#mediaentertainment

ESPN is bracing for another round of layoffs this summer, sources told Front Office Sports.

The cuts are expected to affect both talents and non-camera-facing employees, sources said.

https://frontofficesports.com/espn-braces-another-round-layoffs/

https://open.substack.com/pub/eshap/p/colbert-was-profitable?r=7yaly&utm_medium=ios

Is there any consensus which divisions will be hit the hardest in upcoming merger layoffs? P+ was already decimated rather recently. Thoughts or knowledge on if streaming will be hit hard again? Not sure what to expect with the combining of HBO Max

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/05/world/europe/ye-music-festival-pepsi-antisemitism.html

Kanye West as the headliner. No take on this, just informing ya’ll

https://deadline.com/2026/03/talent-agents-impacted-wme-layoffs-1236759297/

They’re saying that they’ll combine the two services. Which one do you think gets merged with other one?

I have noticed that P+ Mobile app is better, but HBO Max’s app is better on OTT/TV devices.

Got let go in October and my severance will run out in a few months - when should I apply for unemployment insurance?

Paid millions for a movie and then lays off thousands of employees.

Amazon pays $75million for the "melania trump" movie. Then laysoff 16,00 of its employees. Is wfm next with the layoffs to recover from losing this money?

• Meta plans layoffs in Reality Labs, affecting the teams behind VR headsets and Horizon Worlds.
• The restructuring follows major financial losses and a strategic shift toward AI.
• Reality Labs faces uncertainty as Meta leadership emphasizes 2025 as a decisive year for the unit.

https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-layoffs-reality-labs-vr-horizon-worlds-teams-2026-1

https://se7en.ws/mass-layoffs-at-warner-bros-games-key-employees-affected/?lang=en

Netflix or Paramount?

In 2025, over 17,000 jobs were cut across television, film, broadcast, news and streaming in the first 11 months of the year. This figure was up 18% from last year, continuing a trend from the past few years as the industry has wrestled with consolidation and other pressures like the double strikes in 2023.

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/entertainment-and-media-layoffs-up-18-with-over-17000-jobs-slashed-in-2025,259407

Paramount was poised to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. What went wrong
By Meg James and Stacy Perman
Dec. 6, 2025

Paramount’s 30 dollars per share bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, backed by Larry Ellison, collapsed Friday when Netflix swept in with a competing 82.7 billion dollar deal. Analysts and auction insiders told The Times that several issues complicated Paramount’s effort, including low initial offers and overconfidence. Paramount is accusing Warner Bros. Discovery of rigging the auction and is expected to press regulators to block the Netflix deal as anti competitive.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-12-06/paramount-larry-ellison-hollywood-warner-bros-netflix-skydance-sarandos

Ellison, the Oracle founder, had recently financed his son David’s 8 billion dollar acquisition of Paramount Pictures. The Ellison family then moved to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for at least 60 billion dollars. With substantial financial backing and support from President Trump, many Wall Street analysts and Hollywood insiders assumed Paramount would win.

But Netflix shocked the industry by announcing its own blockbuster agreement to acquire the Burbank studio, HBO Max and HBO for 82.7 billion dollars. The Warner board judged Netflix’s 27.75 dollars per share offer, which excluded CNN and other basic cable channels, a better deal for shareholders. It was a rare defeat for Ellison and a victory for Netflix’s co CEO Ted Sarandos.

Auction insiders said Paramount’s first major misstep was submitting low ball bids. By mid October, Paramount had made three unsolicited offers, starting at 19 dollars a share. The Warner board unanimously rejected them as too low. Some Warner executives were irritated, feeling the Ellisons had swept into Hollywood and were trying to exploit the studio’s weakened state.

Paramount’s bid relied on Ellison’s pledge of 30 billion dollars in Oracle stock, according to a person familiar with the matter. As bidding escalated, Paramount sought additional capital from Apollo Global Management. When Warner opened the process to other suitors in late October, Netflix and Comcast joined. Paramount underestimated Netflix, in part because a senior Netflix executive had downplayed interest in public.

