Paramount Closes TV Studio, Begins Major Layoffs Ahead of Skydance Merger
By Greg Cornfield August 13, 2024 2:15 pm
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Paramount Global is cutting costs as it prepares to merge with Skydance.
The company said Tuesday that it’s beginning layoffs that will cut 2,000 jobs, and closing one of its television studios, the L.A. Times reported. The move to reduce its U.S.-based workforce by 15 percent aims to save $500 million in annual costs. The layoffs will roll out in phases through the end of 2024, but will be mostly complete by the end of next month.
Paramount Television Studios — which produces shows for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Warner Bros. Discovery and Roku — will cease operations at the end of the week. Those responsibilities will be passed over to the company’s larger television production arm, CBS Studios.
Paramount owns television networks CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central and the historic Paramount Pictures movie studio lot in Hollywood. The layoffs add to the thousands of cuts at major tech and media companies that have historically dominated and driven commercial real estate in Los Angeles amid the decline of traditional television and programming.
For the same reasons, Shari Redstone decided to ditch Paramount, a company her family has controlled for more than three decades, after a group led by Skydance CEO David Ellison reached an $8 billion deal to take it over.
Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.
