When Sumner Redstone, chief executive of National Amusements and Midway Games (and through Amusements, has majority holdings in Viacom, CBS, Paramount, and everything else in the world) divorced his first wife in 2002, he paid for the settlement in Midway stock. Which one would have hoped his first wife Phyllis would have sold by now, since the plummeting Dow makes the original settlement substantially less lucrative than it was back in good old '02.

But now that Redstone is breaking off his second marriage, will he be able to pull the same stunt again and trade promises of money for the actual thing?

Meanwhile shares in both CBS and Viacom have tumbled. Both have suffered from the general malaise in the stock market and fundamental shifts in the media industry. Last week, CBS reported a $12.6 billion quarterly loss, mainly because of a $14.12 billion write-down of certain assets.

The problem isn't just the bad economy, because CBS is doing surprisingly well so far this quarter. It's that Redstone has so intricately linked his personal bad debt with that of his companies', there is no longer any way to boost one up with the other.

What investors and analysts did not know was the link between Mr. Redstone’s debt load and the share prices of CBS and Viacom — and the possibility that a margin call could force a large stock sale.

On Oct. 10, Mr. Redstone surprised his own executives when he was forced to sell $233 million in nonvoting stock in CBS and Viacom because he had breached his covenants on $1.6 billion in loans at National Amusements.

So if the media titan plans on shilling out more worthless stock in lieu of alimony payments, he better do it fast, before the stock market takes another tumble or his companies continue to hemorrhage cash. Otherwise, his ex Paula Fortunato will know better than to accept a bunch of bonds that aren't worth enough to wipe her ass with.