Shari Redstone's thumbs-down finale at National Amusements
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The show is almost over for National Amusements, the entertainment conglomerate with humble beginnings as a Dedham drive-in movie theater chain.
Unlike most Hollywood endings, this one is a downer.
Shame on Shari Redstone.
Recap:
Redstone is the daughter of
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On Tuesday, Paramount Global, controlled by Shari Redstone, said it agreed to pay $16 million to settle
Why it matters:
It's impossible not to see this as an unabashed payoff intended to win the Federal Communications Commission's approval of Redstone's multibillion-dollar deal to sell Paramount to Skydance Media, the studio behind movies including 'Top Gun: Maverick' and 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.'
Everyone involved denied the settlement was a quid pro quo. If you believe that, I have some Trump meme coins to sell you.
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In a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS last year, Trump alleged that '60 Minutes,' part of CBS News, deceptively edited the Harris interview in order to interfere with the election.
Legal experts said Trump's chances of winning the case were slim to none given CBS's First Amendment protections for what was considered routine editing. But his election victory in November gave him enormous leverage over Redstone.
Reaction:
'With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration's approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight,' Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren
'CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle,' a spokesperson for Trump's lawyers said. The president was holding 'the fake news accountable,' the spokesperson said.
Of course, the lawsuit was all about putting the news media under the president's thumb.
'The enemy of the people' — Trump's words — is a power base Trump wants desperately to neutralize, along with other perceived foes such as elite universities and big law firms.
Columbia University and law firms including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison have already caved. Harvard University had no choice but to come to the negotiating table, though it also is battling the White House in court.
'The President is using government to intimidate news outlets that publish stories he doesn't like,' the conservative editorial board of
For what it's worth:
The two points I'd like to make here may seem obvious but are worth repeating.
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First: The ownership of news outlets by big corporations is a double-edged sword.
Yes, they can provide financial shelter from devastation wrought by Google and Meta — and the brewing storm coming from artificial intelligence.
But they also own bigger — and more profitable — businesses that need to maintain at least a civil relationship with the federal government.
That's why Disney ended Trump's dubious defamation case against ABC News by agreeing to 'donate' $15 million to the presidential library, and why Meta, the parent of Facebook, coughed up $25 million to settle a Trump lawsuit over the company's suspension of his accounts after the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Second: Private sector extortion — multiple law firms promised $100 million in pro-bono work for causes favored by Trump — dovetails with the president's use of the power of the office to make money for himself and his family.
Trump's crypto ventures, including the shameless $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, have added at least $620 million to his fortune in a few months,
Shari Redstone's $16 million payment is chump change by comparison. And it makes perfect business sense. It smooths the way for National Amusements to salvage at least $1.75 billion from the sale of its stake in Paramount. Sumner Redstone, a consummate dealmaker, would have done the same thing.
Skydance, by the way, was launched by another child of a billionaire, David Ellison.
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His father, Larry Ellison, founded software giant Oracle and is worth nearly $250 billion. Oracle is negotiating to take a role in the sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner, a transaction being orchestrated by Trump.
Small world, eh?
Final thought:
After nearly 90 years in business, National Amusements, now based in Norwood, is going out with a whimper, not a bang.
The company has struggled with heavy debt, declining cable network profits, and huge costs for building out its streaming business. Paramount's market value has dropped to $9 billion from $26 billion when Viacom recombined with CBS to form the new company in 2019.
To get the Skydance rescue deal done, Redstone, 71, sold out the journalists at CBS News — the onetime home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, and still one of the most respected names in the business.
That's one bummer of an ending.
Michael Redstone (left), founder of National Amusements, with his son Sumner standing next to him, in 1965. They were showing off a rendering the company's future Cleveland Circle theater.
fay foto/PDFPAGES
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