They are going to
begin talking with Sony and Apollo, after the expiration of the negotiating window with Skydance.
There is a long way to go yet, just a week ago, everyone thought the Skydance deal was moving forward.
Par will start talks with Sony, Apollo but Skydance still in mix. Ari Emanuel and James Cameron back David Ellison's bid.
deadline.com
Nah. Puck was saying that the Skydance deal wouldn't happen back in mid-April, so long as the Apollo cash offer remained on the table, given Paramount board's fiduciary duties to consider all potentially superior bids under the "Revlon" legal standard.
As Shari Redstone and David Ellison’s absurd Paramount deal marches forward, a new theory has emerged: Shari’s advisors are appeasing her for now… until they recommend the Apollo offer instead.
puck.news
Some insiders think that the regulatory hurdles for a Sony/Apollo buyout may be a bit overblown. IDK. I've always thought that Sony probably had no interest in retaining CBS anyhow, so if they made it clear to the DOJ that they and Apollo would immediately seek to divest it upon acquisition, then DOJ might not fight it. They allowed the mega Disney/Fox deal to proceed so long as Disney agreed to sell off those Fox Sports RSNs, which they did. (Heh, DOJ was doing them a favor, I'd say.)
“American consumers have benefitted from head-to-head competition between Disney and Fox’s cable sports programming that ultimately has prevented cable television subscription prices from rising even higher,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust...
www.justice.gov
Or, conversely, they might structure the deal so that Apollo alone takes ownership of the CBS O&O local stations and then sells off their minority stake in Cox Media Group, which owns 12 local TV stations.
Apollo's CEO doesn't think it's much of a problem:
The private equity firm has made a joint, nonbinding $26 billion all cash offer with Sony Pictures Entertainment to acquire the media conglomerate
www.thewrap.com