Welcome to market makers. And im joe weisenthal. In for joe today. We have a lot to cover. We have to cover greece. The top business stories from around the world. The winner john lohan has joined the board of Lions Gate Entertainment in a stock swap deal. Lions gate is the studio that produced the multibilliondollar hunger games movies. The company is giving malone and his affiliates at 3 stake. In return, lions gate will get 14 of the voting power and malones starz tv network. Time warner has beat profit estimates for the 24th quarter in a row. Fees for its cable channels and hbo help offset a drop in advertising sales. So did job cuts across the company. Time warner is trying to attract new viewers by offering a web only subscription to hbo for hip millennials. A Record Number of americans renounced their citizenship last year. More than 3400 turn in their passports. One likely reason, a law that gives the irs unprecedented access to americans foreign bank accounts. That nbc news investigation of Brian Williams is not over. Williams has now been suspended for six months without pay after he had to apologize for disputed accounts of his reporting in iraq. The network says it is it has concerns about comments williams made. Lester holt will fill in. I have to say, that is a wow. Quite a story. What you think . Im not surprised. I would not have been supplied not have been surprised. Are you not surprised by the suspension or that he lied . Im pretty shocked by that. Its months seems like a nice desk six months seems like a nice way to make it count. I think if you lied, it is hard to get back to it. What you do for a living is stand in front of a camera and hopefully tell people the truth. Germany and greece are playing greece, totally credible. The german finance minister says no way will he renegotiate the terms of the bailout. The greek Prime Minister says no way will he continue the austerity policies. Finance ministers are hoping to find Common Ground at a meeting in brussels later today. The next steps now with david servos. He is in l. A. And our international correspondent, hans nichols. David, what do you make of all this . I will stick to my view the last time i was with you, which was from athens. I think with joe standing on a windy rooftop. This is a tempest in a teapot. It is not the Second Coming of lehman. A greek exit or a greek nonpayment event, if this goes down, is not the morale of Financial Markets and the way it might back in 2012. It will be interesting to watch and we could get a risk off field to the markets for short period of time. Im sad to say i agree with the germans. I think greece can be let go without much fanfare. Hans, what do you think . There are two lines of public posture from germany. It is unimaginable to have anyone leave the euro. It is also that they are not going to budge from their position that greece has to stay in the imf program. Greece has made it clear that they want to leave. They want to do that at the end of the month. Today, we have the reckoning. You want a sense for how little confidence there is on the german side that you will get anything substantial out of this meeting . The german finance minister plans to lead leave the meeting tonight. That is not a finance minister who is per parent for an allnight oldschool european negotiation. Is there anything that we can expect from tonight . Any chance we could get something productive . Or is the expectation that when we wake up tomorrow, everything will be exactly the same except less time on the clock . You will get clarity. Maybe they will have an agreement. Everything i read from the body language, from what all the germans, dutch are saying youre unlikely to have a back down from the european side. We could get clarity on a key point, that is, will the europeans allow greece to increase their tbill limit another 8 billion and that could give greece bridge financing. If they say no to that, it will seem less likely that greece will get bridge financing and you could have some sort of nonpayment, credit event. The markets have a discussion or just decide how big an event that is. If we do have a credit event what is going to happen to european banks . These of the guys with the huge amount of greek debt on their books. They dont have as much as they had before. When the greek bailout took place before the psi, only got the efs at and all the structured loans, the data that was announced french bankshares rally 25 percent. I would imagine bankshares will not be up anything like that if we get an agreement here. A lot of this risk has been moved into the Public Sector whether in the esf f the imf or the Eu Commission loans or all the structures that were put in place this is not a real private sector event. We have psi bonds that were knocked down to virtually a very little portion of the outstanding debt. Were been able to move the exposure out. The problem for the greeks now is that they do not have that lehman bargaining chip. The other thing that is important is we have euro qe. We will have a buying of italian, spanish, government bonds so this contagion effect that worked in the greeks favor to say, you need to bridge us and give us this financing, to effectively pay you. That does not work as well. The luger is the official sector the loser is the official sector. The reverberation to the Financial Markets is going to be minor. That is a problem for the greeks. They will have to have a come to jesus moment about what they want to do. It is going to lie with them and how much they are willing to backtrack on what the greek people voted for. You make a strong case that there is not going to be much financial contagion if greece were to leave the euro. What about the politics . Europe and euro say that it would be unthinkable for anyone to leave. If greece leaves, that story is over. You people start worrying . Not so much about the financial side, but down the