Less than 24 hours after closing a deal to buy Paramount Global, David Ellison went into mogul mode for the first time Monday morning, addressing investors and later a group of media reporters to discuss his landmark Skydance-Paramount Global deal.
As chairman and CEO of the expanded Paramount, Ellison will now occupy a space he previously did not have: He sits at the power buttons of a multinational company behind the production and distribution of content, news, sports and gaming.
“My first job was as a computer programmer at Oracle,” the Skydance founder recalled to reporters Monday morning after his presentation to Paramount Global investors. His technical background plays a major role in his vision for the merged company. The son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, David and his investors are blowing the message that the new Paramount will be a “confluence of art, first and foremost, hand in hand with technology.”
But how? Ellison gave Skydance Animation’s upcoming feature film “Spellbound” as an example. The project shepherded by John Lasseter used a proprietary Oracle product called Studio in the Cloud to build the project and organize the data around it.
“That created incredible cost efficiency, but also improved efficiency, where it was cheaper, faster and superior,” he said. “We view this period as similar to some of the transitions that some of the traditional technology companies have gone through, such as Microsoft and Oracle, where they disrupted their own businesses to reach record highs.”
During the 22-minute interview, Ellison spoke alongside Jeff Shell, the former CEO of NBCUniversal who has been named president of the enlarged Paramount, and Gerry Cardinale, the head of RedBird Capital, one of Ellison’s top backers.
Some companies that don’t translate so easily to hi-tech are assets like CBS, the linear giant that Ellison’s team says is a “cornerstone” of the business. Asked if there is a different vision for the integration of CBS and Paramount assets, Shell expressed admiration for the current CBS team but suggested more cost savings are on the horizon.
“If there is a change for CBS, we will likely manage this a little more aggressively for cash flow,” Shell said. “That means you have to make some tougher decisions about future periods, which you have to do when your business is in decline.”
More to come