Business
I Traded My News Apps for Rumble, the Right-Wing YouTube. Here’s What I Saw.
As soon as President-elect Donald J. Trump won the presidential race, influencers on Rumble, the right-wing alternative to YouTube, flooded the platform with a simple catchphrase: “We are the media now.”
The idea seemed to capture a growing sense that traditional journalists have lost their position at the center of the media ecosystem. Polls show that trust in mainstream news media has plummeted, and that nearly half of all young people get their news from “influencers” rather than journalists.
In its place, they argue, are right-wing digital creators who have found hordes of fans online. Rumble, for instance, is tiny compared with YouTube, but it is a primary source of news for millions of Americans, according to Pew Research Center. On election night, its active viewership topped out at more than two million, and the company said in a statement that it averaged more than 67 million monthly active users in the final quarter of 2024.
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You are the news now.This is a real story.It’s not about back slaps, it’s about how now, it’s time to floor the freaking gas pedal.When you’re done with me, go watch Graham Allen.When you’re done with Graham Allen, watch Crowder.When you’re done with Crowder watch Tucker, then watch Rogan or whatever.You don’t need old school media anymore.
▶ Dan Bongino, host of “The Dan Bongino Show,” says viewers should follow his program with other Rumble creators in a bid to replace mainstream media.
If Rumble was the media now, I wondered what it would be like to consume an all-Rumble diet. So on Nov. 18, about two weeks after the election, I deleted my news apps, unsubscribed from all my podcasts and filtered all my newsletters to the trash. And for the next week, from early morning till late at night, I got all my news from Rumble.
An alternate reality
I started by visiting Rumble’s homepage on Monday morning where I saw my first recommended video. It was about the risk of nuclear war, with an A.I.-generated photo of President Biden laughing maniacally above a headline that read: “WWIII INCOMING?! Biden Authorizes Strike on Russia Ahead of Trump Taking Office!!”
Rumble was once an obscure video platform featuring mostly viral cat videos. Founded in 2013 by a Canadian entrepreneur, it was designed as a home for independent creators who felt crowded out on YouTube. But the platform took a hard right turn around the time of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, when social networks and YouTube cracked down on users who violated their rules. Conservatives flocked to other platforms, including Rumble, which quickly embraced its new role as a “free speech” haven — and saw its valuation surge to half a billion dollars practically overnight.
Its content today goes far beyond cat videos. Video game livestreams populate its homepage alongside a bizarre face-slapping competition called “Power Slap.” But political commentary and news remain its most popular categories by far.
A screenshot from the first day of this experiment shows videos about WWIII and live categories focused on news, entertainment and “conspiracies.”The front page
I chose a selection of popular “news” shows to watch, along with political content from other areas, like its active “conspiracies” section.
Because my experiment began so soon after Mr. Trump swept to victory on Nov. 5, I expected many of the videos to feel triumphant.
There were a few moments of joy: After the hosts of “Morning Joe,” the MSNBC talk show, visited Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, hosts of Rumble shows gleefully mocked them, saying they went to “kiss the ring and bend the knee.” Clips of N.F.L. athletes doing Mr. Trump’s dance moves were a sign, the hosts said, that Mr. Trump had recaptured popular culture from the clutches of Hollywood liberals.
▶ Stay Free with Russell Brand
Multiple shows criticized the same clip from “Morning Joe”
But their happiness quickly gave way to a relentless outpouring of anger and frustration, as they fixated on a cast of perceived enemies to blame for America’s troubles — from Democratic politicians to TikTok personalities to Republican adversaries.
Just a few hours into the experiment, it was clear that I was falling into an alternate reality fueled almost entirely by outrage. Among the claims I heard:
Some people at think tanks in Washington were “morons” and “crazier than any schizophrenic.”
The Department of Homeland Security was running a “sex-trafficking operation,” a claim apparently based on a misreading of a government report. (The report, by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, indicated that more than 300,000 unaccompanied minors had not received a notice to appear in court or had received the notice but had failed to appear. Some conservative commentators said this meant the children were being trafficked, but experts in immigration policy said it meant no such thing.)
