6 ms·

Sounds like Paramount bosses are bidding in anger.

by linhns 10mo ago

observationist 10mo ago
They tilt like everyone else - maybe the chaos and mayhem behind the last few years of this industry mean the old guard is finally failing, and we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > and we'll see meaningful copyright reform Are you betting on the content conglomerate bidding tens of billions, or the nepo baby LBO shop wearing the corpse of a movie studio as a salmon hat to spur copyright reform?
  - awongh 10mo ago
    Paramount is dead?
    - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
      > Paramount is dead? Paramount broke its tradition of barely treading water [1] in 2023 by booking multibillion cable losses [2] before being acquired in a de facto LBO [3] at half the price it traded at in 2005 [4]. (90% off its 2021 peak, though that may have been meme-y.) Paramount Skydance–the one bidding for Warner–has $15bn of debt on $600mm operating cash flow supporting $15bn of equity trading above book value while still posting losses [5]. It's not dead. But it's at least necrotic. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/cbs:us:net-income https://tradingeconomics.com/cbs:us:net-income [2] https://www.filmtake.com/distribution/paramounts-financial-turmoil-soaring-losses-layoffs-and-massive-impairment-charge/ https://www.filmtake.com/distribution/paramounts-financial-t... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Skydance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Skydance [4] https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/para/history/ https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/para/history/ [5] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PSKY/key-statistics/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PSKY/key-statistics/
      - bnjms 10mo ago
        How does one learn to think about companies buying each other. It’s counterintuitive to me for an entity with stock to buy stock in another entity which could itself own stock in the first. The way you write it I can’t see why WB would be allowed to sell itself when it makes the most sense for Patamount to go bankrupt some time from now and be split up amongst US media; Netflix/HBO/Disney/Peacock
        vel0city 10mo ago
        You're missing the key part. The Paramount deal includes billions in Saudi money funneled through the President's son in law.
        s1artibartfast 10mo ago
        What matters is if paramount can pony up enough money to buy. Stores don't reject your cash even if you are debt.
  - observationist 10mo ago
    I'm hoping that they're sufficiently absurd in their mere existence to spur questions among the electorate. "Hey, that looks weird, and not right. Maybe we should fix that!" Yeah, I know, way too optimistic.
    - dboreham 10mo ago
      We're more likely to get government by "honest AI" than for that to happen.
- MangoToupe 10mo ago
  > we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime. I think there is a better chance of the state collapsing than there is of seeing meaningful IP reform
  - collingreen 10mo ago
    The state collapsing might effectively be copyright reform at the same time though so there's that?
- staplers 10mo ago
  we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime. That seems wildly naive... gestures broadly at world
  - Levitz 10mo ago
    The rest of the world is the one thing that gives me hope in this regard, really. It feels like year by year, Asia, even China, is becoming more and more culturally relevant. Western media is just too damn stagnant. Hollywood used to be known as possibly the most important cultural powerhouse history has seen. It might still be that, but it certainly doesn't feel like it anymore. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
    - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
      > year by year, Asia, even China, is becoming more and more culturally relevant And powerful export sectors.
    - actionfromafar 10mo ago
      China rising should not comfort anyone except Xi. They are all about raw power.
    - wooger 10mo ago
      Based on what culture exactly? Can you name a single Chinese worldwide hit movie or TV show from the last 12 months? I can think of only Korean Squid Game and a few Japanese anime shows that are somewhat successful. Do Chinese movies even get distributed into places like India, Africa, South America as US produced stuff does?
      - defrost 10mo ago
