MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Within 24 hours, CBS was the subject of a swirl of headlines.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Anderson Cooper said he was leaving "60 Minutes." A Stephen Colbert interview was knocked off course, and CBS's parent company, Paramount, was given one last chance to bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
MARTIN: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is with us now to tell us all about this. Good morning, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So, David, Anderson Cooper is leaving "60 Minutes" after nearly two decades as a correspondent there. What's the story?
FOLKENFLIK: So Cooper is staying at CNN where he's been the, you know, prime-time star, but he's also held this role as a correspondent at "60 Minutes." He said he's doing it to spend more time with his small children while they still want to spend time with him. He's expressed concern to associates, three of whom spoke to us on condition they not be named. They're not authorized to speak about what's happening within CBS. Cooper has said that he's concerned about the leadership of the new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. She came aboard with the proposition that the mainstream media is too woke, too anti-Trump, and a lot of her decisions have been interpreted as corrective that is unwelcomed by many of the journalists there. Cooper decided he didn't want to be part of it anymore.
MARTIN: And then the late-night host Stephen Colbert told viewers Monday night that he could not have on a particular guest. What happened there?
FOLKENFLIK: So Colbert had invited on James Talarico. He's a Texas state representative. He's running in the Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat. Colbert said that he was told that that interview could not run on the air, and here's what else he told viewers on Monday night.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT")
STEPHEN COLBERT: I was told in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: And because my network clearly doesn't want us to talk about this, let's talk about this.
FOLKENFLIK: And so Colbert did. Colbert said that he was told by CBS's lawyers they were worried about equal time rules. Now, this rule applies to radio and television stations that have broadcast licenses like those affiliated with CBS. It's in effect during political campaign seasons. But news and talk show interviews are traditionally exempt. The head regulator of broadcast for the federal government named Brendan Carr, he's the head of the Federal Communications Commission, appointed to that chairmanship by President Trump, and he has suggested that he might change the way he enforces that rule for late-night shows and no longer exempt them. He's called them too partisan. It hasn't happened yet. But as Colbert pointed out, CBS nonetheless still said, you could not present that interview on television. He pushed it onto his YouTube channel where people have consumed it.
MARTIN: And there's a new development with CBS's corporate owner, Paramount.
FOLKENFLIK: Yes. So this week, Warner Bros. Discovery is telling its shareholders to approve a deal valued at more than $80 billion to sell all of their studios and streaming properties over to Netflix. But they're offering Paramount one last chance to make a sweetened bid to improve its offer for the entire company, which would include CNN and other cable channels. So Paramount, the Ellison family behind it, are keeping their fingers crossed.
MARTIN: Is there a connection among all these different stories?
FOLKENFLIK: I think you can't look at these as separate episodes. Right now, you have the Ellison family who are very close to Trump and want to stay on his right side. And you're seeing this play out inside the network, play out inside the news division in terms of how decisions are made or how they're interpreted, play out in the entertainment division. Colbert was - had his show canceled by previous ownership as they were trying to get the sale of CBS and Paramount get through regulators. And Colbert, of course, has been one of the chief critics of the president on major television. So right now, you're seeing a bunch of facets of the same issue as the Ellisons are hoping somehow to win over the bid for Warner and get approval from federal regulators.
MARTIN: That is NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. David, thank you.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
MARTIN: In a statement, CBS denied prohibiting the late show from broadcasting the interview with Talarico. It said it gave, quote-unquote, "legal guidance" about the equal time rule. Colbert responded last night.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT")
COLBERT: They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS's lawyers. Who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air, whether it's about equal time or this image of frogs having sex.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: And I'll mention that Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount+ and CNN are financial supporters of NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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