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How Paramount wants its managers to talk about David Ellison’s new RTO mandate

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Paramount Skydance has unveiled “Phase 2” of its return-to-office plan, and it’s telling managers how to sell the changes to staffers.

Employees assigned to US offices outside New York or Los Angeles were told Thursday that they’d be expected to return to in-person work full-time starting on September 14. Staffers at Paramount’s NY and LA offices have already been working five days in the office since January.

Additionally, some full-time remote employees — who don’t live near any Paramount offices — will be expected to return to the office starting in 2027.

Managers who encounter resistance to RTO should help their team bond by inviting them “out for a coffee or lunch, or hold a team-building activity,” Paramount said in an “RTO People Leader Toolkit” obtained by Business Insider.

Bosses who can’t think of a way to unite their team can turn to AI, the document said: “You can also prompt Microsoft Copilot: give me examples of team-building activities.”

“Strong relationships build trust, help people feel part of a community, and enhance well-being,” the document said.

Paramount said it would track RTO compliance and may discipline those who don’t show up when they’re supposed to.

“Managers will be responsible for ensuring team members meet the full-time in-office requirement,” Paramount said in a separate RTO FAQ document. “When expectations aren’t met, it will lead to discipline up to and including dismissal.”

In the toolkit document, Paramount shared specific questions that managers can ask reports to check in or flag noncompliance:

  • “How’s it going coming back into the office every day? Is there anything you need or anything I can do to support you?”
  • “What’s keeping you from coming into the office on those days?”

Paramount’s toolkit document also said that bosses won’t initially have access to attendance data.

“In the beginning, managers will not have access to data to show them who is and is not coming into the office. Managers will eventually have access to this information,” the document said.

A Paramount manager told Business Insider that the responsibility of tracking where employees work “seems daunting.”

“I don’t want to be a hall monitor on top of all the work we already have to do,” they said.

Paramount has said that in-person work is a key to building a “next gen media and entertainment company,” a theme CEO David Ellison has spoken about.

Paramount isn’t the only media company that’s pushed for in-person work, though most of its rivals let staffers work from home sometimes.

NBCUniversal implemented a four-day-per-week RTO mandate in January, and Disney employees are also expected to work at the office four days a week. Employees at Warner Bros. Discovery — which Paramount is buying — commute to the office three days a week, while Netflix lets staffers work remotely.




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Paramount officially announces Warner Bros. Discovery takeover

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  • Read the memo Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison sent about the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
  • The companies made it official on Friday with an announcement.
  • Netflix, which was also vying for WBD, declined to raise its bid for the company on Thursday.

Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery have made it official, and CEO David Ellison sent a memo out to staff about the merger.

Paramount said in an official announcement on Friday that it had entered into a definitive merger agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery, giving the David Ellison-run media firm valuable assets such as HBO, CNN, and DC Studios.

Netflix, which was also vying for WBD, declined to raise its bid for the company on Thursday, effectively walking away from its offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio assets.

Paramount made multiple offers for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its film studio, HBO, and cable networks such as CNN, rather than the slimmer asset package Netflix had pursued. WBD accepted its revised $31-per-share offer that Netflix declined to counter.

Politics may have played a role in the bidding war. President Donald Trump publicly expressed disapproval of Netflix’s bid, and Republican lawmakers sharply criticized the company at a recent congressional hearing, accusing it of promoting “woke” programming. Trump had also demanded that Netflix fire a board member.

Investor sentiment compounded those headwinds. Netflix shareholders had been signaling discomfort with the scale and risk of the acquisition for weeks, dragging down the stock. Shares rebounded sharply once it became clear that Paramount’s bid was gaining momentum.

