Already missing "Succession"?
Don't worry, there's plenty of drama in real life
Prestalgia. Is that a thing? To be nostalgic for something before it’s even gone. Because I’m hardcore prestalgic for Succession.
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong announced this week that the upcoming fourth season of the show will be its final run. No! Say it ain’t so!
For those of you who, like me, are simultaneously pining for the start of the last season and already mourning the end of the series, here are some real life succession dramas to tide you over. Plus investment implications.
The Redstones
Media mogul Sumner Redstone controlled ViacomCBS (which later split into Viacom and CBS), MTV and Paramount Pictures, making him one of the most powerful men in American entertainment from the ‘80s onwards. By most accounts, he was as controlling, abusive, and craven as any fictional villain.
He even had a literal trial by fire backstory. At age 56, he escaped a hotel fire by hanging on a ledge with one hand. The incident left him with third degree burns over half his body and a permanently mangled hand. He would go on to proudly display this hand as proof of his invincibility. “I expect to live forever,” he famously repeated, even into his nineties.
He simultaneously groomed and undermined his daughter, Shari, bringing her into the boardroom, but also publicly mocking her as unqualified to lead.
He surrounded himself with a series of women and amended his trust more than 40 times to add or remove romantic partners. Towards the end of his life, he lived with two companions, Sydney Holland and Manuela Herzer. Sumner’s family accused the pair of siphoning off millions from him, while emotionally abusing him and keeping him estranged from relatives. After family interventions, Redstone sued both women in 2016 for elder abuse.
Seemingly out of a true delusion that he would live forever, Redstone never put in place a succession plan for his business. He died in 2020 at age 97, leaving Shari Redstone to battle not just her father’s romantic partners for his personal fortune, but also corporate rivals for control of Viacom and CBS.
All of this is captured in the book Unscripted. (Vanity Fair has an excerpt entitled The Cringy Sexcapades of a Horny Billionaire. You had me at “Cringy Sexcapades”, Vanity Fair.) If you like Succession, definitely check out the book! The Hollywood reporter said it best, calling it a cross between King Lear and Weekend at Bernie’s.
The future of the firm: Spolier alert, after some Succession-worthy boardroom maneuvers, Shari Redstone gained control of Viacom and CBS. She successfully merged the two entities back together and rebranded as Paramount Global. The name is a reference to the empire’s silver screen past and a nod to what she believes is the future of media - streaming. Just last month, the Paramount+ streaming platform integrated Showtime (formerly known as CBS All Access). This type of consolidation makes sense in the saturated streaming market.
There has been lots of chatter about Paramount Global ultimately being acquired. With a market cap of $12.6 billion, the conglomerate is a small player in the media pond, making it a target. But it’s not necessarily an easy fish to swallow. Streamers like Amazon or Netflix aren’t interested in paying for Paramount’s broadcast and cable networks. And if another broadcasting conglomerate, like Comcast, buys and integrates Paramount, it would need to sell off either its own legacy broadcast network or some of Paramount’s, to get regulatory approval. So for now it looks like Shari Redstone is solely in control.
The Murdochs
We can’t really discuss Succession without mentioning the Murdochs, who are said to be the inspiration for the show itself. It’s believed that Rupert, the 91-year old magnate in charge of rightwing Fox Corp. and News Corp. has designated his eldest son Lachlan as successor.
Younger son James seemingly forsook claims to the family business in 2020, after resigning from the board of News Corp due to editorial disagreements. He has since emerged as a backer of progressive campaigns, pouring millions into climate activism and efforts to defeat Donald Trump.
Biographer Paddy Manning speculates in his book, The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch, that things will not be so simple after Rupert’s death. In addition to Lachlan and James, Rupert’s grown daughters Elisabeth Murdoch and Prudence MacLeod are also shareholders in the Murdoch trust. Murdoch watchers say that the sisters are closer to James. This could set up a very Succession-like formation of alliances in a battle for control.
For a while it looked like Rupert was making a final move to consolidate power in Lachlan’s hands by re-merging News Corp. and Fox.
Rupert and Lachlan argued that a merger would give the unified company the benefit of scale. A reunified News Corp and Fox, valued at $9.7bn and $16bn respectively, would create a heftier $26bn business, bringing it near Warner Bros Discovery’s $30bn, and slightly closer to Disney’'s $180bn.
Shareholders of News Corp. balked. They believed the deal would undervalue News Corp. James wrote a letter to both companies’ boards questioning the proposal. Rupert and Lachlan walked back the merger plan in January.
Lachlan remains the chosen one for now, but the development is fair warning that in the modern game of succession, you have to carefully maneuver family and stakeholders.
Elvis’ Estate
The King of Rock and Roll left his Graceland estate to daughter Lisa Marie Presley, who passed away earlier this year. Lisa Marie had originally put the property, along with Elvis Presley Enterprises, in a trust for her daughters, with her mother Priscilla Presley as co-trustee. The trust is estimated to be worth $500 million. However, it came to light after Lisa Marie’s death that an amendment was made in 2016, removing Priscilla as a co-trustee. Priscilla has since filed to have the amendment declared invalid, claiming that Lisa Marie’s signature was forged. Developments have left Priscilla on one side, and her grand-daughters on the other. Creditors will be paying close attention too, given Graceland defaulted on $15 million worth of bonds last year and is in the process of restructuring debt.
When money and power are involved, there is certainly no lack of intrigue, on or off the screen.
Back in TV land, Succession returns for its last hurrah on March 26. Team Tom, anyone?
The next topic that didn’t kill the cat? Speaking of all these Richie Riches, there’s a new economic term going around - Richsession. We’ll explore what it means soon.