Jon Stewart’s biting satire may have made his new bosses squirm, but they went ahead and extended the comedian’s run on Comedy Central through December 2026.
The channel’s parent company, Paramount, announced Monday that Stewart will continue to host “The Daily Show” on Monday nights and serve as an executive producer through the end of next year.
Members of the show’s news team will continue to share Tuesday through Thursday hosting duties. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.
“Jon Stewart continues to elevate the genre he created. His return is an ongoing commitment to the incisive comedy and sharp commentary that define The Daily Show,” Ari Pearce, Comedy Central’s manager said in a prepared statement. “We’re proud to support Jon and the extraordinary news team.”
Stewart’s contract was re-upped nearly four months after Paramount-owned sister network CBS notified Stephen Colbert, who rose to fame on “The Daily Show,” that it was dumping his late night show at the end of the season. The cancelation was revealed days after Colbert lambasted a $16 million settlement Paramount agreed to pay President Trump to end a lawsuit over edits to “60 Minutes.” Colbert called the arrangement “a big fat bribe.”
Paramount settled the Trump suit to win approval from the Trump administration of its sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners. CBS has said the reason for Colbert’s cancellation was financial, not political, although many people have expressed doubts.
Ellison took ownership of Paramount in August. Stewart has joked that he, too, might be tossed as the company tries to reposition itself to the political center.
Last week, the company began a deep round of layoffs, cutting 1,000 employees with plans to terminate another 1,000 in the coming weeks, in an effort to trim its workforce by 10%.
After a nine-year absence, Stewart returned as a host in February 2024. He had helmed the show for 16 years before taking a break in 2015. His current contract was expiring.
The show was hosted by Trevor Noah until 2022, when he stepped down. That prompted a rotation of guest hosts, including Kal Penn, Charlamagne tha God, Sarah Silverman and Michelle Wolf.
Last month, during a conversation with the New Yorker at a cultural festival, Stewart was asked whether he might stick around longer. “We’re working on staying,” Stewart told the New Yorker’s David Remnick.
The rotation of “The Daily Show” hosts also will include Ronny Chieng, Josh Johnson, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta, and Desi Lydic with Troy Iwata and Grace Kuhlenschmidt.
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — A young woman is desperate to raise $50,000 for her mom’s life-saving medical treatment. She will get the money, but only if she agrees to her stepsister’s unusual proposal: to marry her wayward fiance, who comes from a wealthy family but also has a rap sheet.
That’s the plot line for an episode of “The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband.”
That may sound like a telenovela. In fact, it’s a popular series that appears on ReelShort, an app where audiences can view on their smartphones over-the-top, dramatic tales reminiscent of soap operas called micro dramas.
Unlike a regular TV show, this drama unfolds over 60 episodes, each lasting one to three minutes. After six episodes, viewers hit the paywall, where they could continue watching ad-free with a $20 weekly subscription, watch ads or pay as they go.
Already, the series has garnered more than 494 million views since it launched in 2022 and ReelShort says it has made more than $4 million from the show.
With titles like “The Billionaire Sex Addict and His Therapist,” “How to Tame a Silver Fox” and “Pregnant by My Ex’s Dad,” micro dramas lean heavily into sensationalism and light on budgets, which are typically less than $300,000 per series. And many of them are filmed in Los Angeles.
Director and co-writer Cate Fogarty watches actor Diego Escobar on dual vertical monitors. The film, by platform DramaShorts, is shot vertically to be adapted for viewing on a phone screen.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
Short serialized dramas first took off in China, where they are hugely popular and generated revenues of $6.9 billion last year, even surpassing domestic box office sales, according to DataEye, a Shenzhen-based digital research firm.
Now, Hollywood is starting to take note of the bite-sized format.
In August, the venture arm for Lloyd Braun — the former ABC executive and chairman of talent agency WME — and L.A.-based entertainment studio Cineverse formed a joint venture called MicroCo to build a platform for micro dramas.
