Paramount-Skydance seeks to remain icon in American entertainment

• Paramount is diversifying its portfolio and prioritizing efficiency to stay relevant in the modern entertainment industry.
• Following a merger with Skydance Media, Paramount is expanding its investments, including a proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
• CEO David Ellison aims to transform Paramount into a "tech hybrid" media company, utilizing cloud computing and AI.

This story is part of the Iconic Brands series, a USA TODAY network project showcasing the companies and brands that helped shape the nation's identity, economy and culture. The series celebrates American ingenuity with a deeply reported examination of how brands intersect with history, community and everyday life in celebration of the nation's 250th anniversary. Find more at https://usatoday.com/usa250/iconic-brands

Entertainment giant Paramount was increasingly viewed as a relic of old Hollywood after over a century of movie making and industry turbulence. With hits like “The Godfather” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” it is the second-oldest film studio in the United States, behind Universal Studios. 

Now, Paramount executives are battling to stay relevant in the streaming wars and modern production pressures. The solution, executives said, is diversifying their portfolio and prioritizing efficiency. 

Since Paramount Global and Skydance Media merged in August 2025, CEO David Ellison took on numerous new investments, from rodeos and subsidiary production companies to the proposed $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

"My vision is to honor exceptional storytelling while modernizing how we make and deliver content to support the world's top creative talent, enhance experiences for audiences worldwide, and create sustainable value for our shareholders," David Ellison said about the Paramount Skydance merger in a company statement. "Together, we have the opportunity not only to shape Paramount's future, but also to play a meaningful role in where our industry is headed — and we can't wait to get started."

If the first seven months of Ellison's "new Paramount" with partner Skydance are symbolic of that role, viewers can expect more content, more targeted ads and further consolidation as Paramount seeks to continue to shape America's entertainment industry.

Paramount declined to comment.

Paramount Studios' first merger and lasting legacy

Paramount claims its start in 1912 when a New York man named Adolph Zukor secured distribution rights to a French film titled "Queen Elizabeth," which became the first full-length drama to be shown in the United States.

The company's first merger dates back nearly as far.

In 1916, distributor Paramount Pictures merged with Zukor's Famous Players Film Company and The Jesse L. Lasky Company to birth an early iteration of the Hollywood studio as it is has become. After this merger, the iconic mountain logo made its debut, encircled by stars to represent the first 22 actors under contract with the studio.

The company constructed its Hollywood lot on 26 acres in 1926, located in the same spot where its 65-acre campus stands today.

Among its first hits was the silent film "Wings" starring Clara Bow, followed by Bing Crosby's colorful musicals. Then Paramount bought Lucille Ball's television studio Desilu, producing popular shows like "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Brady Bunch."

By the 1990s, Paramount churned out regular classics, from "Titanic" and "Forrest Gump" to all of Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" movies.

Paramount seeks 'Big Four' streaming status with Warner Bros. acquisition

Though it's been going through mergers since its infancy, Paramount became a poster child for modern media consolidation in recent years.

Most recently, the company beat out Netflix with a $110 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, including a $40.4 billion personal guarantee from the senior Ellison. The first time Warner Bros. and Paramount considered a merger with one another, though, was back in 2023, just one year after Warner Media combined with Discovery.

“This potential mega-merger is a significant bellwether for the industry and does increase consolidation momentum even if it doesn’t actually come to fruition,” entertainment analyst Paul Erickson said to USA TODAY that year. “The mere reality of two major players being driven by mutual challenges and competitive forces to entertain a merger is an indication that collaborations, mergers and acquisitions at all levels may be needed to survive." 

Erickson's predictions have proven true.

Since the "streaming wars" began in 2018 with corporations pushing back on Netflix's domination in full force with costly investments, mergers and acquisitions have been the name of the game.

"There's been a race to become a big-four streaming service," tech writer and owner of Cord Cutter Jared Newman said. "And what's happened in the past few years is we've seen these streaming services turn their focus from growing the number of subscribers to turning a profit."

The top three streaming companies are Netflix, The Walt Disney Company's Disney-ESPN-Hulu combo and Amazon's Prime Video, by Newman's estimation and data from JustWatch streaming charts. Combined, they make up 65% of the streaming market share, according to JustWatch.

That leaves the fourth spot in the "Big Four" up for grabs.

While Paramount+ maintains just 5% of the market, the Warner Bros. merger could bring Paramount Skydance into contention. With around 13% of the streaming market, Warner Bros. owns HBO Max and Discovery+, not to mention cable giants like CNN, Food Network and HGTV.

"It definitely gives them more scale. The question is: How well does it really work?" Newman said. "We know that Paramount basically wants to merge HBO into Paramount Plus, but there's a lot of nitty gritty decisions that go into making that successful."

The company would also include BET+ and Pluto TV in that unification.

Ellison's vision for the future of Paramount Skydance

By all accounts, Ellison's vision for the future of his company is clear.

Ellison has four pillars of immediate goals for Paramount, according to his 2025 fourth quarter company report. Those are: improve its technology, enhance corporate efficiency, unify the brand under his leadership and optimize the workforce for future scalability.

In a 2024 interview with CNBC, he said he wants Paramount to become a "tech hybrid" media company and build a "studio in the cloud." That means churning out cheaper and faster content made with tools like artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

How exactly will that come to fruition? Oracle, the tech giant to which Ellison is the heir, is playing a particularly large role.

Paramount, led by David Ellison, agreed to pay Oracle, chaired by his father Larry Ellison, $100 million for cloud infrastructure support in 2025. Paramount reported that this deal, among others, would "result in savings of over $50 million annually on average."

Ellison is years behind Netflix's Ted Sarandos in building up the company's tech capabilities and infrastructure that it takes to operate the app across platforms, but he is on a mission to catch up sooner rather than later.

"What you also need to be able to do is actually build differentiated tech products, differentiated platforms, to really be able to compete with the Netflixes and YouTubes of the world and the best and brightest that are coming out of Silicon Valley," Ellison said at the FII Priority Summit in Miami on March 27. "We really do think it's that combination of art and technology really working hand in hand together."

Paramount said it's on track to deliver over $2.5 billion in total run-rate efficiencies through the end of 2026.

Critics of media consolidation warn about the potential risks of increased biases on news channels owned by a single parent company, lack of market competition and the ensuing high prices. But Ellison only sees benefits.

"We're very proud that we were the largest shareholders in Skydance," he said. "We're the largest shareholders in Paramount, and we will be the largest shareholders of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery when that deal closes. What that does is make sure that all of the incentives are aligned for really long, long, long-term success. You make decisions not for two quarters from now, but for five years from now to make sure that you have something that really stands the test of time for centuries to come."

This story is part of the Iconic Brands series, a USA TODAY network project showcasing the companies and brands that helped shape the nation's identity, economy and culture. The series celebrates American ingenuity with a deeply reported examination of how brands intersect with history, community and everyday life in celebration of the nation's 250th anniversary. Find more atUsatoday.com/usa250/iconic-brands

How the list was selected

The USA TODAY list of 50 Iconic Brands identifies American companies that have profoundly shaped the nation’s identity, economy and culture. The list is not definitive. Editorial selection factors included historical significance, industry-building innovation, measurable economic influence and lasting cultural impact. These brands were chosen for transforming daily life or becoming enduring symbols of American values. Long-term relevance and sustained national influence carried greater weight than short-term financial performance or recent popularity. Brands did not have a role in shaping the list or our coverage to ensure journalistic independence and to maintain the credibility of the selections. 

Hadley Hitson covers business news for The Tennessean. She can be reached at [email protected]. To support her work, subscribe to The Tennessean.