Bob Bakish Should Be Fired ‘to Save Paramount’ — Analyst

Paramount was a no-show on Oscars Sunday with just two nominations (sound and visible results for “Mission: Unimaginable — Lifeless Reckoning”) and no wins, however for president and CEO Bob Bakish, Monday isn’t any higher.

This morning, media analyst Wealthy Greenfield of LightShed Companions printed a blistering open letter to Paramount controller Shari Redstone: “Expensive Shari: Why You Should Hearth Bob Bakish to Save Paramount.” Right here we go.

Greenfield mentioned Bakish was the person for the job… in 2016, when Viacom and CBS had been nonetheless cut up (and Les Moonves had the highest job at CBS a job). However with the creation of Paramount International (fka ViacomCBS), Bakish made the “important mistake” — Greenfield’s phrases — of getting wrapped up in the streaming wars.

The error, in keeping with Greenfield, was creating Paramount+. By trying to reinvent area of interest service CBS All Entry as a Netflix competitor, Paramount+ might have created a “mountain of entertainment.” When a mountain of subscribers didn’t observe, (it now has 68 million), Bakish did what others have finished: He put most of his best stuff on streaming.

Like different newer entrants, Paramount+ wanted to scale shortly to compete. With that in thoughts, Bakish allowed CBS’ NFL video games to reside stream on the service. This had the undesired impact of devaluing Viacom: CBS held the NFL rights, which additionally served to guard the cable channels bundled with the community.

Screw that noise, Greenfield (mainly) wrote. As an alternative, Paramount might have led a pleasant twin existence as 1) an arms-dealer studio that sells content material to the very best bidder (assume: Sony), and a couple of) a linear TV firm that leveraged NFL rights to help its little brothers MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and so forth.

As an alternative, Bakish centered on making Paramount desirable for acquisition (oh, the irony) and apprehensive that patrons could be turned off if they may not entry Paramount’s (licensed) content material, Greenfield wrote.

A spokesperson for Paramount declined touch upon this story.

So right here we’re. Paramount+ is a middling streamer, now anticipated to be worthwhile within the U.S. in 2025. Paramount’s cable channels are dying, and its NFL video games can be found for the entry-level Paramount+ value of $5.99/month.

“Paramount+ is solely not a day by day use streaming platform,” Greenfield wrote, and Paramount International in all probability lacks “the monetary capability to get there.”

Maybe it should have sold Showtime for $3 billion when it had the prospect. Greenfield blamed that dangerous name on Bakish, too. And that’s honest, the ($3 billion) buck stops with the CEO.

“It could already be too late to avoid wasting Paramount,” Greenfield wrote — however “the first step” is to “dramatically” cut back Paramount+ to “defend” Paramount International’s relationships with cable suppliers. (On a latest earnings name, Bakish mentioned he has “many levers to tug in these distribution offers” to maintain the MVPDs — Multichannel Video Programming Distributors — appeased.)

Step two?

“We imagine Shari Redstone and Nationwide Amusements should terminate Bob Bakish and search new management at Paramount instantly,” Greenfield wrote. “It could already be too late to avoid wasting Paramount, however a brand new strategic path is the perfect hope Redstone and Nationwide Amusements have for saving what’s left of the corporate.”

Redstone might by no means should make that call. She is at the moment in talks with David Ellison’s Skydance for a possible merger of their two firms, with the most-likely scenario seeing Ellison shopping for Redstone out of NAI (versus buying Paramount International outright). And will Paramount be taken over and Bakish fired, his fall can be cushioned by a $50 million golden parachute.