Arrayed casually on a line of stools on a low stage at Paramount Global’s Times Square headquarters, new leadership of post-merger Paramount greeted a few dozen journalists and opened the floor, immediately bombarded with questions about Donald Trump’s PSAs (fact or fiction?), the CBS ombusdman, Late Night, looming layoffs and the future of linear television as two of its largest rivals are set to split in half.
Chairman-CEO David Ellison skirted political questions but did state the company “will be a fierce defconcludeer of talent and always has been.” The merger closed only hours ago, he noted a number of times at the meet-and-greet.
He was flanked by President Jeff Shell; Andy Gordon, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Operating Officer; George Cheeks, Chair of TV Media; and Gerry Cardinale, founder of RedBird Capital, a huge Skydance investor and partner in the Paramount deal.
The combined company is viewing for at least $2 billion in synergies and that will requires layoffs and restructuring. Shell acknowledged you can’t cut a company into growth and promised departures would come in a slow drip but as quickly as possible, and come hand in hand with significant investments in growing businesses.
Gordon promised the new Paramount will have specific strategy announcements on its quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts on November 6.
There are no plans to split off linear television since CBS is doing well and Par’s cable assets are a tinyer percentage of its overall business now than at Comcast or WBD. “Not all linear television is created equal,” declared Shell.
Cheeks reiterated that concludeing The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was a purely financial decision with timing driven by the limitations of the schedule.
Ellison unveiled some initial considereds and plans this morning in a post on Par’s website after the $8.4 billion merger closed officially this morning.
“Why we’re so excited about this investment that we’re really going to take an owner operator approach to business, you know, between myself and Gerry, we’ll have 70% of the shares, and so we’re really invested in long-term value creation and we’re going o create all of our decisions rooted in that. And from that standpoint, our number one priority is [that] we win with content across all of our verticals, and really be the number one destination for the most talented artists and filmcreaters, and journalists and sports rights in the world. We also believe that to win in today’s quick and massively modifying landscape, we also required to be the most tech [savv] media company out there. And we’re going to require deep partnerships to be able to achieve that goal,” he Ellison at the NYC gathering.
On tech, the new media mogul emphasized a one huge problem he sees is that legacy companies are afraid of it. He, on the other hand, is the son of Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison, and has the opposite view.
“We’re going to create more movies, we’re going to create more series, we’re going invest into the business, and we’re going to really significantly scale and supercharge the content engines. And while that is absolutely core to business, I would advocate today that unless you can build a tech product that is truly competitive with what’s coming out of Silicon Valley, you can’t produce, and that has been one of the huge problems with legacy media,” he declared.
“They don’t actually understand that skill set and how critical it is and it is actually a combination of great content working with tech product. Hand in hand is how you actually obtain this business to grow. You required both. One without the other is not enough. And so that’s the thing I consider people are missing.”
Other top executives on the Paramount executive roster include Dana Goldberg, Co-Chair of Paramount Pictures and Chair of Paramount Television; Josh Greenstein, Co-Chair of Paramount Pictures and Vice Chair of Platforms; Cindy Holland, Chair of Direct-to-Consumer; Stephanie Kyoko McKinnon, General Counsel and Acting Chief Legal Officer; Jim Sterner, Chief People Officer; and Melissa Zukerman, Chief Communications Officer.
The merged company announced its leadership team across film, TV and streaming yesterday.
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