Paramount Global, the parent company of Network 10 and Paramount+, is reportedly up for grabs after it emerged that several billionaires were taking a more-than-passing interest in the firm.
Paramount is currently owned by Shari Redstone through her billionaire family’s holding company National Amusements. Alongside Paramount+ and Network 10, Paramount owns Paramount Pictures free-to-air network CBS, Nickelodeon and MTV.
However, the entire enterprise is valued at $15 billion according to the AFR. But compared to Disney, Netflix and Comcast — not to mention fellow streamer Amazon Prime Video — which are all valued in the multiple hundreds of billions, Paramount is a tiny operation.
Over the past few months, David Ellison, founder of production company Skydance and son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, started preliminary due diligence on a potential purchase of Redstone’s stake in National Amusements.
Private Equity business Apollo Global said that it was considering making a deal, while Paramount Global chief exec Bob Bakish discussed a potential merger with Warner Bros Discovery boss David Zaslav. Byron Allen, the US billionaire owner of the Allen Media Group and Entertainment Studios, made a $21.9 billion takeover effort.
Paramount, meanwhile, has been focused on cutting costs and headcount, with Bakish telling staff it would “continue to reduce our workforce globally.”
Maria Kyriacou, Paramount Global’s president of international markets, which includes Australia, has had her job cut and will leave the company at the end of March. For local staff, the AFR said that there had been no internal comms “beyond the global memos that go out from Bakish after his semi-regular chats”.
That is “the best one can hope for when being a satellite of the empire are some articles in the Hollywood trade press that are not denied,” wrote the AFR‘s Sam Buckingham-Jones.
“It’s also safe to say that these billionaire suitors are not interested in buying Paramount because of its 900-odd staff manning a network in Australia, which makes a sale very likely”.
Paramount declined to comment on the story.
