo on Monday that Ms. McMahon would remain at the network for “a few weeks to support the transition.” She will be succeeded for now by a pair of veteran network executives: Tom Cibrowski, who was recently named president of CBS News, and Jennifer Mitchell, the president of CBS Stations.
May 20, 2025
“60 Minutes” publicly criticized its parent company, Paramount Global, in an unusual on-air statement.
In an extraordinary on-air rebuke, one of the top journalists at “60 Minutes” directly criticized the program’s parent company in the final moments of its Sunday night CBS telecast, its first episode since the program’s executive producer, Bill Owens, announced his intention to resign.
“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”
A spokesman for Paramount had no immediate comment, and has previously declined to comment on Mr. Owens’s departure.
Mr. Owens stunned the show’s staff on Tuesday when he said he would leave the highest-rated program in television news over disagreements with Paramount, CBS’s corporate parent, saying, “It’s clear the company is done with me.”
Mr. Owens’s comments were widely reported in the press last week. The show’s decision to repeat those grievances on-air may have exposed viewers to the serious tensions between “60 Minutes” and its corporate overseers for the first time.
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, has been intent on securing approval from the Trump administration for a multibillion-dollar sale of her media company to a studio run by the son of Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire.
President Trump sued CBS last year, claiming $10 billion in damages, in a case stemming from a “60 Minutes” interview with the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, that Mr. Trump said was deceptively edited. Ms. Redstone has expressed her desire to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit, although legal experts have called the case far-fetched.
In his remarks on Sunday night’s telecast, Mr. Pelley presented Mr. Owens’s decision to resign as an effort to protect “60 Minutes” from further interference.
“He did it for us and you,” Mr. Pelley told viewers of the show, which began airing in 1968. “Stories we pursued for 57 years are often controversial — lately, the Israel-Gaza War and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair. He was tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it.”
After “60 Minutes” ran a segment in January about the war between Israel and Hamas, Ms. Redstone complained to CBS executives about what she considered the segment’s unfair slant. A day later, CBS appointed a veteran producer to a new role involving journalistic standards. She reviewed certain “60 Minutes” segments that were deemed sensitive.
Representatives for Mr. Trump and for Paramount are involved in settlement talks, and mediation is expected to start this week.
Mr. Pelley’s on-air monologue on Sunday night evoked a previous moment of public discord between “60 Minutes” and its corporate overseers.
In 1995, also in a closing note to viewers, the correspondent Mike Wallace said on air that the program had chosen not to broadcast an interview with a former tobacco industry executive because managers at CBS News had given in to legal pressure. “60 Minutes” ultimately aired the interview, and the episode was later dramatized in “The Insider,” a 1999 movie starring Al Pacino as Lowell Bergman, a “60 Minutes” producer.
Sunday’s “60 Minutes” episode also featured a segment that examined the Trump administration’s decision to reduce funding to the National Institutes of Health, including an interview with a former director who expressed his concerns about adverse effects on Americans’ health.
April 29, 2025