WSJ today reporting that Skydance and backers are exploring an all-cash deal for a majority stake in National Amusements:
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
The Paramount Saga
- Thread starter michael hagerty
- Start date
Skydance? Headed by David Ellison, whose father is Larry Ellison. In other words, a guy who was born at the top of the heap and worked his way up from there to the paramount. Sure, what could go wrong with this scenario?
(I used to hold a few shares of Oracle in my IRA, and decided one year to attend their annual meeting. Ever meet someone that is so smug and arrogant that you instantly despise him? That's Larry Ellison. If David is anything like his dad, he might be the perfect person to replace that lovable rascal Sumner Redstone as the Paramount Leader. Larry sure as hell would be.)
(I used to hold a few shares of Oracle in my IRA, and decided one year to attend their annual meeting. Ever meet someone that is so smug and arrogant that you instantly despise him? That's Larry Ellison. If David is anything like his dad, he might be the perfect person to replace that lovable rascal Sumner Redstone as the Paramount Leader. Larry sure as hell would be.)
From the view of the consumer, would be a good thing. I have both Philo (has every Paramount owned cable channels except Showtime) and Paramount Plus. Remains to be seen what kind of changes they would make, but would be interesting. (Perhaps they could reduce adload on cable channels, which are infamously long on their stations.)
Not likely. You don't spend money to lose money. Plus a lot of those ads are coming from the cable companies.
No, but Paramount has 30 minute shows in 35 minute slots and things like Mr. Deeds running for 2.5 hours. Other companies do not do that practice. WBD has eliminated split screen credits on some channels like Cartoon Network, so could be a possibility.
Show timing has little to do with this potential acquisition.
I was looking through some of the Paramount cable channels and can’t help but wonder how much longer they’ll be viable, especially with cord cutting continuing. Specifically TV Land and Logo. Both are just block repeats of shows that are available on streaming or OTA, much like some of the other “general entertainment” channels that have been shut down in recent years. No original programming anymore. I believe they ceased new programming on TV Land and Logo several years ago and moved what was kept to other, stronger networks.
Changing of the guard can sometimes result in certain practices being changed. Paramount is the only company who "stretches" showtimes like that (other companies speed up shows, but not that) so it remains to be seen if bought if that practice stays in place. King of Queens on TV Land is 35 minutes, whereas on FYI and other networks, it has always been the normal 30.
My take is that they don't view them as "channels" but rather as "brands."
Everybody is trying to get out of linear 24/7 channels.
Reruns of popular shows even available on streaming are quite lucritive. Sometimes just flipping through channels and landing on Everybody Loves Raymond or Seinfeld is what a lot of people who still watch linear do. (Big Bang reruns and Friends reruns are still among the top watched shows for cable ratings, even though they are on Max.) Do not know about small networks like Logo, though.
Again, minutiae like this isn't even a slight consideration for mergers and purchases. Existing owners or new, they'll time the program lengths to maximize revenue, whether that's subscription or spots loads.
Who knows...perhaps they are doing something right or are ahead of the curve and others will adopt this same practice (someday maybe every cable station will adopt this practice.)
Just a gentle reminder that these fact-free wanderings through the frontal lobes got the last thread locked down.
I wonder if Tall_Guy and Kirk talk offline to come up with the most bizarre, off topic wanderings? After all, they both live in the greater KC area.
Well, is a fact they do that practice across their stations, but will try not to wander and stay on topic.
This has me imagining secret meetings by the waterfall in the lobby of the Westin Crown Center.
It's rare for second-generation anyone to match the achievements of their highly successful parent.
Quoting from Robert C. Townsend's Further Up the Organization (2nd edition, 1984):
And, of course, RCA never did recover.
I've hired people who have worked at Oracle. From them I've heard that, on the one hand, Oracle was pretty relaxed on remote work. On the other, people could go for years there without a raise. In a successful tech company with a business model built on recurring licensing revenue, that's not normal.
Last edited:
I bet a lot of them owned stock. When I felt I was underpaid, I bought stock, and it changed my life.