X/@Axios
Former Paramount chairwoman Shari Redstone insisted on Thursday that the decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s late-night show had nothing to do with the company seeking the Trump administration’s approval for the merger between Paramount and Skydance.
During a live interview with Redstone, Axios media correspondent Sara Fischer asked about Paramount’s decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in July, just one week before Paramount’s merger with Skydance was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
“Outside of the settlement, there were other actions taken to ensure there would be regulatory approval,” said Fischer. “You know, I think about rollbacks of DEI policies, I think about some things like the cancellation of Steve Colbert’s show. You know, that was never explicitly stated as being part of getting regulatory approval, but it’s something that I think a lot of people assumed. Do you think that they made the right choices to ensure that they got the regulatory approval?”
Redstone responded, “I’m not gonna tie any of that to regulatory approval. I can tell you that we had been looking at late night. It was financially not viable. It had been that way for a long time. We had made a decision months prior to the announcement that we were not gonna be going forward with that show.”
She continued, “I love Stephen, he does a great job, but we really needed to be in a financially viable business, and you saw we did that with James Corden as well.”
Addressing Paramount’s decision to end Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs ahead of the merger, Redstone said, “In terms of DEI, I think the reasons why DEI exists matter and will always matter, and we need to continue to fight for those issues. But, I think the way in which DEI has been executed has often led to more problems than it’s solved.”
She concluded, “I think we were trying to create an environment that would address the issues in a different way.”
The post Ex-Paramount Chief Insists Colbert Cancelation Had Nothing to Do With Seeking Trump Admin’s Approval for Mega-Merger first appeared on Mediaite.
