Hollywood is back in the news. Fabled names (Paramount! Warner Brothers!) are on the auction block, and much newer big names (the Ellisons! Netflix!) are in the crowd waving their paddles. It all sounds glamorous, like titans playing on a giant media chessboard. The reality? It isn’t, really.

Paramount and Warner Brothers: Those are the shorthand terms for conglomerates that each include a major movie studio and then a lot of other media assets of varying quality and value. They are indeed fabled, but mismanagement and financial legerdemain in recent years have brought them both to a sad pass.

Donald Trump and Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount head David Ellison.Credit: AP

Paramount, which includes the TV network CBS, was the domain of mogul Sumner Redstone; he went into an extended dotage with no clear succession plan and an accompanying tabloid orgy of embarrassing sex, family and financial imbroglios. By the early years of this decade, it was long past its peak value as it struggled to find its place in the streaming world.

Warner Bros, which includes HBO and CNN, has been limping since its disastrous merger with AOL way back when. A few years ago, then-owner AT&T tossed the........

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