(Reuters) -David Rhodes, Sky News executive chairman and former CBS News head, is in talks to run CBS News again if the Skydance acquisition of the broadcaster’s owner Paramount Global closes, digital news website Puck reported on Friday.
Rhodes, who was president at CBS from 2011 to 2019 and previously spent a decade with Fox News, has emerged as a likely successor at CBS News, where he may be advised by Bari Weiss, co-founder of online news outlet Free Press, Puck said.
Tom Cibrowski is the current president and executive editor of CBS News.
Rhodes is very happy in London at Sky News, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, requesting anonymity as the matter is private.
The New York Times reported last week that Skydance Media CEO David Ellison had held preliminary talks to acquire Weiss’ Free Press as well.
Reuters could not immediately verify the Puck report. CBS News, Paramount and Skydance did not respond to requests for comment. Rhodes did not respond to a request for comment on LinkedIn.
On Thursday, CBS canceled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the most-watched late-night program on U.S. broadcast television and a frequent platform of satire aimed at President Donald Trump.
CBS said the show will end its 10-year run in May 2026 and described it as “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late-night.”
CBS-owner Paramount Global is seeking approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for an $8.4-billion merger with Skydance Media.
Paramount earlier this month agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with his former Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, that CBS’s “60 Minutes” broadcast in October.
(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh and Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Philippa Fletcher)
