I host the Ankler Agenda podcast, wrote about the federal production tax credit, spoke to Backrooms casting director Wittney Horton and explored how TV is failing young men and boys. I’m elaine@theankler.com
This just in: My colleague Lesley Goldberg has confirmed that HBO and HBO Max head honcho Casey Bloys has inked a new deal with Skydance — his previous Warner Bros. Discovery pact was set to expire in 2027, but now as he steps up to lead the combined Paramount-Warners direct-to-consumer division, he’ll be in his massive new perch for a while.
Meanwhile, George Cheeks just inherited an unwieldy Frankenstein’s monster born from M&A: three studios with different businesses, cultures and fortunes — and a mandate, at least for now, to keep them all.
Don’t count on it lasting.
As Skydance prepares to close its Warner Bros. Discovery deal, Skydance TV chief content officer Cheeks was just tapped to oversee a sprawling remit of Warner Bros. TV, CBS Studios and Paramount Television Studios. Veterans of the Disney-Fox merger remember a similarly ambitious plan to maintain multiple studios independently. Within a few years, four had become one (the survivor was 20th Television).
Cheeks’ three studios are far from interchangeable widgets. Channing Dungey’s Warner Bros. TV is the big kahuna of the group, producing more than 80 shows across Hollywood for buyers including Apple (Shrinking), Netflix (Running Point) and HBO (The Pitt). David Stapf’s CBS Studios is built largely around feeding its own network, with franchises like NCIS and Elsbeth. Matt Thunell’s Paramount Television Studios, meanwhile, was only revived last year and houses everything from the Taylor Sheridan universe to the old Skydance Television operation.
Put together, Cheeks has a sprawling television kingdom — and an obvious consolidation question.
The pressure will only grow as the combined company confronts its staggering debt load and searches for savings. Even pro-merger Wall Street is bracing for impact. One former senior Disney TV executive who lived through the Fox merger expects back-office functions — and likely the studios themselves — to become targets.
“I’m sure George intends to keep three studios running right now,” the former Disney executive says. “Whatever the intentions are now, they have a lot of debt and feel a lot of cost reduction pressure.”
And if the Disney-Fox merger is any guide, the pressure to consolidate may arrive much faster than anyone inside Skydance expects. The bigger question is which of Cheeks’ three studios is actually untouchable — and which one (and what executives) may ultimately have the most to lose.
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