Meet the Redstones, the Complicated Family Behind a Media Empire
On the Media
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 8.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2023
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Redstone family controls Paramount Global, formerly known as ViacomCBS, Inc., — one of the biggest entertainment companies out there. (Think CBS entertainment, MTV, Nickelodeon.) The family is also one of the inspirations for HBO's Succession, which makes sense the more you get to know them. Sure, Rupert Murdoch plays his kids off each other and broke up with one wife on email. But Sumner Redstone, who died at 97 in 2020, had a love life that shook his media empire to its core, never mind the tabloids. This week, Brooke speaks to Rachel Abrams, a senior producer and reporter for The New York Times Presents, and the co-author with James B. Stewart of Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is on the Media's Midweek podcast, Unvork Gladstone. |
| 0:05.0 | This week, some personnel changes in the media industry. |
| 0:09.0 | Fox News firing controversial host Tucker Carlson today. |
| 0:13.0 | A total earthquake that comes amidst the rockiest period in the history of the Fox News channel. |
| 0:19.0 | They say Rupert Murdock made this decision. |
| 0:22.0 | So this is more like an episode of succession than last night's episode of succession. |
| 0:27.0 | Well, less than an hour after news of Tucker Carlson's departure broke, |
| 0:31.0 | cable television network CNN announced that it had fired its host, Don Lemon. |
| 0:36.0 | In February, Lemon apologized to CNN staffers |
| 0:39.0 | after making offensive remarks about women and aging. |
| 0:42.0 | He was then briefly suspended from his program. |
| 0:45.0 | Quite a day in cable news. |
| 0:47.0 | For those who don't follow cables, this is like if Ronald McDonald and the Burger King got fired on the same day. |
| 0:52.0 | It's hard to overstate Carlson's political influence over the past six years or so. |
| 0:57.0 | As the New Yorkers and who Moran's put it, Donald Trump had the raw power, |
| 1:02.0 | but Carlson set the ideological agenda. |
| 1:05.0 | But ideologues, even the most influential ones, have always come and gone. |
| 1:10.0 | In 2017, it was the seemingly immovable Bill O'Reilly who has shown the stage door. |
| 1:17.0 | Bill O'Reilly was the conservative Colossus who stood astride primetime cable news for 20 years. |
| 1:24.0 | But tonight he's out of a job that Fox News after a wave of sexual harassment allegations. |
| 1:29.0 | It was that very time slot, one that O'Reilly had dubbed the No Spin Zone that Tucker slid into after Bill was ousted. |
| 1:37.0 | Meanwhile, the moguls pulling the strings behind the scenes tend to have much lengthier legacies, |
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