Progressives were trying to get Republicans killed — a claim based on death threats that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she received.
After only one day, I could feel my perspective shifting. When I described to my wife what I was hearing on Rumble, she said I was right to feel uneasy because the world I was immersing myself in sounded genuinely awful.
Hour by hour, Rumble’s hosts stoked fears about nearly everything: culture wars, transgender Americans and even a potential World War III.
‘Do you guys know where your fallout shelters are?’
On the second night, while catching up on the show “Redacted,” I heard that World War III was more or less imminent because of rising tensions with Russia but that most Americans were unaware of it.
Exactly what to make of this remained unclear to me, but I suspected tensions would need to rise much further before bombs started dropping. Clayton Morris, a former Fox News personality who co-hosts the show with his wife, seemed convinced that nuclear war was coming, describing the lack of fallout shelters in major cities throughout the United States. (I later read news articles that offered a fuller picture, suggesting that the risk of escalation was real but that nuclear threats were also a strategy in Mr. Putin’s saber rattling.)
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We have zero infrastructure in the United Statesthat could save lives in a critical crisis like this.No fallout shelters, no contingency if Russia,you know, fires against, you know, fires missiles into Nashville,Los Angeles, Buffalo, New York City, Los Angeles.Do you guys know where your fallout shelters are?Where you’ll be taken care of?Where food and supplies will be? No, you don’t.
▶ Clayton Morris, co-host of “Redacted,” warns there are not enough fallout shelters in major cities in the United States.
The coverage struck me as particularly scary, but I also paused to consider whether Mr. Morris had any credentials as a Russia-Ukraine analyst. Since 2017, he has pivoted his career from hosting television shows to offering investors “financial freedom” through real estate investing. He was sued in 2019 by two dozen clients who said they were sold ramshackle homes as investment properties, then relocated his family to Portugal before the lawsuits were settled — which some said complicated the litigation proceedings. (Mr. Morris denied any wrongdoing.)
On Rumble, though, he seemed authoritative: His slickly produced show had more than 560,000 followers and it aired daily with an active comments section filled with supporters. The videos were recommended to me by Rumble’s algorithm, so I kept watching.
Other shows referenced clips directly from Russian state television or the Russian government. During “The Roseanne Barr Show,” a segment about nuclear war bled into an ad for an emergency health kit. (In an email, the show’s co-host Jake Pentland, who is Ms. Barr’s son, told me their show wants to keep Americans “safe and protected from this wildly corrupt administration whether that’s through education or highlighting specific products that can protect them.”)
The prospect of an impending World War III stuck with me long after the livestreams ended. As I shuttled my son to day care or walked down aisles at the grocery store, I found my mind drifting to thoughts of nuclear bombs, a military draft or how a global conflict might actually unfold.
While watching a segment on the dire prediction, I glanced over at my wife, who was enjoying Netflix’s romantic comedy series “Nobody Wants This,” unaware about the threat of nuclear winter.
‘Who’s in charge now? We are.’
As the days ticked by, I saw how the outrage stoked online could burst into the real world.
Early in the week, multiple hosts on Rumble were furious over a Democratic official in Pennsylvania who they suggested was trying to steal the election by counting invalid ballots. The controversy gained nationwide attention and the official, Diane Ellis Marseglia, the commissioner for Bucks County, Pa., received profanity-laden emails and death threats.
Reading news articles about it later, though, it was clear the situation was more complicated than the hosts had suggested. The courts responded with additional guidance and the county followed the law.
The official eventually apologized for using a badly worded statement that stoked the backlash — and her apology video also made the rounds on Rumble.
“We are all going to learn lessons from this new media landscape,” Ms. Marseglia said in her apology. “Most of all, I am.”
Dan Bongino, the host of “The Dan Bongino Show,” relished the moment.
“Who’s in charge now? We are,” he said triumphantly. “Who made this a story? Us.”
