• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 23, 2025

While the biggest stand-alone TV story of 2025 was the battle for Warner Bros. Discovery waged by Netflix and Paramount, the year’s other big stories had one thing in common that tied them all together: Donald Trump.

Jimmy Kimmel’s dramatic suspension and tearful return? Trump. CBS canceling Colbert? Trump. 

The “60 Minutes” lawsuit settlement? Trump. The hiring of internet firebrand Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News? Trump. 

The shuttering of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Trump. The BBC editing scandal? Trump again.

Whether or not he was directly involved in all of these stories, they were all about him in one way or another. His name appeared in more than 50 of this year’s TV Blogs.

Kimmel was suspended in September after he accused unnamed MAGA adherents of somehow plotting the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and Trump’s FCC retaliated by threatening the broadcast licenses of stations that air “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

The President was not directly involved in Paramount’s decision to end “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” after next season.

Or was he? Even if Trump had nothing to do with this decision at all, his name appeared in all the coverage anyway as some speculated that he may have applied some kind of pressure on CBS, although the network took pains to say he did not.

Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News and “60 Minutes” over a tiny edit in a Kamala Harris interview in October 2024 had been in the news ever since he filed it at the end of last year.

It was finally settled in July, with Paramount agreeing to pay Trump $16 million. In return, Trump allowed Skydance to finalize its purchase of Paramount.

Then Skydance Paramount CEO David Ellison personally hired the right-leaning Weiss to essentially run CBS News, a move many interpreted as a concession to Trump, who has long   accused CBS of liberal bias.

The CPB shut itself down after Trump-led Republicans in the Senate voted to defund it. It closes completely next month, leaving public TV and radio stations struggling to make up for lost funding.

The BBC was embroiled in a major scandal last month when it came to light that news editors had spliced and manipulated statements Trump made in his famous speech in Washington on the day of the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, to back up their argument that he blatantly incited a mob to go and attack the Capitol. 

It was a major embarrassment for the BBC, but in a way, it was also an embarrassment for TV news in general. 

In other 2025 TV news, Trump pardoned reality-TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, MSNBC became MS NOW, NBA games on TNT came to an end and NBC started airing NBA games on Tuesday nights.

As the year comes to a close, WBD is still digging in its heels in opposition to a hostile takeover bid from David Ellison’s Paramount. This story isn’t over.