The Paramount Skydance Corporation logo and lettering are seen on a Paramount stand during Media Days in Munich (Bavaria, Germany).
Matthias Balk | Alliance in pictures | Getty Images
Paramount Skydance will cut nearly 1,000 jobs starting Wednesday, just months after finalizing its merger, according to a person familiar with the matter. The layoffs will ultimately amount to 2,000 positions, the source said.
“When we launched the new Paramount in August, we made clear that building a strong, forward-looking company would require significant changes, including restructuring the organization,” CEO David Ellison told employees in a memo Wednesday morning. “As part of this process, we must also reduce the size of our workforce, and we recognize that these measures impact our most important asset: our people.”
The merger between Paramount and Skydance closed in August, weeks after receiving long-awaited regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission.
Shortly after the deal closed, executives at Ellison and Paramount telegraphed upcoming job cuts and said they had identified more than $2 billion in cost synergies.
In Wednesday’s memo, Ellison said the cuts would include “layoffs that have emerged across the organization,” as well as “the phasing out of positions that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities and new structure designed to reinforce our focus on growth.”
“Ultimately, these steps are necessary to position Paramount on a path to long-term success,” Ellison said in the memo. The layoffs will affect the entire 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 changes and deals since the summer, including a 7-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal for UFC from TKO Group and the acquisition of online publication The Free Press. The company also launched three buyout offers for Discovery of Warner Bros. in recent weeks, CNBC previously reported.
Although this is the first round of layoffs for the newly merged company, Paramount had experienced a series of staff reductions before the deal closed. In 2024, Paramount’s previous executives announced they would reduce their U.S.-based workforce by 15%.
In June, Paramount cut its U.S.-based workforce by 3.5%, or several hundred employees, CNBC reported at the time.
Layoffs have affected the entire media sector in recent months, as companies grapple with the decline of traditional pay-TV offerings and macroeconomic challenges that have weighed on advertising revenue.
—Julia Boorstin of CNBC contributed to this article.