What will Paramount look like when the Ellisons are done with it?

By Lukas I. Alpert

With the exit of hit maker Taylor Sheridan, a 10% staff cut and the shift of a big part of its studio operations to New Jersey, Paramount may become unrecognizable

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has been moving fast to transform the media conglomerate into something he promises will be leaner and more agile.

In early August, on the day when the bruising and drawn-out merger of Paramount and Skydance was completed, Chief Executive David Ellison promised "far-reaching changes" that would make the company "leaner, faster, smarter and more agile."

In less than three months, the 113-year-old Paramount is well on its way to becoming unrecognizable as the rapid-fire changes Ellison is pushing for become reality.

Market reaction to the dizzying array of moves has been lukewarm so far - shares of Paramount Skydance Corp. (PSKY) have dropped about 18% since hitting a two-year high in late September.

On Wednesday, Ellison announced the beginning of long-expected layoffs, with 1,000 U.S. staff members leaving the company. Another 1,000 are expected to follow soon. Together, that amounts to about 10% of the company's workforce.

The move comes days after Paramount Skydance's biggest hitmaker, Taylor Sheridan, decided to leave the company and sign a $1 billion deal with a major rival, Comcast Corp.'s (CMCSA) NBCUniversal.

Also on Tuesday, Paramount announced that it had signed a 10-year deal to move a big part of its studio operations to Bayonne, N.J., taking advantage of beneficial tax treatment there.

"When we launched the new Paramount in August, we made clear that building a strong, future-focused company would require significant change - including restructuring the organization," Ellison wrote in a memo to staff about Wednesday's layoffs. "Ultimately, these steps are necessary to position Paramount for long-term success."

How far Ellison plans to go remains to be seen. In addition to the fast-tracked changes internally, the son of Oracle Corp. (ORCL) co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, has been aggressively trying to swoop up rival Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (WBD), offering increasingly higher prices per share. So far, Ellison's entreaties have been rebuffed.

This all comes as Paramount has sought to remake its CBS News unit. Earlier this month, Paramount acquired the center-right news site the Free Press for $150 million and made its founder, right-of-center polemicist Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS's news operations. Earlier this week, John Dickerson, anchor of the "CBS Evening News," announced he was leaving the network.

Soon after taking over the company, Ellison also inked a $7.7 billion, seven-year deal with TKO Group Holdings Inc. (TKO) for the rights to broadcast UFC's mixed-martial-arts fights. He also lured the Duffer brothers, the creators of "Stranger Things," away from Netflix Inc. (NFLX).

Allowing Sheridan to walk out the door was nonetheless a head scratcher. Sheridan's smash programs, including "Yellowstone," "Tulsa King" and "Landman," had played a huge role in helping the company's streaming service Paramount+ become a viable business.

Under the prior regime, Sheridan had been given a creative - and financial - free hand, which Ellison and his new executive team had reportedly signaled might not be their approach. The Wall Street Journal reported that Sheridan bristled at the possible constraints and decided to walk.

Paramount will retain the rights to the programs Sheridan has already made, and he remains under contract for three more years, even as he can begin producing films for NBCUniversal next year.

All the changes come after a long-drawn-out effort by Ellison to acquire Paramount amid regulatory pressures brought by the Trump administration.

The $8 billion sale was originally announced in 2024 and dragged on for over a year, awaiting FCC approval of the transfer of certain broadcast licenses between the companies.

Many media watchers had suspected the real holdup stemmed from a $20 billion lawsuit filed against CBS by President Donald Trump, who claimed that the network had deceptively edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during last year's election.

From the archives (October 2024): Trump's excuses for backing out of traditional '60 Minutes' interview have been inconsistent, says CBS

Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement of the suit, even as most legal experts viewed he Trump claim as baseless. After the FCC signed off on the deal, its chairman, Brendan Carr, appeared to confirm that the deal was only allowed to go through after promises were secured to make ideological changes to news programming at CBS and end all diversity programs at the company.

-Lukas I. Alpert

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10-29-25 1301ET