08/07/2025 | Press release | Archived content
To our teammates, shareholders, creative partners, and the hundreds of millions of people who invite our stories into your lives every day...
Today marks Day One of a new Paramount. With the close of the transaction, we unite more than a century of iconic storytelling with the ingenuity and drive of a 15-year-old studio born in the digital era. I am thrilled and honored to write to you as the Chairman and CEO of Paramount, a Skydance Corporation, as-together with our Board, our new executive leadership team, and our colleagues around the world-we embark on the exciting next chapter of this legendary company.
We began this journey to combine Paramount and Skydance nearly two years ago with a clear objective: to transform Paramount-a company with a storied history and an undeniable impact on culture for over a century-by investing in high-quality storytelling and cutting-edge technology and pursuing opportunities that will help define the next era of entertainment. That ambition was and continues to be fueled by a powerful set of core strengths and unique assets across our now-combined company, including:
We recognize that realizing our ambitions in today's dynamic and fiercely competitive global market won't be easy. We are in the midst of a generational change in our industry-and we understand Paramount has faced its own significant challenges, compounded by the reality of a merger process that stretched out over a considerable time period.
But that time of uncertainty is now behind us. Moving forward, we will work with conviction and optimism to transform Paramount into a tech-forward company that blends the creative heart of Hollywood with the innovative spirit of Silicon Valley. By harnessing cutting-edge technologies to serve great storytelling, we will unlock the company's enormous potential.
We have the resources, talent and strategic clarity we need to build the world's next generation media and entertainment company.And to get there, we will focus our efforts and investments on the areas with the greatest potential for growth and impact.
These priorities will be our guiding north star:
By directing our energy, investment, and innovation in these areas where we see the greatest opportunity, we are confident we will drive meaningful progress and build long-term value.
At the same time, we recognize that sustained, profitable growth is not achievable in today's relentlessly dynamic market without far-reaching changes that will make us a leaner, faster, smarter, and more agile company.
Toward that end, the coming months will be defined by a series of focused efforts to reengineer how our company operates, produces its creative content, and goes to market. These include:
Driving Efficiency and Improved Decision-making
We will reorganize our company into three business units: Studios, Direct-to-Consumer, and TV Media, with the primary goal being to streamline strategic decision-making and thereby accelerate our ability to move the business forward.
For example, we believe by bringing our studios together we will enable comprehensive green-light and licensing decisions, increase production output, enhance our ability to attract top creative talent, and improve transparency for our external stakeholders. On the TV Media side, our challenge is to reinvent our portfolio of brands for a non-linear world. We plan to invest appropriately based on the future business opportunity, thereby maximizing cash flow so we can reinvest in our growth businesses.
Among other significant changes to our operations, we are planning a process to transition the entire enterprise to a single technology platform for the first time. In doing so, we will be able to reduce our technology spend while driving substantial efficiency and performance gains and enabling leaders across the company to make faster and better decisions. That investment, combined with other initiatives to achieve efficiencies in costs associated with labor, real estate, procurement, and workflow gives us even greater confidence in our ability to not only achieve-but meaningfully exceed-the $2 billion in real efficiencies we previously announced.
Supercharging Our Creative Engine
As we realize these efficiencies, we will redirect resources toward what matters most: delivering a greater volume of high-quality films, television series, sports, news, and games to audiences worldwide. Our focus remains on investing in areas where we see meaningful opportunity for growth, as demonstrated by our recent five-year global streaming exclusivity deal for South Park on Paramount+.
We also want to empower our creative partners with technology that will enable them to tell bigger, more compelling stories fueled by human ingenuity. Technology is not-and never will be-a replacement for human creativity; rather, it serves as a powerful multiplier. From virtual production stages that unleash filmmakers' limitless imaginations, to AI-assisted localization that brings shows to new language markets overnight, to a proprietary ad-tech stack that maximizes yield across streaming and linear platforms, we will thoughtfully integrate these tools into every aspect of our work.
Scaling Our Streaming Services
While all these changes will transform our company, none will be more pivotal to our future than the evolution of our streaming services, which we will scale into powerful, profitable global platforms. We are committed to increasing investment in premium, exclusive content because we understand that exceptional storytelling is the single biggest driver of subscriber growth and loyalty. In particular, sports serve as a powerful engine for deep audience engagement, ultimately helping to reduce churn and boost ARPU over time.
Starting next year, Paramount+ and Pluto TV will operate on a unified technology stack, dramatically improving performance and driving significant financial savings. Most importantly, this integration will elevate the consumer experience across our services-enhancing our recommendation engine, accelerating delivery speed and quality, while also giving us the opportunity to position Pluto TV as the 'top of the funnel' to attract new customers to Paramount+.
As we advance this ambitious vision, we remain deeply committed to our stakeholders and the responsibilities we hold to them. We understand the weight of stewarding an iconic company that touches the lives of hundreds of millions worldwide and plays a vital role in shaping our shared culture. Above all, everything we do will be rooted in trust, guided by facts, and aligned with the core values that define us as a company.
Inevitably, challenging decisions and difficult trade-offs lie ahead. We will face them head on, maintaining transparency by openly sharing the rationale behind our choices and how they serve the best interests of our stakeholders.
In that spirit, we offer a few core commitments:
Success in our many shared endeavors along this journey will require collaboration, cooperation, and mutual respect, and that is our collective pledge starting on day one.
The years ahead will undoubtedly bring formidable challenges, but they will also usher in extraordinary opportunities. We stand at the threshold of a remarkable moment-and our strong conviction is that this company is poised to make the most of the possibilities ahead. Because when creative excellence, cutting-edge technology, and disciplined stewardship meet, great things happen-on the screen and on the balance sheet.
Thank you for your trust, your partnership and, above all, your unwavering passion for exceptional storytelling. It is a profound honor to lead this exceptional organization into the future-and I am genuinely excited to get started as we boldly forge the next defining chapter of Paramount, together.
David Ellison
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Paramount, a Skydance Corporation
This communication contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. We undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by law.