A Paramount-Warner Bros. Combo Would Add to LA Job Market Woes

A merger between Paramount Skydance Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. would potentially result in thousands of job losses in Los Angeles and further damage a film and TV industry market still struggling to recover from the pandemic and the 2023 writer and actor strikes.

Paramount, the parent of CBS, MTV and other businesses is weighing an offer for Warner Bros., home to the CNN, TBS and HGTV cable channels, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Producer David Ellison, who took control of Paramount in August, is already planning to eliminate at least 2,000 jobs at the company as part of $2 billion in cost synergies identified around that merger. An acquisition of Warner Bros. would likely lead to even more redundancies, combining two film studios, two streaming services and two organizations running TV networks.