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PORTSIDE CULTURE

CANCELLING COLBERT, BRIBERY, AN $8BN DEAL: WHAT’S GOING ON AT
PARAMOUNT?  
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David Smith
July 19, 2025
The Guardian
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_ The fallout from the Trump payoff comes as a merger threatens the
company’s integrity and A-list talent, such as Stephen Colbert, have
already been sacrificed _

‘Just as you rarely see or hear anything on Fox that is critical of
Trump, likewise it may very well end up that CBS will be essentially
in the same position’ … Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. ,
Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

 

For a decade the comedian Stephen Colbert has mocked, ridiculed and
eviscerated Donald Trump from every conceivable angle. On Thursday
Colbert told his audience
[[link removed]] at
the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York that his popular late night TV
show is being cancelled. “Yeah, I share your feelings,” he said in
response to a chorus of boos.

The CBS network insisted that it had made “a purely financial
decision” to wind up The Late Show next year. But others are not so
sure. Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator who was a guest on
Thursday’s show, tweeted
[[link removed]]: “If
Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the
public deserves to know. And deserves better.”

There are reasonable grounds for suspicion. Earlier this month CBS’s
owner, Paramount Global, reached a $16m settlement with Trump
[[link removed]] over
an interview on its current affairs strand 60 Minutes, removing a
potential obstacle to the company’s $8bn sale to the Hollywood
studio Skydance Media.

If the mega-merger goes ahead, a friend and ally of the US president,
the billionaire Larry Ellison, could wield huge influence over the CBS
news division as well as programmes ranging from South Park to Star
Trek. The Late Show is sure to be seen by some as an example
of obeying in advance
[[link removed]].

Among those sounding the alarm is Marvin Kalb
[[link removed]], the last correspondent
personally hired at CBS by Edward R Murrow, a giant of broadcast
journalism whose defiance of McCarthyism was recounted in the film and
play Good Night, and Good Luck
[[link removed]].
Now 95, Kalb perceives the Skydance takeover as a threat to CBS’s
journalistic independence and moral integrity – and fears that this
time it will buckle.

Speaking by phone from his home near Washington, Kalb said: “In my
judgment it means that CBS, starting with 60 Minutes
[[link removed]], will be under a tighter
editorial control than it has ever been. The idea that 60 Minutes will
be able to continue to do virile, unafraid reporting on Trump may be
coming to an end.”

The Murrow protege, who spent 24 years at CBS
[[link removed]] News, warns that the network
could drift in the direction of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, which
often parrots Trump’s talking points. “I’m afraid that CBS News
will become a little Fox, that it will begin to be timid in the way in
which it approaches any possibly critical story about the president.

“Just as you rarely see or hear anything on Fox that is critical of
Trump, likewise it may very well end up that CBS will be essentially
in the same position, and that is huge loss for those who still favour
freedom of the press and who still favour a vigorous, unafraid
press.”

Speaking on Tuesday, before the news about The Late Show broke, Kalb
expressed concern about the future of the late-night comedians whose
caustic, bullshit-detector political satire has earned Trump’s wrath
in the past. Jon Stewart, whose current contract expires in December,
and Colbert have both mercilessly skewered Paramount for caving in to
Trump.

[60 Minutes correspondents]View image in fullscreen

The correspondents of CBS News’s 60 Minutes. Photograph: Jai
Lennard/CBS via Getty Images

“My gut feeling would be that Colbert’s contract, when it comes
up, will simply not be renewed, and they will find a humourist who is
pro-Trump,” Kalb said presciently._ “_Those are the kinds of
programmes that, in a humorous way, tend to either criticise or make
fun of Trump – and he doesn’t like that.”

The former host of NBC’s Meet the Press who is Edward R Murrow
professor of practice, emeritus
[[link removed]] at the Harvard
Kennedy School continued: “He has already taken action against the
press, starting from his first term with ‘fake news’ and ‘fake
media’. He has already gone a long way toward diminishing the once
virile press – I keep using that word because I’m thinking about
people who are not afraid, people who are open minded, fair-minded
journalists who are simply covering the news.

“If the news happens to be unfavourable with respect to the
president, so be it. But if the president doesn’t like it, he’s
going to make his views known. I think if there were a serious study
done even up to this point on the last five or six months, I believe
you would see an initial, perhaps reluctant timidity come into the
coverage of news concerning Trump.”

Trump filed a $10bn lawsuit against CBS last October, alleging that
the network deceptively edited an interview that aired on 60 Minutes
with the then vice-president and presidential candidate Kamala Harris
to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic party” in the
election.

In an amended complaint filed in February, Trump bumped his claim for
damages to $20bn. CBS initially called the lawsuit “completely
without merit”, a view shared by many legal experts, and sought to
have it dismissed.

But then the company entered into mediation in an attempt to placate
Trump as Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, sought
to close the $8bn merger with Skydance, which needs federal government
approval. The CBS News head, Wendy McMahon, and 60 Minutes executive
producer Bill Owens quit
[[link removed]] over
Paramount’s handling of the showdown.

When Paramount reached the out-of-court settlement, it insisted that
the $16m would go towards Trump’s future presidential library,
rather than to him personally, and it would not be issuing an apology.
But critics saw it as the starkest example yet of Trump’s ability to
intimidate major institutions including the media.

Rome Hartman [[link removed]], one of the
producers of the Harris segment, who retired from CBS News and 60
Minutes last month for unrelated reasons, said in a phone interview:
“The motive of this lawsuit was clearly harassment and intimidation
and the decision by Paramount’s leaders to succumb to that
harassment and intimidation was an absolute betrayal. It’s a
shameful betrayal of the hardworking people at 60 Minutes and at CBS
News.”

