Paramount Global and Skydance Media will automatically begin a 90-day extension Tuesday under the terms of the merger agreement they reached last summer.
As stipulated in an SEC filing in February, the extension took effect without any action needed from any stakeholder. An additional 90-day extension will kick in “if the consummation of the transactions does not occur before April 7, 2025, subject to two automatic extensions of 90 days,” the filing notes. It adds that the extensions will only be granted if “all of the conditions to the closing, except those relating to regulatory approvals, have been satisfied or waived.”
The SEC and the European Commission are among the regulatory bodies that have already given their approval to the $8 billion deal, which was proposed last July after a months-long process involving multiple suitors for Paramount. The Federal Communications Commission remains the main hurdle to the deal closing in the first half of 2025, as the companies have projected. Deadline reported last week that the deal appears less and less likely to meet that target, leaving staffers and the company’s business partners in an uncertain place.
While the FCC‘s sign-off was widely seen as a formality as 2025 began, the intensity of President Donald Trump’s resentment of the media (among many institutions) has upended all expectations in Washington and the corporate world.
Even before Trump returned to the White House, he was clashing with Paramount-owned CBS News, suing it for $20 billion in a Texas court over the news organization’s editing of a Kamala Harris interview. Trump claims the interview for 60 Minutes was packaged in a way that disadvantaged his presidential campaign. Simultaneously, the FCC is investigating a “news distortion” charge against CBS News by a conservative group over edits of the Harris interview that resulted in different versions airing on 60 Minutes and CBS Mornings.