Read the memo Ellison sent:

Team,
Today we announced that Paramount has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. You can read the full details in our press release here.
I want to begin by thanking each of you for your patience, resilience, and commitment throughout this process. It has not been easy. Shortly after launching the new Paramount in August, we announced our plans to pursue this transaction. The months since have required a lot of hard work and resolve as together we have navigated the complexities and uncertainties that come with a deal of this scale.
That perseverance has brought us to this exciting moment.
By uniting two iconic studios, complementary streaming platforms, established cable and linear networks, expanding international businesses, world-class intellectual property, and the extraordinary talent behind all of this, we have a rare opportunity to help shape the future of our industry. Together, we can build a more dynamic, more competitive and more creatively ambitious company — one that better serves storytellers, entertains audiences around the world, and delivers long-term value for shareholders.
From day one, our vision has been clear: to build the next-generation global media and entertainment company. Acquiring WBD meaningfully accelerates that ambition. It expands our reach and enhances our ability to create the world’s most compelling stories and experiences.
While we have signed a definitive agreement, the transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and WBD shareholder approval, with a vote expected in the early spring of 2026. Until closing, Paramount and WBD will continue to operate as separate companies.
I know you will have questions about what this means for our company and for you and your teams. And as I said on Day 1, you have my commitment that we will be as direct as possible and share important updates as they become available.
Thank you again for your patience throughout this process and for your continued dedication. I am confident that, together, we will seize this incredible opportunity and build something truly extraordinary.
Let’s go!
David




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Leaked audio: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav tells employees Paramount deal felt ‘whiplash-y’

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Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO just pitched employees on its impending Paramount Skydance deal, after spending the last few months arguing against it in favor of the now-nixed Netflix deal.

David Zaslav told WBD staffers at a company town hall on Friday morning that he’s excited to join forces with Paramount.

“I think together, we can be a great company,” Zaslav said on the call, a recording of which was obtained by Business Insider.

“We’re getting bigger, and we’re getting stronger,” he said.

WBD had agreed to sell its studio and HBO assets to Netflix for $27.75 per share. Paramount launched a rival bid of $30 per share for the whole company, including its cable TV networks, and pitched WBD shareholders that its deal was better.

Zaslav acknowledged that the decision to switch from its Netflix deal to Paramount’s rival offer “all happened very quickly.”

“It feels a little whiplash-y,” Zaslav said, adding that he and WBD’s board of directors are still “getting our bearings.”

Paramount “acted with determination” in pursuing WBD, Zaslav said.

WBD underwent a “thorough, rigorous strategic review process” and was under a legal obligation to continue to review and evaluate unsolicited offers that could bring shareholders more value.

Zaslav suggested that teaming up with Paramount is crucial to WBD’s survival.

“If Warner Bros. is going to survive, then we needed to be bigger, and we needed to be global,” Zaslav said.

Zaslav added that “some of these companies are getting so big that they can just run us over.”

The Paramount-WBD deal still needs regulatory approval, a process that will likely take at least six to 12 more months.

“The deal may not close,” Zaslav said. “If it doesn’t close, we get $7 billion, and we get back to work.”

Last week, WBD’s board told its shareholders that there could be an employee exodus if it took Paramount’s deal, citing the $6 billion in cost savings that Ellison’s company planned to achieve. Netflix had said it planned to get $2 billion to $3 billion in savings from its deal.




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Here’s what smart people are saying about Paramount winning the Warner Bros. Discovery deal

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Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of the “BIG” anti-monopoly newsletter, discussed the legal situation surrounding the deal in a Substack video conversation with Richard Rushfield, a columnist at The Ankler.

He said the merger can be challenged by state enforcers, and Paramount would push to close the deal quickly to get ahead of that.

“That means they get to take over all these assets and start running them,” Stoller said. “They can fire people. They can intermingle the assets. They can choose new lines of business. They can move people around. All of the bonuses get paid out. They can do layoffs.”

Trying to unwind operations where assets are already intermingled would be like “unscrambling eggs,” Stoller said.

Stoller said he was puzzled by why other companies in Hollywood haven’t hired lawyers to compile evidence in opposition to the merger and hand it to state attorneys general to help build their case.

“It just baffles me why people are so passive when you can actually knife fight on stuff,” Stoller said, though he added that it could be happening without his knowledge.




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David Ellison has a message for Paramount staffers: tech is a key to winning

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Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison gave employees a shoutout after the media company roughly met Wall Street’s estimates in the fourth quarter.

“The progress we’ve made over the past 6+ months — from advancing our strategy to strengthening our portfolio and reorganizing our businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively — is a direct reflection of your hard work and commitment,” Ellison wrote in an email to staffers, which was viewed by Business Insider.

Ellison, who wants to turn his 114-year-old Hollywood studio into a tech-forward company, said in his memo that Paramount is focused on supercharging its tech and data capabilities.