[Shari Redstone]View image in fullscreen

Shari Redstone, the chair of Paramount Global. Photograph: Mike
Blake/Reuters

Despite Trump’s pressure campaign, 60 Minutes has continued to
produce unflinching reports on his administration’s immigration
crackdown, assault on federal government departments and other issues.
Now its staff are bracing for a change of ownership and potentially
different approach.

Hartman continues: “Now everyone is hoping that the new corporate
parents will allow 60 Minutes to operate with the independence that it
has always enjoyed. That’s not a just-because-we-want-it sort of
thing; that’s because the independence and editorial voice of 60
Minutes is one of the reasons it has lasted as long as it has and it
has the amazing reputation that it has for over half a century. We
were betrayed by one corporate parent and they hope that will not be
repeated by the new folks.

“We are living in a moment of real peril for free voices and
independent journalism, even independent commentary, as would be the
case with Stewart and Colbert. These guys are businessmen in the end,
and I hope they see that to maintain longstanding principles of
independence and free speech is not just in their interest morally but
in their interest economically.”

Skydance was founded in 2010 by Larry Ellison’s son
David. According to its website [[link removed]], David,
who is a pilot, came up with the name as a reference to flying
aerobatics known as “skydancing” and its promise of limitless
possibilities. It has produced films including the Tom Cruise vehicles
Top Gun: Maverick and the Mission: Impossible franchise.

But although David is the public face of Skydance, his father Larry
will be the power behind the throne at Paramount, according to an
organisational chart obtained by the New York Times
[[link removed]] last
year. The co-founder of software company Oracle is one of the
world’s wealthiest men and a friend of Trump
[[link removed]],
who has touted Ellison as a potential buyer of TikTok.

Bill Carter [[link removed]], the author
of four books about television, says: “Both of the Ellisons seem to
be close to Trump, and Trump will basically use any leverage he can.
That’s what he does, and he has been given the power to do it pretty
much across the board here.

“The speculation is that they’ll install somebody who is at least
somewhat willing to take his side in a future controversy, which means
there’s very likely to be some kind of chilling effect on the news
division, and especially at 60 Minutes, because they have basically
defied him even after this_.”_

Last week the New York Times reported
[[link removed]] that
David Ellison had held talks about acquiring the Free Press, an online
publication co-founded by Bari Weiss and noted for its “anti-woke”
politics. Discussions include Weiss “taking on an influential role
in shaping the editorial sensibilities of CBS News”, the paper
added, though probably not in a managerial capacity.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan responded to the report about Weiss by
tweeting [[link removed]]:
“RIP CBS News.” Paul Farhi
[[link removed]], a former media
reporter at the Washington Post, said: “She’s an opinion
journalist and always has been, and that’s not the person you want
running a news division or having a prominent role in the news
division. You want someone who actually knows or upholds the tradition
of straight-up reporting that CBS has stood for its entire
existence.”

Farhi added: “I suspect at the end of it he’ll discover that CBS
News wouldn’t be too crazy about having her, but it’ll be a real
test of his intentions, if he has any intentions at all, for CBS News.
If he brings in someone like her, it will signal a direction and will
be a sign of we’re not going to do things the way we’ve done in
the past.

“But I think it’s more likely that he won’t do anything that’s
going to be radical in terms of CBS News. For one thing, CBS News is a
very small part of the overall Paramount enterprise that she’s
buying. It’s not a big profit centre. At the end of the day I
suspect we won’t be talking about this topic once the merger is
done, simply because CBS News is not out of control.”

[A still from South Park]View image in fullscreen

A still from South Park. Photograph: Photo 12/Alamy

But other parts of the Paramount forest are already in revolt. Trey
Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of the long-running animated sitcom
South Park, have accused
[[link removed]] the
incoming Paramount president, Jeff Shell, of meddling in contract
negotiations for streaming rights to the show, allegedly to benefit
Paramount+ at their expense.

This has caused disruption to production schedules including a delay
for South Park’s 27th season. Parker and Stone wrote on social
media [[link removed]] earlier this month:
“This merger is a shitshow and it’s fucking up South Park. We are
at the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see
them somehow.”

Stewart and Colbert have also been pushing back. Stewart used a Daily
Show monologue to tear into Paramount’s settlement, interrupted by a
spoof ad for the fast-food chain Arby’s that said: “For when you
want a sandwich commensurate with your company’s shame.” Colbert
called it a “big fat bribe
[[link removed]]”
and even alluded to speculation about his own job security, pointing
to a moustache he grew on holiday and quipping: “OK, OK, but how are
they going to put pressure on Stephen Colbert if they can’t find
him?”

The timing of the decision to axe him raised eyebrows in Washington.
Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Thursday: “CBS canceled Colbert’s
show just three days after Colbert called out CBS owner Paramount for
its $16m settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.
America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political
reasons.”

Speaking before the announcement, Carter, author of The Late Shift and
executive producer of the CNN docuseries The Story of Late Night
[[link removed]],
said: “It would be pretty obvious to anybody looking at this
situation if they decided to eliminate those guys that it would be for
political reasons because they’re obviously outspoken and have a big
audience listening to them and it gets under Trump’s skin.

“But it’s scary to think that’s something that could happen in
America, that a president could basically eliminate a voice of protest
against him. It would be like [President Richard] Nixon getting rid of
the editorial cartoonists who were criticising him over Watergate
[[link removed]].
I would not put it past Trump to try to do it.

“I do think that if you’re David Ellison, it’s a terrible
look_. _If you’re in Ellison’s shoes, you have to know this will
brand you as another person who’s basically giving the knee
to Donald Trump [[link removed]]. A
lot of these guys don’t care because they have other agendas. But it
is a thing to live with if you’re going to be branding yourself that
way.”

* paramount
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* stephen colbert
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* the late show
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* Trump
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* censorship
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* bribery scandal
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