Paramount president Jeff Shell says cuts will be ‘painful’ but quick

Paramount president Jeff Shell said upcoming job cuts at the newly-formed media giant will be “painful” – but they will also be quick.

The former NBC Universal executive, who was tapped by David Ellison to be his top lieutenant after Paramount’s long stalled $8.4 billion merger with Skydance finally closed last week, expects $2 billion in cuts in one fell swoop.

“We do not want to be a company that has layoffs every quarter,” Shell said Wednesday in Los Angeles, citing constant waves of cuts under Paramount’s previous leadership.

“So, it’s going to be painful. It’s always hard, but we don’t want to be a company that every quarter is laying people off. It is important for us to get done what we’re doing in one big thing and then be done with it.”

Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, Shell and other brass touted their vision to revive the flagging company during a press conference last week in New York. 

The son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison said restructuring could “exceed” the $2 billion target, but declined to provide a timeline of when the axe would fall.

He also said that Paramount’s new executive team doesn’t buy into the idea that a company can be cut into growth – a statement reiterated at the LA press conference attended by Ellison, Shell, Paramount+ leader Cindy Holland, TV Media boss George Cheeks, film heads Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein and Chief Operating Officer Andy Gordon.

Ellison has already made some bold moves since taking the reins of Shari Redstone’s media empire.

On Monday, Paramount announced that it acquired the exclusive rights to show all events from the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the US from TKO Group in what amounts to a $7.7 billion, seven-year deal, beginning in 2026.

The news helped catapult the company’s stock, which trades under the ticker PSKY, by 37%. On Thursday, it gave back some of those gains, losing 4%, to close at $14.38.