Bankers looking to sell Paramount Global assets

Network 10 parent company Paramount Global held a ‘town hall’ meeting for the company’s more than 20,000 employees after a potential merger with Skydance was called off.

George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, president and CEO, Showtime / MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon addressed staff concerns about possible lay-offs to drive down company debt.

They have made reportedly progress to eliminate duplicative job functions, across corporate functions like legal and corporate marketing but there was no timeline revealed for likely mass layoffs or cutbacks.

Cheeks said the Paramount leaders are “looking at selling certain Paramount-owned assets” and said, “in fact, we’ve already hired bankers to assist us in this process — and we’ll use the proceeds to help pay down debt and strengthen our balance sheet.”

Variety speculates those could include BET Media, the VidCon creator tradeshow division and the Paramount Pictures lot.

However Deadline speculates bankers are also assessing a group of non CBS-affiliated television stations that are not core to the broadcast business.

Paramount owns 13 TV stations not affiliated with CBS.