Analysts speculated that Netflix had been playing possum. One auction insider said Paramount acted as if it were the only serious contender. Meanwhile, David Ellison and RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale were trying to secure funding from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. Their outreach to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates raised concerns among Warner board members about the stability of the Paramount offer. The fall of Oracle stock during broader market concerns about an AI bubble further complicated Paramount’s position.

Ellison’s ties to Trump also generated concern in Hollywood. Oracle is among the US investors expected to take a majority stake in TikTok’s US business after its separation from ByteDance, a move influenced by Trump. Paramount’s recent 16 million dollar settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over an edited 60 Minutes interview, its cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show due to losses, and David Ellison’s hiring of Bari Weiss to run CBS News all contributed to perceptions of political alignment. Trump publicly praised the Ellisons and expressed support for the Paramount bid.

Paramount’s agreement to distribute Brett Ratner’s Rush Hour 4 just after renewed pressure from Trump added fuel to that perception. Some observers said the once advantageous relationship with the administration began to seem less appealing to potential regulators and international partners.

A White House meeting last month addressed Paramount’s bid and concerns about Netflix. During the same week, David Ellison attended a White House dinner for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. A Guardian report, citing anonymous sources, claimed White House officials had informally discussed with Larry Ellison a list of CNN anchors Trump disliked and wanted removed if Paramount won the auction. That report raised alarms among foreign regulators.

People close to Paramount argued that CEO David Zaslav and board member emeritus John Malone were biased against the Ellisons and that Zaslav wanted to maintain his status as a Hollywood mogul. Paramount ultimately submitted six offers, including a final 30 dollars per share proposal, but none matched Netflix’s bid.

According to those familiar with the process, Paramount executives realized last Monday that they had been beaten. Two days later, the company accused Warner Bros. Discovery of abandoning any semblance of a fair auction process. Netflix said Friday that its deal will take 12 to 18 months to secure regulatory approval. Approval is far from guaranteed due to antitrust concerns about Netflix’s market strength.

Warner Bros. Discovery now faces a legal fight over its handling of the auction.

Larry Ellison, often remembered in Hollywood for a cameo in Iron Man 2 in which Tony Stark calls him the Oracle of Oracle, has long funded the film careers of his children David and Megan. Despite his age, the 81 year old Ellison remains deeply involved at Oracle as executive chairman and chief technology officer.

Ellison grew up in a modest South Side Chicago apartment, raised by relatives after his teenage mother gave him up. After dropping out of the University of Chicago, he moved to California, worked various programming jobs and helped develop early database systems at Ampex. Those ideas eventually became the core of Oracle, which he co founded in 1977 with 1,200 dollars and concepts inspired by an IBM research paper. Oracle grew rapidly, won its first contract with the CIA, went public in 1986 and propelled Ellison to billionaire status by 1993.

Ellison developed a reputation for flamboyance and intensity. He collected super yachts, fighter jets, mansions and samurai swords, and won the America’s Cup twice. He was unafraid of confrontation, once hiring investigators to comb through Microsoft’s trash during the company’s antitrust trial, calling it his civic duty.

At Oracle, Ellison pushed into cloud computing, healthcare and AI, partnering with Nvidia, Meta and xAI.

Hollywood, however, was shaped by his children. With large trusts of Oracle and NetSuite stock, both entered the film business. Megan founded Annapurna, known for films like Zero Dark Thirty and Her. David tried acting and produced the unsuccessful 2006 film Flyboys before launching Skydance Media, producing major hits including Top G-n Maverick, Star Trek and Grace and Frankie and expanding into animation, sports and gaming.

Larry Ellison stepped in when needed, including restructuring Annapurna in 2018 after heavy losses. He financed David’s 8 billion dollar deal to buy Paramount and holds nearly 78 percent of the new company’s stock. The family announced plans to rejuvenate Paramount through technology investments and franchise building around Top G-n, Star Trek and Yellowstone.