        Ne Zha 2 was huge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_Zha_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_Zha_2 Like its predecessor, the film received highly positive reviews from critics, and achieved even greater commercial success at a gross of $2.2 billion worldwide against a production budget of US$80 million. Ne Zha 2 broke numerous box office records inside and outside China, including becoming the highest-grossing film in a single box office territory, the highest-grossing animated film, being the first adult animated film in this position, the highest-grossing non-English language film and the first animated film in history to cross the $2 billion mark, as well as being the highest-selling animated film based on ticket sales. It also ranks as the highest-grossing film of 2025 and the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time. and that immediately sprang to mind for a 60+ Australian english speaking mathematician / geophysicist not of asian descent. No Google / Bing / AI required. Having grandchildren made it hard to avoid. As for China in Africa: Global power dynamics in Africa are shifting, with China eclipsing the influence of the US and France. China has become Africa’s single largest trading partner. is true, but has been overstated by some to raise fear of Red Menace. Source: https://theconversation.com/maps-showing-chinas-growing-influence-in-africa-distort-reality-but-some-risks-are-real-249454 https://theconversation.com/maps-showing-chinas-growing-infl... FWiW China has been a significant employer of US mercs in Africa. eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Services_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Services_Group
moffers 10mo ago
I think the political angle of this should not be discounted
- Spivak 10mo ago
  I mean it's not even politics in the way most people think about it—like this is just blatant corruption. Trump moved in and said this is my swamp. We're not even gonna get a good investigative journalism podcast about the corruption because it's just right there in front of you. There's not much to uncover.
  - softwaredoug 10mo ago
    We need some kind of independent anti-corruption agency, like the one we told Ukraine they had to have to receive aid.
    - heurist 10mo ago
      Didn't that anti-corruption agency end up being corrupt too? Hard to follow all this stuff.
      - Muromec 10mo ago
        Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week. Add: it's also not one anticorruption agency, but the whole bunch of them -- law enforcement one (think of FBI, but investigating corruption in government), special prosecutors office, another agency monitoring assets of anyone close enough to government (including immigration officers on a country level) and their family and a whole separate court with judges vetted by independent panel. It's elections of Doge of Venice level of indirection.
        perihelions 10mo ago
        > "Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week." That's the same guy who tried to take over that anti-corruption office. He would be controlling it now, if it weren't for the massive country-wide protests about it. I'm not sure that they're doing fine. Economist, July 2025: > "On July 22nd the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, passed a bill that would place the country’s two main anti-corruption bodies—NABU, which investigates wrongdoing, and SAPO, which prosecutes it—under the control of the presidency. This was not the work of rogue MPs. It was orchestrated from the top by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his all-powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak." https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/07/23/volodymyr-zelensky-has-made-a-strategic-blunder https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/07/23/volodymyr-zelen... ( https://archive.is/kYh4w https://archive.is/kYh4w ) BBC, last week: "...was forced to U-turn after mass demonstrations", https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0nljm4y74o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0nljm4y74o ("Andriy Yermak: How Zelensky's right-hand man fell from power" / "Fall of Zelensky's top aide - reboot for Kyiv or costly shake-up?") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_anti-corruption_protests_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_anti-corruption_protests_...
doublerabbit 10mo ago
One can only wish to have that amount of money to bid in anger.
- askvictor 10mo ago
  Don't worry, it's other peoples' money.
  - actionfromafar 10mo ago
    Uncle Saud yes, Uncle Sam, no. You think Kushner won’t find a way to invest your tax money into himself?
WorldMaker 10mo ago
They've just about said as much. They thought they had a friendly bid in the works just before WB announced a more exclusive friendly bidding process with Netflix. Definitely some drama going on there.
- red-iron-pine 10mo ago
  they snoozed they losed

