A game of thrones at Viacom

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"This summer's guilty-pleasure beach read won't be found on your Kindle or at your local bookstore," said Shirley Leung at The Boston Globe. For a palace intrigue complete with an aging monarch, scheming courtiers, and jilted lovers, look no further than the legal battle over Sumner Redstone's $40 billion media and entertainment empire. The ailing 93-year-old still controls 80 percent of CBS and Viacom, despite reportedly being barely able to speak. With no clear succession plan, a bitter struggle has erupted between Redstone's once estranged daughter, Shari, and the man Redstone has repeatedly described as a surrogate son, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman. In the saga's latest chapter, Redstone last month booted Dauman and another decades-long ally from the trust that will control his fortune after he dies, replacing them with trustees loyal to Shari. In response, Dauman filed a "page-turning" lawsuit, alleging that Redstone is suffering from dementia and being manipulated by his daughter. Pretty juicy, right?

How quickly fortunes change, said Dylan Byers at CNN. This time last year, it was Redstone and Shari who "were on the rocks." Redstone even offered Shari $1 billion in late 2014 for her 20 percent stake in his empire, partly to ensure that she would never succeed him as chairman. Redstone's two girlfriends — both roughly half his age — were set to be the principal beneficiaries of his personal estate. Today, however, Shari "is a fixture in her father's life," and Redstone's erstwhile lovers have been completely cut out of his will and banished from his Beverly Hills mansion. One of them, Manuela Herzer, recently sued to be reinstated as Redstone's health-care proxy. She argued that Redstone cannot walk or talk intelligibly and that Shari had her thrown out of the house "in order to shore up her control over the future of her father's empire." A California judge dismissed the suit in May after Redstone himself appeared in an expletive-laced video deposition; though the mogul spoke haltingly and was not able to answer some basic questions, such as his birth name, he stated he wanted Herzer out of his life. Soon afterward, Redstone removed Dauman from his trust, and could soon move to oust him from the top job at Viacom as well.

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"If Dauman is to keep his job, it will require some fancy footwork," said The Economist. During the Herzer trial, Dauman testified under oath that Redstone was "engaged and attentive." Now, he's claiming the exact opposite. Incredibly, Viacom's stock has actually shot up in response to this "soap opera." Whether Redstone's daughter is pulling the strings or not, investors seem to like the idea that Dauman could be shown the door. They're no doubt frustrated with the struggling performance of Viacom's Paramount film studio, and with the fact that its portfolio of cable channels — including MTV, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central — has lost 35 percent of its viewers over the past five years, the most of any big media company. Let this be a lesson to Silicon Valley moguls, who insist on clinging to control even after their companies go public, said John Gapper at the Financial Times. Redstone's inability to let go — he famously said his succession plan was that he didn't plan to die — has left a tangle of unresolved rivalries that now threaten his legacy. The man "should be in dignified retirement. Instead, he created a nightmare for himself."