A month ago Paramount Global and Skydance Media entered into exclusive talks for a complicated merger that would see the home of Star Trek under new management. That exclusive window ends today without a deal and it appears one isn’t coming, and a competing bid from Sony (backed by Apollo) is also reportedly a non-starter.
Paramount may go it alone for now
It has been a tumultuous week for Paramount Global. As the week began it appeared that the long-gestating deal with Skydance was starting to come together starting with a final offer presented last Sunday. A big complication was coming from Apollo, the private equity firm that had previously made an offer for Paramount. Apollo has since partnered with Sony for a deal more attractive to Wall Street for the immediate premium it would deliver to shareholders. But Shari Redstone (who controls the important voting shares) still preferred working with Skydance, even though that deal would be more complicated, without being a big benefit to regular shareholders in the short term. There was disagreement within Paramount over which way to go. CEO Bob Bakish was pushed out on Monday due to clashing with Redstone over the Skydance deal. Things got even more complicated Thursday when Sony and Apollo upped their offer to $26 Billion in cash.
Now on Friday, as the exclusive window with Skydance is set to close at midnight, Variety is reporting the deal is “falling apart.” CNBC added reporting that the board overseeing the bids will not be extending the talks with Skydance. The various reports agree that things are not final and something could still happen with Skydance. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Paramount’s special board committee appears to have cooled on the offer,” however a source says talks “continue.”
Even if the deal with Skydance doesn’t materialize, that does not necessarily mean the Sony/Apollo deal will go forward. According to Variety while the committee will consider the offer (as they are required to do), the regulatory hurdles are considered a “deal breaker.” Redstone is also reportedly against the Sony deal as it would almost certainly see Paramount Global broken up, essentially becoming a brand within Sony’s portfolio. So, at least in the short term, Paramount appears ready to “go it alone” as noted by media analyst Rich Greenfield.
It is way too early to say what impact any of this will have on Star Trek, except that things should be business as usual in the short term. But a financially struggling Paramount saddled with debt and a junk-level borrowing rating will continue to look for cost cutting across the board. We have already seen how this belt-tightening has impacted the Trek franchise, but it’s likely there will more ripple effects until the parent company rights the ship.
As always, TrekMovie will monitor Paramount’s business affairs and offer reports on significant developments.
Keep up with all the corporate news that can impact Star Trek here at TrekMovie.com.
Paramount is in a bind. Cable carriage agreements are all shrinking, they have a slowly (but still) growing streaming service, and their theatrical lineup hasn’t been bringing in much cash. The debt will continue to be a heavy burden on their stock price too. Going it alone is not sustainable over time. They either accept getting broken up by a buyer, or merge their streaming with another that will take on operational costs, and/or they gut departments of staff.
or the could switch all shows and movies to streaming relerases and ditch the dated lame old timey network tv and movie theater releases
but they should only focuse on a select few franchises aka trek ,spongebob,rupaul as those are thier most reconizable shows this company makes that all do well both with viewing numbers and at least with trek and spongebob with dvd/blu-ray and other march be it books and comics and model kits with trek and clothing,toys and other merch for spongebob
They are to an extent. Law and Order Organized Crime is moving to Peacock only. If Law and Order can’t survive on CBS proper, no one is safe.
Law and Order is NBC.
CBS hasn’t moved many network shows to Paramount+-only. Evil was an exception. The irony is that CBS has had a higher bar for linear ratings success than its rivals for a long time. They cancel shows that would have been renewed anywhere else – NCIS Hawaii and So Help Me Todd being the latest this season. This is why a Star Trek show would never have survived on the network.
OOPS!!!!!!!! I keep confusing the 2. Ok, welp, CBS just cancelled Young Sheldon and to hear it from Anne Potts they are nuts cause that show is still by far the #1 on that network.
probably canceling Sheldon because the bit is literally aging
The Big Bang Theory was #1 scripted when it ended, too. Young Sheldon has more or less hit the wall if they want to maintain any sort of continuity with The Big Bang Theory. The actor is growing too much to have him still play a 12-13 year old, and the character Sheldon should be moving to Pasadena at the end of this season (we saw him choose Cal Tech an episode or two ago.) With George Sr.’s death imminent (probably to be seen in the series finale, as long predicted) Young Sheldon would have to change substantially if it were to continue, which it is doing with the Georgy/Mandy spinoff. Annie Potts is the best thing about Young Sheldon, but unless they want to do a spinoff with her (and Craig T. Nelson?) she just doesn’t fit in where the show would have to go next if it continued.
