Paramount Cuts 1000 Jobs After Skydance Merger

Entertainment Giant Slashes Workforce

Paramount Skydance will eliminate approximately 1,000 corporate positions on Wednesday, October 29, marking the first phase of sweeping layoffs following the company's $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media that closed in August.

The cuts represent roughly 5% of Paramount's workforce based on pre-merger headcount. As of December 2024, Paramount Global employed approximately 18,600 full- and part-time workers across 32 countries, plus an additional 3,500 project-based staff. A second round of layoffs is expected later, bringing total cuts to an estimated 2,000 employees according to multiple reports.

At an August 7 press conference announcing the merger's completion, Paramount President Jeff Shell—the former NBCUniversal CEO—promised investors that layoffs would be implemented "as swiftly as possible" and disclosed by the company's third-quarter earnings report scheduled for November 10.

"We don't want to be a company that has layoffs every quarter," Shell told reporters. "So it's going to be painful."

The job cuts are part of a broader restructuring aimed at delivering $2 billion in annualized cost savings—a figure Shell and his team at consulting firm Bain & Company identified during due diligence on the merger. Shell indicated that much of the savings would come from Paramount's struggling linear television business, which has suffered from declining viewership and advertising revenue as audiences shift to streaming.

Merger Transforms Media Landscape

The Skydance-Paramount deal, orchestrated by David Ellison—son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison—gives the younger Ellison control of major entertainment franchises including Star Trek, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Top Gun.

Ellison now serves as CEO and chairman of the merged entity, with Shell as president. The leadership team includes Cindy Holland, Dana Goldberg, and Josh Greenstein overseeing streaming and film operations. Former co-CEOs Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy departed when the merger closed, while CBS CEO George Cheeks remains with the company.

Prior to the merger's completion, Paramount had already conducted multiple rounds of layoffs, including a 3.5% reduction of domestic staff in June. Combined with attrition, the company's headcount had fallen from 24,500 in 2022 to the current levels—making these new cuts particularly significant for remaining employees.

Even as Paramount slashes jobs, the company has made aggressive content investments. One week after the merger closed, Paramount announced a $7.7 billion seven-year deal for exclusive UFC rights, acquired Bari Weiss's The Free Press for a reported $150 million, and struck a deal with Activision to produce a Call of Duty movie.

The company also lured the Duffer Brothers—creators of Netflix's Stranger Things—away from the streaming giant with a four-year exclusive production deal. Meanwhile, CBS Sports has reportedly emerged relatively unscathed from recent cost-cutting compared to other divisions.

Warner Bros Acquisition Attempt Fails

The ink had barely dried on the Skydance-Paramount merger before Ellison set his sights on an even bigger prize: Warner Bros Discovery. The media conglomerate—parent of HBO, CNN, Warner Bros Entertainment, and DC Comics—rejected three separate acquisition offers from Paramount in recent weeks.

According to multiple reports, Paramount's bids escalated from an initial $20 per share to approximately $22 per share, and finally to just under $24 per share comprised of 80% cash. Warner Bros Discovery's board deemed all three offers too low, even as the company's stock price doubled from its lows and hit a three-year high amid acquisition speculation.

The rejected bids valued Warner Bros Discovery at close to $60 billion including debt. The company carries approximately $35.6 billion in total debt as of June 30, a significant liability for any potential acquirer.

In response to the acquisition interest, Warner Bros Discovery announced it had received "unsolicited interest" from multiple parties and would conduct a strategic review. Netflix and Comcast are reportedly among other interested bidders, though both companies declined to comment.

Despite the rejections, analysts still view Ellison and Paramount as the most likely eventual acquirer. Speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, Ellison explained why Paramount needs additional content-producing engines to achieve sustainable growth in today's streaming-centric environment.

"You actually need more content to yield more engagement," Ellison said, declining to name specific acquisition targets. "And so we would actually want to be in the business, through whatever lens we're looking at, to produce more movies, more television series."

Ellison reportedly offered Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav the opportunity to become co-CEO and co-chairman of a merged entity—an attempt at ego-massaging that failed to sway the board.

Industry Under Pressure

Like other traditional media companies, Paramount faces secular headwinds from cord-cutting and the shift to streaming. The company's Paramount+ streaming service has struggled to gain traction against competitors like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video.

Linear television revenues—once the cash cow funding Hollywood production—continue declining as pay-TV subscribers cancel cable packages in favor of streaming bundles. Theatrical moviegoing has yet to fully recover from COVID-19, creating additional pressure on studio operations.

Any eventual merger with Warner Bros Discovery would trigger another massive wave of layoffs as the combined entity consolidated corporate functions, studios, television networks, and streaming operations. Industry observers expect such a deal could eliminate thousands of additional positions across both companies.

For the 1,000 Paramount employees receiving termination notices Wednesday, the entertainment industry's consolidation has already become painfully personal.

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