“We recognize that in today’s highly competitive marketplace, sustainable growth depends not only on what people watch, but on the quality of the overall user experience,” Ellison wrote. “That’s why we are prioritizing investments in advanced technology and data capabilities to strengthen and differentiate our DTC offering. We are making meaningful investments across the company in innovation and technology, and we look forward to sharing more details in the coming months.”

That message comes weeks after Ellison made data a bigger part of Paramount by expanding the role of the company’s streaming data and insights team.

Paramount is planning to add short-form video to Paramount+ and is exploring ways to bring interactive features and user-generated content to its streamers, Business Insider previously reported.

In the memo, Ellison also emphasized storytelling, saying that he wants Paramount to be “the home for the industry’s leading creative talent.” While Ellison lured former Netflix original content executive Cindy Holland to run its streaming business, Paramount is losing star TV creator Taylor Sheridan to rival NBCUniversal when his contract expires.

Paramount’s biggest initiative is its quest to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which seems increasingly open to Ellison’s advances, even though it has a signed deal with Netflix.

Paramount’s results were roughly in line with analyst expectations in its latest quarter, the first full quarter since Ellison took the helm in early August. As expected, Paramount’s full-year revenue shrank for a second straight year to $28.89 billion, just under the estimate of $28.95 billion.

Paramount+ now has 78.9 million paid subscribers, up from 77.9 million last quarter and 4% higher than a year ago. Paramount’s product chief told employees that its flagship streamer added about 1 million customers on the first day it carried UFC rights in the US, Business Insider previously reported.

Read Ellison’s memo to Paramount employees here:

Team,
Today we held our 4th quarter and fiscal year-end earnings call, where we reviewed our performance and reinforced our commitment to executing against our strategy and roadmap. Anchored by our North Star priorities, we continue to drive measurable progress across all areas of the business and remain confident that we are on the right path to deliver sustained, long-term value for our shareholders.
First and foremost, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you. The progress we’ve made over the past 6+ months — from advancing our strategy to strengthening our portfolio and reorganizing our businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively — is a direct reflection of your hard work and commitment.
This shared commitment powers our primary focus here at Paramount: delivering exceptional storytelling. We want to be the home for the industry’s leading creative talent, ensuring they have the resources, platform and reach to bring their best stories to the broadest possible audience across film, television and streaming. Every decision we make — from capital allocation to operational priorities — is in service of this objective. And our increased investment in content creation reflects this commitment, with 11 films and 11 series greenlit since August and more to come.
We recognize that in today’s highly competitive marketplace, sustainable growth depends not only on what people watch, but on the quality of the overall user experience. That’s why we are prioritizing investments in advanced technology and data capabilities to strengthen and differentiate our DTC offering. We are making meaningful investments across the company in innovation and technology, and we look forward to sharing more details in the coming months.
One of our greatest strengths as a company is our ability to mobilize the entire ecosystem behind key priorities and events through our “Paramount One” initiative. We saw this clearly demonstrated with the launch of the UFC on Paramount+ in January. Every part of the organization — from CBS Sports to Pluto, marketing to ad sales — contributed to the promotion of this landmark partnership. This all-hands on deck mentality is a true force multiplier for the Company — and I know you’ve put the same firepower behind Survivor 50, premiering tonight on CBS!
I encourage you to review our shareholder letter for more details on our quarter and full fiscal year 2025 performance. A replay of the earnings call will be available shortly on our Investor Relations site.
I couldn’t be prouder of this team. Keep up the great work.
Let’s go!
Best,
David




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Trump says he’s staying out of the fight between Netflix and Paramount to take over Warner Bros. Discovery

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President Donald Trump said Netflix and Paramount Skydance have called him about their fight over Warner Bros. Discovery — but he says he’s staying out of it.

“I’ve been called by both sides,” Trump told “NBC Nightly News.” “It’s the two sides, but I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved. The Justice Department will handle it.”

This is a shift from what Trump said in December of last year.

“They have a very big market share, and when they have Warner Bros., you know, that share goes up a lot so, I don’t know,” Trump said after Netflix made its bid for Warner Bros. Discover. “I’ll be involved in that decision, too. But they have a very big market share.”