I agree. As much as we love Star Trek I don’t think any of these new shows would’ve lasted more than 2 or 3 years tops on something like CBS. The ratings for both Discovery and SNW when they aired there were pitiful. Sure they were second run but so was Yellowstone and it’s killing it on that network.
Personally I don’t watch anything on CBS but I can’t deny they still have the biggest hit shows.
Ghosts is hilarious!
But CBS and broadcast still makes money for them. It just goes to show how much Sumner Redstone screwed up when he split CBS and Viacom – he thought the former had the limited future. True enough that broadcast is fading fast, but it’s also been resilient and reliable as well as what spearheaded a streaming future, one that needed the company to scale up, not down.
I get Disco for free because of cable. The whole they give me showtime for nothing and i get all the new shows. I can’t believe there are people who pay for Paramount plus. There is no way i would pay the 16 bucks for it if it wasn’t a promo.
they shoud cancel and get rid of all of Sheridan’s crappy shows and keep the rights to them so lame brain Sheridan can’t take them elsewhere but lock them away in a vault never to see the light of day again ala WB style
they could also stop all production on made for network shows or switch them to streaming release shows they should focus all movies releases from lame old school movie theater releases to streaming releases
they should only focus on star trek and nick animated shows and rupaul’s shows and scrap the rest
This would certainly hasten Paramount’s complete collapse
More like corporate suicide.
They should just focus on streaming releases not the network tv reales and movie theaters release and keep release ing shows and movies on dvd and blu-ray
No it would not cause they would only have a hand full of shows left to put money into and won’t lose any
To parse your run on sentence, Paramount Global should only be doing Trek, anything on Nickelodeon, and RuPaul. Yeah, don’t see that happening at all….
I also said they should bump the lame dated dinosaur known as network tv and focus on only streaming releases and within two weeks of the last episodes of a season airs on paramount+ they release the season on dvd or blu-ray
As well as dump the lame old times movie theater releases for streaming releases and keep making dvd and blu-ray releases within two weeks of the movie releasing on paramount+
How would that make financial sense? The “dated” Network TV model still makes money with advertising and such. EVERYONE is losing in streaming, even the behemoth Apple isn’t doing as well as they want by a long shot. What you propose would be the nail in the coffin.
Sheridan is making Paramount a lot of money. All of his shows are strong performers.
Just curious, didn’t Yellowstone OG end after the departure of Kevin Costner? I know the Harrison Ford one is still there.
It’s still apparently a bit up in the air as to what’s happening with that. Costner is really wrapped up in his self-funded movies but recently said he was open to coming back to finish out the show. Otherwise the plan is to spin off most of the cast into a new series that would go to P+.
Ahh, ok thanks for letting me know!
his shows are crap all set in boring no modern convinces oldie old times aka late 19th and very early 20th century and on boring stinky farms and ranches all those setting need to stop having shows and films set in them same with other settings that far to back in the past just like dumb westerns set in the lame wild west
They are exceedingly popular. More so than Star Trek, RuPaul or Nickelodeon. I’m not sure how seriously to take these rants you have going here now.
+1 – I don’t care for those shows but you can’t say they aren’t popular.
Now….there’s no accounting for taste (see the popularity of Big Bang Theory….) but if you are in the business of making money I’m not sure how dropping Sheridan helps….
Please. You’re only speaking for yourself. I love all the Yellowstone productions. I only wish Trek was written half as well these days.
John J. Sheridan?
There’s very little crossover between Paramount and Sony so regulatory issues are far less of a concern than combining the assets of WBD and Comcast. If Redstone wanted to take the Sony deal, she would be able to push it through.
Shari Redstone wants preserve her father’s legacy. Sony has diluted the Columbia Pictures name to such an extent that the studio logo before a movie is little more than a formality at this point. She likely sees the same happening to Paramount, with Sony selling off Paramount Global piece-by-piece, Paramount television and film operations folded into Sony and all linear assets sold off to the highest bidder.