“Traditional Hollywood moved away from a whole genre and storytelling that fans love, and I think micro dramas really took advantage of that and really leaned into that fandom,” said Susan Rovner, chief content officer of MicroCo.
Studio interest
Major studios are investing in micro dramas in an attempt to replicate China’s success and find new ways to appeal to younger audiences that are accustomed to watching short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms while on the go.
Fox Entertainment recently announced an equity stake in Ukraine-based Holywater, a producer of micro dramas. Under the deal, Fox Entertainment Studios (a division of Fox Entertainment) will produce more than 200 vertical video titles over the next two years for Holywater.
And Walt Disney Co.’s accelerator program, which invests in startups, recently named micro drama business DramaBox, whose parent company is based in Singapore, as part of its 2025 class.
David Min, Walt Disney Co.’s vice president of innovation, said he believes micro dramas will continue to do well, especially with younger audiences accustomed to watching entertainment on their phones.
“We have to be where everyone is consuming their content, so that’s an opportunity for us,” Min said in an interview. “…This is just another new platform to experiment with and explore and see if it’s right for the company.”
First assistant director Chakameh Marandi, left, and actress Leah Eckardt wait during filming at Heritage Props last month in Burbank.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
This year, ReelShort, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., says it will produce more than 400 shows, up from 150 last year.
All of the productions are filmed in the U.S. and mostly in Los Angeles, said ReelShort CEO Joey Jia in an interview. The company plans to build a studio in Culver City that will adapt its most popular micro dramas into films.
“We offer a lot of opportunity,” Jia said.
Warsaw-based DramaShorts said in 2026 it aims to shoot 120 micro drama projects in the U.S., up from 45 to 50 this year. About 25% of those will be in the L.A. area.
DramaShorts co-founder Leo Ovdiienko says, “People are so used to consume content through social media, through TikTok, through Instagram, through Facebook and to share information.” .
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
“People are so used to consume content through social media, through TikTok, through Instagram, through Facebook and to share information,” said DramaShorts co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Leo Ovdiienko, 29, in an interview. “I believe it’s only a matter of time before the big players will also come to this stage.”
The company works with production partners in L.A. who employ actors, writers and crew members who work on the quick-turn projects, a bright spot in a struggling job market.
“The plus side of filming in L.A. is it is the epicenter of Hollywood,” said executive producer, writer and director Chrissie De Guzman, who has worked on DramaShorts projects. “We know how the state of our industry is doing right now, so a lot of talent have moved into the vertical space.”
Though vertical dramas are the length of a movie, they are spliced up into small chapters and produced quickly. A 100-page script might be shot in just one week as opposed to a month for a feature film.
Each chapter usually features a cliffhanger or dramatic moment — whether that’s a slap or a character in danger.
“It just hits every little emotional point,” said Caroline Ingeborn, chief operating officer at Palo Alto-based Luma AI, which provides micro drama companies with AI tools. “It hooks you in like this and because it’s so easy to press [Play]. You just need to see the next episode.”
The crew of vertical film “Sleeping Princess” break between scenes.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
Labor tensions
With ultra-low budgets, many of the productions are non-union, prompting some writers and actors to work under pseudonyms to avoid facing sanctions from their unions, said several people who work on the shows.
In an effort to address the issue, performers union SAG-AFTRA recently announced it has created agreements that cover low-budget vertical dramas.
Writers Guild of America West President Michele Mulroney said in an interview the union is aware that “there are companies that are trying to do this work non-union, so the guild wants to help our members … in ways that they can work on verticals and make sure they get that work covered.”
Micro drama producers said they welcome talking with the unions, but questioned whether their business models could support union contracts.
“We’re not anti-union at all,” said Erik Heintz, executive producer at Snow Story Productions, which makes vertical dramas for platforms including DramaShorts.
Despite labor tensions, these short-form dramas have provided a key source of employment for Hollywood workers who’ve struggled to find jobs as production has moved out of California.
