Transcript: Paramount: New Boss, Same Problems
David Ellison inherits the same legacy issues that even happy talk can't solve
Sean McNulty (00:04):
Welcome to The Ankler Podcast. This is Sean McNulty of The Wakeup newsletter here at The Ankler here in New York City on the afternoon of Thursday, July 11th. I'm joined in Los Angeles by Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield, who sadly did not get the call to police the bouncy house at Sun Valley this week, Richard? What happened?
Richard Rushfield (00:21):
You know what? I run a strict bouncy house, and I think those people at Sun Valley are used to having their own way with things and not prepared for the kind of authority I bring to my bouncy houses.
Sean McNulty (00:33):
Have the children of the Holmby Park recovered from the July 4th extravaganza? Please, Richard, leaving our listeners in waiting for two weeks here.
Richard Rushfield (00:40):
Yes. Well, they learned that it's not just going to be a free for all, just everyone jumping up and down like crazy people.
Sean McNulty (00:46):
Orderly jumping. Is that the Richard Rushfield way?
Richard Rushfield (00:49):
No, actually, the truth is that the person who was supposed to share the shift with me didn't show up.
Sean McNulty (00:54):
Was it Zas? Was he behind on his duties, Richard-
Richard Rushfield (00:56):
Exactly.
Sean McNulty (00:57):
Was he not showing up?
Richard Rushfield (00:58):
And I was given the rock climbing bouncy house, which has one side of a wall that people climb up and the other side is a big slide. So kids would come down in groups of 15 or 20 down the slide on top of each other and then just-
Sean McNulty (01:16):
That doesn't sound good.
Richard Rushfield (01:16):
...sit there at the bottom of it while another group of 15-
Elaine Low (01:21):
Wait, how many children total are we talking here?
Sean McNulty (01:24):
Yeah, this is a big shindig.
Elaine Low (01:24):
It's like hundreds of children on this one bouncy house, Richard.
Richard Rushfield (01:26):
Literally, yes. It's a big event at the park there and was a big bouncy house. And thanks to our listener who came up and approached me there and-
Sean McNulty (01:37):
Oh, wow.
Richard Rushfield (01:37):
...can attest I gave it the best try. I would say, there were tears at the bouncy house. There were many tears that day.
Sean McNulty (01:46):
From you or from the kids?
Elaine Low (01:47):
From our listener?
Richard Rushfield (01:49):
Not from our listener, but for many participants. But I don't think there were any permanent injuries.
Sean McNulty (01:54):
No permanent damage, okay.
Richard Rushfield (01:56):
So, I'm calling that a victory.
Elaine Low (01:58):
A success.
Sean McNulty (02:00):
No hospital visits.
Richard Rushfield (02:02):
Happy 4th of July.
Sean McNulty (02:03):
Happy 4th of July, everybody. Yeah, exactly. Well, with the bouncy, that's actually probably, that is how you gauge your success. Richard, we had some excellent news this week here. I know coming off the holiday, you're very excited to have your Sunday night come through with Paramount news after a nice holiday week. Top and tail with Shari Redstone. The timing couldn't just have been better.
Richard Rushfield (02:24):
Better on Sunday night than Saturday night.
Sean McNulty (02:27):
You're a kinder person than I for putting it that way. But a good weekend for the money class, Richard. We have both Shari Redstone and Larry Ellison discovered a way to get bought out of their investments by companies that are probably not worth anywhere near what they got paid for them, Richard. How do we get in on this? This sounds like a pretty good deal. How do we get bought out?
Richard Rushfield (02:44):
Yeah, I mean, I was trying to do the analogy of, so if you have a company that owns a corner store and the corner store is worth $20 and I buy the company... It gets so complicated, you can't even do a normal size analogy on that. It just all falls apart. But somewhere in there, it involves paying $4 billion for Skydance.
Sean McNulty (03:11):
$4.75 billion, yes, exactly.
Richard Rushfield (03:15):
Which is-
Sean McNulty (03:16):
Don't forget the extra change there.
Richard Rushfield (03:17):
...not what people would generally say is the market value there, but hey, Paramount gets the... We were staring in the face of the worst possible outcome, which was that Paramount would be sold off for parts and folded into something else and we'd be down to four legacy studios, in which case, this whole thing would really start to look like, "Okay, are we in the death spiral here?" And we've held that off here.
Elaine Low (03:47):
But the deal is complicated, right? Sean, help us break it down. Basically what?