We live in interesting times. The old media giants are just money-losing properties out of phase with a new arrangement in which networks, free and cable, are being replaced with streaming subscription packages.

When Discovery found it had CNN on its hands, it tried to clean house because the cable news network is an unwanted drain.

But an even bigger legacy name in news may be circling the drain. Think Cronkite and Rather.

Equity analyst Steven Cahall of bank Wells Fargo gives Paramount Corp. another “1-2 years” of throwing “good money… after bad,” chasing a streaming profit that may never come, and riding out the last gasps of linear television, before “the break-up becomes inevitable.”

The “good money” within Paramount Global lies inside its studios, which Cahall sees as worth about $30 billion in a sale, per a note he sent to clients on Thursday…

That’s the general consensus surrounding Paramount Global: It’s got great studios and a deep library, but the suite of cable channels and other antiquated assets belong in the bargain bin. Even broadcast network CBS, despite regularly drawing the most viewers on television, is more of a burden than a blessing in potential M&A activity.

For example, NBCUniversal parent Comcast would have good reason (and good money) to buy Paramount Global in its entirety — heck, Paramount+ could even be the thing that saves Peacock — but owning both NBC and CBS is an FCC no-no.

The short version is that CBS isn’t seen as an asset anymore in the equity game, it’s a platform in an era where everyone is chasing subscription platforms, not ad-supported network viewing. (This is dumb, but that’s the current business model that the industry is using to bankrupt itself.)

And, in this arrangement, CBS News is particularly useless. Paramount is already prepping a sale of its iconic broadcast center.

CBS is “eyeing” a momentous move from its longtime broadcast facilities on West 57th Street. Sources said the network, which merged with Viacom in 2019 into what’s now called Paramount Global, is expected to soon put out a request for proposals to solicit offers on two fronts.

One might be to sell CBS’s sprawling, 600,000 square-foot broadcast center on West 57th between Tenth and Eleventh avenues — the long-ago site of a dairy depot, where CBS has had a presence since the 1950s.

The RFP would also seek a new location in Manhattan for the network’s broadcast home.

And it’s signaling that it doesn’t see CBS News as having any value.

Fast forward to 2022. Viacom, a company founded in 1972 by, you guessed it, William S. Paley, has announced a name change from ViacomCBS to Paramount. If you have not read the official press release, it is fascinating. The four-page document details every program and franchise the company owns, even Beavis and Butt-Head, but with one notable exception. Other than one line of fine print at the bottom, there is no mention of CBS. CBS News is not mentioned at all.

In fact, the only reference to “news” in the entire release, which makes clear that Paramount will be a global entertainment company, comes as one word in a long string of product offerings on the Paramount streaming service. Even then, there is no CBS.

That’s obviously a bad signal. But CNN already demonstrated that trying to charge for subscriptions to a news channel won’t work with CNN+. In an environment where the goal is to monetize intellectual properties to churn out content gated behind paywalls, CBS News looks like a giant pointless weight dragging it down and obstructing its new business model.

Both CBS’s morning and evening newscasts are low rated and lose money, so both could be canceled. Although you will never hear it said out loud, many affiliates would welcome cancellation of The CBS Evening News. This would return a valuable half hour of local news inventory to the stations.

When you think about it, CBS News’ only major asset is 60 Minutes, a self-contained unit with no need of a news department.

Why would a company that bills itself as a global entertainment entity want to support a money-losing news enterprise that could be jobbed out? Affiliates would simply fill the time with local news, or — think about this — syndicated programming from Paramount.

A world without CBS News is not only plausible, it may be only a few years away.