• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

Bezos’ Rubber Room & Shari’s Plan B

News and notes on the dual obsessions of the Sconset set: whether Shari will reconsider the private equity pill and break up Paramount; and how Jeff Bezos and Will Lewis may be taking a page from Wall Street’s layoff playbook with their plan for a “third newsroom” at The Washington Post.

Jeff Bezos
It’s clear, too, that the Post probably doesn’t need all the 1,000 or so journalists now employed at the paper, especially if Bezos is going to demand profitability. Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
June 26, 2024

We’ve entered the perfect deal dynamic for the partnership between Apollo and Sony to pounce on Paramount Global. To nearly everyone’s surprise, two weeks ago, Shari Redstone, the company’s controlling shareholder, blew up the long-anticipated deal that her advisors, and the special committee of the board of directors, had negotiated with David Ellison and RedBird Capital. As my faithful readers know, Ellison and RedBird were going to buy National Amusements Inc., the Redstone family holding company that controls Paramount Global, and then merge Ellison’s Skydance Media into Paramount, with the combined company remaining a publicly traded entity. It was a complicated, creative deal that was on the 1-yard line before Shari pulled the football away.