Billionaire Larry Ellison ponied up the money for his family to acquire the controlling stake in Paramount two months ago, and the tech titan would need to write another huge check should Paramount buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

So, in Hollywood circles, the question has been: How involved is the elder Ellison in Paramount’s strategy and operations?

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison said he speaks with his father every day, but he drew an important distinction:

“Look, I run the company day to day. Make no mistake about that,” David Ellison said Thursday at Bloomberg’s Screentime media conference in Hollywood, adding that his father had been a “phenomenal” mentor and “we couldn’t have a better relationship.”

“He is the largest shareholder in the business,” Ellison said. “What’s important for everybody to know is the way he approaches this is: How do we maximize value for our shareholders? … I think he’s best in the world for doing that.”

Since the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners acquired Paramount in August, its stock is up more than 50%. Much of the run-up came last month after news leaked that Paramount was interested in acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, TBS, Food Network and one of Hollywood’s most prolific film and television studios.

Ellison refused to comment on Paramount’s pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery or whether his team had already made a bid.

But he did shed light on the business strategy behind any pursuit, while trying to tamp down fears that another big merger would result in more cost-cutting, more job losses and a reduction in content spending.

“The way we approach everything is, first and foremost: What’s good for the talent community, what’s good for our shareholders and value creation, and what’s good for basically storytelling at large?” Ellison said. “We’re looking at actually producing more movies [and] more television series … because you need that content.”

Paramount staffers are bracing for a massive workforce reduction next month, part of the company’s goal of finding more than $2 billion in spending cuts.

But, since the takeover, Paramount’s Ellison has made a priority of beefing up relationships with talent through a series of big bets, including agreeing to pay $7.7 billion for media rights to UFC’s mixed martial arts events in the U.S. in a seven-year deal with TKO Group Holdings.

The company also invested in the construction of a Texas-based production hub for prolific “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan and agreed to pay $1.5 billion over five years for streaming rights for “South Park,” the Comedy Central cartoon. And Paramount lured Matt and Ross Duffer, who created “Stranger Things,” away from Netflix with an exclusive four-year television, streaming and film deal.

Earlier this week, Paramount spent $150 million to acquire Bari Weiss’ the Free Press news site, while also naming Weiss editor in chief of CBS News.

Warner Bros. Discovery, led by Chief Executive David Zaslav, also has declined to discuss Paramount’s interest, although people close to the company have suggested Zaslav would like to see bidding war.

No other studios have publicly expressed interest and, on Wednesday, Netflix Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters downplayed such speculation.

“We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers,” Peters said during a separate appearance at the Screentime conference, adding the track record for big mergers was not great.

But Wall Street widely expects more consolidation among entertainment firms.

“Ironically, it was David Zaslav last year who said that consolidation in the media business is important,” Ellison said, adding “there are a lot of options out there.” But he declined to elaborate.

Analysts have speculated that, beyond Paramount, few other media companies have financial firepower to pull off a bid. And Paramount has an “in” that several other media companies, including Brian Roberts’ Comcast, lack: a good relationship with President Trump and his administration.

Trump has called Larry Ellison a good friend. After David Ellison spoke with Trump at a June UFC fight, the previous managers of Paramount got traction in their efforts to settle Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview last fall with Kamala Harris. Paramount paid $16 million in July to settle the suit and weeks later the Federal Communications Commission approved the Ellison takeover of Paramount.

“We have a good relationship with the administration,” David Ellison said.

Homeboy Industries has kicked off a fundraising campaign to raise $100 million for a major expansion of its facilities downtown.

The gang-member rehabilitation center has big plans to upgrade its campus near Men’s Central Jail downtown to accommodate more people and teach more skills.

Homeboy Industries founder Father Greg Boyle and real estate developer Frank McCourt announced on Friday a campaign to fund a complex that would include temporary housing for people leaving jail and provide services such as healthcare, drug addiction treatment, job training and career development.

McCourt, founder of McCourt Partners and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, pledged the first $10 million to launch the campaign. Homeboy is hoping to raise the rest over the next five years from private donors, along with corporate and philanthropic organizations.

Homeboy was founded 37 years ago to help thousands of formerly incarcerated people and gang-involved youths acquire new skills and avoid returning to jail or prison.

Homeboy is already “the largest gang intervention rehab reentry program on the planet,” Boyle said, with 500 trainees at a time working with 300 staff members, most of whom have completed the rehabilitation program themselves.

Among the well-known enterprises employing trainees are Homeboy Bakery and Homegirl Cafe in Chinatown.

A successful expansion could serve as a national example of how to break the cycle of young former offenders returning to jail instead of becoming productive citizens because they don’t see another path forward, Boyle said.

“We’re a supplier of hope for people to whom hope is foreign,” he said.

Temporary housing would help them find their footing, he said, because 70% of people who enter the program are effectively homeless, sleeping in their cars or couch surfing.

Housing with 200 apartments would be the first phase, to be built on a parcel of land formerly used to store damaged police cars, Boyle said.