Corey Gibbons, 44, a director of photography, said vertical dramas kept him in the business when other work dried up.
“I have a feeling that we’re on the brink of something that’s really going to change,” Gibbons said. “I’m just excited to be a part of it.”
So was 27-year-old actor Sam Nejad, a former contestant on “The Bachelorette” who started acting in vertical dramas in January. He said he’s landed one or two lead roles a month since then and can earn $10,000 a week.
“It’s a new art,” Nejad said. “The new Tarantinos, the new Scorseses are all coming through this.”
ReelShort’s office in Sunnyvale looks more like a typical Silicon Valley startup than a Hollywood studio.
Jia, the chief executive, sits at a desk in an open floor seating area with his staff. Along the office walls are framed posters with titles like “Prince With Benefits,” “Never Divorce a Secret Billionaire Heiress” and “All the Wrong Reasons.” Jia proudly points out why each program was notable on a recent tour of the space.
“I don’t have money to hire celebrities,” Jia said. “I have 100% rely on story.”
The 46-year-old entrepreneur, who has an electrical engineering background, launched his business in 2022. At the time, there wasn’t much interest from Hollywood studios.
The skepticism followed the high-profile collapse of Quibi, the startup led by studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and tech executive Meg Whitman, that worked with A-list movie stars on series that would appear on an app in short chapters. Quibi raised $1.75 billion, only to shut down roughly six months after launching.
Jia took a different approach. Rather than signing expensive deals with celebrities, he hired students or recent graduates from colleges like USC to work at his company.
Jia approves all of the micro drama stories at ReelShort, which he says is expected to generate $1 billion in revenue this year.
A ReelShort representative declined to disclose the company’s earnings but said the business is profitable.
Jia said ReelShort has 70 million monthly active users, with 10% of them paid users.
The churn — the rate at which customers drop weekly subscriptions — can be more than 50% at ReelShort, Jia said. That makes it paramount for the company to have a steady stream of content that entices customers to keep paying. Currently it has more than 400 in-house titles and roughly 1,000 licensed titles.
Like others in the genre, ReelShort and DramaShorts rely heavily on data metrics like customer retention and paid subscribers to make their content decisions.
“A lot of directors are thinking, when I shoot the film, ‘I don’t care how people think, this is my creation, it’s my story,’” Jia said. “No, it’s not your story. Your success… should be determined by the people.”
The FTC is suing Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, for allegedly engaging in illegal ticket vendor practices. In a letter to lawmakers dated Oct. 17, Live Nation executive vice president Daniel Wall denies the FTC’s allegations that the company is helping scalpers and said that the company will implement new practices to benefit concertgoers.
As part of these new policy changes, the ticket vendor will no longer allow users purchasing tickets to have multiple accounts. All excess accounts will soon be canceled, and each reseller’s account must have a unique taxpayer ID.
According to the letter, the company also plans to shut down TradeDesk, its inventory management application. The controversial software is a tool that helps resellers track and price tickets across several marketplaces, often dealing with a large amount of tickets. The application has been previously accused of facilitating ticket harvesting, which Wall also denies, saying the platform doesn’t purchase tickets. He says competitors like StubHub and Vivid Seats use similar software.
Live Nation will be “removing TradeDesk’s concert ticket management functionality from the market” to help boost its reputation.
The recent FTC lawsuit isn’t the first legal battle the ticket-selling giant has faced. Last year, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Live Nation, which suggested breaking up the company due to its alleged monopolistic practices.
Amid these lawsuits, fans have continued to complain about being unable to get their hands on tickets and having to pay much more than face value from resellers.
Founded in 1976, Ticketmaster has been the industry’s largest ticket provider since 1995, with around 80% of live concerts sold through the site. As of late, it has also acquired a growing share of the resale market. According to the FTC, consumers spent more than $82.6 billion buying tickets from the Beverly Hills-based company from 2019 to 2024.
