I don’t know about you, but it seems like whatever news is coming out of media companies lately is eminating from the Department of Redundancy Department. Yesterday yet another legacy company’s demise dominated the news cycle, as exemplified by what VARIETY’s Brian Steinberg wrote:
Paramount Television Studios, a production facility originally aimed at getting Paramount Pictures back into the business of making TV series, will shut down, the latest bout of cost cutting by parent corporation Paramount Global as it seeks to eliminate $500 million amid a chaotic shift in the entertainment industry.
“This has been a challenging and transformative time for the entire industry, and sadly, our studio is not immune,” said Nicole Clemens, president of the unit, which debuted in 2013, in a memo to staffers. “Over the past 11 years, she said, the studio “has weathered seemingly insurmountable obstacles through a combination of strength, determination, and unwavering commitment. We met these challenges with incredible resilience, creativity, and passion for what we do, and I could not be prouder of our team. We’ve also had the privilege to collaborate with some of the most brilliant creative talent in the industry to help tell incredible stories seen around the world, entertaining and shaping culture.”
But while the announcement was dramatic, it was also hardly a significant step toward the goal of new management of eliminating 15 per cent of the work force–in the ballpark of 2000 jobs. The reality check is that this was NOT what so many alumni of Paramount TV lamented in the numerous social media eulogies I saw on my timelines, as Steinberg reminded:
Paramount Television marked the second time Paramount Pictures tried to move into the TV business – separate from the storied shingle that was built on the Desilu production studio founded by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. That studio, which backed such TV treasures as “I Love Lucy” and “Star Trek,” eventually became the center of Paramount Studios after an acquisition by Gulf + Western, and would be inherited by CBS after its split from the company formerly known as Viacom Inc. in 2005. The new Paramount Television Studios helped boost the movie studio, which aimed to find ways to make programs tied to its many famous films, including the Jack Ryan spy movies or “The Godfather.” With more newly launched streamers hungry for content, the operating theory was that the new studio could help Paramount strike alliances with a bevy of new broadband players hungry for content.
But this division had already been downsized by previous maneuvers under the Redstone team; yesterday a mere 20-30 jobs, including the exceptionally talented Clements, were jettisoned. Some of them will be moving along with these projects to the CBS Studios team, which for those who had moved over from Paramount+ will make the third different corporate sector they will be housed within in roughly a year. More significant and less click-baitable news was being made by the dozens of current employees from the surviving companies who began to post to LinkedIn and elsewhere that their tenures, or those of trusted and respected colleagues, were coming to an end.
And yet, we know this will not be the end of it. Indeed, the three-headed CEO team warned that these layoffs will come in waves, although they are moving at an atypically breakneck pace; the Paramount Studios gang will be on the beach by the end of this week. But in order to get even close to the head count and infrastructural goals that have been mandated, they’re gonna need to do something much more dramatic than just stick the knife a few inches deeper into what remained of a previously gutted division.
So I’m going out a limb by saying that I think far more recognizable entities will be seeing their epitaphs written before long. And unlike some of the “death by a thousand cuts” maneuvers that Yosemite Zas and gang have been taking by eliminating insignificant entities like Boomerang and stray websites like that of Cartoon Network (a move that Paramount already had taken by shutting down MTV News’ site in late June), the Skydancers will need to break out a more imposing saber to rattle.
It won’t be CBS, at least for now. The investment they made in elevating talent and infrastructure from owned-and-operated stations and their 24/7 news operations would seem to make them somewhat safe. And while they have several Boomerang-like assets of their own, such as Nick Junior and TV Land, they have been de facto “zombie networks” for a while. But, then again, it’s arguable that even the networks that built generations of habitual viewing with a “cradle to grave” approach steeped in knowing more about their audience that any of their competitors–and even advertisers seeking to partner with them–have been zombie networks in their own right, or little more than FAST channels with better distribution.
Comedy Central’s sole original series is THE DAILY SHOW; their schedule is otherwise endless repeats of THE OFFICE and SOUTH PARK. Paramount Plus Showtime is commissioning far less original production that HBO and is, in fact, a complete afterthought in a world where the competition for critical acclaim and subscribers includes Netflix and Apple TV+. Besides, there’s already another struggling entity with a pay component, l’il ol’ Paramount+, that’s enough of a priority to justify the redirection of those MTV News fans. And Paramount Network–you know, the one that was supposed to be the Paramount MOVIE network? YELLOWSTONE is sunsetting; that massive 47-episode hit that actually justified its existence.
Finally, ask any kid you happen to know who loves Spongebob or Paw Patrol if they know what a Nickelodeon is–either the network or the jukebox. Their fans, let alone their families, are loyal to the content, not the package. They are two of the few real drivers for Paramount+ that don’t involve NFL rights.
So my humble suggestion is that these networks, and the projections for the declining margins that upcoming negotiations with distribution platforms such as Comcast, which supports a direct competitor to Paramount+ in Peacock, Charter, which has already signaled a disinterest in content versus more lucratvie ARPU plays, and DIRECTV, whose management is fed up with paying significant dollars for stuff that is otherwise available almost ubiquitously via streaming, would portend are probably candidates for the next eulogies to be written. That’s an area that I’d contend Jeff Shell knows better than anyone else, and I’d suspect he’s already drawn up a few internal plans whch the three-headed monster will be charged with messaging, as they were with the Paramount Studios news yesterday.
The show brands themselves could live on as FAST channels within the Paramount+ ecosystem. And there’s probably a scenario where, say, MTV could be a central location for these entities as dayparts. THE DAILY SHOW in late night. PAW PATROL in the mornings. SHOWTIME and actual MTV originals in prime time. You could easily still call it MTV. The M can easily stand for “mashup”; it hasn’t stood for music since the ’90s.
You could even make a campaign about it to ensure that those distribution monoliths at least keep that much. You could probably Google how one seemed to work a long time ago. It’s no coincidence it was given greater fame in a song called MONEY FOR NOTHING. I’m sure that’s the argument that Charter and DIRECTV are making.
The mere idea of these significant channels calling it quits are likely to be even more emotionally jarring to generations like mine than what went down yesterday. But there might just be enough savings in doing so where perhaps a few less than the 2000 targeted individuals who have begun to pack their boxes might be able to stick around and actually lend their considerable skills to keeping the lights on at all.
Remember, cuts are what scissors do, and scissors cuts paper. And perhaps, just perhaps, by keeping a few smart people in place, we can avoid rock crushing scissors.
Until next time…