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Who’s in charge now? We are.Who made this a story?Us.You.You’re like, I didn’t—No, you did.People like me and all of these conservative MAGA podcasters sent that video out.And you made it a story.
▶ Dan Bongino, host of “The Dan Bongino Show,” says that right-wing influencers have replaced mainstream media.
It seemed clear that actual news — the objective details about complex situations like election proceedings or the war in Ukraine — mattered far less than how these situations could be contorted to support Mr. Trump or deride Democrats. Nearly every show created a visceral feeling that the nation was barrelling from crisis to crisis.
Progressives were getting away with galling levels of incompetence or corruption, the hosts said over and over again. Even though Mr. Trump and the Republican Party would soon control the White House and Congress, and conservatives have a majority on the Supreme Court, there were more battles to come.
After just a week, this alternate reality started shifting how I instinctively reacted to the world outside Rumble. I would catch a stray story on the local news radio about something innocuous, like train delays or traffic jams, and wonder: “Can I really trust this?”
It’s true that listening to any single news source long enough will shift your perspective. But few sources have as many ties to Mr. Trump and his incoming administration as Rumble. Its top personalities are frequently seen with Mr. Trump at events or at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, with hosts suggesting they will have special access to the administration.
⏸︎ We told you we were going to go to Mar-a-Lagoand we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonnaget some interesting access in the next couple of years.And, because so many people that’s been in the administrationhave been, like, true friends of us.Been on this program, been a part of this audiencelocked in with you.
▶ Benny Johnson, host of “The Benny Show,” said he expected to have “interesting access” to the Trump administration.
Vivek Ramaswamy, Mr. Trump’s pick for a new government efficiency initiative, and Howard Lutnick, the likely commerce secretary, owned millions of dollars worth of Rumble shares when it went public in 2022.
So did Craft Ventures, which was co-founded by David Sacks, an investor who sits on Rumble’s board of directors and was recently named Mr. Trump’s pick for cryptocurrency czar.
Christopher Pavlovski, Rumble’s founder and chief executive, has emerged as a Trump ally, too. In a post on X, he shared a photo from after the election of him standing next to several people, including Elon Musk, one of Mr. Trump’s most prominent backers. At the back of the frame and grinning was the soon to be 47th president of the United States.
“Free speech saved,” Mr. Pavlovski wrote. Rumble and Mr. Pavlovski did not reply to multiple requests for comment on this story.
I received a statement from Tim Murtaugh, a representative for Rumble who was also Mr. Trump’s communications director for his 2020 campaign. He said: “The New York Times and its fellow legacy media outlets have lost their monopoly on deciding what information people can have, so of course they’re rushing to attack Rumble, a key alternative in the news marketplace.”
The ‘planet might be saved’ by Trump.
The fear and outrage that infused every show was offset by a sense of hopefulness that the president-elect would fix everything — even that the “planet might have been saved” because he was re-elected.
⏸︎ It is not an exaggeration to saythe planet might have been savedby the fact that we won the election two weeks ago today.
▶ Charlie Kirk has credited Mr. Trump’s re-election with potentially saving the world.
Blame for any hiccups in Mr. Trump’s strategy was assigned to Democrats or even Republicans who were not sufficiently obedient.
Senator Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, said on one show that while Republicans controlled the Senate, the party remained “a third MAGA, a third Republican and a third RINO,” meaning “Republican in name only.”
“We’ve got control, but do we have control?” Mr. Tuberville summarized.
Perhaps the biggest cheerleader for Mr. Trump was Mr. Bongino, the eponymous host of Rumble’s most-watched show, with 3.4 million followers.
Mr. Bongino is a former Fox News host who ran three unsuccessful bids for elected office before striking gold in the right-wing commentary business. The podcast version of his show consistently ranks among the top news podcasts in the country. Rumble’s financial documents show that his company, Bongino Inc., owned 5.8 percent of the company when it went public in 2022, now worth more than $100 million.
