Clownfish TV: Audio Edition
Hollywood Sold for SCRAP! Paramount and Skydance MERGE!
Paramount and Skydance ARE merging afterall, as Hollywood legacy studios continue to get sold off for scrap to tech moguls. Will there even be a "Hollywood" left in 5 or 10 years? Also still on the table: Paramount selling everything that isn’t nailed down. Could this include Nickelodeon? MTV? Even Star Trek? Who knows... ➡️ Tip Jar and Fan Support: http://ClownfishSupport.com ➡️ Official Merch Store: http://ShopClownfish.com ➡️ Official Website: http://ClownfishTV.com ➡️ Audio Edition: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qJc5C6OkQkaZnGCeuVOD1 About Us: Clownfish TV is an independent, opinionated news and commentary channel that covers Entertainment and Tech from a consumer’s point of view. We talk about Gaming, Comics, Anime, TV, Movies, Animation and more. Hosted by Kneon and Geeky Sparkles. Disclaimer: This series is produced by Clownfish Studios and WebReef Media, and is part of ClownfishTV.com. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of our guests, affiliates, sponsors, or advertisers. ClownfishTV.com is an unofficial news source and has no connection to any company that we may cover. This channel and website and the content made available through this site are for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing. #Hollywood #Paramount #StarTrek #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech
[MUSIC PLAYING] Now at T-Mobile, get four 5G phones on us and four lines for $25 a line per month when you switch with eligible traders, all on America's largest 5G network. [MUSIC PLAYING] Minimum of four lines for $25 per line per month without a paid discount using debit or bank account, $5 more per line without auto pay, plus taxes and fees and $10 device connection charge. Phones would be at 24-month in bill credits for well qualified customers, contact us before canceling entire accounts to continue bill credits or credit stop and balance on a required finance agreement to bill credit and if you pay off devices early, ctmobile.com. Are you a lover of all things dark and creepy, of graveyards and monsters, haunted houses, and spooky legends? Then welcome to Lor. I'm Aaron Mankey. For close to 10 years now, I've been sharing history's darkest stories with millions of listeners around the world. Tune in each week as we explore the folklore, ghost tales, and local legends that delivered the chills you're looking for. Learn more and subscribe today over at Lor podcast.com. Hey, guys, this is the audio edition of Clownfish TV. If you guys are unfamiliar with Clownfish TV, please check out the video versions of these episodes on the Clownfish TV YouTube channel and also on the Clownfish Gaming YouTube channel. Please subscribe for more podcast. Check out D-Res. That's our other podcast. The episode will begin in a couple of seconds. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) Hey, guys. Welcome back to Clownfish TV. This is Neon, not here with Kiki Sparkles in this video, but I am back. We should be doing videos together here later today, hopefully. We're going to talk about Paramount. We're going to talk about Skydance. We're going to talk about this merger. It is happening, guys. It's happening, they're going to merge and they're still open to selling off assets. So I have to wonder which assets they're willing to sell off. Now, what's interesting about Skydance, if you go out to their website, you'll see that they actually have quite the history with Paramount. In fact, a lot of their movies were distributed through Paramount, Top Gun Maverick, Transformers, the ill-fated Snake Eyes, the underrated Netflix Atom Project movie. I thought that was actually pretty, pretty okay, but they've worked with Paramount before. So this isn't anything new, mission-impossible, Star Trek Beyond, which I was surprised. I forgot Skydance was even associated with that one. I watched it like one time. It wasn't terrible, but it was okay. But we're going to talk about this 'cause there definitely is a history here. So I'm not sure that on the surface, we're really going to see much of a difference. It just sounds to me like Skydance is going to probably just take over the IP and make movies and TV shows themselves. Now, I have to wonder what happens to Paramount Plus. That's kind of a big question, and that one's not doing so hot. So it's possible that they could just shut it down or just kick all the Paramount stuff over to Netflix or Hulu or they were talking about HBO Max or whatever. I don't know yet. Now, remember, Paramount does own MTV. They own Nickelodeon. They own a bunch of TV stations on top of Star Trek, whatever. So I don't know what's going to be sold, but we're going to talk about this. Before we get into it any further, please