The fight for Warner Bros. Discovery, and its well-known IP, has been contentious.

In November of last year, formal bids for the media behemoth were submitted, including those from Netflix and Paramount Skydance — which previously signaled interest in buying Warner Bros. Discovery.

Netflix announced in early December that it would acquire parts of WBD — the studio and streaming — for an equity value of $72 billion ($27.75 per share).

“The seismic cash-and-stock deal, which has a total enterprise value of $82.7 billion, will bring together Netflix’s streaming platform with Warner Bros.’ century-old studio, HBO, HBO Max, and some of the most iconic franchises in film and television,” Business Insider reported when the deal was announced.

Paramount Skydance came in days later with a hostile, all-cash offer of $30 per share for all of WBD, including its cable assets, making its appeal directly to shareholders.

The battle has continued with Netflix revising its deal with an all-cash offer at the same price per share, Paramount Skydance saying Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison was backing its offer, and WBD telling its shareholders to reject the Paramount deal.

No matter how the saga ends, the bids will need to clear regulatory hurdles for the merger — and for now Trump said he’ll leave that to the DOJ.




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Paramount+ got about 1 million new subscribers the day of its first UFC event, an exec told staffers

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UFC is already a hit for Paramount+.

Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.

A Paramount spokesperson said: “Those numbers are unverified, and it’s against our policy to share speculative data externally.”

In August, Paramount did a deal with UFC parent TKO that will see it pay $7.7 billion to secure UFC rights in the US for seven years.

Glasgow said at the town hall that Saturday was the second-largest day of sign-ups ever for its streamer, and that UFC 324 was the second-most-streamed sporting event on the service, according to two employees.

Notably, Paramount made its UFC matches available for anyone with a Paramount+ subscription, which starts at $8.99 a month. Before the Paramount deal, many UFC matches were only on pay-per-view for around $80 each.

Paramount previously announced that its UFC broadcast had just under 5 million average viewers for the main card. Paramount CEO David Ellison told staffers in an email that it was “the largest-ever exclusive live event for Paramount+.” The streamer has drawn larger audiences to other non-exclusive live events, including NFL games that ran on both Paramount+ and CBS.

“This record-breaking performance is, above all, a testament to the extraordinary teamwork across our entire company,” Ellison told employees in his memo, which was obtained by Business Insider.


UFC champ

Paramount’s UFC event, which saw Justin Gaethje emerge victorious, was highly viewed, the company told employees.

Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC



For context, Netflix’s Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight added about 1.4 million US subscribers to that service in November 2024, according to the subscription data firm Antenna. The firm only tracks US data.

Antenna estimated that Paramount+ reeled in an estimated 3.2 million new US customers when it hosted the Super Bowl in 2024.

Read Ellison’s full memo to employees below:

Team,

A huge congratulations to everyone who contributed to the success of our first UFC event on Paramount+! Several members of our leadership team and I were cageside Saturday night, and we were completely blown away by the experience and by the intensity, skill and heart on display across the card. We left the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas more excited and energized than ever about our partnership with Dana White and the entire TKO/UFC team.

I’ve heard from several executives at TKO/UFC, and they also could not be more pleased with how everything came together. It was a fantastic start to our 7-year partnership!

While we went into the weekend with high expectations, I’m thrilled to share that we exceeded them, reaching nearly 5 million streaming views — the largest-ever exclusive live event for Paramount+. And the actual audience was likely even higher, given how common co-viewing is among UFC fans.

This record-breaking performance is, above all, a testament to the extraordinary teamwork across our entire company. Every single business unit, division and team — from Paramount+, Paramount Pictures and CBS to MTV, BET, Nickelodeon and Pluto, as well as Marketing, Social, Ad Sales, Technology, Events and more — came together, rolled up their sleeves and got creative. The incredible power of Paramount One to reach the broadest possible audience was on full display companywide, and UFC 324 stands as our strongest example yet of what we can achieve when we all work together toward a common goal.

Again, hats off to everyone. With nearly 5 million streaming views and record-breaking engagement, UFC 324 set the bar high, and we can’t wait to keep the momentum going at UFC 325 next weekend in Sydney!

Let’s go!