Though I listened to an hour of Mr. Bongino’s opinions each day, it seemed like I learned mostly what various progressive or mainstream media figures had said about different culture war topics, and Mr. Bongino’s predictable reactions to them.
Many segments on Mr. Bongino’s show included comments from liberals or mainstream news media, along with Mr. Bongino’s predictable reactions to them.
Note: Times are approximate
Bongino’s focus
On his Thursday show, he talked about the nation’s intelligence apparatus — but it was in response to what a CNN host had said about its effectiveness.
He talked about cancel culture — but in response to a comment on “The View” about Matt Gaetz, Mr. Trump’s first pick for attorney general.
He talked about identity politics — but in reaction to what a Democratic congresswoman said about race.
He talked about the murder conviction of an undocumented migrant — but in reaction to what a news anchor had said about the case on ABC News.
Nearly every show I watched on Rumble framed issues this way, focusing on how news was discussed by mainstream media, and then complaining about it.
I don’t remember seeing Mr. Bongino criticize Mr. Trump — not once. He spent the first part of the week saying that Mr. Gaetz, the former Republican congressman who was briefly a contender for attorney general, would surely be confirmed. He seemed to dismiss a federal sex-trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz by saying it was impossible to find “good” people for top roles. (Mr. Gaetz denied any wrongdoing and the Justice Department declined to file charges.)
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So all I’m trying to say to you is if you’re using good or bad,as a metric to appoint people who could change the country for the betteryou’re going to lose,because they’re all badso forget it.
▶ Mr. Bongino said anyone seeking political power who could “change the country for the better” is a bad person.
When Mr. Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration later that week after significant pushback, Mr. Bongino never faulted Mr. Trump for the whole ordeal. Instead, he blamed Republicans and said it was part of Mr. Trump’s strategy to intentionally overwhelm his critics with controversial picks.
‘You’re going to become part of the show.’
After watching Rumble nonstop for days, I realized this very article was likely to fuel its own cycle of outrage on the platform. But I was surprised when that happened before it was even published.
I wrote to everyone mentioned in the article to ask for their perspective about Rumble and its popular shows, but few replied. Instead, people like Russell Brand, the former actor turned political commentator, took one of my emails and made an entire segment out of it. Mr. Bongino called me “public enemy No. 1” and claimed my story would focus on Rumble’s fringiest voices in a bid to get the site banned.
“Don’t ever email us,” he warned. “Don’t. Because you’re going to become part of the show.”
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We’re in charge now.Chew on that —-.I’m serious by the way.Don’t ever email us.Don’t.Because you’re going to become part of the show.
▶ Mr. Bongino says any journalists contacting the show will “become part of the show.”
Mr. Pentland, the co-host of “The Roseanne Barr Podcast,” posted the email I sent him to his X account. Rumble’s chief executive reposted it, then Elon Musk reposted that to his more than 200 million followers. My phone number was visible, and apparently seen more than 50 million times on the platform, so I was soon flooded with angry phone calls and texts calling my article (which hadn’t yet been published) a “hit job” focused on World War III.
On his show, Mr. Pentland referenced my email and said his original ad for a nuclear fallout health kit was meant to “educate our audience” about alternative medicines.
Then that segment bled into another ad for the health kit.
Stephen K. Bannon, host of “War Room,” relayed a message through his producer, saying that his show “exists as the information arm for the activist cadre at the tip of the spear of the MAGA movement.”
Candace Owens, the host of the “Candace Show,” was the only one who called me back. She said she was focusing less on political outrage lately after growing weary of chasing negativity.
“I realized I was waking up every day and I was looking for things to be angry at,” she said. “And that wasn’t healthy for me.”
In an expansion of its business of processing pharmaceuticals in Earth’s orbit, Varda Space Industries is renting a large El Segundo plant where toy manufacturer Mattel used to design Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls.
The plant in El Segundo’s aerospace corridor will be an extension of Varda Space Industries’ headquarters in a much smaller building on nearby Aviation Boulevard.
