The FCC’s months-long review of Paramount Global‘s request to authorize sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar to hold up to 100% of the equity in its CBS Television Stations — a decision six Democratic Senators wondered in May if FCC Chairman Brendan Carr could evaluate impartially — has concluded.
On delegated authority, the Chief of the Media Bureau’s Video Division granted the company’s Petition for Declaratory Ruling — triggering criticism from the lone Democrat serving as a FCC Commissioner and from a fired Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.
In a decision released by the FCC on Thursday, David J. Brown granted Paramount’s PDR, exercising “its authority delegated to it by Congress” to permit indirect foreign ownership in Paramount of more than the 25% benchmark set in the Commission’s rules.
The decision is key for Paramount CEO David Ellison as he seeks to eventually merge the company that owns CBS and Paramount Studios with Warner Bros. Discovery — one of two mega-mergers in the media industry under scrutiny and legal challenges led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and, in many respects, DirecTV.
Brown believes the public interest will be served by giving Paramount the OK to go beyond the 25% foreign ownership limit — something recently seen with Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS), making the approval itself not-so rare or headline grabbing. What’s different about this approval, as seen through the eyes of Democrats, is just what entities will now become equity interest holders in the parent of CBS.
On December 8, 2025, Ellison began to wage a fierce battle for WBD by commencing an all-cash tender offer with the promise that, unlike Netflix, it would acquire all of WBD. The OTT Goliath had a proposed $72 billion takeover on WBD on the table at the time; Netflix eventually folded its cards, allowing Ellison and WBD leader David Zaslav to work together on a combined entity. This saw plans for the acquisition of WBD by Paramount arrive via financing by new equity backstopped by Paramount’s “well-capitalized principal equity holders” — and $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo.
It also saw, as revealed in an SEC filing first uncovered by Axios reporter Sara Fischer, equity financing comprised of an $11.8 billion commitment from the Ellison family; an aggregate $24 billion commitment from three sovereign wealth funds from Persian Gulf nations; a $1 billion commitment from Chinese multinational technology conglomerate Tencent; and commitments from RedBird Capital Partners and Affinity Partners.
Affinity Partners was formed in 2021 by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior advisor during Trump’s first presidency. However, much focus was placed on the sovereign wealth funds from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
A pleading cycle seeking comment on the PDR was opened in late April by the Media Bureau, with comments due May 27 and reply comments due by June 11. By May 5, Anna M. Gómez, the firebrand Democratic FCC Commissioner, made it known that the Commission should conduct “a full, independent, and rigorous review of the foreign ownership interests embedded in the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.” Specifically, any financial links to sovereign wealth funds from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi should be subject to strict scrutiny, Gómez said.
On May 20, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) signed a letter to Chairman Carr demanding that the FCC explain how it intends to review Paramount Global’s request to authorize sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar to hold up to 100% of the equity in its broadcast television stations and whether he could evaluate it impartially.
Today, the $111 billion merger of Paramount-Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery is one step closer to completion, as Paramount’s arguments that the “new equity investment” will better position the company to “weather continuing challenges facing broadcasters and operators of linear pay-television networks” passed muster with the Commission.
The same can be said of Paramount’s contention that “grant of this Petition will not present any national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, or trade policy concerns.”
On social media platform X, Gómez let it be known that she vehemently disagrees with the Media Bureau decision. “The FCC just let some of the most repressive governments in the world indirectly control nearly all of a combined Paramount-Warner Bros.,” she said. “An investment this large in one of America’s biggest media companies doesn’t just buy equity, it secures influence over what gets said and made. That’s why I called for this new and novel issue to go to a full Commission vote given what’s at stake. Instead, the FCC snuck this ruling out as a staff-level decision, with no public vote and no accountability for a call of this magnitude.”
Specifically, the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will hold 15.1% equity in Paramount. Some 21.2% of Paramount’s equity will be held by two Qatari investment entities, while 51.2% equity interest would be comprised of four UAE groups under the “L’imad” name.
Former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya also chimed in on X. “Brendan Carr just cleared the way for a nation that was responsible for the murder of an American journalist to hold a key stake in CBS news and 60 Minutes, and if this merger goes through, in CNN and Last Week Tonight,” he lamented. “Saudi Arabia First.”
Last Week Tonight is a satirical newsmagazine hosted by John Oliver that has taken a decisively liberal tone on issues ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the commander-in-chief of the United States.
Meanwhile, there’s much chatter across the Los Angeles media regarding Paramount’s consideration of a departure for locales including Nashville. As of today there is no official statement regarding the future of the company’s operational centers.
