Jan 12 2009
What will happen to S&S if CBS goes under?
I read this morning that CBS is in jeopardy and MediaPost analyst has suggested that CBS is among the media giants that will fall in 2009. Sumner Redstone has a controlling interest but has massive debts . Part of the Redstone portfolio is Simon & Schuster.
Pali Capital analyst Richard Greenfield Wednesday reported that Sumner Redstone’s private holdings company National Amusements is preparing to sell its movie theater assets to meet a $1.6 billion loan obligation triggered by the plummeting price of collateralized Viacom (VIA) and CBS (CBS) stock that it controls. Because NAI still would have its own debt to service, Greenfield says the best strategy would be for Redstone to sacrifice his “most saleable asset”–Viacom–valued at $12 billion. Redstone says he refuses to sell either CBS or Viacom; Greenfield says he may “no longer have a choice.”
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Jan 12, 2009 @ 12:58:29
My guess is it would probably get bought out (S&S) before anything major happened. As many problems as the publishing industry has, there is still plenty of profit hanging in there.
Jan 12, 2009 @ 14:35:34
It’s just a shame that CBS, in their infinitely stupid mindset of canceling really good shows and replacing them with crapola reality things, is running the parent company into the ground.
I would hope S&S is either sold or can go out on their own.
Jan 12, 2009 @ 18:32:22
S&S will likely be bought out ;I expect the parent co. to sell off what they can to minimize their loss.
“Too big to fail” made me laugh BTW. It just means if you’re “too big” you can make really horrendous management mistakes, etc. and still take money from
taxpayersconsumers.P.S. I noticed that Americans are no longer called citizens, but rather “consumers” by everyone.
Jan 13, 2009 @ 09:15:58
Off topic, but a request for help:
Either my browser, or Windows XP is not viewing punctuation properly, because instead of what I’m guessing is an em dash in the following pasted snippet, I’m getting a box with FF over FD surrounding the word Viacom. The double-quote right after the word asset appears properly though.
asset”�Viacom�valued
Do any readers know how to fix this? I’m not getting my keywords right in my searches to describe my problem, so I can’t fix it. It happens sometimes with other punctuation marks too, but I can’t be sure which ones they are since I have to guess contextually what they’d be.
Thanks if anyone can help.
Jan 13, 2009 @ 09:18:29
@Shreela It wasn’t your screen. It was how the browser interpreted the characters I pasted from another website for the quote.
Jan 13, 2009 @ 09:20:23
As far as failing networks, I think any big company that’s used to borrowing too much, and spending too much, will be having similar problems as the car and bank businesses. But I’m surprised CBS is having these problems before NBC, unless NBC tightened their belts much sooner than CBS.
Jan 13, 2009 @ 09:29:01
As someone who schedules her life around Survivor, I will weep copious tears if CBS fails.
Jan 13, 2009 @ 09:39:48
Thanks Jane, that was a a fast reply 8^)
Jan 17, 2009 @ 15:45:44
Serves CBS right for canceling Moonlight. Payback is a bitch, Nina!