In his first few minutes as the chief of the newly minted Paramount Skydance, David Ellison took the microphone and mostly deflected a bunch of questions from reporters who’ve followed every dramatic turn of the 13-month journey to close the $8 billion deal to take control of the venerable owner of Paramount Pictures and CBS.
The message from the mogul was urgent: Technology is coming to Hollywood, regardless of whether studios choose to embrace it, so Paramount hopes to take an artist-driven approach to it. That includes machine-learning to help with film and TV show discovery on streaming platforms, as well as an AI influence on “content generation,” but Ellison didn’t go into specifics about what that could mean. In an example cherry-picked for Hollywood, Pixar was cited for revolutionizing the animation world and ushering in an era of 3D animated blockbusters.
The Oracle heir spoke about his affinity for the film and television business — and said the words that all talent wants to hear, that talent is of utmost importance in a storytelling company — but also signaled that he’s much more willing to experiment with new technology that can “turbocharge” Paramount’s IP, which includes SpongeBob SquarePants, Star Trek, Yellowstone and more.
The CEO tried to distance himself from the $16 million deal that the Shari Redstone-led leadership made with President Trump to settle his 60 Minutes lawsuit. Pressed by reporters about whether Ellison’s Paramount Skydance had a side deal to air public service announcements on the issues Trump cares about, the CEO of the company said that settlement had been made by prior leadership and tried to leave it at that. (The problem is that Trump himself has not left it at that, and has posted on Truth Social about such a deal and talked to reporters about it.)
Ellison, flanked by president Jeff Shell, chairman of TV media George Cheeks, RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale and COO Andy Gordon, fielded a series of questions about the deal close on Thursday while at Paramount’s Times Square office. Over and over, the buzz word among executives who’d gathered was how they were taking care to be “non-political” in this particular moment.
“We’re ready to move past the noise,” Ellison said, despite the lobbed questions geared toward Trump, CBS bias and FCC maneuvering. Another defensive moment occurred when the exec panel was asked about the cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which will end its run in 2026. It was another move made weeks before the new ownership took over, saving this current exec crew from the move being technically made on their watch (aside from George Cheeks, who was the exec quoted in the Colbert cancellation press release). The question was parried back to reporters, as the flock of journalists were asked to raise their hands if they watched late-night TV at night when it first airs on linear television. (Few reporters raised their hands.)
Ellison was more open about in-the-weeds questions, including mentioning talks with several tech partners (including Oracle, which his billionaire father Larry Ellison founded) as well as unifying the Paramount tech stack (the backend technology) that powers Paramount+, BET+ and ad-supported PlutoTV, while acknowledging that there’d be cost-cutting made at the company.
Look for the November 6 earnings call for those financial outlook details, the execs said, while also appearing to imply that further layoff decisions wouldn’t be a quarter-by-quarter occurrence, or, “death-by-a-thousand-cuts” even though $2 billion-plus in synergies — typically things like redundancies in corporate layers, administration, product or tech — had been targeted.
Despite those expected cuts, the goal would be to invest into the growth areas of the business. What those growth areas may be are an outstanding question (the exec panel only dropped hints of how emerging tech could influence content generation) but Ellison has stated in his deal close letter that he hopes to scale up Paramount’s direct-to-consumer business globally. That flagship, Paramount+, has about 77 million subscribers currently, running further behind the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video and closer to HBO Max (and ahead of Peacock).
Shell, for one, signaled that he’s looking forward to finally getting to work implementing the new Skydance plan at Paramount after sitting on the sidelines as the company underwent regulatory review, a drawn out process that, lets just say, certainly didn’t stay “non-political.”
The new Paramount Skydance will trade on the Nasdaq as “PSKY” in its latest incarnation. In an open letter to shareholders on Thursday, Ellison wrote that he wants “to empower our creative partners with technology that will enable them to tell bigger, more compelling stories fueled by human ingenuity” but that the company “will face some hard but necessary decisions to align our team for growth and efficiency.”
More to come.
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