subscribe for more pop culture news views and Rance guys has come from CNN. Paramount, the media empire behind CBS and Top Gun agrees to merge with Skydance. Paramount, the sprawling global media empire behind CBS, MTV, and one of Hollywood's most storied movie studios, which they talk about selling, by the way, they're going to sell the Paramount lot. Whatever's not nailed down, that's crazy. They've agreed to merge with technology science, David Ellison, Skydance media, ending years of speculation over the company's faith. The deal announced late Sunday comes just weeks after a previous offer from Ellison to acquire Paramount collapsed, stunning industry observers and raising questions about the beleaguered media company's future. The agreement cements Ellison as a media mogul, ending Sherry Redstone's control of Paramount through her family's national amusement's holding company after her father summer, some, I'm sorry, Sumner Redstone won a fierce bidding war to piece together the media conglomerate in the 1980s. The complicated transaction will see Skydance first by national amusement's then merge with Paramount valuing Skydance at $4.75 billion. Ellison's production company will invest $2.4 billion to acquire national amusement's for cash and $4.5 billion for the stock cash merger consideration to be paid for publicly traded class A shares and class B shares blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The combined company will be helmed by Ellison as CEO and former NBC Universal Chief Jeff Schell as president, that's interesting. And a call with investors Monday morning Ellison and Schell laid out their strategy for Paramount, aiming to become a technological leader in the streaming space. So okay, they're not getting rid of Paramount plus, I guess, announcing a reorganization plan that will include $2 billion in cost cuts. If it ain't nailed down, they're gonna sell it and we're gonna talk about that here later. I think a lot of people are gonna be out of work. Now the one bright spot at Skydance right now, at least in terms of names attached is animation. Skydance is ramping up its animation and John Lasseter, who was pushed out of Disney and Pixar, is in charge of that. And he actually took a bunch of Disney vets with him. Now what's really interesting, we talked about this in other videos, was that the head of animation at Paramount refused to work with Predator, John Lasseter, even though I don't know exactly what the deal was with him. Like he hugged the people. Disney didn't fire him on the spot. They left him right out his contract. So I don't know what's, I don't know what's up with it. I don't know specifically what happened. I think there were people, personal opinion, I think there were people at Disney who didn't like him and they saw an opportunity to get rid of him because everybody could get me too in 2017, 2018, right? You can be like, hey, that guy just looked at me weird. Oh, okay, fired. You know, you're a middle-aged white man. Yeah, you're fired. Goodbye, goodbye. Anyway, they said we love the creative engine of the company, but obviously a big chunk of the company is in the linear world and we know that linear is challenged in declining. I think a lot of us in the business know we've got to run these businesses in a different way as they decline. The deal caps a tumultuous and protracted saga that began December. They began negotiations in April and they ousted the the chief then Bob Bakish and they have Brian Robbins, Chris McCarthy and George Cheeks are running it now, not to be confused with a master Cheeks. That's his son. Well, legacy media companies have struggled in recent years paramount with this extensive portfolio of cable channels, including MTV and Comedy Central has been heavily exposed to the earthshaking consumer shift away from shitty programming. No, from the traditional television model to streaming. Yeah, it said paramount plus is not doing well. They said it was too late to the game. The iconic company's valuation has plunged. Shares of paramount have fallen more than 75% in five years. Wow. They said in recent months this takeover offers for paramount began to once again heat up Sony pictures and private equity firm Apollo, Apollo Global Management offered 26 billion that would have made Sony the majority shareholder and Apollo the minority shareholder but the deal would have resulted in the breakup of paramount prospect that Redstone rejected. Interesting. So they might sell stuff off though. So this is also coming from the Hollywood Reporter Skydance team will be supportive of paramount selling offs masses. And so their assets here, which we think are not strategic to where we're going and if we were to get a buyer to pay a price that we thought was compelling, we would absolutely do that. Shell