The announcement today that Wendy McMahon is stepping down from her post as President of CBS News and Stations was a surprise announcement that didn’t seem that much of a surprise, at least to anyone who has been paying attention to the palace intrigue at the place once called “the Tiffany Network.”

Back in those heady days, employed as a promotion producer for the network’s New York City flagship station in 1980, we produced a promo in which we had animated the legendary CBS logo “eye” to appear to quickly close and open. It aired once before triggering a call from a high-ranking executive in the network’s corporate headquarters (The building at 51 West 52nd is known as “Black Rock,” due to the black granite facade of the building designed by famed architect Eero Saarinen.) The executive commanded that the animation be removed from the air immediately. Why? The icy reply: “Because the CBS eye does not blink.”

That animation never aired again, at least on our watch.

Wendy McMahon’s career has been the type that many graduating from colleges and universities this month would hope for. In her first decade, she went from being a station promotion manager in local markets such as Savannah, Jacksonville, Austin, Minneapolis, and Boston to joining the Disney/ABC family at KABC-TV in Los Angeles in 2009. Less than a decade later, she would become the President of all the ABC Owned Stations. Though we don’t know her personally, it is safe to say that she knows the television business very well.

Her industry cred made her a stellar pick by CBS CEO George Cheeks to lead the CBS-owned stations in 2021. That year, The Los Angeles Times published a devastating investigation into the misdeeds of her predecessor as head of the CBS-owned stations, Peter Dunn. The exposé and the fallout led to Dunn’s termination along with the then-VP of News for the local stations, David Friend.

McMahon’s arrival at CBS was just part of a then-curious combination of the network’s long-storied news division and the owned stations to create a new CBS News and Stations division. McMahon would originally share leadership of this newly combined unit with former Hearst executive Neeraj Khemlani. This reorganization would come just a few years after another scandal had rocked the network’s news division. In 2017, The Washington Post published a story detailing decades of misconduct by morning anchor Charlie Rose. The subsequent mess from both missteps led to the unusual move to combine the news and stations groups, which have always been run as separate business units at the other major networks.

As a former CBS Stations employee, we were doubly puzzled by the combination of the two entities and the power-sharing arrangement. While one might think that the idea of formally combining the newsgathering resources of the network and its 28 local stations, located in 17 of the nation’s largest markets, could produce great “synergy.” However, combining the 5,000 or so employees in very disparate cultures and quite different businesses would be no simple task. And it would turn out to be anything but.

Khemlani returned to CBS, where he had once been a Producer for “60 Minutes,” after spending a dozen years at Hearst, working in varying leadership capacities. His knowledge of the news and editorial side of the business and McMahon’s strength in station leadership set up the pair to hopefully create a stronger approach to dealing with the shifting fundamentals of a business going through the digital transformation that has changed much of the nature of broadcasting in recent years.

But Khemlani’s reportedly “rude and bullying behavior” (detailed in stories from The New York Post) as he openly pursued significant cost-cutting goals, led to his leaving for a “first-look” producing deal with CBS’s parent, Paramount, after just two “tumultuous” years in his position. As half the duo left, Wendy McMahon dropped the “co-” from her title and took on the single role of leading the CBS News and Stations division.

Less than a year later, in July 2024, Paramount Global and Skydance Media announced intentions to merge their two companies in a deal in which Skydance, primarily a Hollywood entertainment company known for live-action and animated movies, would acquire National Amusements, the company controlled by Shari Redstone. National Amusements is Paramount’s largest shareholder. Subsequently, Skydance would do an all-stock deal to merge with Paramount Global and its media empire, including CBS.

The review process for the merger has been anything but simple, complicated further by the change in administrations in Washington, DC, last November. Then candidate Donald Trump would sue CBS News’s 60 Minutes broadcast, initially for $10 billion-later revised to $20 billion- over the editing of an interview with Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, which aired in the run-up to election day. The lawsuit, which Paramount called “baseless,” typically would be strongly fought by a news organization the stature of CBS. But now, it impedes getting the Paramount-Skydance merger across the finish line.

Now-President Trump has been vocal about his displeasure with subsequent strong reports from 60 Minutes on topics ranging from the situation in Gaza to executive orders being used to target some of the nation’s largest law firms. The unblinking reporting has reportedly also angered Paramount Chair Shari Redstone, who stands to make $2.4 billion–if and when the merger with Skydance is completed. 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens was clear in his resignation last month that his departure was in large part over corporate meddling in the coverage produced by the venerable newsmagazine that is typically among the most-watched programs on television.

The lawsuit isn’t the only thing slowing down the merger. Newly installed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has piled on with an inquiry by the commission into the 60 Minutes interview with Harris. This is unique because the FCC has no direct authority over CBS News, as the network and its news division are not licensed by the government. But the broadcast stations owned by CBS (and part of the CBS News and Stations division of CBS, and its parent Paramount) are licensed by the FCC. Before re-election, then-candidate Trump called for CBS to “lose its license.” The previous FCC Chair, Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic appointee, denounced that position and stated that the Commission “does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”

Today’s departure by Wendy McMahon seemingly indicates that she is also leaving over the struggle for “editorial independence.” As reported by TheDesk.Net, McMahon wrote in her farewell email to the CBS staff: “The past few months have been challenging. It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”

And just before we were going to push the “publish” button on this column, The Desk’s Matthew Keys scooped the story that 60 Minutes pulled a story from this past Sunday’s show that was set to air, examining the order to lay off thousands of “probationary employees” at the Internal Revenue Service. A Paramount spokesperson told The Desk that the story was rescheduled after producers learned that the IRS had reversed the layoffs and that the story will be broadcast “in the future.”

Apparently, in this same time frame, CNBC reports that CBS CEO George Cheeks was meeting with Wendy McMahon on Saturday and asked for her resignation. She apparently agreed, and the Paramount board was informed of the decision in a call held on Sunday.

As much as today’s announcement of her departure shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, don’t be further shocked if, in the coming days or weeks, there is an announcement of a settlement in Mr. Trump’s pending lawsuit against CBS. Just as ABC and its parent, Disney, settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump last year with a $15 million contribution to a future Trump Presidential library, we could see another contribution coming from Paramount.

As we typed that last paragraph, up pops an alert from The New Republic that ABC is back in the spotlight of criticism from the 47th President for its coverage of the proposed donation of a Boeing 747 jet from Qatar, purportedly to be used as a new “Air Force One” and then perhaps given to the not-yet-announced Trump Presidential Library.

In the current climate, settling lawsuits against news organizations that might have been vigorously fought in the past may just be “the cost of doing business.” Maybe it all just comes down to figuring out who will blink first.

And maybe after all this time, the CBS eye does blink.