Clownfish TV: Audio Edition
Halo and Star Trek Discovery Couldn’t Save Paramount...
Paramount is having a fire sale, and they’ve even pulled all MTV News off the internet. Any IP not nailed down might be up for sale. I guess Halo and Star Trek Discovery couldn’t save this network... ➡️ 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. #Streaming #Games #StarTrek #Hollywood #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech
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 rock music) Hey guys, welcome back to clownfish TV. This is neon. We're gonna talk about paramount selling everything that isn't nailed down. Everything's gotta go. They actually shut down the MTV News website. They're shutting down some other websites. Now everything's going dark. And the leadership at Paramount is saying that if it ain't nailed down, it's potentially up for sale. So I think that conversation with Skydance that fell through, we're gonna talk about this. It's not looking good for Paramount. Everything must go. Who knows? Maybe they can salvage some of their IP. Maybe they can salvage Star Trek. I don't know guys. I don't know, it's not looking good. This is the new reality. We're gonna talk about this before we get into it. Any further, please subscribe for more pop culture news, views and rants, if only Halo did better. If only Kurtzman and era Star Trek did better. We wouldn't be in this position. Is that G.I. Joe and Transformers movie? Is that still gonna happen? I think that's a terrible idea. The Beast Wars movie, it wasn't that good. It was okay. I think it was better than the last couple of Bay Formers movies, but I don't wanna see a G.I. Joe Transformers mashup in that universe. If you go back to the 80s, we'll talk. But let's take a look at this. Let's come from the rap. Paramount CEOs say bankers have been hired to sell assets, talk job cuts in town hall. They also address the ongoing mergers and acquisitions speculation warning. They cannot say that the noise will disappear. Now it's not going to. We know what a difficult and disruptive period has been said co CEO Brian Robbins. Well, we cannot say that the noise will disappear. We are here today to lay out a go forward plan that can set us up for success no matter what path the company chooses to go down. Yeah, they got some support from Redstone, but they're gonna team up with other streamers. They're gonna divest themselves of assets and they're gonna cut a half a billion dollars in cost cuts, which means a lot of people are gonna get fired, right? That's usually what cost cuts mean. Earlier this month, controlling shareholder, Sherry Redstone revealed she would scrap a potential merger deal with Skydance after months of discussions. Two step plan would have seen Ellison acquire Redstone's National Amusement, which controls 77% Paramount's Class A voting stock before emerging his studio. That would be Skydance with the media conglomerate to create a combined company, which everybody thought was gonna happen. Apparently this isn't gonna happen. An individual familiar with the matter previously told The Wrap that while both sides agreed to the economic terms of the deal, there were outstanding issues. They did not agree on most notably giving all shareholders a consent to vote on the sale, 'cause some people might say no. In addition to Skydance, Sony and Apollo have submitted a joint $26 billion all cash offer. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. That's a, well, it's like a third of what Disney paid for Fox, but still it's a lot of money in this economy. Right now it's a lot of money. Allen Media Group founder Byron Allen also placed a $30 million bid, including debt, although he's not in very good shape right now either, right? It's unclear how it would be financed. Warner Brothers Discovery CEO, David Zazlav, met with former Paramount CEO Bob Backish about a potential merger. Those talks were later halted because Warner Brothers has all kinds of problems too, right? Nobody wants Paramount. And AI has received two separate expressions of interest from baby geniuses producer Steven Paul. The town hall was initially scheduled for June 5th, but was postponed due to ongoing speculation. Management said work is already underway to transform the cost base of the company in areas such as legal and corporate marketing. Marketing is always the first one to go. Though they declined to offer a specific timeline to accelerate streaming profitability, the executives previously said they would take an alternative approach to the company's international strategy of boost profits and increase content licensing. Will they shut Paramount plus down? I have to wonder because I don't think it has a whole lot of subs. Halo didn't save it guys. Star Trek didn't save it. We're advancing talks with potential partners that will significantly transform the scale and economics of the service making it profitable and driving long-term value. This is all gobbledygook. This is like we're buying time. We don't know what the hell to do. So we're just going to tell people what we think they want to hear in corporate speak to buy time. I think they honestly thought they were going to merge with SkyDance. Everybody thought they were going to merge with SkyDance. For individuals familiar with the matter, they told the rap that possible assets could be put up for sale including Pluto, bet VH1 in the Paramount lot, which would be leased back for the studio's use. We've already hired bankers to assist us in this process and we'll use the