Shari Redstone Stares Into the Streaming Abyss

Paramount+ did what Wall Street asked—and investors responded by urinating all over the parent company’s stock. As ViacomCBS becomes Paramount Global and the economics of streaming fall to earth, is chasing Netflix a winning model after all?

The longer this attenuated sales process drags on, the more likely it is that Shari Redstone just packs it in, pulls the company off the market, and waits for macroeconomic conditions in the industry to improve. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Matthew Belloni

February 17, 2022

It’s like ViacomCBS chair Shari Redstone and C.E.O. Bob Bakish whipped out the Big Media ‘22 handbook, flipped to the “Netflix for Beginnerz” section, and started checking the boxes that analysts and investors all want checked these days:

1. Steer your content to streaming to juice subscribers. Check! Paramount+, flush with NFL games, first-run kids movies and the Yellowstone prequel, added more than 7 million subs last quarter to reach 32.8 million, or 56 million across all its services.