Paramount Global ousts CEO Bob Bakish, replaces him with trio of execs as it eyes Skydance merger

Paramount Global pushed out CEO Bob Bakish on Monday — removing a major opponent to the media giant’s possible merger with Skydance Media.

Bakish, who had run Paramount since 2019, will be replaced by a three-headed “Office of the CEO” –consisting of 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, the company said.

“I have tremendous confidence in George, Chris and Brian,” Paramount board chair Shari Redstone said in a written statement after cutting ties with Bakish, long viewed as her right hand.

“They have both the ability to develop and execute on a new strategic plan and to work together as true partners.”

The announcement came shorty before the debt-saddled company announced its quarterly earnings after the bell.

As expected, Bakish did not lead the earnings call, which kicked off at 4:30p ET and abruptly ended 10 minutes later.

The media conglomerate — home to CBS, MTV, BET, Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures and the Paramount+ streaming service — informed investors that it would not be taking questions from analysts, a staple of any earnings call, as it reported earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.

Cheeks kicked off the call by thanking Bakish, and emphasizing that “Paramount Global has the greatest content in the world.”

“Everything will be built from that,” he added.

Shares of the company rose nearly 1% in after-hours trading to $12.36.

Bakish’s golden parachute will be roughly $50 million, two sources told The Post.

He was paid $31.3 million in 2023 compensation and has a contract that runs through December 4, 2025, according to public filings.

Redstone thanked Bakish “for his many contributions over his long career, including in the formation of the combined company as well as his successful efforts to rebuild the great culture Paramount has long been known for.”

Nonetheless, his ouster comes after he reportedly clashed with Redstone, who controls Paramount through her family holding business, National Amusements. The daughter of the late media mogul Sumner Redstone has questioned whether Bakish pursued strategic opportunities for the company “aggressively enough,” including a potential sale of the Showtime channel, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Bakish, 60, also has privately argued against Redstone’s sweetheart deal with Skydance — the independent movie studio run by tech heir David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison — because it dilutes common shareholders, according to reports.

The two companies have engaged in exclusive 30-day talks that expire Friday. Skydance planned to buy Redstone’s 77% stake in National Amusement for as much as $2 billion.

The purported payout has led to an outcry from large common shareholders including Mario Gabelli’s Gamco Investors, Ariel Investments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trust.

Gabelli — whose firm through super voting shares and common Paramount stock is the second leading voting shareholder next to Redstone — recently told The Post that he preferred that Bakish continue his turnaround strategy over a sale.

That includes a deal with Skydance or a sale to private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which has offered $26 billion and is now mulling a partnership with Sony as part of its Paramount acquisition.

In order to quell shareholders, Bloomberg reported Sunday that Redstone and David Ellison have both offered concessions to make the deal more palatable to Paramount’s other investors.

Ellison has put his “best and final offer” on the table with the offer to buy a block of Paramount shares.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that Skydance had offered to provide the combined company with a $3 billion cash infusion in recent days that it could use to pay down an estimated $14 billion in debt and buy back stock. 

Redstone, who owns a majority of the company’s voting shares, has also agreed to let nonvoting shareholders have a say on whether any transaction should be approved.

Should a deal go through, privately-owned Skydance would be valued at $5 billion and merged with Paramount.

Ellison, along with private equity firms KKR and Redbird, plan to raise about $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity, according to reports.5

If a deal gets inked, Ellison is expected be named CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as president, CNBC said.

Bakish joined Viacom in 1997 and took on roles of increasing seniority across the company’s operations, grabbing the reins of Viacom in 2016 and becoming the CEO of Paramount Global after Viacom merged with CBS. 

As Redstone and the Paramount board inch closer to a deal with Skydance, which has produced blockbusters for Paramount like “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning,” and “Top Gun: Maverick, Bakish has sought out alternatives.

One such deal included a potential streaming partnership with NBCUniversal-parent Comcast, without keeping Redstone or the board in the loop, The Journal said.

Meanwhile, Redstone had grown tired of Bakish, blaming him for the company’s overall predicament and what she views as missed chances to strike sound deals, The Journal said.

People close to Redstone said the mogul was open to selling premium channel Showtime, home to “Billions,” Dexter” and “Yellowjackets,” but that Bakish turned down bids — even rejecting a $3 billion offer from former Showtime CEO David Nevins last year. Instead, Bakish folded Showtime and its content into Paramount+.

Bakish supporters beg to differ, saying that the exec put the company on the map with streaming via its Paramount+ launch, acquisition of Pluto TV, an ad-supported TV streaming service, as well as maintaining CBS’s strong industry position, among other things.

But the company’s market value has plunged by half since the Viacom-CBS merger as the legacy TV business shrinks and losses pile up in streaming.  

For the quarter that ended in March, Paramount reported adjusted earnings per share of 62 cents, well ahead of the 36 cents consensus of analysts — boosted mainly from revenue generated by hosting the Super Bowl in February.

Still, revenue came in shy of expectations at $7.69 billion. Wall Street had forecast $7.73 billion, according to LSEG data.

During the abbreviated conference, McCarthy underscored that the newly-formed leadership troika has “worked together for years” and that they have “deep respect” for one and other.

He added that the execs are “building a plan” which will “make the most out of our hit content.”

Robbins also attested to his long-standing business relationships with McCarthy and Cheeks.

“We will come back to you in short order with our plans,” he added.