For the redstone clan, the end with Paramount pictures came as much as 31 years ago -victory after a long, bitter and very public struggle for a Hollywood institution.
This time the victory for Shari Redstone was the opportunity to sell Paramount pictures, CBS, Paramount+, MTV, Nickelodeon and other Legacy Cablers to David Ellison's Skydance Media. The battle was great costs, especially for CBS.
Skydance paid a total of around 8 billion US dollars for Paramount Global. 1994- after a 10-month touch of over-maneuvering rivals, including Barry Diller, QVC, John Malone and the mighty TELCO BellSouth Sumner Redstone Castle with the Deal for Paramount pictures alone with $ 9.5 billion in today's dollar, which is available for the infation Information has been adapted.
Before a generation, Sumner Redstone was obviously supplied with the obstacles with energy and encouraged, which he overwhelmed to secure his price, to have one of Hollywood's basic studio. For his daughter Shari Redstone, the handover to Skydance Media came with far fewer fanfare. And it came Five years almost until the death of Sumner Redstone at 97.
The company that Skydance has just bought is equipped Sui generis Assets – especially Paramount Pictures and CBS, brands that have been part of the nation's media feeling for more than a century. They are uncomfortable. But the company that ended its course as a paramount globally was covered by the macroeconomic changes that shaked all media and entertainment. Nobody was disturbed more than the Legacy Studios, who defined Hollywood's first century. And for so many reasons, no more as a paramount global.
The timing of the sale brings a booking to the decade in which Shari Redstone cleaned up her father's very great chaos in his decreasing years at the head of his Viacom empire. Sumner Redstone, who began with a chain film cinema in Neuland, acquired CBS in 2000 and put it under the Viacom ridge. Six years later, Sumner changed his opinion and decided that Viacom and CBS should work separately if both under his firm control.
Sumner Redstone's journey to buy Paramount Pictures only began when he completed the deal in September 1993. The price day would climb by more than 1 billion US dollars after completing the bid wars.
Shari Redstone returned to a large scale in autumn 2015 when her 90-year-old father went into physical decline at the Beverly Park Compound. After many reports – including the excellent report in the book “Unscripted” by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams 2023 – Shari entered an action that was worthy of “Dallas” or “Dynasty”. Planning friends, questionable business partners, a fleet of lawyers and consultants who are working on fees and a large number of other jockeys around Sumner Redstones and his business empire. With all this internal drama, it was no wonder that Paramount began to suffer from neglect and a lack of view.
HEAR: A deep look at Paramount pictures – what's next for the house that Adolph Kutor was built and David Ellison just bought (Podcast “Daily Variety”)
The methodological Sharia Redstone march due to the obstacles on the way to sorting the future of the empire of her family is an important part of the Redstone Family Legend. (See this timeline, which we published in 2016 on the events of 12 months.) In this process, Shari was convinced that she had to reunite Viacom and CBS for the sake for the sake. She achieved this in 2019 and steered more than a few roadblocks. This included the violent opposition of the former CBSCE -CEO Leslie Moonves, before it was made out of his past in the middle of a wave of sexual harassment allegations.
In retrospect, it is crystal clear that CBS would have remained better in itself if it would only be a more attractive business goal for a strategic buyer. I know that I am not the only one in the business that wonders what the industry landscape would look like today if Time Warner CBS had acquired around 2016 instead of selling to AT&T.
After Shari Redstone had endured another Shakespeare drama cycle with President Trump, “60 minutes” and a FCC boss on a Maga mission, he handed over the key to the new owner regime, which was led by David Ellison.
Ellison, like Sumner Redstone, skillfully classified his parachute jump into the vehicle in order to acquire a much bigger problem. Part of what he bought was the iron control of Shari Redstone from Paramount Global. David Ellison and his father, Oracle Milliardair Larry Ellison, have about 70% of equity in the newly shaped Paramount parachute jump and control 100% of the election power. The Melrose -Los is now the Ellison's playground.
The Ellison family had the resources to help CBS stand against the merit -free lawsuit against “60 minutes”, which President Trump had beaten the company last year. They could have inserted themselves for the accuracy of the content that Sumner Redstone estimated so much that he is known to be “content is king”. Not this time. In order to pave the way for the FCC permit, Paramount Global Trump wrote a check of 16 million US dollars to pay the lawsuit. As a lifelong CBS news viewer, it was difficult to see how the mighty eye is injured by business imperatives.
After David Ellison officially completed the deal on August 7, he made his first stop as the new boss at CBS News' operations in West 57th Street. That was a clever move for optics and otherwise. It shows that Team Ellison recognizes the heaviness of what is published for CBS News.
As the new king of the content, we take the biggest throne and hopes that Ellison understands the lessons that are to be learned from the recent past of Paramount and CBS after entrusting their future.
(Picture above: Sumner Redstone, Shari Redstone and David Ellison)