Welcome back to What I’m Hearing, where we’re wondering if anyone has checked in on Scooter Braun after Taylor Swift was named Time’s person of the year.

I’m starting to put together my Hero and Villain of the Year issues, as well as 2024 predictions. If you have ideas/thoughts, just reply to this email.

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Let’s begin…

• SAG strike: The aftermath: Tuesday’s SAG-AFTRA ratification vote—about 78 percent yes—was in the range I’d predicted, but the turnout (at over 38 percent) was surprisingly high, and the anti-A.I. effort may have brought out both contract supporters and opponents. That campaign was laced with bitter complaints about how union leadership had caved or was incompetent or uncaring in the face of an existential threat.

  In other words, the usual stuff for SAG-AFTRA, but so much for the solidarity that powered president Fran Drescher to reelection in September. In this polarized climate, the union must still negotiate its video game contract, where A.I. is again an issue. That may present a difficult choice, as differences in the A.I. language between the ultimate video game contract and the TV/theatrical deal will be closely scrutinized. That’s once a deal is actually reached—and that may not happen without a strike, which the membership has already authorized.

  Also on deck is the June 30 expiration of the union’s NetCode, which covers reality hosts, late night, and game shows. Once again, A.I. will be an issue. Negotiations are expected to commence in the spring, probably in advance of the expiration a month later of industry-wide IATSE contracts and a key Teamsters contract as well. —Jonathan Handel

• Meep-meep mess: It’s not looking great for Coyote vs. ACME, the Looney Tunes movie that was scrapped by Warner Bros. and is being shopped by the filmmakers to potential distributors. Netflix expressed interest, but at less than half the $70 million production cost. Conversations ended there, I’m told. Warners doesn’t need to be made entirely whole, but film heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy do want to get something semi-decent in exchange for the brand confusion of seeing a Looney Tunes movie debut on another platform. Without a savior, I’m afraid this movie might end up blasted by TNT.
• Box office over/under: This traditionally quiet weekend has The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki’s “last” film that probably won’t be his last film, tracking to about $8 million. This seems low given the fan base (it’s grossed $56 million in Japan already) and the recent success of niche genre events. I’ll take the over.

As it turns out, Skydance is kicking the tires on the Redstone assets, per three sources with knowledge of the situation. It’s Ellison and RedBird’s Gerry Cardinale taking the lead, I’m told, but it’s super early, and a potential deal—if Redstone actually decides to pull the trigger—could take several different forms. There’s no official process or dealbook, but NDAs have been signed, and a small group is said to be working up the numbers. Don’t get too excited, but remember that there was also no official process on WarnerMedia’s combination with Discovery Communications. The Redstone folks are also talking to others about potential deals. (Reps for Skydance and Paramount declined to comment.)

This could go lots of different ways—or no ways. But one scenario that I’m told interests the Skydance/RedBird team actually focuses not on buying Paramount Global assets but rather a majority stake in National Amusements Inc., the parent company. Remember, NAI controls Paramount Global, the parent of CBS; cable networks like Nickelodeon and Comedy Central; the film and TV studio; streamers Paramount+ and PlutoTV; and more. NAI, of course, is the movie theater company that Shari’s grandfather started in the 1930s in suburban Boston. It still owns about 800 screens in the U.S. and elsewhere, and it also controls 80 percent of the voting shares in Paramount, but only about 10 percent of the financial interest. Shari is C.E.O. of the company, which declined to comment.

Far-fetched? Maybe. After all, Shari could do all of this today if she wanted to, so why sell to some P.E. investors who can do the uncomfortable, financial-outcome-driven work, like shutting down Paramount+? And obviously, the investors in Paramount—including Warren Buffett, the company’s largest economic shareholder—might not love the idea of the parent being sold out from under them.

Other suitors and scenarios are in play, too, like maybe they spin off the assets, or maybe Larry Ellison, worth $150 billion, would just write a big check. But National Amusements is clearly in trouble. When Paramount karate-chopped its dividend by 80 percent in the spring due to dwindling TV ad revenue and losses in streaming, NAI was hit hard. In May, the company took a $125 million life raft—sorry, a strategic preferred equity investment—from billionaire Michael Dell’s vehicle. Before that floater, NAI was projected to merely break even this year and lose about $35 million in 2024, according to S&P Global, which also downgraded its credit rating. A death spiral seemed possible.

Meanwhile, Paramount has offloaded the Simon & Schuster publisher and several big real estate holdings, and C.E.O. Bob Bakish attempted to get $3 billion for BET Media Group (Tyler Perry said no thank you at that price). Paramount turned down a $3 billion offer for Showtime, then destroyed most of its value by squishing it into Par+. That service, a wannabe Netflix competitor that, when combined with FAST channel PlutoTV, has grown to 63 million subscribers worldwide, has lost billions, including more than $238 million last quarter. Bakish has said that the bleeding will end soon, but he hasn’t been able to say exactly when.

The point: It’s getting brutal, and a private equity play has always seemed the most rational exit for Redstone. P.E. firms recognize the value in companies like Paramount, which have meaningful assets that are not being appreciated properly by the market. So they swoop in and buy those assets, then they often break them up and sell various pieces to unlock the value before settling on a value accretive recombination.

Redstone has insisted publicly that neither Paramount nor NAI is for sale, but that’s also the best way to sell an asset. So if you believe her, well, I can’t help you. There’s lots of evidence that movement is afoot. Employees I’ve talked to have never seen the kind of cost-cutting that’s going on these days (though, as Greenfield notes, they should be doing more). As I mentioned before, Paramount recently changed its executive compensation packages to sweeten golden parachutes for Bakish and other top executives in the event of a sale or change of control in the next few years. One source with ties to the company speculated that the recent leak to the Journal of preliminary talks for a potential bundle of Paramount+ and Apple TV+ was a tactic to juice the stock. If that was the case, it worked. (A Paramount rep says that’s untrue.) Also, this is circumstantial, but Paramount told media analysts that it would not participate in typical “bus tour” meetings with investors this quarter. What don’t they want to talk about?

It was a foregone conclusion that the legacy media companies of the television age wouldn’t all make it in streaming. Paramount was always vulnerable due to its size and reliance on youth-focused cable networks. And, of course, it spent most of the 2010s being victimized by Sumner Redstone’s decline, his visionless cronyism in the form of Viacom C.E.O. Philippe Dauman and alleged serial abuser Les Moonves, and various henchmen more focused on hitting their numbers than on the future. Paramount distributed both the Marvel movies and Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones franchise, yet it was Disney that had the scale and foresight to buy those companies.

Now, the smallest of the remaining diversified media companies seems especially vulnerable. Speaking at the UBS media conference this week, S&P analyst Naveen Sarma openly questioned whether CBS would be able to write the required $2 billion check next year to maintain its NFL media rights. “They don’t necessarily have the cash on the balance sheet to be able to make that payment,” Sarma said.

Yeah, that’s where Paramount is. If Ellison and RedBird, or any of the other suitors, make a decent offer, Shari Redstone should take it and be happy with getting out alive.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or some holiday cheer? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.