Sounds like Paramount bosses are bidding in anger.

by linhns 10mo ago

Sounds like Paramount bosses are bidding in anger.

They tilt like everyone else - maybe the chaos and mayhem behind the last few years of this industry mean the old guard is finally failing, and we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime.

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> and we'll see meaningful copyright reform Are you betting on the content conglomerate bidding tens of billions, or the nepo baby LBO shop wearing the corpse of a movie studio as a salmon hat to spur copyright reform?
- awongh 10mo ago
  Paramount is dead?
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > Paramount is dead? Paramount broke its tradition of barely treading water [1] in 2023 by booking multibillion cable losses [2] before being acquired in a de facto LBO [3] at half the price it traded at in 2005 [4]. (90% off its 2021 peak, though that may have been meme-y.) Paramount Skydance–the one bidding for Warner–has $15bn of debt on $600mm operating cash flow supporting $15bn of equity trading above book value while still posting losses [5]. It's not dead. But it's at least necrotic. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/cbs:us:net-income https://tradingeconomics.com/cbs:us:net-income [2] https://www.filmtake.com/distribution/paramounts-financial-turmoil-soaring-losses-layoffs-and-massive-impairment-charge/ https://www.filmtake.com/distribution/paramounts-financial-t... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Skydance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Skydance [4] https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/para/history/ https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/para/history/ [5] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PSKY/key-statistics/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PSKY/key-statistics/
    - bnjms 10mo ago
      How does one learn to think about companies buying each other. It’s counterintuitive to me for an entity with stock to buy stock in another entity which could itself own stock in the first. The way you write it I can’t see why WB would be allowed to sell itself when it makes the most sense for Patamount to go bankrupt some time from now and be split up amongst US media; Netflix/HBO/Disney/Peacock
      - vel0city 10mo ago
        You're missing the key part. The Paramount deal includes billions in Saudi money funneled through the President's son in law.
      - s1artibartfast 10mo ago
        What matters is if paramount can pony up enough money to buy. Stores don't reject your cash even if you are debt.
- observationist 10mo ago
  I'm hoping that they're sufficiently absurd in their mere existence to spur questions among the electorate. "Hey, that looks weird, and not right. Maybe we should fix that!" Yeah, I know, way too optimistic.
  - dboreham 10mo ago
    We're more likely to get government by "honest AI" than for that to happen.
MangoToupe 10mo ago
> we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime. I think there is a better chance of the state collapsing than there is of seeing meaningful IP reform
- collingreen 10mo ago
  The state collapsing might effectively be copyright reform at the same time though so there's that?
staplers 10mo ago
we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime. That seems wildly naive... gestures broadly at world
- Levitz 10mo ago
  The rest of the world is the one thing that gives me hope in this regard, really. It feels like year by year, Asia, even China, is becoming more and more culturally relevant. Western media is just too damn stagnant. Hollywood used to be known as possibly the most important cultural powerhouse history has seen. It might still be that, but it certainly doesn't feel like it anymore. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > year by year, Asia, even China, is becoming more and more culturally relevant And powerful export sectors.
  - actionfromafar 10mo ago
    China rising should not comfort anyone except Xi. They are all about raw power.
  - wooger 10mo ago
    Based on what culture exactly? Can you name a single Chinese worldwide hit movie or TV show from the last 12 months? I can think of only Korean Squid Game and a few Japanese anime shows that are somewhat successful. Do Chinese movies even get distributed into places like India, Africa, South America as US produced stuff does?
    - defrost 10mo ago
      Ne Zha 2 was huge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_Zha_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_Zha_2 Like its predecessor, the film received highly positive reviews from critics, and achieved even greater commercial success at a gross of $2.2 billion worldwide against a production budget of US$80 million. Ne Zha 2 broke numerous box office records inside and outside China, including becoming the highest-grossing film in a single box office territory, the highest-grossing animated film, being the first adult animated film in this position, the highest-grossing non-English language film and the first animated film in history to cross the $2 billion mark, as well as being the highest-selling animated film based on ticket sales. It also ranks as the highest-grossing film of 2025 and the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time. and that immediately sprang to mind for a 60+ Australian english speaking mathematician / geophysicist not of asian descent. No Google / Bing / AI required. Having grandchildren made it hard to avoid. As for China in Africa: Global power dynamics in Africa are shifting, with China eclipsing the influence of the US and France. China has become Africa’s single largest trading partner. is true, but has been overstated by some to raise fear of Red Menace. Source: https://theconversation.com/maps-showing-chinas-growing-influence-in-africa-distort-reality-but-some-risks-are-real-249454 https://theconversation.com/maps-showing-chinas-growing-infl... FWiW China has been a significant employer of US mercs in Africa. eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Services_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Services_Group

moffers 10mo ago

I think the political angle of this should not be discounted

Spivak 10mo ago
I mean it's not even politics in the way most people think about it—like this is just blatant corruption. Trump moved in and said this is my swamp. We're not even gonna get a good investigative journalism podcast about the corruption because it's just right there in front of you. There's not much to uncover.
- softwaredoug 10mo ago
  We need some kind of independent anti-corruption agency, like the one we told Ukraine they had to have to receive aid.
  - heurist 10mo ago
    Didn't that anti-corruption agency end up being corrupt too? Hard to follow all this stuff.
    - Muromec 10mo ago
      Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week. Add: it's also not one anticorruption agency, but the whole bunch of them -- law enforcement one (think of FBI, but investigating corruption in government), special prosecutors office, another agency monitoring assets of anyone close enough to government (including immigration officers on a country level) and their family and a whole separate court with judges vetted by independent panel. It's elections of Doge of Venice level of indirection.
      - perihelions 10mo ago
        > "Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week." That's the same guy who tried to take over that anti-corruption office. He would be controlling it now, if it weren't for the massive country-wide protests about it. I'm not sure that they're doing fine. Economist, July 2025: > "On July 22nd the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, passed a bill that would place the country’s two main anti-corruption bodies—NABU, which investigates wrongdoing, and SAPO, which prosecutes it—under the control of the presidency. This was not the work of rogue MPs. It was orchestrated from the top by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his all-powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak." https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/07/23/volodymyr-zelensky-has-made-a-strategic-blunder https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/07/23/volodymyr-zelen... ( https://archive.is/kYh4w https://archive.is/kYh4w ) BBC, last week: "...was forced to U-turn after mass demonstrations", https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0nljm4y74o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0nljm4y74o ("Andriy Yermak: How Zelensky's right-hand man fell from power" / "Fall of Zelensky's top aide - reboot for Kyiv or costly shake-up?") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_anti-corruption_protests_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_anti-corruption_protests_...

doublerabbit 10mo ago

One can only wish to have that amount of money to bid in anger.

askvictor 10mo ago
Don't worry, it's other peoples' money.
- actionfromafar 10mo ago
  Uncle Saud yes, Uncle Sam, no. You think Kushner won’t find a way to invest your tax money into himself?

WorldMaker 10mo ago

They've just about said as much. They thought they had a friendly bid in the works just before WB announced a more exclusive friendly bidding process with Netflix. Definitely some drama going on there.

red-iron-pine 10mo ago
they snoozed they losed