Recommended
Following a tumultuous process lasting about a year, Paramount, owned by Skydance, finalized its $81 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday. And beyond Hollywood, the mega-merger brings two titans of the American television news landscape under the same roof: CBS and CNN.
On the eve of the deal's completion, Skydance confirmed that CNN's Mark Thompson will remain the network's editor-in-chief, separate from CBS, where Bari Weiss continues to be in charge. But it remains to be seen what the news operations of the merged company will look like in the future.
Politics also takes center stage. The billionaire family of Skydance CEO David Ellison maintains a close relationship with President Donald Trump, who has not exactly been shy about attacking coverage he deems unfavorable, both from CNN and CBS. Last month, his administration moved to ban CNN from the White House. And the network has a new owner at a time when coverage intensifies with less than a month to go before the midterm congressional elections.
Ellison has pledged to maintain "complete" editorial independence. Under a recent agreement with states that challenged the merger, the company also agreed to establish new oversight for CBS and CNN by creating a "News Editorial Independence Board" within 180 days.
Even so, Skydance's corporate leaders will choose who sits on that board. And critics warn about the consequences of the consolidation of the news sector in general.
CNN's editor-in-chief will remain in his position
Skydance announced on Monday that Thompson—who has been president and CEO of CNN since 2023—would continue to lead the network. In a memo to staff published by Business Insider and other media, Thompson said he had "full confidence" that Ellison and other Skydance executives "will fully support the principle and practice of the type of independent journalism that has always characterized CNN."
Thompson, a former director general of the BBC and The New York Times, acknowledged that some details regarding how CNN will operate still need to be finalized, but noted that he plans to lead the network "with the same responsibilities and prerogatives that I have now."
CBS News and its flagship program "60 Minutes" have already experienced extensive editorial turbulence since coming under Skydance's ownership last year. For critics of those changes, the news that Thompson is staying at CNN provides a significant safeguard, but some experts warned that time will tell.
"Ultimately, both CNN and CBS News will be under the same corporate ownership, and the owners can exert influence in ways much more subtle than directly telling an editor which stories to cover," noted J. Christopher Hamilton, an adjunct professor at Syracuse University.
The long-term question "is whether that independence remains intact when it proves costly or inconvenient for the parent company," he added.
[Publicidad]