New Paramount CEO David Ellison Promises ‘Greater Volume’ of Movies and Shows

Today, Skydance CEO David Ellison takes over Paramount. In an open letter, he laid out his vision for the future of the media company, and he promised he’d invest in ramping up production of movies and shows to fuel the various Paramount platforms.

Ellison outlined 3 key priorities:

• Investing in Paramount’s growth businesses anchored by “our creative engines and superior storytelling” 
• Scaling the direct-to-consumer business globally 
• Driving efficiency enterprise-wide with a focus on long-term free cash flow generation

Sounds good. Now, can he pull it off?

Ellison wrote extensively about his plan to pull together Pluto TV and Paramount+.

Starting next year, Paramount+ and Pluto TV will operate on a unified technology stack, dramatically improving performance and driving significant financial savings. Most importantly, this integration will elevate the consumer experience across our services—enhancing our recommendation engine, accelerating delivery speed and quality, while also giving us the opportunity to position Pluto TV as the ‘top of the funnel’ to attract new customers to Paramount+. 

While Paramount has a deep film vault and strong niche TV channels, the company has definitely taken its foot off the gas in recent years. You don’t need to look any further than MTV, which is now just reruns of “Ridiculousness” and “Jersey Shore,” or Comedy Central, which is a rerun graveyard aside from “The Daily Show” and “South Park.”

Nickelodeon is still a gold mine for children’s programming, CBS remains strong, and Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” franchise and Paramount+ shows are a bright spot in the portfolio.

Paramount has also bungled Showtime for years. The field is wide open for high-quality, mature programming to battle HBO. Showtime has shown potential, but there are far too few shows.

In 2021, Business Insider spoke to Showtime insiders who were frustrated with their parent company’s indecision. Paramount developed “Halo” to be a giant Showtime sci-fi show, then put it on Paramount+ instead. Despite the popularity of the IP, fans felt the show was botched, and it only lasted 17 epsiodes over two seasons.

“A chronic problem which continues to plague Showtime is a lack of investment,” a person close to the company said. “You’ve got Netflix out there outspending everyone, and you’ve got WarnerMedia lining up the entire organization behind HBO Max almost in a brutal way. They’re playing for keeps. … You have to be really, really committed to your streaming strategy, and that means spending money and lining up the organization in a way that promises to accomplish the goal.”

Things didn’t get better for Showtime over the last four years.

Paramount took too long to incorporate Showtime into its flagship streamer, then came up with the awful name “Paramount+ with Showtime” before eventually reverting to “Paramount+ Premium.” Now, the channel is limping along with just a handful of shows.

Honestly, I really like Paramount+. It has a ton of potential and some rock-solid franchises to build around. Hopefully, Ellison’s deep pockets will create a content engine to rival the biggest players in the space. After all, Warner Bros. Discovery announced today it’s aiming to produce just 12-14 films a year (that would end up on HBO Max). It can’t be that hard to turn out more than one movie a month.

Time will tell if Ellison has the chops to help Paramount scale the (ahem) mountain, but increased investment is something to cheer at a time when most media companies are pulling back.