It’s often been said that Network 10 was a chip off Paramount, the left-wing owners of the struggling network, who now face having to actually deliver balanced new reporting following the election of Donald Trump as the next President of the USA.

Currently the owners of Network 10’s US based Paramount Global are trying to flog the network to Skydance Media the maker of the ‘Mission Impossible’ movies, the only problem is they need regulatory approval for its US$8 billion deal to merge and this could result in an end to the networks political bias reporting of news across their news outlets.

It’s now emerged that Paramount’s news networks that include the CBS network in the US and 10 News in Australia, could be forced to make a slew of dramatic changes when Donald Trump takes up his job as President of the USA.

The Paramount network that is seen as being openly social and often bias operates CBS News and 60 Minutes which is owned by Paramount but licenced to the Nine Network in Australia.
Under Trump administrators the network could be required to fully abide by standards set for US broadcast licensees in that they become “neutral” news organizations.

According to the New York Post people close to Trump’s transition team, Paramount Global and their CBS news division could, among other things, be forced to turn over a full transcript of the controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, which those in the Trump administration believe shows the network played dirty during the 2024 election.

The hardest part for the network appears to be, that they will be asked by the Trump administration to change their political manipulation of news to become a fair arbiter of news.

It would mean, for example, that CBS would no longer tilt its news coverage in favour of the left wing Democrats, including how its anchors comport themselves during presidential debates.

In Australian Network Ten news programs and The Project are well known for their support of left-wing politics.

The Trump people point to CBS VP-debate moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell, who were equally criticized for showing bias in cutting off and fact-checking Trump running mate J.D. Vance in his Oct. 1 faceoff with Kamilla Harris’s former running mate Tim Walz.

Then there is CBS’s lefty “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert who isn’t just biased in his commentary, he literally hosted a Dem fund­raiser at Radio City Music Hall where he threw softball questions at Joe Biden, and former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack ­Obama.

US FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who is well aware of all of the above and wants to end such left-wing propaganda in exchange for Skydance receiving FCC approval. Unlike cable, fairness standards apply to traditional, local TV.

“Make no mistake, Brendan wants CBS to be the neutral news organization that its FCC license demands,’’ says one person familiar with Carr’s thinking.

It may not hurt that Skydance is run by David Ellison, who’s getting financial backing from his dad, Larry, the co-founder of Oracle whose net worth is pegged by Forbes at $231 billion — and who also happens to be a major Trump supporter.

It appears that Larry has already put a call into Trump re the pending deal.

The New York Post claims that people close to Carr say Larry Ellison and the Skydance team might not fully appreciate how much Trump knows about the “Art Of The Deal” — and how much he hates CBS and its anti-Trump bias.

Trump may be poised to have it both ways: help his friend Larry with Carr approving the transaction — but only after CBS ’fesses up to its lefty bias and vows to turn back toward covering news instead of being an advocacy arm of the Democratic Party.

Paramount owned CBS, was once considered the gold standard of unbiased journalism, has increasingly tilted to the left and Republicans believe that tilt reached epic proportions during the 2024 election .

In Australia the Nine Network has a licencing deal with CBS and often ran stories on the US Election sourced from CBS that have been labelled ‘Openly biased”.

In one “60 Minutes” episode, Trump camp claims that the program selectively edited an Oct. 7 interview with Kamala Harris — whose signature dish is “word salad” — to make her sound smarter.

Carr is a longtime telecom activist and commissioner who made a name for himself raising questions about the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok and whether the CCP is using the service for spy craft.

People who know Carr say he plans to use the FCC approval process — which could take months and add additional costs to the Paramount purchase that the new owners would like to avoid — to squeeze promises of neutrality out of them.