After that would come 35,000 square feet of space dedicated to essential services for trainees, including mental health care, substance use disorder treatment, job training and career development.

The expansion designed by Culver City architecture firm KFA would increase Homeboy Industries’ capacity to deliver education, legal assistance, healthcare, and reentry services, Boyle said. Other services include tattoo removal.

Father Greg Boyle, with glasses and a white beard, marches with program enrollees at Homeboy Industries to City Hall for a ceremony marking Father Greg Boyle Day in Los Angeles on May 17, 2024. A vacant lot, behind the fence, is planned to be part of the expansion of Homeboy Industries along Alameda Street in Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

As part of the expanded Homeboy campus known as the Fr. Gregory Boyle Center for Radical Kinship, the Homeboy Art Academy would expand into a new 5,000-square-foot space, where hundreds could learn about creative expression across multiple art forms.

The art program is among the 14 social enterprises operated by Homeboy, Boyle said, that include food service, dog grooming and electronic recycling.

During an 18-month training program, trainees work in all 14 social enterprises, acquiring new skills, Boyle said, “and when their 18 months are up, we locate jobs outside of Homeboy.”

The Homeboy development aims to expand a cluster of philanthropic services in the neighborhood, including temporary housing for homeless people provided by the Weingart Center and an affordable housing and medical services complex planned by the California Endowment.

McCourt said his $10-million pledge is intended to “prime the pump” to get the expansion underway and that his firm will provide real estate expertise to help navigate design, construction and other aspects of property development.

McCourt attended Jesuit schools, including Georgetown University, and said he is moved by the approach Boyle, a Jesuit priest, is taking to address what McCourt sees as “dehumanization” of people who have experienced incarceration, gang life and other challenges.

“We need to get back to treating people as people with dignity, respect and provide opportunities,” he said. “Economic development helps because it brings jobs and vitality, but it’s really about caring for people.”

In the late 1990s and early aughts, the conservative Parents Television Council struck fear in the hearts of network TV executives for its high-profile campaigns against shows it deemed too raunchy.

The watchdog group, founded by conservative commentator L. Brent Bozell III, railed against Fox’s “Melrose Place” and “Family Guy”; NBC’s “Just Shoot Me”; and the CW’s “Gossip Girl.” It also singled out CBS following the infamous Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake “nipplegate” controversy during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show when the singer’s breast was briefly exposed.

But the Parents Television Council Inc. — whose members lodged thousands of indecency complaints with the Federal Communications Commission — has folded. Earlier this month, the Burbank-based nonprofit filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Delaware court, saying it had $284,823 in liabilities, which include staff member salaries, insurance payments and credit card debt. The filing lists $91,874 in assets.

The group’s demise reflects broad cultural changes, including a fractured media environment and consumers’ shift to streaming and social media apps such as TikTok for entertainment. Parents also have tools, including the ability to configure settings on streaming accounts to try to shield children from inappropriate content.

The PTC’s power came, in large part, from its ability to flood the FCC with indecency complaints. But the FCC, which licenses broadcasters, does not regulate streaming services, YouTube or TikTok.

The council had clout with advertisers, which put pressure on network programmers to minimize shows that would raise the group’s ire and threats of boycotts.

“I’m disappointed but I’m still very proud of what we did and what we achieved,” Tim Winter, former president of the group, said Friday. “We were able to raise awareness about so many important issues — issues that are still out there.”

“Like most businesses, it came down to money,” said Winter, who retired three years ago. “It’s just a slog out there to fundraise.”

Decades ago, the group hauled in millions of dollars in donations. The PTC boasted more than 653,000 members and supporters by 2000. However, in 2023, the most recent year of available tax reports, the Parents Television Council raised just $1.6 million, down from $4.7 million in 2007.

The group, which also went by Parents Television and Media Council, was formed in 1995 by Bozell as the Hollywood arm of his Virginia-based Media Research Center.

Bozell, long a booster of President Trump, now serves in his administration as ambassador to South Africa.

One of the PTC’s early efforts was to urge broadcasters to reserve the 8 p.m. hour for family-friendly fare. That was the custom of the networks in the 1970s; but two decades later, there was a rise in sexually suggestive content.

Over the years, the group hired analysts to monitor TV programming, published detailed reports and TV show rankings. Winter testified before a U.S. Senate committee hearing in 2007 on the impact of media violence on children.

Advertisers were sensitive to the PTC’s warnings.

“We were able to redirect tens of millions of dollars away from more explicit programming and into more family-friendly shows,” Winter said.

The PTC also spoke out against media consolidation, which accelerated in the 1990s, “the problem of having too few voices hold the microphone,” Winter said.

While it initially focused on broadcast shows, the group went after others, including Netflix when it offered the show “13 Reasons Why,” based on a book about a 17-year-old girl who died by suicide. The PTC, and other organizations, decried the series, fearing it would encourage more deaths.

Netflix responded by deleting a graphic suicide scene, and the show was later canceled.

“The media culture is no less toxic than it was years ago. And in some ways, it is more toxic,” Winter said, adding that other organizations will have to carry the mantle. “The mission is more important than ever.”