Business
How a negotiation over cable fees could weigh on Paramount's sale
Paramount Global’s sale talks with David Ellison’s Skydance Media face a milestone later this week, but the battered Redstone family-controlled media company has been scrambling to meet another deadline — one that also carries huge implications.
On Tuesday, Paramount and Charter Communications agreed to a deadline extension as the two sides worked to hammer out a new distribution agreement for Paramount’s channels, which would replace a three-year pact that was due to expire this week, according to knowledgeable people who are not authorized to comment publicly on the high-stakes talks.
Charter pays Paramount significant fees to carry its channels, including CBS, BET, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, on Charter’s Spectrum television service. As Paramount‘s cable networks lose viewers and advertising revenue declines, the company must protect the affiliate fees it receives from distributors, including Charter. Paramount cannot afford to lose such a key source of revenue from one of its primary partners.
The outcome of the negotiations could weigh on Paramount’s valuation in the event of a sale.
While the length of the contract extension is not clear, it does give Paramount some breathing room in what has become a chaotic and difficult period.
Paramount’s Chief Executive Bob Bakish was bounced on Monday, amid increasing tensions with controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who is pushing to sell her stake in her family’s media empire.
He was replaced by three senior entertainment executives who now make up an “office of the CEO.” The company also reported earnings that beat estimates, but executives refused to take questions during their customary conference call with Wall Street analysts.
The company’s stock is down 50% in the past year. Paramount fell 7.2% Tuesday to $11.37 a share.
Nonvoting B-class shareholders have fumed over the terms of the Skydance deal, concluding that it would bestow Redstone with a rich premium at the expense of other shareholders. Meanwhile, independent directors are weighing the Ellison group’s sweetened offer, which has been described as its “best and final.”
Paramount’s board will soon lose five directors, including Bakish.
Even before the boardroom and management turmoil, Paramount was seen as having a weak hand in its negotiations with Charter, which currently offers 25 Paramount-owned television channels to its 13.7 million Spectrum TV subscribers.
“The majority of Paramount’s current U.S. cable networks are at risk,” Bank of America media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich wrote in a research note for investors this week, adding that a bad result in the Charter talks could threaten Paramount’s financial foundation and potentially “impact the company’s ability to execute a sale under favorable terms.”
The reason: Paramount’s “TV media segment still generates an overwhelming percentage of the company’s earnings and cash flows,” Reif Ehrlich wrote. Investors and potential buyers have been watching the Charter talks closely as they consider how much Paramount is really worth.
Apollo Global Management has offered $26 billion, including the absorption of Paramount’s nearly $14 billion in debt, which some shareholders favor over the two-phase deal orchestrated by Ellison’s Skydance along with investment firms RedBird Capital Partners and KKR. Paramount had granted the Ellison group 30 days of exclusive negotiations. That period ends Friday, however, sources close to the sales process say they expect the talks to continue past this week.
Paramount and Charter representatives declined to comment.
Paramount Global, long known as Viacom, has struggled to adapt in the streaming era.
Broadcast network CBS has largely maintained its popularity — its February broadcast of the Super Bowl drew a record 123.4 million viewers — but the viewership shift has pummeled Paramount’s cable channels, including MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon, putting the company in a tough spot.
At the same time, cable companies are losing pay TV customers at a rapid clip and don’t want to give subscribers another reason to flee by asking them to pay more for programming that they don’t necessarily watch.
Stamford, Conn.-based Charter has increasingly balked at paying high fees for cable channels that have been hemorrhaging viewers in recent years as consumers shift to streaming and other video-on-demand options.
Charter also has demanded concessions on carriage terms for streaming services, such as Disney+ or Paramount+, which compete with its Spectrum channel bundles.
Paramount Pictures studio, on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, has long been a jewel in the Redstone family-controlled media empire.
(Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)
Last summer, Charter drew a hard line during its negotiations with Walt Disney Co., which led to a 10-day blackout of Disney-owned channels, including its ABC and ESPN networks. Charter threatened to permanently pull all the Disney channels from its Spectrum TV service unless Disney caved to some of its demands — a scenario that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
In the end, Disney sacrificed carriage on Spectrum for several smaller channels, including Freeform.
Losing networks could be particularly painful for Paramount.
More than a decade ago, Paramount programmed nearly three dozen cable channels and collected handsome fees for the distribution rights. However, over the years, distributors including Dish Network and Charter have refused to continue to carry what they view as nonessential ones — and that wrangling was expected to be a key hurdle in the Charter talks.
