from the quid-pro-quo,-but-shit-all-around dept
When last we checked it with the feckless execs at CBS/Paramount, they were preparing to pay Donald Trump tens of millions of dollars to settle a completely bogus lawsuit designed to bully the media giant into compliance. CBS desperately wants the Trump administration to sign off on their pointless $8 billion merger with Skydance. Trump desperately wants CBS to stop doing any real journalism and kiss his ass.
They’ll both likely get their wish, in the end. But in the interim there’s been an interesting wrinkle.
In late May, the California Senate opened an inquiry into whether this settlement would technically violate state bribery laws. One hearing on the matter examined “whether the company breached fiduciary duties owed by Paramount board members to shareholders, misused corporate funds vulnerable to shareholder derivative litigation, or violated federal anti-bribery laws and California’s Unfair Competition Law.”
That inquiry was apparently enough to at least temporarily give CBS executives cold feet, insiders told the New York Post. The right wing outlet can’t be bothered to mention that the lawsuit is utterly baseless, or that California’s inquiry is directly responsible for a pause in proceedings (that might make California sound good). But it is clear that the specter of possible accountability has CBS lawyers worried:
“A potential $35 million settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount’s CBS affiliate has been delayed after the company’s management continued to fear a potential legal backlash, The Post has learned.”
The Trump administration originally demanded $50 million to settle its baseless lawsuit and approve the Skydance merger. They’ve been negotiating over how pathetic CBS is willing to be since last fall. At one point CBS was even considering running a series of free Trump administration advertorials to get in the authoritarian administration’s good graces.
If CBS executives had backbone, they’d cancel the merger and tell the Trump administration to go fuck itself. They’d have plenty of legal and popular support.
But billionaire majority owner Shari Redstone, currently battling thyroid cancer, is poised to make $2 billion off the deal and is keen to head to the exits. Folks at CBS with any actual principles have already been leaving the company. Media moguls’ demand for consolidation under Trump 2.0 has been relentless as the administration destroys whatever’s left of U.S. media consolidation limits.
It’s unclear if this California inquiry actually has teeth, and I’d suspect this grotesquely corrupt exchange gets consummated eventually. Skydance execs poised to take ownership of CBS appear to be even bigger Trump ass kissers than the outgoing CBS execs. The end result will, one way or the other, be a company even-more terrified of doing any real journalism critical of our increasingly unpopular mad king.
Filed Under: bribery, california, consolidation, donald trump, journalism, media, mergers, shari redstone
Companies: cbs, paramount