David




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Paramount wanted to use $24 billion in Middle Eastern money to help buy WBD. That’s not why Netflix won.

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Larry and David Ellison, who own Paramount, want to use $24 billion in Middle Eastern money to finance their bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Is that a problem for WBD?

You might think so — especially since $10 billion of that came from the Saudi government. That’s the same government that US intelligence said killed a Washington Post journalist in 2018. The kind of partner you might think a major American media conglomerate would want to keep at arm’s length.

But that’s not a problem WBD raises in its newest communication to shareholders, where it urges them to take the deal offered by Netflix instead.

What actually worries WBD about the Ellisons’ bid isn’t the Ellisons’ particular partners. It’s that the Ellisons had partners.

In a regulatory filing that tells the backstory of the proposed WBD sale, WBD execs and their reps repeatedly told the Ellisons they wanted a firm commitment that Larry Ellison — currently the world’s 5th-richest man, with an estimated net worth of $243 billion — would guarantee the deal himself.

Instead, WBD argues, the Ellisons never gave them the assurances they wanted.

The filing does bring up the fact that money from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds would likely complicate regulatory issues for a proposed Ellison/Paramount deal. (Ditto for a proposed $1 billion investment from China’s Tencent, which the Ellisons later took out of their proposal.) But those are presented as technical hurdles. Not moral or patriotic dealbreakers.

And they’re just part of a laundry list of complaints WBD makes about the Ellisons. Among them: A December 2 tweet from New York Post reporter Charlie Gasparino, which WBD said violated a confidentiality agreement Paramount had signed.

And when it comes to the main pitch WBD is making to investors, all of that stuff disappears. It just boils down to “we did our homework, and the Netflix deal is better.”

That’s not shocking: If you’re a WBD investor, you are (supposedly) only interested in getting the maximum value for shares. And WBD’s filing argues that Netflix is the one that can pay the most.

Now we’re waiting to see what the Ellisons do next: Many observers believe they’ll return with yet another, higher bid. Will this one have Gulf money, too?




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The memes are flying about the Netflix and Paramount bidding battle for Warner Bros. Discovery

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The Hollywood bidding war between Paramount Skydance and Netflix has created a meme frenzy.

The two media giants are in an all-out battle for Warner Bros. Discovery after it accepted Netflix’s offer to acquire its studio and streaming businesses for an equity value of $72 billion. David Ellison’s Paramount launched a hostile $30-per-share bid for all of WBD on Monday.

Warner Bros. Discovery owns the Warner Bros. film studio, HBO, the HBO Max streaming service, and TV networks such as CNN, TNT, and TruTV. It confirmed receipt of Paramount’s unsolicited offer on Monday.

Both entities have made their cases on why they’d be the best owner for WBD. Although internet comedians don’t have a say in where the deals land, it hasn’t stopped them from weighing in with viral jokes about the dueling companies and their quest to acquire WBD.

Some social media users are poking fun at the back-and-forth with memes about how far each company is willing to go to gain WBD’s favor. One post compared the battle for the best offer to a scene from the HBO business drama “Succession,” a title Netflix would own if the deal goes through.

The Instagram meme account Litquidity used parody images that appeared to be AI-created of two business leaders speaking at the DealBook Summit to mock how each company is trying to prove its offer is better.

Some people seem to be using humor to cope with the idea of more consolidation in Hollywood. They are pushing back on both offers with memes about stopping the looming acquisition completely.

“I’m putting together a team to fight the Netflix Warner Bros merger,” one X user captioned a compilation video of various actors and famous filmmakers.

Others speculated on what the movie-watching experience could be like under Warner Bros. Discovery’s new ownership. One TikTok video showed a man sitting down to watch a movie, only for the intros to include a confusing mix of studios, backers such as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and even a DJ, being played before the movie began.

In the midst of all the jokes, Netflix argues that its offer would be better for consumers and creators, while Ellison says Paramount is more likely to win regulatory approval and offers Hollywood more certainty.

What all of this means in the long run is unclear so far. It could lead to job cuts in the entertainment industry as the giants consolidate their power. The trends of streaming services getting pricier and fewer movies hitting theaters could also continue, as companies release less content, Business Insider previously reported.

Either way — as with many serious big business deals — consumers and industry insiders are finding ways to laugh through it.




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