road that we could have a similar debate in spain or other countries where the economy is pretty miserable . I dont think is going to shock anybody that a politician in europe might have lied to them. This Brian Williams a in europe is not going to be there at you guys were discussing. Juncker used to argue that when all else fails, just lie. I think that was a quote of his. The idea that we would never haircut bonds that all these bonds will be money good, that did not come out to work very well when the greek psi experience happened. I think you have to go with this notion that the greeks dont want to have money come into their countries only so that it can go back out to pay creditors to save face. I want to share with you headlines crossing. The chairman of the eurogroup is speaking to reporters right now as he arrives at the meeting. He says he is willing to cooperate with the greek government and that greece must become financially instant pendant financially independent soon. What do you think of that . How are they going to do that . I think the finance minister came into all of this saying greece is insolvent. Indy to restructure us. It was the truth in 2011 and it is the truth today. I have been propped up so that they can get money into pay off the creditors. It is about a facesaving exercise for europe. The greeks do not want the money because they do not get the money. Money does not stay in greece. They want to be able to do their own thing. I think that is right for greece. If that entails greece leaving, i am ok with that. The market will eventually be ok after a hick up. Eat the loss, i think greece stays in and they can move on from here. This is a facesaving exercise for european politicians. Remember as well, this is a radical left party in greece trying taking the helm and you have centerright parties in the north that are watching their prospects if these guys are successful. Youre watching spain the end of next year, same thing. If this radical left Party Looks Like it is gaining traction and doing the right thing and policies are working, that is not going to sit well with Northern European politicians or the right parties in spain. A lot of people rooting for greece to fail. I dont see Angela Merkel sucking it up anytime soon. I think it is a tough trade. I do not think it is the moment everybody wants it to be. Thanks. Do you think anybody want a lehman moment . I remember that moment and i dont want it back again. That was a bad sunday night. I think i was at home on twitter watching what was going on. Bad night in my dojo. Coming up, back together. One investor says that is the way cbs and viacom should be. Can he sell shoes the way he sells music . Adidas finds out when its new kanye west sneakers go on sale. My vote is no. Joe welcome back to market makers. In sydney, australia, police say they broke up a terrorism plot. Two men were arrested. Police say they found a video in which one of the men indicated they were planning an attack for yesterday. More fighting in ukraine hours before peace talks are set to get underway. The kremlin says Vladimir Putin will and this will attend the talks in belarus scheduled to talk start a few minutes from now. Someone block. How much a stumbling block. Chinas president will make his first formal visit to the u. S. In september. She accepted the invitation from the bomb in a phone call yesterday from president obama in a phone call yesterday. Stephanie it has been nine years since by a calm and cbs went their separate ways. The empire controlled split into two. Viacom with its Hollywood Studio and cbs with its broadcast network and radio stations. Redstone still chairs both companies and some investors want him to bring the companys back together. One of them is devalued company. Brett harris is with us to lay out the case. Reunited and you wanted to feel so good. Guest there are big changes going on in the media landscape. It seems the cable bundle is under pressure. The larger Scale Networks are going to benefit at the expense of the smaller networks. Stephanie what do you mean . Guest you have the cable bundle, buying a bundle of programming whether it is cablevision, dish directv, is coming under pressure from over the top alternatives. You dont need to buy cable anymore. You can go to netflix. You can go to who loot to get programming. The cause of that, youre seeing scribers move to the overthetop option. Because of that, the distributors are under pressure. They are paying a lot and programming costs. Costs are rising faster than revenues. Because of that, they are looking to either cut Cable Networks or slow the growth of the programming cost. Which means, in order to do that, they need to take programming dollars from anybody they can. That tends to be smaller networks. If you are disney and you have espn, if your time warner, es time warner tbs. Smaller networks are not in that position. Make sense for cbs and viacom to get together. They would be a Bigger Network with more bargaining power. Joe what can the two networks do together right away that they cannot do right now . Guest they will have more scale. Cbs is on its own. It takes the most highly rated broadcast network. They expect their retransmission dollars to go from roughly 500 million today to the end of by come has a large suite of niche networks. They have mtv which appears to teenagers. Cbs is general in entertainment mess networks. They fit well together and hopefully they have better negotiating power. You have less and philippe. They both very successful executives. We will have to see how who runs the company if they end up putting it together. Stephanie is that why it seems less\ wan les wants and ownership bid . Guest hes putting together a bid to fetch record be part of his that could be part of his game plan, to try to buy out that voting control. Joe the big news of jon stewart. What does that mean for the company . Guest the