Employees at Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery are preparing themselves for not-so-friendly competition as their companies merge in the coming weeks.
“It’ll be quite competitive to see whose services and teams stick around,” a Paramount streaming manager said, reasoning that WBD has “some great engineers and teams doing very similar work to us.”
Paramount’s $110 billion deal to buy WBD gives CEO David Ellison control over a treasure trove of media assets. HBO, CBS, CNN, TNT, and MTV will live under one roof, as will streamers Paramount+, HBO Max, Discovery+, and free ad-supported service Pluto TV.
Ellison said in a Monday memo to staffers that he hoped to complete the transaction in “approximately two weeks.” In the settlement agreement that paved the way for the deal, Paramount pledged to increase its production spending in the US, keep both its movie lot and the Warner Bros. lot, and release a certain number of movies in theaters over the next five years.
Ellison said in the memo that Paramount is still figuring out the logistics of the cross-company integration.
“I know you have questions about what happens next — your role, your team and how we will work day to day,” Ellison wrote. “We don’t have all the answers yet, and I won’t pretend otherwise.”
Paramount has spent the last year putting Paramount+ and Pluto TV on a shared tech platform. Ellison has said that HBO Max will eventually be integrated as well, though it’s unclear exactly how that would work.
“I see another internal war of the tech stacks happening,” a veteran WBD streaming staffer said, referencing the Warner-Discovery merger that resulted in a new tech platform for HBO Max.
Five of the eight employees across Paramount and WBD who Business Insider spoke to after the settlement said they were nervous about their job status as the companies come together.
A Pluto TV manager said that they thought they would be “OK in terms of job security — at least until they merge all the streaming platforms.”
Ellison has promised investors $6 billion in cost savings from its WBD deal. The overlap of Paramount and WBD’s assets has analysts and employees expecting cuts, since the combined company will have two sets of many teams, including software engineers, marketing teams, and ad sales groups.
Paramount has said that layoffs won’t account for the majority of the cost savings, though WBD’s board has warned that job cuts are coming under Paramount’s ownership, “given the overlapping nature” of the companies’ studios, streaming platforms, and TV networks.
A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.
‘Just get this over with‘
Staffers at Paramount and WBD said they had mixed feelings about what the mega-merger will mean for their careers.
The glass-half-full camp is relieved that the lawsuit over Paramount’s WBD deal has been settled, since it provides more clarity about the combined company’s path forward.
“I’m glad that we’ll get going with the integration and finding out what the future holds,” a high-level employee in Paramount’s ad group said.
A veteran Paramount streaming staffer said that the settlement could help to put “all the drama to bed,” though they added that there would be “some anxiety on both sides until it’s clear what’s happening with layoffs.”
Another high-level Paramount streaming leader said they’re looking forward to the codebases merging, noting that Paramount’s converged tech platform was “built to be multi-tenant and multi-brand.”
Inside WBD, one adtech employee expressed optimism about their job since they’re in a revenue-generating part of the business. They also said they’d be excited about getting a severance package if they got cut.
Others are antsy to learn their fates and new marching orders.
“We want to just get this over with,” the longtime WBD streaming staffer said of the deal.
