Paramount Global to slash 15 percent of workforce as jobs disaster in film and television deepens

Officials of beleaguered Paramount Global announced Thursday plans to cut 15 percent of the company’s US workforce, or some 2,000 jobs. The layoffs are part of a company plan to lower costs by approximately $500 million. The news of the job destruction, harming the lives of tens of thousands of people, caused the firm’s stock price to “surge” on Friday.

Paramount, which eliminated 800 positions in February, is a US-based multinational entertainment conglomerate owned by National Amusements, the billionaire Redstone family business, which was recently sold to Skydance Media, a deal scheduled to be realized in 2025. Skydance was founded by David Ellison, son of another billionaire, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, the ninth-richest person in the world.

Paramount’s assets in the US include Paramount Pictures, the CBS Entertainment Group, BET Media Group, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, CMT, Showtime and Paramount+.

The job cuts at Paramount were long expected. The workers are being made to pay for the ongoing sharp crisis in Hollywood and the profit drive of Wall Street and other financial sharks.

Also on Thursday, Paramount wrote down the value of its cable networks by nearly $6 billion. MSN noted that Paramount “reported an 11% year-over-year decline in second-quarter sales to $6.81 billion.”

According to the Hollywood Reporter, in the wake of the Skydance purchase-merger, the areas at Paramount “hit will be redundant functions within marketing and communications and in finance, legal, technology and other support functions. These actions will take place in the coming weeks and will largely be completed by the end of the year, according to management.”

Deadline writes that Paramount+, the company’s streaming service, “is likely to take some of the brunt of the latest staff reductions as media companies, including Paramount, are trying to cut streaming losses by reducing spending and original output in the push to make their platforms profitable.”

On Disney’s quarterly earnings call Wednesday, Deadline observed, “CFO Hugh Johnston hinted that new cost cuts may be in the offing, assuring Wall Street analysts that there would be more ways to do ‘more with less’ in the near future.”

The same day, Warner Bros. Discovery, which has also laid off workers this year, reported it was taking a write-down of $9.1 billion at its networks division “to align the book value of its linear television business with the reality of uncertain advertising and sports rights renewals. … The value of the linear assets when Discovery and Warner Media merged two and half year ago (sic) was significantly higher than it is now as consumers migrated and advertising dipped. That’s across the industry.” (Deadline) Since the merger of Warner Media and Discovery became final in April 2022, “shares have fallen about 70%,” comments CNBC.

Variety points out that the

cost-cutting targets of the Skydance team have been even more aggressive. Jeff Shell, set to become president of the combined company, has said Skydance, working with consulting firm Bain & Co., is aiming to achieve at least $2 billion in annualized cost synergies at Paramount.

A jobs and career bloodbath is currently going on in the entertainment industry.