For example, Charter offers its customers five MTV channels: the main network MTV and spinoffs MTV2, MTV Classic, MTV Live and MTVU. MTV‘s programming lineup relies heavily on “Awesomeness,” a twist on talent competitions. There are four Nickelodeon channels, the flagship kids network as well as Nick Jr., Nick Music and Nick Toons.
Charter is expected to push for the ability to drop channels with meager ratings.
“In our view, the critical carriage would be for Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central and Paramount Network,” Reif Ehrlich wrote.
One sticking point for distributors, including Charter, is that Paramount makes much of its content available to subscribers of Paramount+, the streaming service the company offers for $5.99 to $11.99 a month. That, in some cases, is less than what cable distributors pay for the same content.
The television programmers’ move to offer their own streaming services has rankled distributors, who feel that their longtime partners have turned into rivals. Charter Chief Executive Christopher Winfrey has said his company would take a tougher stance in its carriage negotiations.
“Our goals here are really to re-create a video ecosystem that works for everybody. Today, it doesn’t,” Winfrey said last week on the company’s earnings call. “It’s been broken, and it’s been broken for a while.”
Business
Older AC and fridge chemicals amp up climate change. Trump just rolled back limits on them
President Trump on Thursday announced that grocery stories and air conditioning companies will be allowed to keep using high-polluting refrigerants for longer than they would have under a law he signed during his first administration.
“This was a tremendous burden, a tremendous cost,” said Trump, surrounded in the Oval Office by executives from supermarket chains including Kroger, Fairway, Neimann Foods and Piggly Wiggly. “It was making the equipment unaffordable, and the actual benefit was nothing.”
The move loosens rules meant to restrict hydroflourocarbons, a class of climate-damaging chemicals used in cooling equipment. HFCs are known as “super pollutants” because their impact on climate change can be tens of thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide during their shorter lifespans.
In the move Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency extends the deadline for companies to comply with a 2023 rule transitioning refrigerators and air conditioners off HFCs and onto new cooling technologies. Reducing these chemicals and moving to cleaner refrigerants has long been a bipartisan issue.
Trump is also proposing exemptions from a rule requiring leak repairs on large-scale refrigeration systems.
The administration framed the changes as part of its effort to bring down high grocery costs. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the actions will save $2.4 billion for Americans and safeguard 350,000 jobs.
“Americans who wanted to be able to fix their equipment were instead being required to buy far more costly new equipment and that just doesn’t make any sense,” said Zeldin.
David Doniger, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the move will not only harm the climate, but U.S. competitiveness in global refrigerant markets as well.
“The EPA is catering to a small group of straggling companies by derailing the shift away from these climate super-pollutants,” he said. “The industry at large supports the HFC phasedown and has already invested in making new refrigerants and equipment, currently installed in thousands of stores.”
Danielle Wright, executive director of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council, an environmental nonprofit, said any perceived near-term savings from the rollbacks will be outweighed by the future costs.
“Business owners are far more worried about the escalating cost of keeping aging, high‑global-warming-potential equipment running than they are about the cost of installing new, compliant systems,” she said.
Trump dismissed the climate concerns, saying his changes “are not going to have any impact on the environment.”
He said he wants to get rid of the technology transition rule entirely in the future.
Business
Airbnb to add grocery delivery and car rentals ahead of World Cup
Airbnb unveiled a new set of services for guests on Wednesday, adding car rentals, airport pickup and grocery delivery to its online marketplace that connects travelers with local hosts.
Customers can now get groceries delivered to their Airbnb through a partnership with Instacart and have a driver meet them at the airport with Airbnb’s Welcome Pickups. The app is also offering luggage storage in partnership with Bounce and will add in-app car rentals later this summer.
At the same time, Airbnb is ramping up its use of AI by adding AI-powered review summaries and lodging comparisons, the company said.
The company has been expanding beyond lodging since last year, when it introduced Airbnb Experiences and Services, giving guests the option to book private tours and chef-cooked meals through the app.
In an earnings call earlier this month, the company’s chief executive, Brian Chesky, said the company is at “the very, very beginning of how AI is going to change how we all do our jobs.”
The changes are coming in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will take place in 16 cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The company said its offering exclusive World Cup experiences, such as watch parties and access to stadiums.
“In terms of what we’ve seen in cumulative bookings heading into the event, the World Cup is slated to be the largest event in Airbnb’s history,” said the company’s chief financial officer, Ellie Mertz, on the earnings call.
Airbnb gained popularity for offering travelers unique and homey stays on other people’s property, but it added boutique hotel bookings to its platform late last year. The move had some customers questioning if the app was straying too far from its original purpose.
