Paramount Skydance makes $108.4bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery, challenging Netflix’s offer – business live

Newsflash: Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile takeover offer for Warner Bros Discovery, in an attempt to derail Netflix’s bid for the movie studio and streaming network.Paramount claims that its offer “provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion to WBD shareholders” than the Netflix offer, which has led to a backlash since it was announced last Friday.Paramount are offering to pay $30.00 per share in cash for Warner Brothers Discovery, which equates to an enterprise value of $108.4bn – ahead of Netflix’s offer which was worth $83bn

Bank of England cutting jobs as part of overhaul after critical Bernanke review

The Bank of England has said it is cutting jobs amid sweeping changes at Threadneedle Street after a highly critical review into its failure to forecast surging inflation.Under budget pressures as it responded to the report from the former US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, the Bank has opened a voluntary scheme last week as part of an efficiency drive to find savings.The process, which will run until mid-January, with staff expected to leave in March, was first reported by Bloomberg. The Bank said it was “a mutually agreed, time-limited scheme for staff to choose to apply to leave.“We are now implementing a significant, multiyear transformation of our operations and this will condition our decisions

Social media use damages children’s ability to focus, say researchers

Increased use of social media by children damages their concentration levels and may be contributing to an increase in cases of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a study.The peer-reviewed report monitored the development of more than 8,300 US-based children from the age of 10 to 14 and linked social media use to “increased inattention symptoms”.Reseachers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Oregon Health & Science University in the US found that children spent an average of 2.3 hours a day watching television or online videos, 1.4 hours on social media and 1

‘It has to be genuine’: older influencers drive growth on social media

In 2022, Caroline Idiens was on holiday halfway up an Italian mountain when her brother called to tell her to check her Instagram account. “I said, ‘I haven’t got any wifi. And he said: ‘Every time you refresh, it’s adding 500 followers.’ So I had to try to get to the top of the hill with the phone to check for myself.”A personal trainer from Berkshire who began posting her fitness classes online at the start of lockdown in 2020, Idiens, 53, had already built a respectable following

McCullum’s ‘overprepared’ Ashes blunder may prove England’s Bazball epitaph

Brendon McCullum hated the term Bazball from the moment it entered the lexicon, deeming it to be reductive and perhaps knowing how it might be weaponised down the line. Now, 2-0 down in an away Ashes series that began with high hopes, it has become the butt of Australian jokes.But McCullum has not helped himself, either. After the gutting at the Gabba, his insistence that, if anything, England trained “too hard” before the day‑night match was like trying to put out a bin fire with petrol. It risks becoming his epitaph as England head coach if performances do not take an upturn

Gabba dramas show why pink-ball Tests are here to stay – and could save the format

It took just six deliveries for Mitchell Starc to work his magic with the pink ball. The dismissal of Ben Duckett in the first over in Brisbane was the left-arm quick’s 82nd wicket in his 15th day-night Test. Starc would take another seven scalps in the second Ashes Test, as Australia romped to an eight-wicket victory at the Gabba. England’s belated resistance to begin day four ensured the hosts’ triumph was sealed under lights during the third session – when maximum eyeballs, for better or worse, would be locked onto the clash both locally and on the other side of the globe.England might be out to save Test cricket, or to at least reignite interest in it in their homeland