said and we know current management is also talking about a couple of transactions that if they get the right price will be supportive of could they be selling off like Nickelodeon assets? Could they be selling off? I mean, if they want to get into streaming, they need content, right? They've dropped the ball with Star Trek. They definitely drop the ball with Halo. I mean, there's a lot of things I can think of they could offload and make some money. After the deal closes, paramount plans to acquire Skydance with Shell as president. They said, yeah, that they are definitely open to selling stuff. So there are going to be a lot of cost cuts. There are going to be a lot of people lose their jobs. I think we're going to see a lot of screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth on social media as people have their deals canceled, as people get ousted from whatever positions they were in. This is part of M&A. But this is also kind of like end stage Hollywood, right? I mean, we said in another episode that Hollywood is being torn down and sold for scrap. And we have another tech company, basically this guy's all about tech, Skydance. And they're buying Paramount, which is a massive piece of Hollywood history and they weren't even talking. They would sell off the lot. Like, I don't think they have these sentimental attachment to this stuff that Hollywood does. And I have to wonder if a lot of what's going on now with the strikes and AI and all of that, it's going to be kind of like for nothing. 'Cause I think that once tech companies own the entertainment industry, it's going to change everything. And how we consume and what we consume, it's going to be changed. I think that the days of the movie star are over. I don't think people care anymore. I think that the glitz and glamour is gone. People lost interest in Hollywood decades ago, I think. And we've just been kind of coasting on fumes. It's just that just old Hollywood is never going to come back. And now people think of Hollywood and they think of a lot of weirdos with activist hot takes and people who are completely out of touch with normal people, everyday people. And yeah, the gods have been made mortal, right? I know a lot of other people have said that, but that is kind of what is going to happen. And I think 10 years from now it's going to be really interesting to look at the entertainment industry and be like, do we even call that Hollywood anymore? Because I don't know if it's going to be Hollywood. I think the entertainment industry is going to be spread out all over the world and they're going to make content for streaming apps and mobile devices and televisions and whatever it is that people are viewing content on. But I don't think it's going to be centralized in Hollywood like it was before. I mean, I could be wrong, but we're seeing a lot of companies like even Disney moving productions to Canada and Skydance, you know, talking about Skydance. Most of their job listings for animation are in Spain. Not could be because they have the one guy who worked with Disney, the director, he worked on Klaus and his company is in Spain. But it does seem like they're just in general, it seems like everybody's kind of moving productions out of Hollywood. They're not centralizing things anymore and the tech companies don't care. They don't care. They have no attachment to this stuff. They really, truly do not care. They'll buy it up and if it's frankly, if it's cheaper to make it in India, they'll do it, you know? I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. It's going to be really interesting to watch. But there we go, guys. In-stage Hollywood, Paramount getting gobbled up by Skydance, which is owned by a tech mogul and the mergers and acquisitions will continue. And it's definitely going to be Highlander. So please subscribe for more pop culture, news, views and rants. We'll talk later. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thanks again for listening. More news and videos are available on our website at www.clownfishtv.com and on our YouTube channel, ClownfishTV. You can buy official merchandise, clownfish, comic books, and more at shopclownfish.com. If you like this show, please consider subscribing and leaving us a positive review on iTunes and other podcast platforms. If you're looking to help support this show financially, go to clownfishsupport.com. If you'd like to sponsor an episode of this show, send us an email at business@webrief.io. This podcast is a production of Clownfish Studios' LLC and Web Reef Media proudly made in Pittsburgh, USA. After investing billions to light up our network, T-Mobile is America's largest 5G network. Plus, right now, you can switch, keep your phone, and we'll pay it off up to $800. 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