Ellisons will go on buying spree should Paramount-Skydance deal ever get green light
David Ellison doesn’t even own Paramount but he’s planning to grow it, On The Money has learned.The Skydance chief – with money to burn from his billionaire dad, Oracle founder Larry Ellison – knows that in the new era of media, he needs scale to compete even when most other media companies are floundering.Meanwhile, Shari Redstone is said to be willing to throw Donald Trump up to $50 million to settle a lawsuit with Paramount’s CBS News subsidiary to make it happen, On The Money can confirm.More on that in a bit. Scale is something that Paramount – with a money-losing streaming channel and old media properties like CBS, Nickelodeon and MTV, plus a movie studio – just doesn’t have.
It’s one of the reasons the controlling Redstone family is selling.Put simply, Paramount is too small to compete with industry giants like Comcast and Warner Bros.Discovery.So the talk in media circles is that once the Paramount-Skydance deal is signed and approved by the White House (more on that arduous road in a moment) David and Larry will start buying stuff.One problem is that Paramount has a relatively small international presence.
That means David (or to be more precise Larry) will have to dip into his wallet to expand the reach of its streaming product outside the US if they want it to start making even a few bucks like rival Warner Bros.Discovery has accomplished in its foray into streaming.Paramount could also use better signature media properties.
CBS is not what it was, and as we will discuss, its news division is a bastion of trouble for all its history of great journalism.Nickelodeon and MTV have seen viewership decline because of cord cutting and competition from social media (think TikTok).I am told Skydance’s new management led by the very capable Jeff Shell, formerly of NBCU, and currently with RedBird Capital (Skydance’s partner in the deal), can’t wait to get its hands on CBS Sports products and modernize delivery.But sports are expensive...