Less than 24 hours after sealing an agreement to buy Paramount Global, David Ellison moved into mogul mode for the first time on Monday morning, addressing investors and, later, a gaggle of media reporters to discuss his milestone Skydance–Paramount Global deal.
As Chairman and CEO of the enlarged Paramount, Ellison will now occupy a space he hasn’t before: sitting at the levers of power for a multinational company behind content production and distribution, news, sports and gaming.
“My first job was as a computer programmer at Oracle,” the Skydance founder recalled to reporters Monday morning, following his presentation to Paramount Global investors. His tech background plays heavily into his vision for the merged company. The son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, David and his investors are blaring the message that the new Paramount will be a “confluence of art, first and foremost, working hand in hand with technology.”
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But, how? Ellison offered Skydance Animation’s forthcoming feature film “Spellbound” as an example. The John Lasseter-shepherded project used a proprietary Oracle product called Studio in the Cloud to build the project and organize data around it.
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“That had incredible cost efficiencies, but also improved efficiencies, where it was less expensive and faster and superior,” he said. “We view this time period as being pretty similar to some of the transitions that some of the traditional tech companies went through, such as Microsoft and Oracle, where they disrupted their own businesses to have all-time highs.”
During the 22-minute interview call, Ellison spoke alongside Jeff Shell, the former NBCUniversal CEO who has been named president of the enlarged Paramount and Gerry Cardinale, the head of RedBird Capital which is among Ellison’s key financial backers.
Some businesses that are not so easily translated to high-tech are assets like CBS, the linear giant that’s a “cornerstone asset” of the company, per Ellison’s team. Pressed about whether there is a different vision for integrating CBS and Paramount assets, Shell expressed his admiration for the current CBS team but suggested that more cost cutting is on the horizon.
“If there’s going to be a change for CBS, we’re going to probably manage it a bit more aggressively for cash flow,” said Shell. “Meaning making some harder decisions on time periods going forward, which you have to when you have a declining business.”
The leadership team was quick to stress that they have no interest in selling Shari Redstone’s media empire for parts — especially in a stringent regulatory climate, which New Paramount will have to clear in order to formally close the merger.
“What’s very important for Shari and her family is the protection of legacy. And the way to do that is you recapitalize this over-100-year-old business … you don’t take it private, break it up and kill it. That has been the fundamental crux of this entire deal,” said Cardinale.
Ellison, who will become much more accustomed to the spotlight in his new role, concluded that “we will bring with us the appropriate knowledge and capital investment to ensure that Paramount can navigate this transition to its brightest days ahead.”