proceeds to help pay down debt and strengthen our balance sheet. Last week, Paramount's stock price hit a 52 week low. Damn, 61% decline in profits. It says 61% decline profits is simply unacceptable. I thought Halo with, I thought Master Chief's ass was going to save them. I thought Star Trek with a lot of women crying was going to save them and it did not happen that way. So they shut the MTV News site down, which I think is kind of a travesty. I grew up watching MTV News. I grew up watching Kurt Loder in Kennedy. And it's so weird like so many of the talking heads on MTV wound up becoming conservative. Or they were conservative the whole time and I had no idea. Kurt Loder, I had no idea Kurt Loder was a libertarian. I had no idea. But he is, he's a very outspoken libertarian, but they're shutting MTV News down. Like I don't even know what the hell MTV News is at this point. Do they even have MTV News? Do they even have MTV? Let's just go back to have an MTV. If we can put cartoons on TV again with the MTV Tunes, if we can do that, we can put MTV back on the air and just play music videos. Even if they're old music videos. MTV News website goes dark archives pulled offline. They've also removed content from country music television site. Why are they pulling decades? Decades worth of content. They're pulling it down. It's no longer available after MTV appears to fully pull down the site and its related content. MTV News was shuttered in 2023. So to take the right down, do they have to get rid of it completely? That's why I'm kind of wondering because people are like, why did you destroy the back row movie Warner Brothers? Why are we never going to see coyote versus acne? Maybe to take that right off, you have to say, well, we don't have anything. It's unusable. I don't know how that works. I've never had to do that. I have no idea. In 2023, MTV News was shuttered amid the financial woes of Paramount as of Monday trying to access MTV News articles on MTV News or MTV.com News resulted in visitors being directed to the main MTV website. The now unavailable content includes decades of music journalism comprising thousands of articles and interviews dating back to 1996. That's a damn shame. That really is a damn shame. That's, they still had music in 1996. I remember I was there. I was there in 1996 and I was actually watching MTV. It was starting to transition into being the reality TV network. Fun fact, it was almost on the real world. I think I, I think I told people a story before. I was in the running for San Francisco, but I was, I was too young and, but I made it to like the last 25 people. Then they found out how old I was 'cause I lied about my age. And they were like, yeah, you can't be on the show kid. Get out of here. But yeah, it's true, this is a story, the true story of how Neon almost wound up on the real world. But I avoided having Puck as a roommate. So I did, I did dodge that bullet. Anyway, perhaps the most significant loss is MTV News's vast hip hop related archives, particularly the mixed tape Monday column, which ran for a decade in the 2000s and 2010s. And featured interviews reviews and more with many artists, producers, and others early in their careers. Yeah, it's a damn shame to just take it down. I mean, I'm serious, it's a shame to take that down. Former MTV News staffers post on social media about the website shutdown. So MTV News no longer exists. Eight years of my life are gone with that trace as Patrick Hoskin, former music editor, all because it didn't fit some executives bottom line. Some furating is too small of a word. Sickening, derogatory to see the entire MTV News archive wiped from the internet, says Crystal Bell, who's now at Mashable. This is disgraceful. They've completely wiped the MTV News archive. Long time Rolling Stone, senior writer Brian Hyatt comment. Well, Rolling Stone is due for a purge too, because they got bought by some other company and it's just wearing a skin suit of what Rolling Stone used to be. It's now it's all political commentary and very little news about music. Rep's from TV did not respond. They're probably not there anymore. They said, yeah, you can't use way back machine to access them either. So it's not looking good, guys. But they're talking, they're gonna sell everything that's not nailed down. I have to wonder how long until they just shut down Paramount Plus, it doesn't make a lot of sense because nothing that they're producing is actually bringing any meaningful revenue to the company, right? They're blowing all kinds of money on Halo, blowing all kinds of money on Shitty Star Trek. Nobody's watching it. Although I did hear Knuckles was good. Is Knuckles good? I haven't had time to watch Knuckles yet. Maybe I need to watch Knuckles before they purge it completely. And again, I think all these studios, they'd be better off just making content for Netflix or Hulu or something. You know what I'm saying? Like, why did you have to go start streaming services? This is what destroyed Hollywood. Chasing streaming is what destroyed Hollywood. None of you were happy just producing content. Good content. You had to create a whole platform and split the audience 30 different ways. And now here we are. We're right back to where we started from except you have a lot less money. It's gonna wrap it up. Please subscribe. We'll talk later. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) 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 webrief media proudly made in Pittsburgh, USA. (upbeat music) (gentle music)