Paramount Global’s decision to shutter its namesake TV studio means the loss of dozens of jobs, the shifting of several series to another banner and a consolidation of power within the company’s two remaining TV studios — at least until a potential Skydance-Paramount merger is complete.
Paramount TV Studios ceased operations Aug. 16 as part of heavy layoffs at the parent company. Paramount is cutting 15 percent of its U.S.-based employees in an effort to lop $500 million off its balance sheet. The studio’s current productions, including the Prime Video hit Reacher and Apple TV+’s Time Bandits, along with upcoming shows Cross (Prime Video), Before and Murderbot (both at Apple TV+) and any projects in development, will move to corporate sibling CBS Studios.
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What the shutdown won’t affect, at least in the immediate aftermath, is Paramount+, the streaming platform that Paramount is looking to make sustainably profitable (which is a big reason behind the company-wide cuts). While PTVS has produced several series for Paramount+, including The Offer and Fatal Attraction, it’s not currently making anything for the company’s in-house streamer.
Paramount TV Studios, headed by Nicole Clemens, was something of an outlier among its compatriots in that regard: CBS Studios is behind the majority of scripted shows on the CBS broadcast network and also is home to the Star Trek franchise on Paramount+. Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, meanwhile, is responsible for — as its name implies — Showtime series including Dexter and Yellowjackets, as well as all of the Yellowstone showrunner’s output (in partnership with 101 Studios) — including the offshoots of the megahit Western and shows like Special Ops: Lioness and Mayor of Kingstown.
During the 11 years of its current iteration (it was just Paramount Television, without the “Studios,” from 2013 to 2020), PTVS was more of a third-party supplier of series to outlets outside its corporate umbrella than a provider of in-house programming — an increasingly rare proposition for studios that are part of larger conglomerates. Its productions included Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, A Series of Unfortunate Events and the Haunting anthology (the latter alongside Amblin Television), HBO’s Watchmen (with HBO, Warner Bros. TV and DC), Max’s Station Eleven and Made for Love, and shows for Apple TV+, USA and even The Roku Channel (The Spiderwick Chronicles, initially destined for Disney+).
Paramount TV Studios did do a fair bit of in-house business, à la the aforementioned Fatal Attraction and The Offer and Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies at Paramount+ and an American Gigolo series at Showtime. But it also was open to any and all buyers — including for big IP like Jack Ryan and Reacher, both of which landed at Prime Video. That’s a way of doing business that the vertically integrated industry doesn’t see nearly as much as in the past.
CBS Studios now has one big show at an outside streamer in Reacher and another potential one in Cross, which premieres in November and likely will be in heavy promotional rotation during Prime’s Thursday NFL telecasts this season. Both of those shows are co-productions with Skydance Television — which could introduce yet another wrinkle into Paramount’s TV studio group should the merger go through sometime next year. Skydance TV also produces Foundation for Apple TV+, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action comedy FUBAR and the upcoming animated series Terminator Zero, both at Netflix. It’s also working on an Apple TV+ series based on William Gibson’s Neuromancer.
Skydance’s principals, including David Ellison and Jeff Shell — who would be CEO and president of the new Paramount — have scrupulously not said much about how they’d structure the combined company whenever a deal goes through. For now, Paramount’s three co-CEOs, George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins, are continuing to lead the company and are the ones seeing through the current layoffs. (CBS Studios falls under Cheeks’ purview, while McCarthy oversees Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios.)
But it’s reasonable to think that the combined company, after going from three to two TV studios, won’t be looking to bump the number back up. After Disney acquired 20th Century Fox’s entertainment assets, its TV studio group went through several permutations before settling on its current structure, which includes ABC Signature, 20th TV and the smaller FX Productions for live-action scripted shows. History could repeat itself sometime in 2025.
This story appeared in the Aug. 21 issue ofThe Hollywood Reportermagazine.Click here to subscribe.
