The Paramount Skydance Corporation logo and lettering can be seen at a Paramount booth at Media Days in Munich (Bavaria, Germany).
Matías Balk | Image Alliance | fake images
supreme skydance is cutting nearly 1,000 jobs as of Wednesday, just months after its merger closed, according to a person close to the situation. The layoffs will eventually amount to 2,000 positions, the person said.
“When we launched the new Paramount in August, we made clear that building a strong, future-focused company would require significant changes, including restructuring the organization,” CEO David Ellison told employees in a memo Wednesday morning. “As part of that process, we must also reduce the size of our workforce and we recognize that these actions impact our most important asset: our people.”
The merger between Paramount and Skydance closed in August, weeks after receiving long-sought regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission.
Shortly after the deal closed, Ellison and Paramount management telegraphed the upcoming job cuts and said they had identified more than $2 billion in cost synergies.
In Wednesday's memo, Ellison said the cuts would address “the layoffs that have emerged across the organization,” as well as “phase out roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities and the new structure designed to strengthen our focus on growth.”
“Ultimately, these steps are necessary to position Paramount for long-term success,” Ellison said in the memo. The layoffs will occur across the company, which includes CBS News, a portfolio of pay-TV networks and the movie studio.
Under Ellison's leadership, Paramount has made a series of moves and deals since the summer, including a seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal for UFC from TKO Group and the acquisition of online publication The Free Press. The company has also submitted three takeover bids for Warner Bros. Discovery in recent weeks, CNBC previously reported.
While it is the first round of layoffs for the newly merged company, Paramount had gone through a series of employee cuts before the deal closed. In 2024, Paramount's previous leadership said it would reduce its U.S. workforce by 15%.
In June, Paramount reduced its U.S. staff by 3.5%, or several hundred employees, CNBC reported at the time.
Layoffs have been widely impacting the media industry in recent months as companies face the decline of the traditional pay-TV package and macroeconomic headwinds that have weighed on advertising revenue.
— CNBC's Julia Boorstin contributed to this article.