The vendor also promises to implement new AI-powered tools to help verify identities, rid unauthorized users and police potentially fraudulent purchases.
NEW YORK — The decision about whether to keep Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night ABC show depends on far more than his jokes. The choice is complicated by a web of business and regulatory considerations involving ABC’s parent company, other media companies and the Trump administration.
It’s the inevitable result of industry consolidation that over years has built giant corporations with wide-ranging interests.
ABC owner Walt Disney Co., a massive organization with far-flung operations, frequently seeks federal regulatory approval to expand, buy or sell businesses or acquire licenses. And the Trump administration has not spared the company from investigations, opening multiple inquiries in just the last few months to investigate alleged antitrust, programming and hiring violations.
Kimmel was suspended from his show last week following comments suggesting that fans of Charlie Kirk were trying to “score political points” over the conservative activist’s shooting death. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr called the remarks “truly sick” and suggested his agency would look into them.
Carr answers to President Trump, a frequent Kimmel target whose dislike of the comedian is well known.
Two companies that operate roughly a quarter of ABC affiliates nationwide, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcasting, also said they would not air Kimmel’s show.
Disney took a step in December to avoid a confrontation with Trump by paying $15 million to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos, in a case many civil rights attorneys considered weak. It also made moves to dismantle some of its diversity, equity and inclusion practices, including removing references in its annual report to its Reimagine Tomorrow program aimed at “amplifying underrepresented voices.”
Apparently that wasn’t enough.
In April, the FCC sent a a blistering letter to Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger saying it suspected the company was so thoroughly “infected” with “invidious” practices favoring minorities that it had no choice but to open an investigation.
Among other questions, the inquiry sought to determine whether Disney had really ended policies designed to ensure characters in its shows and its hiring practices favored “underrepresented groups.”
Meanwhile, a Disney deal struck in January to buy a stake in the streaming service FuboTV fell under scrutiny too, with several reports that the Justice Department was investigating possible antitrust violations.
The Federal Trade Commission also launched an inquiry into whether Disney broke rules by gathering personal data from children watching its videos without permission from parents. Disney settled the case this month by paying $10 million and agreeing to change its practices.
Disney also needs approval from the Trump administration for ESPN to complete its acquisition of the NFL Network.
It hasn’t helped that Disney was a target for many conservatives well before the current controversy. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis battled with the company over its criticism of a DeSantis-backed law that restricted discussion of sexual orientation in schools.
Kirk wasn’t a fan, either, criticizing Disney when it closed Splash Mountain rides at theme parks three years ago to remove references to the 1946 film “Song of the South,” which has long been decried as racist for its romanticized depictions of slavery.
The move, Kirk’s website posted, was “destructive to our cultural and societal fabric.”
The companies with ABC stations that put out statements disavowing Kimmel have their own business before the government. Nexstar needs the Trump administration’s approval to complete its $6.2-billion purchase of broadcast rival Tegna.
Sinclair has its own regulatory challenges. In June, it entered into an agreement with the FCC to fix problems with paperwork filed to the agency and to observe rules about advertising on children’s shows and closed-captioning requirements. It has also petitioned the regulator to relax rules limiting broadcaster ownership of stations.
The companies are being asked by advocates and others to put aside financial concerns to stand up for free speech.
“Where has all the leadership gone?” ex-Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner wrote Friday on social media. “If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners and corporate chief executives standing up to bullies, then who will step up for the First Amendment?”
The administration’s attacks on Kimmel have also been criticized in some unexpected places, such as the Wall Street Journal and Bari Weiss’ website, the Free Press — both known for their conservative editorial voices — and by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a staunch conservative and Trump ally.
The comedian’s comments don’t justify the right wing’s move toward regulatory censorship, the Journal wrote in an editorial. “As victims of cancel culture for so long, conservatives more than anyone should oppose it,” the Journal wrote. “They will surely be the targets again when the left returns to power.”
