Paramount reportedly eyeing hundreds of lay-offs as buyers continue to circle  

Paramount Global is reportedly set to eliminate hundreds of jobs next month as sale rumours continue to swirl around the US media company.

Robert Bakish, president of Paramount Global

The New York-headquartered firm is targeting around 800 job cuts across the breadth of the company, according to a report in Deadline, as it looks to reduce costs.

Around six weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Shari Redstone-controlled company was looking at eliminating more than 1,000 roles in the early part of the year. While the job losses may not extend into four figures, a severe round of cuts appears to be imminent.

This isn’t the first time Paramount Global has made deep cuts over the past 18 months, as it has dealt with a lagging share price, accelerating cord cutting and a challenging ad market.

The company has implemented several rounds of lay-offs and restructured several departments since the fall of 2022, including integrating the Showtime brand into Paramount+ across both streaming and linear in the US, merging  the Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios teams and cutting around 25% of staff in its US-based cable networks. On the programming front, Nicole Clemens, president of Paramount Television Studios (PTVS), told C21 at MIA in Rome in November that PTVS is looking to reduce the cost of its premium series by up to 25% The company has also recently renewed efforts to sell BET Networks.

Reports of this latest wave of lay-offs come as Paramount continues to be the subject of M&A interest from a raft of financial and strategic buyers.

Apollo Global Management is the latest outfit to express interest, with Bloomberg reporting on Friday that the US private equity firm is considering making an offer for Paramount parent company National Amusements.

David Ellison-led US media company Skydance is reportedly in early talks with Redstone for an all-cash bid to acquire a majority stake in National Amusements, while Paramount Global CEO and Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav also met last month to discuss a possible deal.