The Scoop
Executives at the embattled media company Paramount decided to delay and significantly alter a Daily Show-branded civic participation initiative, out of fear that the Trump administration could use it as a cudgel in blocking a pending acquisition deal.
The company’s social impact team has been working for months on the initiative, called “Take A Seat,” to encourage people across the country to run for local office. Take a Seat is intended to funnel prospective candidates towards organizations that would help them figure out which offices to seek and help them launch campaigns. The entertainment company had partnered with the veterans group New Politics Leadership Academy, the progressive group Run For Something, and the right-leaning group Women’s Public Leadership Network on the initiative, which was set to launch last week.
But at the last minute, Paramount significantly curtailed the idea, noting internally that the associations with partisan groups carried too much risk at a moment when Trump and his Federal Communications Commission, which has oversight over the company’s broadcast assets, have been criticizing coverage at another Paramount property, CBS News.
The company set up a website for the initiative, but then hit the brakes, and Take a Seat has not yet been promoted by Paramount or Comedy Central, the channel that broadcasts The Daily Show.
“Be the leader you’ve been complaining for!” the copy on the website, which hasn’t been shared publicly, reads. “The Daily Show’s InDecision: Take A Seat is our effort to shine a light on local and state offices that you might not even know are out there, and encourage YOU to throw your hat in the ring. If you’re tired of complaining about who’s running things and want other people to complain about how YOU’RE running things, then now is your moment!”
Take A Seat hasn’t been scrapped entirely. Paramount declined to comment. But one person familiar with the plans told Semafor Paramount will launch the initiative later this month with a different nonpartisan partner, HeadCount, a nonprofit that will help prospective candidates see where there are open political positions in their area. While Semafor was told that input from Paramount’s government affairs division shaped the decision, a Paramount official with knowledge said the organization’s government team was not involved in the ultimate decision to end the partnerships. The entertainment company will no longer be working alongside organizations with explicit political affiliations.
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Max’s view
Paramount finds itself in a nightmarish corporate squeeze, at the mercy of an aggressive administration focused on using government leverage to shift coverage.
Initially, many corporate leaders in media, like WarnerBrothers Discover CEO David Zaslav, assumed that the incoming Trump administration would at least be more open to consolidation than the Biden administration.
Instead, the Trump team has used its ability to slow or complicate mergers as leverage to get companies to do its bidding. The FCC continues to dangle the possibility that it might not approve a merger between Paramount and the film studio Skydance over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that aired during the 2024 campaign, which the commission says was so heavily edited it could constitute “news distortion.” (CBS released the interview in full showing extremely minor editing that did not materially alter Harris’ answer.)
Now Paramount owner Shari Redstone is attempting to placate the administration while maintaining a media organization filled with journalists and entertainment industry creatives who range from skeptical to hostile. The company has made overtures to Trump personally, and has attempted to offer an olive branch to the FCC by proposing to abstain from diversity efforts, a new target of federal regulators.
The political dance isn’t going well. Staff at CBS News are furious at Paramount for attempting to negotiate a settlement with Trump, who sued the network over the Harris segment last October. As Semafor first reported, Redstone’s recent attempt to learn about upcoming 60 Minutes segments involving Trump before they air was one of the factors that led to the departure of longtime executive producer Bill Owens, deepening the divide between the CBS newsroom at its parent company.
Trump doesn’t seem pleased, either. In April, he posted a series of messages calling on the FCC to investigate CBS over additional 60 Minutes segments and threatening legal action against The New York Times over its description of Trump’s regulatory efforts.
Notable
- This isn’t the first time in recent years that Paramount’s government affairs team has stepped in to stop the company from pissing off powerful Republicans. In 2023, Semafor wrote about how Paramount worked to erase an episode of Vice’s Showtime show that covered Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ time at Guantanamo Bay.
- Paramount has a history of driving viewers to the polls. MTV’s involvement with Rock The Vote helped register a generation of young people — 12 million over the course of more than 30 years. While Paramount’s insistence that it will move forward with its candidate recruitment initiatives, it’s a far cry from MTV’s then-cutting-edge efforts to use stars to juice political engagement among young viewers.