daily show is a Successful Program for them. It has been around for 16 years. One of the big legs of Comedy Central, which was one of their successful networks. I think the daily show probably survives jon stewarts exit. Jon stewart is not the first person to post it. Craig kilborn hosted it. That being said ratings probably do suffer as you transition from jon stewart to some of the new. Stephanie what an emerging slow down cbss growth . It seems like in the last few years, cbs has been it like a rocket ship. Once you bolt lock boulder via come onto them, i do not know how they can continue this growth. Guest the hope is both of them have better negotiating power. They can go to distributors and say, it cant drop me. I want more on my affiliate sees because of my new scale. Joe you make a good case that they would be better off together. What would be the roadblocks to a deal . Guest they are two completely separate companies at this point. They have a shared founder in redstone. You have some of the management. You have philippe and les who might not want to work together. They both have contracts thats stipulate they are the number one executive behind redstone. . Stephanie what does redstone want . Guest i dont know. Stephanie what do you think . How old is he . Guest early 90s. Stephanie what on thing he wants to relinquish control at this point . Guest he is not mentioned that to me. Stephanie when you think, the guy who actually is pulling the strings is in his 90s, is he making the best decisions . Guest it is tough for me to comment on decisions he has made. We only see the decisions at the operating companies. Stephanie thank you for joining us and giving us your thoughts. Brett harris, giving us the latest on cbs and by. When we returned it is no laughing matter for Comedy Central. Brett is confident the daily show will go on. Without gone without jon stewart . Stay with us. Stephanie when we return he was mustsee tv for those who felt the could not get the real story from network news. How does the daily show replace jon stewart . Joe kanye west wants to make a splash at this weekends nba allstar game with his new adidas sneakers. Live from bloomberg headquarters in new york. This is market makers, with Erik Schatzker and stephanie ruhle. Stephanie welcome back. Im stephanie ruhle. Joe im joe weisenthal, in for eric today. Stephanie president obama has formally asked congress to approve a tax attacks on Islamic State. The u. S. Is already launching air raids on Islamic State. President obama wants authority to use Ground Troops in limited circumstances. Shares of pepsico are rising today. The Company Posted fourthquarter profits that beat analyst estimates. Pepsicos oversee earnings were hurt by the strong dollar. The currency issues reduced Earnings Growth by total of 7 . Merger advisory firm, Evercore Partners says it is busier than ever because of the collapse in oil prices. According to bob walsh, evercore is in the process of completing the largest restructuring in energy today. Among evercores clients, everett Energy Futures holdings which file chapter 11 last year. Jon stewart, everyone is talking about it, is calling it quits. 17 years is the longest i have ever in my life held a job by 16 years and five months. [laughter] the upshot there being i am a terrible employee. In my heart, i know it is time for someone else to have that opportunity. Stephanie stewart will leave some time this year. He is not leaving tomorrow. He came to the daily show back in 1999 and turned the program into an influential combination of satire and commentary. We want to bring in paul sweeney of bloomberg intelligence. How bad is this for Comedy Central . Guest it is a big hole in their lineup. They lost colbert earlier in the year. If you are viacom, the owner Comedy Central, u. S. At rating issues the last several years. Comedy central is another network you will have to fill some big holes in primetime. Joe is it realistic to think someone can replace jon stewart and keep the ratings up . Guest that is almost an impossibility. I think it would be difficult to do. If youre Comedy Central, youre looking to either bring in somebody big who could keep the ratings up, or you bring in an unknown much as jon stewart was at the time and try to build it back up again. They have issues in other parts as well. This is probably not welcome news for the folks at viacom. Stephanie hold on. Do we know why he left . Could they not have just paid him more . Guest i cant imagine its about money for him. Although it is always about money. 17 years, it is a grind. Four nights a week. Yet to be topical four nights a week. Best you have to be topical four nights a week. I dont know if Comedy Central has any backup plan. They have a couple fires to put out. Stephanie part of it has to be that it is a grind. From our seat we think, best job ever. The guy to go that i took last summer off to work on his documentary. Getting out there every day and doing a show is hard. He looks to a guy like jerry seinfeld. Jerry seinfeld does comedians with cars. Hes doing it with all his friends. Jon stewart might be like, im a little tired. Guest he is going out on a high note. He probably has lots of opportunities for other things to do. He has the wherewithal that he can do anything he wants now. It is probably good news for him. A challenge for Comedy Central and viacom. Joe speaking of not going out on a high note. Brian williamsnews. Does he have a future in news . Is this suspension going to be the end of his career . Guest i think everybody involved, nbc, Brian Williams is hoping that six months will heal all wounds. I suspects i think it is going to be difficult for him to come back. If you are nbc, youre thinking about a longterm plan b. Stephanie how important is nbc news to comcast . Nbc news was sort of the crown jewel. Im not sure if nightly news matters that much. Joe it does not matter. Guest i think