“When a network drops a high-profile talent hours after the FCC chairman makes a barely veiled threat, then it’s no longer just a business decision,” the Free Press wrote in an editorial. “It’s government coercion. Is it now Trump administration policy to punish broadcasters for comedy that doesn’t conform to its politics?”
“South Park” wasted no time putting its very existence on the line, again. On Wednesday, the Comedy Central series kicked off its 27th season with a searing indictment of President Trump and its network’s parent company, Paramount. Paramount recently paid the president $16 million toward his future library rather than fighting a lawsuit Trump brought against “60 Minutes” (Paramount is also a parent company of CBS).
It was also announced last week that “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” which airs on Paramount-owned CBS, was being canceled. Colbert is one of the most prominent political satirists in America, and from his pulpit has been a relentless critic of MAGA policy and Trump. Like the payout over the “60 Minutes” lawsuit, Colbert’s cancellation comes just as Paramount is seeking federal approval of an $8-billion merger with Skydance Media.
“South Park” couldn’t have returned at a better time.
The episode, titled “Sermon on the Mount,” opens with Cartman discovering his favorite radio station, NPR, has been canceled. Making fun of its wokeness was part of his identity, and now he’s lost and angry. “The government can’t cancel a show!” he laments before dropping a self-referential joke about “South Park’s” own vulnerability. “I mean, what show are they going to cancel next?”
Paramount might be tempted to cancel “South Park” after Wednesday night’s damning premiere, when the show repeatedly lampooned the company’s costly capitulation to Trump. And Paramount earlier this week announced a $1.5 billion deal with “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for 14 new movies, six more seasons and streaming rights on Paramount+ for the next five years.
The new season continues to plumb the horrifying depths of 2025 when Cartman also finds that his school is demanding students accept the presence of Jesus, literally. Cartman is called to the principal’s office for not letting Jesus sit with his group in the cafeteria at lunch, even though there were no empty seats. There’s always room for the Lord, he’s told.
The townspeople become angry that they voted in a guy who they thought would target other people — like immigrants. They don’t want religion forced on their kids at school, but newscasts make their plight seem hopeless. “More protests today as the president pushes harder for Christianity in our schools. The president stated earlier today that the spirit of Jesus is important to our country and he will sue anyone who doesn’t agree with him.”
The truly wicked satire begins when they cut to Trump at the White House. He’s the only character whose head is an actual photo rather than a drawing, and the president’s image is deftly manipulated to reflect the many faces of the real man: pouting, grimacing, smiling, leering and pouting, again.
He repeatedly demands that everyone relax while he threatens to destroy them. He argues with Canada’s prime minister over tariffs (“You don’t want me to bomb you like I did Iraq,” says Trump. “I thought you just bombed Iran,” the PM replies. “Iran. Iraq. What the hell’s the difference?”). Trump also lies naked in bed with Satan, revealing his minuscule manhood. Disgusted, the devil rebuffs the president’s advances and says, “I can’t even see anything, it’s so small.”
Satan is also perturbed that some rando on Insta keeps commenting about sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s client list.
“Epstein, are we still talking about that?” Trump says.
“Are you on the list or not?” Satan asks. “It’s weird that when it comes up you just keep telling everyone to relax.”
Then we jump to a segment of “60 Minutes” where the beleaguered show’s hosts mumble in terror for fear of another lawsuit as the show’s signature stopwatch sound is set to the image of a ticking time bomb. They refer to the president as “a great man” who “is probably watching” before cutting to their reporter who is covering the protests against Trump in South Park, Colorado.
Jesus touches down to address his flock under the guise of fulfilling Trump’s wish to bring Christianity back into public schools. But he’s really there to warn the crowd, and does so in a whisper. “I didn’t want to come back and be in the school, but I had to because it was part of a lawsuit and the agreement with Paramount.”
“The president’s suing you?” a protester asks.
