The controversial merger deal between Skydance and Paramount was finally concluded in August — once Paramount had kissed the Trump ring to the tune of a $16m contribution to the leader’s presidential library to settle his lawsuit against CBS’ 60 Minutes and not so quietly announced the end of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert next year.
You might think that it would be something like business as usual at the new media conglomerate headed by David Ellison, son of the world’s second richest man Larry, whose personal fortune is worth $342bn.
However, it seems that the new CEO has already dropped a massive ball by failing to keep Paramount’s most successful content creator and profit generator, Taylor Sheridan, happy enough to stay in the Paramount stable.
Paramount made a $1.5bn, five-year deal with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to bring the gross-out satirical animated series to Paramount’s streaming service, Paramount Plus. Ellison did some obsequious schmoozing of the power brokers at the National Football League (NFL) to ensure that Paramount’s rights to broadcast games continue after its current contract ends at the end of the decade and the company poached Netflix stars Matt and Ross Duffer for an exclusive four-year deal at Paramount.
But Ellison’s visit to Sheridan — the actor turned showrunner who has produced Yellowstone, 1883, 1928, Lawman: Bass Reeves, Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, Lioness and Landman — didn’t end quite how he expected. That’s because this week it was announced that after his contract with Paramount ends in 2028, Sheridan will be jumping ship to NBCUniversal for a five-year $1bn deal that the prolific creator says will see him make 20 new shows for NBC and its streaming service, Peacock.
While the recent history of the small screen has involved big-name creators from network TV leave for the greener and more lucrative pastures of streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon, Sheridan’s departure from Paramount is a bigger deal than most because of how well his shows helped to drive subscribers to Paramount Plus in recent years.
Though some observers have pointed out that Sheridan’s shows are expensive to make, having cost Paramount about $1bn over the better part of a decade, those figures are justified by the devotion of fans to Sheridan’s brand, which has resulted in $3bn in sales of his shows to other services for streaming, $450m in digital downloads and DVD sales, and $700m in profits the Sheridan universe has thus far generated.
While Paramount will continue to hold the rights to the Yellowstone universe and all the other shows that Sheridan has already created and will still create before the end of his contract in 2028, Ellison will lose out on future profits from Sheridan’s seemingly endless well of new show ideas.
When Ellison took over the reins in August, he described Sheridan as “a singular genius with a perfect track record”, adding that if the new company could make it “his home as long as he wants to tell stories, we want to do that”. So, what went wrong?
The first problem may have been the expense of Sheridan’s shows, though that does not make much sense when considering the profits from sales and the boost to subscriptions to the streaming service that Sheridan has generated for the company. A recent report in The Wall Street Journal suggested that political differences may have played a role after Sheridan refused to entertain Ellison’s request that he develop a show to celebrate next year’s 250th anniversary of American independence. While Sheridan’s shows tend to be more conservative than liberal left, they are more complicated than they seem on political issues, not nailing their colours clearly to party masts.
What’s more likely is that the divorce between Sheridan and the new company may be the result of a clashing of egos. An unnamed source told The Hollywood Reporter that David Ellison is “used to getting his own way”, while Sheridan was not willing to let Ellison tell him what to do. As the source sees it, “Ellison wants to run the show and he can’t with Sheridan there”. The future of Paramount Plus isn’t big enough to hold the two men, but the smaller NBCUniversal and Peacock are happy to let Sheridan work his magic for their subscriber base and profit margins.
Whatever the reason, the die is cast and Ellison isn’t looking too good after failing to keep his company’s most successful creator happy. He’ll now be forced to watch in 2029 as Sheridan moseys over to his competitors wearing the cowboy boots once worn by James Dean that Ellison gave him at a recent meeting.
