Paramount is, well, Paramount in the big Hollywood eatery Eaton saga.
They've run cashew in Los Angeles here.
This is what stock market investors at least see as a win-win outcome. The studio Paramount Skydance stock is up more than 8% in remarket trading now. After it's emerging the victor in the battle to buy rival Warner Brothers, and Netflix's netflix stock is also up by the same percentage because it pulled out. Come on up to pay all that money to Warner Brothers, an entertainment conglomerate that
owns movie and TV studios, streaming outlets and cable TV channels, including CNN. Here's Marketplaces Nancy Marshall, Gensor. Paramount's Skydance is offering $31 a share for Warner Brothers Discovery. It's an all-cash offer with much of a cash coming from Oracle Founder Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison, Netflix declined to raise its offer for Warner Brothers
saying, quote, "The deal is no longer financially attractive."
Paramount's takeover of Warner Brothers still has to be approved by federal regulators.
The Ellison's are close to President Trump, who said he would be involved in the outcome. Paramount would buy all of Warner Brothers, including CNN. Trump said late last year that, quote, "It's imperative that CNN be sold." I'm Nancy Marshall Gensor, for Marketplace. As this deal comes together, Marketplace's Christian Schwab has more on the state of streaming.
Right now, Naveen Sharma, a senior analyst at S&P Global ratings, says streaming is complicated. And a mess, and very confusing. There are a zillion content providers, access to zillion different ways, and subscription prices are rising. Sharma says viewers are starting to pick and choose.
You're seeing consumers binge watch stuff that they find interesting and then drop that service for a short amount of time. You're seeing seasonality with the services that have the NFL. There are too many players in the industry for all of them to make money. It's why Ross Benish, a senior analyst at E-Marketer, says more consolidation is coming.
“Within the next two years, I think you're going to see more of these companies doing”
kind of what Sony has done. Sony dropped the streaming side of its business, placed a station view, to focus on licensing. We'll also likely see more subscription bundles and more companies like Warner Brothers get fought out. Benish says this might make the user experience less plunky.
They could also make it more expensive. Okay, let's say you have all of the paramount Warner shows on one platform, now instead of two. That's nice for consumers, but when you have fewer companies, you give more monopolistic power to those who are still operating.
What mergers would give combined companies more power over the kinds of movies and shows that get made? I'm Kristen Schwab from Marketplace. Uncertainty over tariffs is one reason government bonds have been popular this week when bonds go up interest rates come down with the 10-year rate below 4% this morning.
The average 30-year mortgage rate has been parked at 6% even for two days now after falling
below for the first time in three and a half years, this is using mortgage news daily's
calculation. Now, if companies are allowed to get money paid to the U.S. government on the subset of
“Trump tariffs now ruled illegal, will they pocket the refund and cheer up shareholders?”
Now FedEx has just promised to give any refunds back to its customers. About half of high school applicants use artificial intelligence to pick where to apply to college nearly double from last spring. This is from a survey out this week from the Education Company EAB Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes has more.
Some high school students use AI to kick off their college searches saying, "Hey, I want to school with a good civil engineering program and even better football team." And the AI will spit out a list of colleges. Other times high schoolers are asking very targeted questions. Hey, Chatchee PT, I'm interested in this college.
Can you go on Reddit and Instagram and tell me what the vibe on campus is like? Michael Koppinheffer is a co-author on the EAB study. He says kids are turning to AI because it makes the whole exhaust and college search process easier. It's a lot to think about in the similar. And AI is great at making information collection analysis easier.
He says colleges have to pay attention to how they appear in these AI responses. It's like SEO. But instead of getting noticed by a search engine, they have to get noticed by an AI.
“The first thing colleges need to do is beat secret shoppers themselves.”
They need to look on AI and see what AI is saying about them. Koppinheffer says colleges also have to work on their digital presence. Make sure everything about the school is up to date and accurate.
Otherwise, the AI's could surface old information.
It's a lot of work and it really is never going to end.
It can also be expensive.
“Nick Swisher is vice president for brand and marketing at Indiana Wesleyan University,”
a private college in Central Indiana. The school is spending about half a million dollars annually on its AI influencing efforts. That's about 10% of the marketing budget. Marketing is becoming really all about feeding signals into the AI ecosystem, us so that your brand is discoverable.
“Swisher says they've added a lot of FAQs to their website to answer questions like,”
"What could I do with this degree?" You know, we're moving beyond the three word search term. It's no longer just cheap colleges near me. It's now conversational. It's not just teenagers using AI in the college search process, but parents and counselors too.
“Jennifer Jesse is a college consultant in the DC area.”
I try to turn to humans, but humans are not always accessible and AI is.
One thing that's frustrating is AI will sometimes surface the same schools over and over again. So I have to be very direct with my AI that I don't want just colleges on US News and World Report or some of the rankers. Instead, she went to AI to surface the hidden jumps. That way can really help students find schools that are the best fit for them.
I'm Stephanie Hughes from Marketplace. And in Los Angeles, I'm David Brown Catcher. This is the Marketplace Morning Report. From APM, American Public Media.
These days, it feels like there's always another headline about layoffs.
And even if you're not directly affected, you can still mess with you. I'm Marie Mechreis, and this week on my podcast, this is Uncomfortable. We're talking about layoff anxiety, the fear of losing your job, and some practical tips to cope. Literally, list out all the steps that would have to happen.
To get to our feared outcome, assign each one a percent likelihood and multiply it out. We look at how to quiet the spiral and make a plan just in case. Listen to this is Uncomfortable wherever you get your podcasts.