Jesus, through clenched teeth, explains: “The guy can do what he wants now that someone backed down. … You guys see what’s happened to CBS? Well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount! You really want to end up like Colbert? … All of you, shut the f— up or South Park is over!”
The town ends up being sued by Trump, and they, like Paramount, cave. They pay him off, but are also required to sing his praises as part of the settlement.
The episode ends with a pro-Trump ad by the town. It’s a realistic deepfake video of the president trekking through the desert heat in a show of loyalty to his supporters. He strips naked and once again we’re reminded that it’s not just his hands that are small.
That wail you just heard? It’s coming from the White House. A new lawsuit is born.
Bad Bunny is booked and busy. (Now try saying that twice.)
On Tuesday night, the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican singer will make two back-to-back appearances on late-night television shows: “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC.
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The 31-year-old artist is in the midst of his historic No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. The 30-night concert series is expected to generate $200 million to the local economy, according to the island’s promotional agency, Discover Puerto Rico.
Bad Bunny, who moonlights as an actor, is also promoting the long-awaited “Happy Gilmore 2,” a sequel to the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy, which will premiere July 25 on Netflix. He will play a golf caddy to Happy Gilmore (played by Sandler), an aggro-ex-hockey player turned golf phenom. Both Sandler and Bad Bunny are expected to appear on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”
It’s an unusual move by the two competing networks to book the same guest on a single night, but as evening newscasts clash with fast-paced content on social media sites like YouTube or TikTok, perhaps the rules can be relaxed for a superstar.
Camaraderie across the TV aisle has grown in recent days, with multiple late-night hosts decrying the cancellation of Colbert’s program for what CBS has cited as financial reasons. News of this cancellation came days after Colbert criticized CBS’ parent company, Paramount, over the $16-million settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit stemming from a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.
“And now for the next 10 months, the gloves are off,” said Colbert on Sunday night. His decade-long show will end May 2026.
Earlier this year, Bad Bunny co-hosted “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” to promote his hit album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which remains on the Billboard 200 chart since its January debut. During the program, the two disguised themselves while busking in a New York Subway station, first performing a cover of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” then Bad Bunny’s single “Nuevayol.”
Bad Bunny will first appear as a guest on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS at 8:35 p.m. PST, followed by “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC at 12:35 a.m. ET/PT.
One fateful October decision to trim two convoluted sentences from a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris has snowballed into a full-blown corporate crisis for CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, and its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone.
President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit — claiming “60 Minutes” producers deceptively manipulated the Harris interview to make her look smarter — has festered, clouding the future of Paramount and the company’s hoped-for $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.
The dispute over the edits has sparked massive unrest within the company, prompted high-level departures and triggered a Federal Communications Commission examination of alleged news bias. The FCC’s review of the Skydance deal has become bogged down, according to people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to comment.
The agency, chaired by a Trump appointee, must approve the transfer of CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family for the deal to advance.
A lawsuit resolution, through court-ordered mediation, remains out of reach. And last week, three Democratic U.S. senators raised the stakes by suggesting, in a letter to Redstone, that a Trump settlement could be considered an illegal payoff.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) warned in their letter that any payment to Trump to gain favorable treatment by the FCC could violate federal anti-bribery laws. Paramount’s dealings with Trump “raises serious concerns of corruption and improper conduct,” the senators wrote.
“Under the federal bribery statute, it is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act,” the senators said.
President Trump during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House.
(Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Redstone is desperate for the Paramount-Skydance deal to go through.
Her family’s holding company is cratering under a mountain of debt. Paramount’s sale to the Ellison family would provide the clan $2.4 billion for their preferred shares — proceeds that would allow the Redstones to pay their nearly $600 million in debt — and remain billionaires.
Paramount, Skydance and a spokesperson for Redstone declined to comment.
While recusing herself from granular and final decision-making, Redstone has made it clear that she wants Paramount to settle with Trump, rather than wage an ongoing beef with the sitting president, according to people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
Figuring a way out of the dispute has divided the company, according to insiders.
