Paramount Global Hits Bumps In Q3, With Pay-TV Declines Offsetting Streaming Progress; Stock Drops In Pre-Market Trading

A major publishing deal is officially dead in the water as Paramount Global scrapped its sale of Simon & Schuster to Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House, declining to pursue an appeal after the Department of Justice sued to block the merger and a federal judge upheld the government’s position.

Restructuring, streamlining and realignment. We’ve been hearing that phrasing quite a bit over the past few months as media congloms have been thinning out their top executive ranks and targeting efficiencies to improve their balance sheets in a time when the effects from the pandemic are being exacerbated by the impact of the economic slowdown, high inflation and a looming recession.

Advertising is soft, said Paramount Global’s top finance executive, but the company’s mix of broadcast, FAST, SVOD, and cable “puts us in a very powerful position” to weather the market, as does the sale of a bigger than usual chunk of inventory at the upfront.

EXCLUSIVE: Layoffs are under way at Paramount Global, with several dozen employees expected to leave the company today, insiders have confirmed to Deadline.

Famed investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway knocked Paramount Global shares higher after disclosing that it has raised his stake in the media company.

David Zaslav channeled his inner John Dutton today: “We have an awful lot to do, and an awful lot to undo,” he said, crediting the line to Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone patriarch in the Season 5 premiere, with a shoutout to the Paramount show. Zaslav’s hard-to-wrangle ranch is a merged Warner Bros. Discovery.

“All That Breathes”“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”“America Boxed In”“Anonymous Club”“Art & Krimes by Krimes”“At Home Walking”“The Automat”“Bad Axe”“The Balcony Movie”“Battleground”“Beba”“The Bengali”“Bitterbrush”“Black Ice”“Black Notebooks – Ronit”“Blue Island”“The Book Keepers”“Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power”“Breaking Bread”“Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche”“Calendar Girls”“The Camera of Doctor Morris”“Cat Daddies”“The Cathedral”“Children of the Mist”“Civil”“Claydream”“The Corridors of Power”“Cow”“The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s American Pie“Deep in the Heart: A Texas Wildlife Story”“Descendant”“Disturbed Earth”“Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel”“EAMI”“The Eclipse”“Eternal Spring”“The Exiles”“Exposure”“Fanny: The Right to Rock”“Father”“Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen”“Fire of Love”“Four Winters”“Framing Agnes”“Free Choi Soo Lee”“Free Puppies!”“Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom”“From the Hood to the Holler”“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down”“Gamestop: Rise of the Players”“Girl, Taken”“Good Night Oppy”“Gratitude Revealed”“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song”“Hello, Bookstore”“Hidden Letters”“Hold Your Fire”“A House Made of Splinters”“How to Survive a Pandemic”“The Human Trial”“I Am Here”“I Didn’t See You There”“I’m Wanita”“In Her Hands”“Invisible Demons”“Is That Black Enough for You?!?”“The Janes”“Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story”“Katrina Babies”“Keep Stepping”“Killing Me Softly With His Songs”“Las Hostilidades”“Last Flight Home”“The Last of the Winthrops”“Leave No Trace”“Let Me Be Me”“Let the Little Light Shine”“Life & Life”“Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege”“Look at Me: Xxxtentacion”“Loudmouth”“Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues”“Loving Highsmith”“Lowndes County and

Paramount’s Parker Finn-directed horror pic Smile has laughed all the way past the $200M mark worldwide. After six weeks in release – and with scary strong holds – the split through Sunday is $99.1M domestic and $103.8M from the international box office for a global cume of $202.9M.

Serena Williams’ husband, Alexis Ohanian, is proud to be her biggest fan!

Roku has welcomed Netflix into the ad streaming market.

By the time HBO Max merges debuts next spring as a fortified offering encompassing Discovery+, it will have gone three years without any adjustments to its price or the ad experience on the cheaper subscription tier. Get ready for that to change, with Warner Bros Discovery streaming and games CEO JB Perrette indicating prices will head “north” and the ad load could potentially double from its current level.

Kim Kardashian has something to say to Kanye West fans!

she wore to the London premiere of Amsterdam to the distinctly she sported at the New York premiere of the movie, the star loves a head-turning fashion moment. At the WSJ Innovator Awards, Robbie eschewed her usual voluminous dresses and instead chose a white Proenza Schouler tailored suit to wear to the event. But it wasn’t your typical trousers-and-blazer combo: True to the brand’s contemporary approach to silhouettes, the trousers were wide-leg flares that dusted the floor, while the jacket was a longline cut.

Former CBS chief Les Moonves and Paramount Global have agreed to pay an additional $9.75 million to resolve an investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s office.

While it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness of a performance based just on a trailer, it’s clear that Margot Robbie is gaining some buzz for her role in the upcoming Damien Chazelle film, “Babylon.” An awards season push is a no-brainer, as Robbie is already twice nominated for Oscars.

Ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV is tripling its offering of series from CBS in the latest deepening of ties between the two Paramount Global divisions.

The teaser trailer for The Bast Man: The Final Chapters dropped during the Urbanworld Film Festival, the same event where the film originally premiered in 1999. The Peacock limited series will premiere all 8 episodes on December 22. Watch the trailer in the video posted above.

Christian Bale and director Scott Cooper have a history together. They first teamed up on 2013’s “Out Of The Furnace,” then reunited on 2017’s “Hostiles.” Now they collaborate again on “The Pale Blue Eye,” Cooper’s follow-up to last year’s “Antlers,” which hits Netflix next January.