Varda will occupy a 205,443-square-foot industrial and office campus at 2031 E. Mariposa Ave., which will give it additional capacity to manufacture spacecraft at scale, the company said.
Originally built in the 1940s as an aircraft facility, the complex has a history as part of aerospace and defense industries that have long shaped the South Bay and is near a host of major defense and space contractors. It is also close to Los Angeles Air Force Base, headquarters to the Space Systems Command.
Workers test AstroForge’s Odin asteroid probe, which was lost in space after launch this year.
(Varda Space Industries)
Varda is one of a new generation of aerospace startups that have flourished in Southern California and the South Bay over the last several years, particularly in El Segundo, often with ties to SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s company, founded in 2002 in El Segundo, has revolutionized the industry with reusable rockets that have radically lowered the cost of lifting payloads into space. Though it has moved its headquarters to Texas, SpaceX retains large-scale operations in Hawthorne.
Varda co-founder and Chief Executive Will Bruey is a former SpaceX avionics engineer, and the company’s spacecraft are launched on SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
Varda makes automated labs that look like cylindrical desktop speakers, which it sends into orbit in capsules and satellite platforms it also builds. There, in microgravity, the miniature labs grow molecular crystals that are purer than those produced in Earth’s gravity for use in pharmaceuticals.
It has contracts with drug companies and also the military, which tests technology at hypersonic speeds as the capsules return to Earth.
Its fifth capsule was launched in November and returned to Earth in late January; its next mission is set in the coming weeks. Varda has more than 10 missions scheduled on Falcon 9s through 2028.
For the last several decades, the Mariposa Avenue property served as the research and development center for Mattel Toys. El Segundo has also long been a center for the toy industry as companies like to set up shop in the shadow of Mattel.
The Mattel facility “has always been an exceptional property with a legacy tied to aerospace innovation, and leasing to Varda Space Industries feels like a natural continuation of that story,” said Michael Woods, a partner at GPI Cos., which owns the property.
“We are proud to support a company that is genuinely pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and are excited to watch Varda grow and thrive here in El Segundo,” Woods said.
As one of the country’s most active hubs of aerospace and defense innovation, El Segundo has seen its industrial property vacancy fall to 3.4% on demand from space companies, government contractors and technology startups, real estate brokerage CBRE said.
Successful startups often have to leave the neighborhood when they want to expand, real estate broker Bob Haley of CBRE said. The 9-acre Mattel facility was big enough to keep Varda in the city.
Last year, Varda subleased about 55,000 square feet of lab space from alternative protein company Beyond Meat at 888 Douglas St. in El Segundo, which it started moving into in June.
Varda will get the keys to its new building in December and spend four to eight months building production and assembly facilities as it ramps up operations. By the end of next year, it expects to have constructed 10 more spacecraft.
In the future, Varda could consolidate offices there, given its size. Currently, though, the plan is to retain all properties, creating a campus of three buildings within a mile of one another that are served by the company’s transportation services, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Barr said.
“We already have Varda-branded shuttles running up and down Aviation Boulevard,” he said.
Ships near the Strait of Hormuz before and after attacks began
Every day, around 80 oil and gas tankers typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast that carries a fifth of the world’s oil and a significant amount of natural gas.
On Monday, just two oil and gas tankers appear to have crossed the strait, according to a New York Times analysis of shipping activity from Kpler, an industry data firm. Since then, one tanker passed through.
“It’s a de facto closure,” said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston financial services firm. “You’ve got a significant number of vessels on either side of the strait but no one is willing to go through.”
Tankers have been staying away from Hormuz since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that began on Saturday. A prolonged conflict could ripple broadly across the global economy, threatening the energy supplies of countries halfway around the world and stoking inflation.
International oil prices have climbed 12 percent since the fighting began, trading Tuesday around $81 a barrel, and natural gas prices have surged in Europe and in Asia.
A senior Iranian military official threatened on Monday to “set on fire” any ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. Vessels in the region have already come under attack. Several oil and gas facilities have also been struck or affected by nearby shelling, though the damage did not initially appear to be catastrophic.