If they don’t take a deal look for more layoffs and less original content on Paramount+. If they take the deal with Sony, look for significantly more layoffs and a redefined Paramount+. A Sony deal would mean a lot of redundancies across television and film.
There are regulatory issues though regarding CBS and its O&O stations. As a foreign-based company, Sony would not be allowed under current rules to own any TV stations, and based on my understanding, would not be allowed majority ownership of a major broadcaster.
Plus, the merger of two legacy studios (reducing the number from 5 to 4), would likely face a lot of scrutiny, and potentially a DOJ/FTC challenge on antitrust grounds.
Which makes the sale of the O&O’s inevitable. Shari Redstone will only be be able to hold out for so long. They’re bleeding cash and despite indicating that Paramount+ will turn a profit in 2025, it’s just one small piece of a much bigger problem.
The merging of another two studios will present regulatory issues but Sony is aware that a move for Paramount is something they could navigate and ultimately succeed in pushing over the top. The same cannot be said for Comcast and WBD. Far too many assets that mirror each other.
There’s a lot of anxiety for employees at Paramount and all three scenarios currently present uncertainty and risk.
I’m reading the same business pages you guys are – I’m of the opinion that as long as the “Office of the CEO” is (supposedly) running things, that either another suitor will be along on short order, or Redstone will kiss and make up with one of the current bidders. “Office of the CEO” is no way to run a railroad, the longer that goes on the more it corrodes the value of the property.
i still hope the skydance deal happens they are the o ly company I trust with Trek
I can gaurentee that absolutely no one is discussing the future of Trek in these negotiations.
Paramount’s luck might’ve finally run out.
Would any of us even care about this story if it was a company that didn’t own and control Trek?
I wouldn’t surprised Paramount is bought by a vulture capitalist for the express purpose of liquidating it and selling off its IP and assets.
Or even worse, bought as a toy by a tech bro like Elon Musk and turned into a propaganda sewer.
Paramount, now known as “Y”
Y not?
I’m sure the Ferengi would love it!
that is the scariest thought
that racist,mysoginistic,homophobic, transphobic, right wing maga/t nutjob elmo muskrat does not need to be anywere near trek ip he need to loose everything and end up living in a old dumpster since he is a piece of human garbage
he make crap ev cars and trucks that rust and brick up when they go through car washes
and crash when auto drive is engaged and all the cars look like ugly melted jelly beans and that ugly truck looks like something rendered for playstation 1
and worthless rockets that all blow up
brain implants that kill
and ruined twitter
It’s almost like he’s never actually invented anything and doesn’t really know how to do anything other than ride the coattails of others and be a blowhard. Maybe he should run for president….
if that happens i hope disney grabs up and buys the star trek ip
or nbc/universal but if they also buy cbs ip’s i hope they buy the five-0/ncis/macgyver shared universe of shows so the new magnum pi can be back in that same shared universe which it was when it was still owned and madeby cbs
Yep, that’s a possibility.
Just don’t go to Comcast pleaaasseee!
better than wb/discovery
plus if it whent to universal trek would have come full circle back to it’s original home network nbc
Well I can’t argue there. I don’t want Zaslov anywhere near Trek!
Zaslov runs Warner Discovery or whatever it is called. Comcast owns Universal.
Ya, I was responding to Michelle that mentioned Comcast would be better than Warner Brothers Discovery.
My guess is ,Skydance seeing how serious, Sony is about this, will make another offer or,”amend” their final offer.
Perhaps but Paramount is playing a dangerous game here. Both companies could say enough and walk away if u r right
Setting aside that the Skydance deal benefits Redstone disproportionately, the romantic idea that the Ellisons will preserve the company as is and not sell off huge chunks of it after a polite grace period is rather deluded.
The Sony/Apollo deal would not be any better as there is no pretense there at all. Unfortunately what is good in the short term for Paramount shareholders isn’t what’s better for Hollywood. Paramount needs an angel investor or a semi-miraculous turnaround, otherwise some more hefty consolidations and job losses are coming. They should sell brands like Showtime and BET which do little for them now. Not getting a deal done on that front is really the only huge black mark on Bakish’s record – he did what he had to with what he had available when it came to streaming.