For CBS News professionals, apologizing to Trump over routine edits of a lengthy interview is a red line. Tensions have spilled into public view.
Redstone has been cast as the villain. The Drudge Report, created by journalist Matt Drudge, who got his start at CBS in Los Angeles, last month published a photo of 71-year-old heiress, identifying her in all caps as “The woman who destroyed CBS News.”
Two top CBS News executives have resigned. Both refused to apologize to Trump as part of any settlement, the knowledgeable sources said.
Most CBS journalists and 1st Amendment experts see Trump’s lawsuit a shakedown, one seemingly designed to exploit Paramount’s vulnerability because it needs the government’s approval for the Skydance deal.
“Settling such a case for anything of substance would thus compromise 1st Amendment principles today and the broad notion of freedom of the press in the future,” prominent press freedom lawyer Floyd Abrams said.
Paramount has stressed that it sees the Trump lawsuit and the FCC review of the Skydance deal as separate. “We will abide by the legal process to defend our case,” a Paramount spokesperson said.
But “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley connected the two for viewers during an extraordinary April broadcast, in which he rebuked Paramount management on air at the end of the program. That, according to sources, angered some of Paramount’s leaders.
While “60 Minutes” has received additional corporate oversight, some insiders pointed to Pelley’s acknowledgment that “none of our stories have been blocked.”
All the high-level scrutiny has put Paramount and Redstone in a box, and the Skydance deal looks less certain than it did months ago.
“Who’s going to sign that settlement, knowing that you could be accused of paying a bribe?” asked one person close to Paramount.
Paramount Global’s path to peril began long before the infamous “60 Minutes” edits. The company was diminished by management turmoil and years of cost-cutting, which would eventually force Redstone to find a buyer for one of Hollywood’s most storied studios.
Should New York-based Paramount, which also owns Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and the famed Melrose Avenue movie studio, fail to complete its sale to Skydance by its October deadline, the deal could collapse.
Paramount then would owe $400 million to Skydance as a breakup fee, putting the company in further dire financial straits. Skydance and its investor RedBird Capital Partners have agreed, once they take over, to inject $1.5 billion into Paramount, helping it pay down some debt.
Redstone would also be on the hook to repay her financiers. Two years ago, a Chicago banker rescued the Redstone family investment firm, National Amusements Inc., with a $125-million equity investment.
The family’s finances were strained after Paramount cut its dividend to shareholders that spring during the Hollywood writers’ strike. The family’s dire financial situation was a leading impetus for Paramount’s sale.
If the deal fell through, Redstone would also have to repay a $186-million loan from tech mogul Larry Ellison. The billionaire Oracle co-founder and father of David Ellison extended the loan so National Amusements could make a looming debt payment.
National Amusements holds 77% of Paramount’s controlling shares, giving the Redstone family enormous sway over Paramount management.
Paramount Chairwoman Shari Redstone in 2023 in New York.
(Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press)
Critics privately note Redstone’s role in setting up the company for the current drama. It took nearly a year for Redstone and Paramount’s special board committee to negotiate a deal with Skydance. The independent directors spent months searching for an alternate buyer, adding to the delays that now haunt both sides.
Had the parties reached agreement sooner, the companies could have asked the FCC for approval earlier last year during the less hostile Biden administration.
Instead, weeks were spent haggling over various demands, including having Skydance indemnify Redstone and her family against shareholder lawsuits. In the end, the Ellisons also agreed to help Redstone pay for her New York apartment and private jet after the deal closes, according to the knowledgeable people.
Paramount petitioned the FCC for review in September.
By that time, political environment was caustic for mainstream media companies. Conservatives were upset over ABC News’ handling of the Sept. 10 debate between Trump and Harris after ABC anchors fact-checked Trump in real time, including pushing back on his false claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.
