Peacock has given a second-season pickup to Ted, the prequel TV series to Seth MacFarlane‘s Ted film franchise.
28.04.2024 - 00:51 / deadline.com
Confusion and anxiety reigned at a CBS-Politico joint party today ahead of the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, with staffers shocked at news that Bob Bakish, CEO of parent Paramount Global, is set to exit abruptly as early as Monday morning.
There have been rumblings about Bakish for days as the company enters the final stretch of exclusive merger negotiations with David Ellison’s Skydance. But his imminent departure triggered a wave of anxious speculation tonight in Washington, D.C. Ellison has always been mostly interested in the movie studio and historic lot. Although it seems Skydance does plan to keep the company intact, at least for a time, network folks aren’t betting on it and felt uncertain about the future of CBS, and about who might be running Paramount Global in a few short days — a troika of top execs, a new chief executive?
“We knew changes were coming, but no one expected Bob to go so fast. Who knows what’s next?” a Paramount Global executive told Deadline at the party. Staffers speculated on CBS being sold, on it being turned over to Jeff Zucker to run, and other theories. The former CNN chief heads up a joint venture between RedBird Capital, one of Skydance’s backers, and an Emirati investment fund.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is also a big Skydane investor and key to any deal. A few from CBS at the party expressed some apprehension at the billionaire’s ties with Donald Trump. (According to reports, he was backing Tim Scott has not donated to the Republican presidential candidate this campaign cycle. David Ellison just gave nearly $1 million to Joe Biden).
Shari Redstone, who controls Paramount though her family holding company NAI, put Bakish in charge of a combined ViacomCBS in 2019.
Peacock has given a second-season pickup to Ted, the prequel TV series to Seth MacFarlane‘s Ted film franchise.
Whoopi Goldberg is shedding light on her cocaine addiction in her early years.
Paramount Global says Chris McMarthy is the company’s “interim principal executive officer,” a necessity required by the SEC that apparently does not signal he has more decision-making power among a trio of top executives who stepped up to replace Bob Bakish this week in a new Office of the CEO.
The clock is ticking down to midnight, the end of a month-long exclusive negotiating window between Paramount Global and Skydance Media. The David Ellison company has been circling Paramount for months and lobbed several offers to buy out Shari Redstone‘s controlling stake, backed by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital.
Three days after he was named to the newly formed Office of the CEO of Paramount Global, George Cheeks, President and CEO of CBS, faced reporters at the unveiling of the broadcast network’s fall 2024 schedule.
It was a year of pain for the entertainment industry and shareholders of (many) media companies with brutal months-long Hollywood strikes, and layoffs. Linear television continued to decline and a nascent theatrical recovery went sideways. Most CEOs saw pay packages rise in 2023, some by big multiples.
Paramount Global, which is in the midst of corporate upheaval on a number of fronts, got a slight reprieve in one key area, extending carriage negotiations with Charter Communications.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The recent broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII boosted Paramount Global‘s first quarter of 2024, stabilizing advertising revenue at its TV operations, as the company’s streaming operations added more than 3 million subscribers and cut losses there by more than 40%. Overall, Paramount narrowed its first quarter operating losses while seeing a 6% uptick in revenue, due in large part to audience and advertiser interest in its Big Game presentation, which set a new viewing record.
After trying to reassure Wall Street with their brief opening remarks at the Paramount Global earnings call, the trio executives named to the newly formed Office of the CEO looked to do the same with the company’s employees rattled by the sudden ouster of longtime CEO Bob Bakish amid sale negotiations with Skydance.
George Cheeks, Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy, the Paramount Global executives chosen to occupy the Office of the CEO as a replacement for the departing Bob Bakish, sought to reassure Wall Street on Monday that they have a plan.
Paramount Global‘s CEO Bob Bakish is out. The executive who has been a presence at several iterations of the company since 1997 will exit, effective immediately. A triumvirate of division heads — Brian Robbins, George Cheeks and Chris McCarthy — will step in to lead the company for now in a new office of the CEO.
David Ellison’s Skydance has presented Paramount Global board’s special committee with a revised offer to take control of the company, Deadline has learned. Terms weren’t immediately available, story will be updated when they are. The new proposal is likely designed to make a deal more palatable to Paramount investors beyond controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, something that her family holding company NAI had requested.
Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer As turmoil continues to surround the future of Paramount Global, details surrounding interim leadership and its proposed Skydance deal are coming to light, multiple sources told Variety. Sunday was a consequential day in Shari Redstone’s ongoing exclusive bargaining window with David Ellison‘s Skydance, one that would see the Hollywood scion take majority ownership of Paramount Global and its owner National Amusements Inc. Skydance offered its “best and final” offer to Redstone on Sunday, sources added.
Paramount Global is set to announce as early as Monday morning that Bob Bakish is stepping down as CEO amid talks with Skydance and ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings that afternoon.
Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Amid the M&A drama enveloping Paramount Global, Bob Bakish is about to step down as CEO after eight years at the helm of Shari Redstone’s media empire. Bakish is expected to resign under pressure as early as Monday.
Board members at Paramount Global are reportedly considering the removal of CEO Bob Bakish as discussions continue with Skydance Media about a complex, multi-step merger.
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Bob Bakish may be out at Paramount Global before any sale or merger deal for the media company is completed. The board of directors of Paramount Global, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, have discussed a plan to oust Bakish as CEO, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources. Instead, the company would form an “Office of the CEO” comprising Paramount Global’s division heads to run operations on an interim basis, per the report.
Comcast said chairman and chief executive Brian Roberts‘ pay package for 2023 totaled $35.47 million, up from $32 million the year before. It included a $2.5 million base salary, stock awards valued at about $15 million, $9.2 million in option awards and $8.55 million in what’s called non-equity incentive plan compensation – like a cash bonus.
Skydance and Paramount are deep into hashing out a complicated deal that would see the David Ellison’s studio and its backers take control of the storied film and television company owned by Shari Redstone. The exclusive month-long negotiating period through May 3 is likely to be extended perhaps by a few weeks, Deadline hears, given the complexity of the transaction.
Meta (formerly called Facebook) pretty much ignored the social media elephant in the room today on a post-earnings conference call, with chief financial officer Susan Li saying it’s too early to discuss what just happened in Washington, D.C. President Biden has signed into law a bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest the hugely popularU.S. app within about nine months or risk it being banned.