They also made clear they are not walking away from Warner Bros. Discovery. Those who know Ellison say he should not be underestimated. History shows he is always ready for a fight.

So another failed venture by ATT gets sold to Discovery for $43billion. Today, Netflix buys WB for $82billion. ATT must be the worst negotiators ever.

For fans dreaming of returning to Middle-earth in a new, next-gen adventure, the news isn’t good. Amazon’s ambitious Lord of the Rings MMORPG, which had been in development since early 2023, has reportedly been cancelled.

https://geektyrant.com/news/amazons-lord-of-the-ring-mmorpg-reportedly-cancelled-after-massive-layoffs

Company: Paramount Global
Source: Los Angeles Times

Paramount sheds another 1,600 workers as David Ellison team digs in
Summary: Paramount disclosed an additional reduction of 1,600 workers tied to divesting TV stations in Chile and Argentina, part of a broader plan targeting a 15 percent workforce cut and 3 billion dollars in cost savings. The company still plans to boost content spending and raise Paramount+ prices as it pursues profitability.
City: Los Angeles
State: California
https://web.archive.org/web/20251111211048/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-11-10/paramount-more-layoffs-david-ellison

As per this article paramount expected to do 1600 plus additional cuts .

https://nypost.com/2025/11/10/media/paramount-skydance-to-slash-1600-more-jobs-after-revenue-disappoints-but-issues-upbeat-forecast/?utm_campaign=nypost&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

The layoff leaders today are Paramount Pictures & CBS - a big carnage over there with 2k laid off, they are much smaller than us:

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k8s207c8
Linked: @OP+1k8s207c8

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1ul6CsEJ

https://deadline.com/2025/10/paramount-layoffs-1236590482/#comments

10/28 is the day.

"Note, the pink-slipping in late October is only the first round with layoffs expected to continue until the end of the year."

These assh*les

Okay, I never post on here, I usually just lurk. I work in finance, so while I don’t know all the HR specifics, I do know a fair bit.

Firstly, a lot of what’s being said on this forum is complete nonsense. Honestly, it’s been flooded with people who clearly aren’t staff and don’t know what they’re talking about.

Secondly, yes — changes are coming. Everyone knows that (if you pretend it's not, you are an id--t!). There are major shifts ahead for streaming tech, which was under VH. In the short term, reporting might be moving to PW, but don’t read too much into that! From what I understand, PW isn’t actually taking over streaming tech. Reporting lines don’t always mean much.

And let’s be real- just because DE says he “believes in streaming” doesn’t mean he believes in the staff already working here. We have to accept that LE's son would rather outsource than build and justify an internal team. - He wants his investment back at some point!

https://youtu.be/gieTx_P6INQ?si=NBenngWs65E-BZm_

I will never forgive these evil reptiles for paying $150 million for this, but I hope they enjoyed their lashing on HBO!

Title says it all. I just received a job offer to work at Paramount. I’m currently employed, but I am looking for something new. I told the hiring manager I needed the weekend to think about it. Should I take the job?

A majority of the posts on here are about Paramount. Has anyone heard specifics about what cuts are in store for the CBS News division? Streaming? Digital? Employees in satellite offices? Managers?

Who is trying to see if their manager will let it slip who is on the list? Me!

does that mean we can officially do less than the bare minimum? I mean, hard to stay “deeply engaged” when there’s a decent chance I’ll be shown the door very soon.

Does anyone know if they’re doing it based on seniority, highest pay, department, etc?

Anyone know if some departments/entities are gonna be hit more than others?

There are so many people taking the severance pay or finding other jobs and leaving. We are already stretched thin and losing more people before the layoffs have even started.

If you opted in to the severance package -
Have you been given an official last day?

there’s been radio silence.

Honestly we will never get to the 2 billion number by laying off a bunch of low level employees barely making 6 figures. I see a few big names leaving but hardly enough. We all know we are top heavy. Discouraging not many more have been announced.

Any more insight into whether D-day will be 10/28 or 11/11?

Welp, there goes the neighborhood!
Some marketing and product but not sure who else