From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

For our last episode of 2023, a mega banter of predictions for the year ahead.

Changes at Paramount, box office struggles, and doom and gloom for the TV ad market.

Banter buddies Lucas Shaw and Matt Bellany join me in Reading the Towns Tea Leaves for 2024.

And an update. After we recorded, Axios broke the news that Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery had a meeting to discuss a merger,

though the parties said no formal talks are underway.

I am joined by two banter buddies to talk about the year ahead, Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg.

Hi, Lucas. Hey, Kim. And Matt Bellany, our usual banter buddy from Puck News. Hello, Matt.

Hello. So, the year ahead, we're going to make some predictions and talk about predicaments.

And I am the host, so I get to take the easiest one.

Something has to happen with Paramount.

That company is struggling.

I think a lot of decisions that were not so good were made that we could talk about.

But at some point, Sherry Redstone, and I think she's close, honestly, has to accept the fact that she can't show the world that she could run that place like her dad and that the world has changed. And even if she were the best executive in the universe and history, it's just a struggle for a legacy company right now. And Paramount, this dependence on cable channels that don't really register anymore is high up on that list. What do you think, Lucas? I think it's a little bit of a

misperception that she's not willing to sell. I think it was true. Yeah. Now, certainly it's true.

I think, you know, on her terms. You've heard from people close to her for at this point a year or two that she was

open to doing deals. I think the challenge for them has been finding the deal because the company

continues to decline. Most of the people are only interested in pieces of it. And the only real

buyer for those cable networks would be private equity firms and with interest rates and the cost of raising money and all those things.

They just might not want to do that deal.

And so you have a lot of folks who can just sit and watch this thing circle to drain and get it at a discount price.

And so the question for her is going to be, at what point do I take much less than I otherwise would just to get it done?

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