I would have thought that Paramount is in “Revlon duties” territory here — namely, that when it becomes clear a company will be sold, the board has a fiduciary duty to maximize the sale price.
That may be the stalling point for Redstone; once you’re in Revlon territory, you can’t claim the business judgment rule allows you to opt for the less lucrative offer even if you think it would offer longer-term benefits for the company.
Now I am no expert on business dealings and I have no idea how these stuff work but I am gonna look at this issue from the simplest point of view. Isn’t there any chance for example for Rod Roddenberry to buy back “Star Trek”,? I know he probably isn’t rich enough for it but at least if the Paramount assets are sold I would love for Roddenberry to own Star Trek. It would return back to family.
Even if he could, might not be the best idea if you want there to the budget to make more Star Trek. I doubt he could raise funding for it at the level even the beleagured Paramount can. Discovery/SNW (and possibly Starfleet Academy) cost US$60-70m a season. Rod’s personal net worth is about $50m, I can’t find any information on the finances of Roddenberry Entertainment because it’s private. Regardless I expect the valuation of the Star Trek IP is much greater than either figure – in revenue Wikipedia has it bringing in ~$11bn since 1966.
Okay Disney. Do your thing.
They are already full up trying to digest Fox still and paying down that debt. If they tried to buy up a third film studio, it might trigger anti-trust actions by the government.
No “might” about it. Anti-trust actions would be instantaneous.
That would be the worst. Trek is better off as a top priority for Paramount vs far down the rung of a behemoth with lots of bigger IPs they care more about.
Paramount just has to stay solvent. The best case scenario is they are bought by a company that doesn’t want to meddle too much beyond rooting out wasteful practices.
The only company that can turn around Star Trek is Disney, they are masters of IP.
Have you seen how terrible the physical media looks on most Disney releases in the last couple of decades? That’s not how you treat valuable intellectual property!
Geez, they haven’t even bothered to put QUIZ SHOW out on Blu-Ray — not talking 4k here, just Blu-Ray — in this country, and it is probably among the five or eight best films of the 90s.
I can just imagine how they’d handle TOS – scrub all the grain, then crop the crap out of the image to make it fit 16:9 screens.
Because every Star Wars movie and show they’ve made is amazing and didn’t dilute the brand. And Marvel didn’t hit a creative brick wall in recent years. Pirates of the Caribbean wasn’t a study in diminishing returns with every sequel, National Treasure has been handled with aplomb, so too the ultra memorable remakes of their animated hits. And the Willow tv show was so amazing its demise was mourned by everyone. And Pixar was treated with the utmost respect during the pandemic.
And on the flip side without b*tchy sarcasm, they have at least not abandoned Alien or Planet of the Apes, got out of the way for Avatar, don’t seem to have imparted more bad than good in how they’ve influenced Doctor Who, and they made a solid effort on the final Indiana Jones. They are good at exploiting IP and a lot of the things I complain about made bundles of cash, but Disney can run anything into the ground as well as anyone else.
Solo and fett and the Abrams rehashes didn’t dilute/diminish/demolish? Most of your other examples I find unwatchable though I grant you that they showed smarts with the Hawley alien series idea, which puts them above how paramount stupidly blew Hawley off.
My first paragraph was laden with sarcasm.
Disney only gets involved once whoever ends up with Paramount Global starts selling off the IP catalog.
Why they destroyed Star Wars. You can point to a show or spinoff and maybe they did a good job, all i can think about is how the ruined the sequel trilogy, and wasted Mark, Carrie and Harrison. It makes me furious to think of how they treated Luke Skywalker. I haven’t seen something so disrespectful since they killed Kirk in Star Trek Generations.
Netflix to the Rescue.
I still think it should be Apple. Paramount/CBS would massively beef up their catalog options.
Deal fading is great for Star Trek. Improved shows and movies will be coming soon. Kurtzman and Secret Hideout are settled. They have learned many lessons in the past few years. I want no changes.
A possible new merger or parent company owner, the whole franchise could end up in creative hell, again.
Show me the money. Paramount is in debt up to its ears.
This debt is not real. The NEVER loose money. Just the Paramount/CBS library, that is pure gold.