In its announcement this week, the company said it is partnering with more independent hotels in 20 top destinations, including New York, London and Singapore. On the earnings call, Chesky said hotels on Airbnb could become a multibillion-dollar revenue business.
The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2007 and gave homeowners the opportunity to earn money by renting out their space to travelers seeking something different from a hotel. Airbnb bookings can range from private bedrooms in a shared home to luxury mansions and yachts.
The company’s revenue grew 18% year over year to $2.7 billion in the first quarter, while net income increased slightly to $160 million. Airbnb’s new services and offerings could transform it from a home-sharing platform to a holistic travel marketplace, analysts said.
Shares of the company have increased by 14% over the past six months and fell by less than 1% on Thursday.
Business
SpaceX files to go public in huge IPO deal
Elon Musk wants to take investors on a ride to the moon — and beyond.
His pioneering rocket company SpaceX filed Wednesday for what’s expected to be the largest initial public offering in history, potentially raising at least $75 billion and valuing the company at as much as $2 trillion.
The registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an expected public offering next month explicitly sets aside stocks for retail investors, though the exact number will be spelled out in a later filing, as will the offering price and company valuation.
Interest in the stock offering is expected to be high despite the billionaire’s controversial politics, including his involvement last year with the Department of Government Efficiency, the makeshift cost-cutting effort that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of government jobs.
“Potential investors are probably just as polarized as the electorate is too, given his dabbling in politics,” said Carol Schleif, chief market strategist for BMO Private Wealth. “But it’s not just the SpaceX IPO per se, it’s a bigger, broader excitement among investors for space investment in general.”
Investor interest was piqued by the Artemis II moon mission this year that SpaceX did not participate in, she said. However, the company is expected to play a larger role in future missions that take astronauts to the moon..
Ultimately, Musk, 54, wants to establish a colony on Mars but those plans have been set on the back burner, with NASA now focusing on moon missions.
Musk will remain the company’s chief executive and chairman. Under a dual-class stock structure as a holder of special Class B shares he will be able to control the election of directors, the filing says.
The IPO is expected to be at least twice as large as the current record holder: Saudi Aramco, the state-controlled national oil and gas company of Saudi Arabia, which raised nearly $30 billion in 2019.
Nearly two dozen banks will be underwriting the IPO and offering shares to investors, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citigroup.
Founded in 2002 in El Segundo, SpaceX has revolutionized the aerospace industry by developing the reusable Falcon 9 rocket that has radically lowered launch costs.
The company moved its headquarters from Hawthorne to Texas in 2024. However, SpaceX retains large operations in the South Bay city and blasts off regularly from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
Scores of former SpaceX employees have launched startups in Southern California, including rocket company Relativity Space, hypersonic missile startup Castelion and satellite manufacturer Apex Space.
Since developing its reusable rocket technology, SpaceX has established its Starlink network as the leading satellite-based broadband internet service. It also is moving into satellite-based cellular service and this year merged with Musk’s xAi artificial intelligence company that also included his X social network.
Marco Cáceres, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group, said that the advantage of going public for SpaceX lies in the IPO’s ability to raise a large amount of capital quickly to complete development of its Starship rocket.
“It is going to dominate the market even more than the Falcon 9 is dominating the market now,” he said. “That’s going to be ultimately what’s going to drive their business for the next 10 years.”
The 12th test launch of Starship is set for Friday from the company’s south Texas launch facility. The rocket is the third version of craft, standing more than 400 feet tall and with about three times the payload of the second version.
The regulatory filing claims that the market for its rocket, internet and mobile telephone businesses could be as large as $28.5 trillion.
SpaceX also plans to launch thousands of orbiting data centers powered by the sun that would perform AI calculations.
With the company making massive capital investments, it recorded a $4.28-billion loss in the first quarter. Last year, it recorded $18.7 billion in revenue and lost $4.94 billion, according to the filing.
The public offering is expected to hit the market next month after a “road show,” during which SpaceX will seek to drum up interest from institutional and retail investors.
It will arrive after a fairly quiet year for IPOs that was brightened last week when Cerebras Systems, a Sunnyvale company that makes semiconductors for AI supercomputers, went public.
Shares at Cerebras were offered at $185 and jumped 68% on its opening day. They closed Wednesday at $290.69.
Matt Kennedy, a senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, said the SpaceX offering would dwarf that of Cerebras, as it is expected to raise more than every IPO combined in the last two years.
“A win here or a loss could really impact the IPO market,” he said. “The sheer size of this deal is going to make or lose fortunes.”
Among the oddest disclosures of the IPO is a decision by the company’s board in January to grant Musk 1 billion Class B shares if the company reaches a certain market capitalization and establishes a “permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.”
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