As for the streaming side, you can expect to find all of Ellison’s properties—from CNN to MTV—on a single app. Some industry insiders fear that all this consolidation could diminish the work of prestige brands like HBO, which Ellison calls his “crown jewel.”
And then there’s the multibillion-dollar AI question. Ellison himself insists that he sees AI “as a tool for artists” and a “force multiplier,” not “a replacement for human creativity.” Those are the kinds of terms the actors and writers guilds will be pushing to formalize in their contract negotiations this spring.
With the help of these tech-driven efficiencies, Ellison has promised to release 30 films per year between the two studios—all of which he says will receive a full theatrical release. While Paramount didn’t exactly clean up during this year’s awards season, I spoke with a veteran awards consultant who said she’s not counting them out just yet. “People don’t always lead with their chin about awards,” she told me. “The movies have got to open and make money for these guys with their business model, and then go from there.” A source close to the company told me that while Paramount did disband its small awards team in the fall, it could reevaluate post-merger and either rehire these awards roles or outsource them to specialized external agencies.
The Ellisons are both “long slop and anti-slop.” — John Coogan
AI could also unlock new potential for WBD’s treasure trove of IP, from Harry Potter to DC Comics. For that potential, Ellison and company are paying a hefty $110 billion—a number that was driven up by a fierce bidding war with Netflix. “The Ellison family is fascinating. On one hand you have the very aggressively AGI-pilled Larry buying the future, investing heavily in Oracle data centers, and on the other side you have David buying the past, accumulating intellectual property that feels impossible to rebuild,” said John Coogan, cohost of the Los Angeles-based tech podcast TBPN. The duo, he argued, is placing bets that are both “long slop and anti-slop.”
But not everyone is convinced by this strategy. Paramount Skydance is “doing it by taking on almost unspeakably massive quantities of debt. It’s basically like a private equity deal,” former Democratic FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya told me Monday. “And what happens with private equity is you need to show a cleaned-up ledger and balance sheet. And the easiest way to do that is to lay people off, because people are expensive.” A representative for Paramount claims that layoff fears are overblown, telling Vanity Fair, “Synergies will be achieved by six key areas—jobs are not the majority.”
Which brings us to the free speech implications of consolidating so many news operations. Last year, Team Paramount said it would take $24 billion from Saudi, Qatari, and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds—and as of Sunday, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg, China’s “national champion” Tencent is considering investing several hundred million dollars, which the Paramount representative brushed off as “a rumor.” (Remember: Paramount Skydance’s own market cap hovers somewhere around $12 billion.)