Show me that they’re even capable of learning lessons, or willing to admit how wrongheaded nearly all of their creative calls have turned out to be.
I reread a couple of the old Alan Dean Foster Trek LOG books this week, and even though they are pretty lightweight, there was more of a Trek feel to them than I’ve gotten from this whole current century of Trek thus far.
SNW, Prodigy, Lower Decks are/were a hit. Picard improved by season 3. Can’t wait to watch Section 31. And I have absolute faith Legacy is on schedule.
But Legacy isn’t even on a schedule!
To our knowledge is not on a (public) schedule. But I read somewhere, production kept the bridge and all those sets for future use. Not sure if will be a series or a movie, but I bet they will launch a continuation.
The only thing holding Paramount Executives is the ROI. SNW is equally successful, for way less. This is why they want Starfleet Academy.
The funny thing is that pressure will outweigh their cost-effective wishes. STNG/Berman era is the magic recipe for huge success right now.
TNG (Berman – pause to vomit in mouth before continuing) is nothing like a magic recipe for success right now. The novelty of seeing that crew on the -D bridge is precisely that — a novelty, a one-off, not a sustainable thing, which I guess registered for younger (now middle-aged) viewers the way seeing the E-A did for us oldtimers at the end of TVH.
I’ve nothing against the idea of there being some kind of continuation focusing on Seven and some of the other characters — though personally I find baby Picard almost as obnoxious and offputting as SNW’s Carrey-Kirk — but that would still be mainly about new stuff — at least I’d fervently hope for that to be the case — rather than wallowing in nostalgia for an era that wasn’t all that terrific to begin with (DS9 excepted, of course.)
Legacy isn’t on any schedle. And won’t be until Paramount Global gets auctioned off.
The image accompanying this article of the Enterprise going straight up has me thinking ‘don’t Giacometti that nacelle’ (as in, ‘don’t bogart that joint.’)
Whither Star Trek?
Wither star trek.
It’ll weather the storm just fine.
Now James Cameron and Ari Emanuel have come out publicly in support of the Skydance deal.
This is turning into a real Hollywood vs. Wall Street battle.
James Cameron involved in this is interesting.
He’d probably want to degrain all shot-on-film Trek the same godawful way he has been wrecking his own backlist of movies this year with ‘super clean’ versions on UHD.
He’s turning out to be GL 2.0 in some ways (then again, it has been more than 3 decades since I’ve dug a Cameron film, but I’m happy with the blu-rays of ALIENS and the first two T movies.)
I would have thought that Sony’s upcoming offer would be a good take all around . They’re a solid industry member who would take care of their aquisition for years to come . It would seem to benefit the ailing and falling position of Paramount and it’s subsidiaries . The only other possible offer may hopefully come from Jeff Bezos & Amazon Studios .
Bezos can’t even display the refit Enterprise properly– it’s like some rich guy paid a hunter to bag a big game animal, but then didn’t even have the courtesy to have it stuffed and mounted in an appropriate fashion.
Interesting , kmart . Do you have a link on the story ?
Nothing bookmarked, but the few pics I’ve seen of it on what passes for display make it look like anybody could just walk up and tear off a piece. It’s not lit either — and yet before it was last filmed, during ST VI, ILM went in and did a massive rewiring/fix-it job on the model, so it was in much better shape than previous years. Of course, transit or storage could have taken its toll … the drydock had virtually disintegrated before it reached ILM for GEN.
Thanks Kmart . I’ll browse around and see what comes up.
Warren Buffett was talking about his divesting from Paramount Global this weekend. Just some evidence that even the Wizard of Wall Street makes mistakes, too.
CNBC was chatting up the Paramount situation this morning. WBD and Comcast were mentioned. The one thing everyone agreed on was that there would be some cost cutting, regardless of who takes possession of the property.
new variety article on this doesn’t even mention specific shows like trek, which makes it seem like non-sports content is largely irrelevant in the bigger picture. https://variety.com/vip/paramount-plus-strategy-what-should-buyer-do-1235991725/
Just don’t kill Star Trek again. To this day i still want to see Enterprise season 5.
I’m an Enterpriser too , skyjedi . Just when it looked established and ready for a closing 2 seasons , they went and killed it .