At the Paley Center for Media in New York, two of the media industry’s most influential figures—John Malone and Barry Diller—looked back on one of the biggest deals that slipped through their fingers: the battle for Paramount Pictures in the early 1990s.
Speaking on a panel alongside Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and former Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries, Malone revisited material from his newly published book Born to Be Wired (Simon & Schuster). The book covers his six-decade career, spanning ventures into Formula One, Discovery, SiriusXM, and the Atlanta Braves.
More than 30 years before Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount Global in 2025, Malone and Diller attempted to take control of the Melrose Avenue studio through QVC, the home-shopping network they controlled. Their momentum was stopped when Sumner Redstone, then head of Viacom, launched a $3 billion lawsuit against Malone, arguing that the bid violated SEC rules. Malone admitted admiration for Redstone’s strategy: “I didn’t even get mad … I said, ‘That’s a smart move.’ It blew us out of the deal.”
Malone recalled that Diller put in a “Herculean effort” to assemble a buyer group, but the FTC forced TCI (Malone’s company) to withdraw $500 million in funding. That opened the door for Redstone, who ultimately raised his bid to $10.7 billion, securing Paramount. Diller’s reaction was characteristically blunt—his press release simply read: “They won. We lost. Next.”
The missed opportunity remains a sore point for Malone, who said it would have been a “huge home run” given Diller’s talent and experience in studio production. Diller, in turn, praised Malone’s “humanity”, noting how rare it was to receive a personal note of apology after the collapse of such a major deal.
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The luncheon event also drew major industry figures, including James Dolan (Madison Square Garden and Sphere CEO), Robert Kraft (New England Patriots owner), and Liberty Media CEO Derek Chang. Moderator Mark Robichaux, who edited Malone’s new book and previously authored a biography of him, guided the conversation, though the panel did not address Paramount’s recent merger with Skydance.
The session highlighted how Malone’s career has been defined not only by his victories in shaping the modern media landscape, but also by the battles he lost along the way—with the Paramount bid standing as one of the most famous.
