 Welcome back to Dry Powder, I'm William D. Cohan.
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In today's email: the fate of Shari Redstone, the future of CBS, the return of Steve Tusa, and Jeff Zucker's next opportunity. Plus some advice for Bill Ford.
 Notes on Wall Street’s new streaming math, GE fan fiction, and Ford’s meme-stock temptation. Earlier this week, Shari Redstone and Bob Bakish genuflected to Wall Street’s streaming demands by going as far as changing the name of their mashed-up company, ViacomCBS (which neither Wall Street nor Shari’s father ever wanted mashed up, by the way), to Paramount Global. Investors responded by dumping the stock, in one massive exhale, to celebrate the lipstick choreography.
On Friday, my partner Matt Belloni elucidated the many perceived flaws in the Redstone-Bakish strategy. Since that announcement on February 15, the ViacomCBS stock has been gutted 21.2 percent, reducing the company’s market value to $18 billion. (By comparison, Disney’s market value is $276 billion.) Last March, around the time that Bakish successfully launched Paramount+, the ViacomCBS stock was trading at a meme-inflated $100 a share, and now it’s trading at a little more than $28 a share. So, you know, what to do?
For starters, Shari Redstone can thank her lucky stars that her cantankerous father, Sumner, is no longer around to witness this meltdown...
FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT  ViacomCBS did everything that Wall Street asked—and investors responded by urinating all over the stock. So much for streaming? MATTHEW BELLONI  Is this the outbreak of war in Ukraine? It certainly looks that way. But as with everything involving Putin, nothing is as it seems. JULIA IOFFE  The most-watched couple in media are generating tabloid-level attention as they calculate their next professional steps. DYLAN BYERS  It’s the Newhouses, not John Malone, who will have the leverage to help Zaslav steer Warner Bros. Discovery toward streaming glory. WILLIAM D. COHAN
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