Trump reportedly backed out of a “60 Minutes” appearance — long a traditional stop for presidential candidates — because CBS intended to fact-check his remarks. Conservatives viewed such formats as a double standard and as an example of how news bias has seeped into major networks’ coverage of Republicans.
“This was an issue we were already sensitive to and focused on,” said Daniel Suhr, president of the conservative Center for American Rights legal group, which filed an FCC complaint against Walt Disney Co.’s ABC after the debate.
Redstone, who had previously urged news executives to bring more balance to CBS’ coverage, was livid after managers scolded “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil for his sharp questioning of author Ta-Nehisi Coates about Israel during an interview segment. Coates’ book, “The Message,” compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Jim Crow South in the U.S.
Redstone, who is Jewish and has focused her philanthropy on battling antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, publicly rebuked CBS News managers for their treatment of Dokoupil.
The controversial exchange in the Harris “60 Minutes” interview also happened to concern Israel.
Harris gave a long-winded three-sentence response.
CBS broadcast the convoluted first sentence on its Sunday public affairs show, “Face the Nation,” on Oct. 6. The following night — the anniversary of the Hamas attacks — “60 Minutes” aired only her most forceful and succinct third sentence: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
Conservatives zeroed in.
“CBS created this mess for itself. … The conservative ecosystem was outraged when they saw the two different clips because it vindicated everything,” Suhr said. “Folks had always believed the media was selectively manipulating interviews like that.”
Journalists routinely cut extraneous words to provide clear and compact soundbites for audiences. CBS released a statement saying that it had not doctored the interview. Rather, news producers said they trimmed Harris’ response to cover more ground during the broadcast.
Internally, CBS debated whether to release the full transcript to quell the furor — but it stopped short at first. Some people close to the company have been particularly critical of CBS for not immediately releasing the unedited video.
One of Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s first moves was to revive a separate news distortion complaint against “60 Minutes,” which Suhr had filed shortly after the broadcast. The matter had been dismissed by the previous Biden-appointed chair.
“It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward,” McMahon told her staff in a note last week.
Insiders note other McMahon decisions, including the introduction of a new “CBS Evening News” format, which has led to plummeting ratings, as factors in her fall. McMahon could not be reached for comment.
Redstone and others hope the mediation with Trump’s attorneys will produce a truce.
But several questions remain: What will it take for Paramount to appease the president? And could the company’s leaders be prosecuted if they pay the president a multimillion-dollar settlement?
In “normal times,” officials might be alarmed by a president’s demand for a big check, said Michael C. Dorf, a Cornell Law School professor.
“These are not normal times, however, so the president will likely be able to get away with soliciting a bribe from Paramount, just as he is getting away with extortion of law firms and universities,” Dorf said.
Staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
Wendy McMahon is stepping down as from her role as president of CBS News and Stations, indicating her disagreement with the parent company’s handling of President Trump’s lawsuit against “60 Minutes.”
“It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward,” McMahon said in a note sent to CBS News staff Monday. “It’s time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.”
McMahon has been firm in her position that CBS News parent Paramount Global should not settle the $20-billion suit from Trump, which claims an October interview with his 2024 opponent Vice President Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to help her presidential campaign.
The lawsuit is an obstacle to Paramount Global’s proposed $8-billion sale to Skydance Media. The case has gone to a mediator.
McMahon’s departure is a sign that a settlement may be close.
With McMahon’s exit, CBS News President Tom Cibrowski and CBS Stations President Jennifer Mitchell will each report directly to CBS Chief Executive George Cheeks.
McMahon joined CBS in 2021. She oversaw the company’s syndication division and TV stations as well as CBS News.
Cheeks brought McMahon to the company from Walt Disney Co., where she led the ABC station group. At the time, Cheeks was trying to clean up its stations division, which was plagued by management issues and the firing of its former head, Peter Dunn.
Since then, McMahon rose to be one of Cheeks’ most trusted lieutenants, taking over CBS News. But she irked Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, over CBS News coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.
