Paramount Global’s new leadership team set out their strategic priorities for the company, including $500m in cost savings, selling non-core assets and exploring streaming joint ventures with other media companies.
The plan was presented at the company’s annual meeting of shareholders today (June 4) by its recently established Office of the CEO, which took over from Bob Bakish in April.
The Office of the CEO comprises: George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, president and CEO, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon.
The presentation came at a difficult time for Paramount Global. Shari Redstone, whose National Amusements owns a controlling interest in Paramount Global, is reportedly weighing up a modified takeover offer of around $8bn from David Ellison’s Skydance Media and his backers RedBird Capital.
But there was little word about the Skydance offer. McCarthy said he could not comment on “speculation’ about the proposed deal, and that the office of the CEO’s plan was “built to improve the company’s balance sheet to best set it up for growth and to drive shareholder value. That was the charge the three of us were given when we took over these roles three weeks ago, and that is the charge that we have been laser-focused on executing against.”
The trio, who presented their plan together, were introduced by Redstone who said she “recognised that this is not a traditional management structure”. They also postponed the town hall with employees originally scheduled for June 5 until June 25 amid the ongoing speculation regarding Paramount Global.
Redstone added: “Our confidence in the Office of the CEO stems from what this team has been able to accomplish with a reduced budget over the last several years, specifically producing an increase in first class content, resulting in hit after hit. They are each experienced respected leaders within our company and our industry.”
Redstone emphasised in her introduction the need for Paramount Global to reduce costs so it can reduce debt and continue to invest in best-in-class content.
Key priorities
The Office of the CEO set out three key priorities: transform streaming by focusing on profitability and exploring joint ventures and partnerships; streamlining the organisation with $500m of cost savings; and optimising its asset mix through sales and using the proceeds to pay down debt.
McCarthy said: “We all agree that Paramount is not where we want it to be…we know that there is significant value to be unlocked. And we’re confident that we have the vision, the experience and the plan to do exactly that.”
Cheeks said Paramount is “prepared to move quickly” on finding $500m in cost savings and that these were “just the beginning.” He cited ”duplicated teams and functions across the organisation, in real estate, technology, marketing and other corporate overhead categories.”
McCarthy said there had been “a significant level of inbound interest” from potential streaming partners joint about a venture deal ”all of which recognise the value of our content.”
The trio also spoke of an “alternative strategy to international” which has recently seen some international original content removed from Paramount+ to save money. They also said they will look to licence more Paramount content after its first run on Paramount+. Robbins said: “We need to think how we grow the revenue of our vast library, and more importantly, expand demand for our content.”
They also stressed a focus on growing and building franchises, citing Paramount’s 14 ‘billion-dollar brands’ including Yellowstone, Top Gun, Mission Impossible, A Quiet Place, Transformers, South Park, NCIS, Paw Patrol and CSI. Robbins said: “What sets Paramount’s franchises apart from the rest of the industry is that we aren’t dependent on any one genre. We saw the downsides of betting on a single genre like superheroes and comic books. So we built our billion-dollar brand strategy with a focus on real-life heroes. And yes, a little yellow sponge named Bob.”
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