February 18, 2024
Paramount Faces Backlash After Massive Layoffs Following Record-Breaking Super Bowl LVIII Broadcast
Employees at CBS News, BET, Nickelodeon, and the entire team that worked on Noggin have been fired as a result of Paramount’s cost-cutting.
Following its successful broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII, which set records for the most-watched program in America since the Apollo 11 moon landing, Paramount laid off approximately 800 employees in the United States.
Although Paramount was expected to cut costs sometime this year, laying off its employees so soon after such a resounding success surprised the public. However, some publicly blamed Paramount’s direction on CEO Bob Bakish. Ben Daves, a former script/production coordinator for Netflix Animation and a screenwriter for Paramount Animation, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, “I started working for Paramount around when Bob started. Every single year, there were massive layoffs. The stock was around $50 when he started. It’s now at $13. He is the problem. Worst CEO I’ve ever seen.”
As The Guardian reported, despite the success of its original programming like “Yellowstone,” the company planned to pivot its focus toward its biggest global hits and less on American television. In a memo obtained by the outlet, Bakish thanked the workers for their hard work and seemed somewhat empathetic to the situation in which the layoffs had placed them.
“To those with whom we are parting ways, we are incredibly grateful for your hard work and dedication,” Bakish wrote in an internal memo. “Your talents have helped us advance our mission of unleashing the power of content around the world. We are a better company because of you.”
Bakish continued, “While I realize these changes are in no way easy … I am confident this is the right decision for our future. These adjustments will help enable us to build on our momentum and execute our strategic vision for the year ahead – and I firmly believe we have much to be excited about.”
Though it was not immediately clear which of Paramount Global’s brands would be affected by the cuts, some details have emerged. Employees at CBS News, BET, Nickelodeon, and the entire team that worked on Noggin have been fired due to Paramount’s cost-cutting. In addition to the workers in America who were let go, there will also be more global Paramount employees laid off in the future. In December, CNBC reported that following reports that Paramount might be taken over by another company, the share price jumped by 12%.
At the end of January, when reports emerged that Byron Allen made a $30 billion buyout offer for the company, stock prices surged again but have now settled at $14 a share.
Shari Redstone, who controls the majority of the company’s shares, has reportedly been open to making big deals and was rumored to be entertaining bundling its Paramount + streaming service with Apple TV+. There were also reports that Warner Bros. Discovery was in talks to merge with Paramount Global, which on Paramount’s end appears to be driven by the substantial debt it carries. Paramount+, the company’s streaming platform, is also lagging behind other streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ and, according to WPTV, lost an estimated $1 billion in 2023.
Whether shedding salary will alleviate Paramount’s money-hemorrhaging problem remains to be seen. According to the Harvard Business Review, layoffs are only good for short-term relief, trading that for a long-term drop in employee engagement and a drop in profitability, which is often the logic for enacting the layoffs in the first place. In its conclusion, the HBR states: “For all companies, planning thoughtful workforce change instead of automatically resorting to layoffs is a better way to address the vicissitudes of technological transformation and intensifying competition.”
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