Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 Paramount Takes $5.98 Billion Write-Down on Cable Networks in Q2 Tied to Skydance Deal While Streaming Turns First Profit VARIETY.COM Paramount Global said it took a $5.98 billion write down of its cable networks spurred by its looming acquisition by Skydance Quote Paramount Global said its looming merger with Skydance Media spurred a goodwill impairment charge of $5.98 billion in its second quarter, the latest warning sign for a media industry that is seeing audiences abandon cable in favor of streaming video in a manner that is upending the economics of the sector. The company, which owns CBS, the Paramount movie studio and cable networks such as Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and MTV, said overall revenue in the period fell 11% thanks to declines tied to its film and traditional TV operations. Paramount’s streaming business, however, turned a profit for the first time, with ad sales at Pluto and Paramount+ rising 16%. Still, the robust performance at the company’s streaming business was not enough to buoy overall results. Paramount said it lost nearly $5.32 billion during the period, widening from $250 million in the year-earlier period. The company said it was ready to cut $500 million in costs in the near future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 8 Author Share Posted August 8 Paramount to Lay Off 15% U.S. Staffers in Fresh Round of Cuts VARIETY.COM Paramount Global will cut 15% of its U.S. workforce in the next few weeks, coming ahead of its planned merger with Skydance Media. Quote Paramount Global will cut 15% of its U.S. workforce in the next few weeks, a new round of layoffs coming ahead of its planned merger with Skydance Media. With the layoffs, the company expects to record a $300 million-$400 million restructuring charge in Q3, Paramount CFO Naveen Chopra said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwinIon Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 Write offs and restructuring before the merger aren't unexpected. Color me a bit skeptical at the "streaming is now profitable" bit of the headline. Yeah, the earnings report does show a tiny income over the last 3 months, but who knows what games they're playing in terms of expenses. I imagine they have a lot of leeway to decide how the costs for content get distributed between the TV business and the Direct to Consumer side. Even taking their numbers for the last 3 months at face value, they spent $1.8B on streaming and made $26M. Their declining TV business spent $3.2B and made $1B. Their 6 month numbers are less cheery, with streaming brining in a loss of $260M on $4B in expenses, where as TV brought in $2.4B on $7B in expenses. Like everyone else, they're still dealing with the problem that TV is much more profitable than streaming, but TV is declining fast and streaming is not catching up quickly enough. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 15 hours ago, TwinIon said: Color me a bit skeptical at the "streaming is now profitable" bit of the headline. Yeah, the earnings report does show a tiny income over the last 3 months, but who knows what games they're playing in terms of expenses. I imagine they have a lot of leeway to decide how the costs for content get distributed between the TV business and the Direct to Consumer side. Even taking their numbers for the last 3 months at face value, they spent $1.8B on streaming and made $26M. Their declining TV business spent $3.2B and made $1B. This is reminiscent of Disney's most recent quarterly report that indicated that its streaming business finally recorded operating income of $47 million on $6.4 billion of revenue for a whopping operating margin of 0.73% for that unit. Furthermore, that operating profit is entirely due to ESPN+ because Hulu/Disney+ actually recorded an operating loss of $19 million. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 Paramount Television Studios Shut Down by Paramount Global Cost Cuts VARIETY.COM Paramount Television Studios, known for series such as "Jack Ryan" and "Time Bandits" is being shuttered under cost cuts by Paramount Global 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 14 Author Share Posted August 14 4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said: Paramount Television Studios Shut Down by Paramount Global Cost Cuts VARIETY.COM Paramount Television Studios, known for series such as "Jack Ryan" and "Time Bandits" is being shuttered under cost cuts by Paramount Global The creation of Paramount Television Studios was puzzling to me as CBS Television Studios (owned and operated by the same parent company) already existed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 25 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: The creation of Paramount Television Studios was puzzling to me as CBS Television Studios (owned and operated by the same parent company) already existed. Almost as if the people running these companies have no idea what they are doing. 🤔 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentbob Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 When I worked at the theatre, we were originally owned by Viacom/Paramount. So we also got in the summer a free meal/day at Paramount Canadas Wonderland. So before we were bought by Cineplex, they held back all our theatres from getting The Soloist movie. Which was distributed by Paramount, even in Canada. So yeah, they have no fucking idea sometimes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.