NEW YORK—Even though Edgar Bronfman Jr. has issued a rival bid for Paramount Global, the company is moving forward with possible asset sales, including 12 local TV broadcast stations that Bloomberg is reporting could sell for $500 million to $1 billion.
Paramount Global had agreed in early July to merge with Skydance Media to form “New Paramount” in an $8 billion deal that includes all of Paramounts media assets as well as the acquisition of National Amusements, Inc. (NAI) which holds the controlling share stake in Paramount.
Bronfman, however, recently issued a rival bid and is reportedly looking to find a major tech company to partner on the proposed acquisition.
(Editor's note: Bronfman dropped his bid for Paramount Monday evening after this story was posted.)
As that saga plays out, Bloomberg is reporting that Paramount has "hired a bank to help it explore options, including a potential sale of a dozen TV stations that it considers non-core, the people said. These include independent stations in markets including New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and Tampa, some of which used to be CW affiliates, one of the people said."
Bloomberg also reported that "the stations could fetch $500 million to $1 billion in a sale and are expected to draw interest from private equity firms and other broadcasters, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information."
The value of the stations could fluctuate widely depending on the outcome of the presidential race, which will help determine whether the FCC will become more likely to relax ownership rules.
Commenting on the Bloomberg report, Richard Greenfield at LightShed Partners noted that "despite the in-process sale of Paramount to Skydance/Redbird (that the Bronfman-led collective is trying to disrupt, Paramount continues to focus on improving its financial position through a combination of cost-cutting and asset sales.
"Earlier this month, Paramount consolidated its TV production entities and now comes news reports, that Paramount is looking to sell 12 non-CBS branded TV stations (some of which were previously CW stations)...," he continued. "What is unclear is who is interested in buying more TV stations given the growing headwinds facing linear TV, not to mention a difficult regulatory climate for station acquisitions, especially if there is no change in administration this fall."
