Most sports leagues investigate when referees socialize with team owners. The FCC apparently skips that step. In December 2025, FCC Chair Brendan Carr and his wife sat in a private Kennedy Center skybox alongside Paramount CEO David Ellison and CBS executives — seats that sell for $125,000 each, according to Kennedy Center guidelines cited by ProPublica. Five months earlier, Carr voted to approve Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Now Paramount needs the same agency’s blessing on a proposed $110 billion deal with Warner Bros. Discovery. The referee sat in the owner’s suite. Then went back to calling the game.
A Decade of Skyboxes and Billion-Dollar Votes
The gift pipeline between Paramount and FCC commissioners stretches back years and spans both parties.
Over $260,000 in Kennedy Center Honors tickets flowed from CBS and its parent company to seven of the last ten FCC commissioners since 2016, according to ProPublica’s analysis of federal ethics disclosures. Add gifts from NBCUniversal, ABC-Disney, and Fox News for events like the White House Correspondents’ dinner, and the decade-long total tops $308,000.
Carr accepted Kennedy Center gala tickets from Paramount at least seven times since 2017, totaling over $63,000 per his ethics disclosures. In December 2024 — while the Paramount-Skydance merger was pending — he accepted two tickets worth $11,724 and reportedly used the reception to advise Paramount executives on securing FCC approval, according to watchdog group Accountable.US. Commissioner Olivia Trusty attended the December 2025 gala on Paramount’s dime with tickets valued above $12,000, five months after casting the decisive vote approving the Skydance deal.
Federal ethics rules bar officials from accepting gifts from regulated entities. A 2009 Office of Government Ethics memo specifically states Kennedy Center tickets are permissible only when offered by the Center itself — not by regulated corporations. The FCC’s defense: agency ethics officers cleared these appearances across Obama, Biden, and Trump administrations.
When the rulebook says one thing and the agency shrugs, ethics experts notice. Notable reactions include:
- Former OGE director Walter Shaub called the practice “terrible” for public trust and dismissed the years-long precedent defense as “outrageous.”
- Virginia Canter of Democracy Defenders Fund called it “shocking.”
- Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center labeled it an “obvious conflict of interest.”
“There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect.” — Walter Shaub, former Office of Government Ethics director
What’s Actually at Stake
The pending $110 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger would consolidate CBS, CNN, HBO Max, and Paramount+ under a single corporate roof.
Subscribers to HBO Max, Paramount+, CBS, or CNN would see all of it consolidated under one owner. Twelve states have filed suit to block it. More than 5,000 entertainment workers — including Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix — signed an open letter warning the deal would destroy jobs and undermine editorial independence.
Former Bush administration ethics lawyer Richard Painter warned that a court may find the FCC’s merger approval “isn’t worth jack because the process was corrupted,” according to ProPublica. The FCC currently has only three commissioners. Recusals by Carr and Trusty over ethics concerns could leave the agency unable to vote at all — forcing an unprecedented workaround.
One commissioner saw this coming. Nathan Simington declined every gala invitation, saying the event simply “wasn’t my cup of tea.” The $110 billion question now sits with the same commission that keeps accepting the tickets.