Where ships and energy facilities have been damaged
A fire broke out Tuesday at a major energy hub in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, from the falling debris of a downed drone, the authorities said. On Monday, Qatar halted production of liquefied natural gas, or fuel that has been cooled so that it can be transported on ships, after attacks on its facilities.
The sharp reduction in tanker traffic is reducing the supply of oil and gas to world markets, pushing up prices for both commodities. And the longer that ships stay away from the Strait of Hormuz, the less oil and gas get out to the world, which could raise prices even more.
Shipping companies have paused their tankers to protect their crew and cargo, and because insurance companies are charging significantly more to cover vessels in the conflict area.
On Tuesday, President Trump said that “if necessary,” the U.S. Navy would begin escorting tankers through the strait. He also said a U.S. government agency would begin offering “political risk insurance” to shipping lines in the area.
In addition to tankers, other large vessels regularly go through the strait, including car carriers and container ships. In normal conditions, nearly 160 make the trip each day.
Some ships in the region turn off the devices that broadcast their positions, while others transmit false locations — making it hard to give a full picture of the traffic in the strait.
The Shiva is a small oil tanker that has repeatedly faked its location, according to TankerTrackers.com, which tracks global oil shipments. It is suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian oil, according to Kpler. The Shiva was one of the two tankers that crossed the strait on Monday.
The oil and gas that typically move through the strait come from big producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and United Arab Emirates, and are exported around the world.
Where tankers moving through the Strait have traveled
In 2024, more than 80 percent of the oil and gas transported through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asia. China, India, Japan and South Korea were the top importers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Countries have energy stockpiles that could last them into the coming months, but a continued shutdown of the strait could damage their economies.
Several big disruptions have roiled supply chains in recent years, but the tanker standstill in the Strait of Hormuz could have an outsize impact.
Paramount Skydance’s jubilation over its come-from-behind victory to claim Warner Bros. Discovery has entered a new phase:
Call it the deal-debt hangover.
Two major ratings agencies have raised concerns about Paramount’s credit because of the enormous debt the David Ellison-led company will have to shoulder — at least $79 billion — once it absorbs the larger Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing CNN, HBO, TBS and Cartoon Network into the Paramount fold.
Fitch Ratings said Monday that it placed Paramount on its “negative” ratings watch, and downgraded its credit to BB+ from BBB-, which puts the company’s credit into “junk” territory. Fitch said it took action due to “uncertainty” surrounding Paramount’s $110-billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery, which the boards of both companies approved on Friday.
S&P Global Ratings took similar action.
To finance the Warner takeover, Ellison’s billionaire father, Larry Ellison, has agreed to guarantee the $45.7 billion in equity needed. Bank of America, Citibank and Apollo Global have agreed to provide Paramount with more than $54 billion in debt financing.
“Potential credit risks include the prospective debt-funded structure, Fitch’s expectation of materially elevated leverage and limited visibility on post-transaction financial policy and capital structure,” Fitch said.
Late last week, Paramount sent $2.8 billion to Netflix as a “termination fee” to officially end the streaming giant’s pursuit of Warner Bros. That payment paved the way for Warner and Paramount’s board to enter into the new merger agreement.
Paramount hopes the merger will be wrapped up by the end of September. It needs the approval of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders and regulators, including the European Union.
Paramount executives acknowledged this week the new company would emerge with $79 billion in debt — a considerably higher total than what Warner Bros. Discovery had following its spinoff from AT&T. That 2022 transaction left Warner Bros. Discovery with nearly $55 billion of debt, a burden that led to endless waves of cost-cutting, including thousands of layoffs and dozens of canceled projects.
Warner still has $33.5 billion in debt, a lingering legacy that will be passed on to Paramount.
Paramount plans to restructure about $15 billion in Warner Bros. Discovery’s existing debt.
Paramount CEO David Ellison at a 2024 movie premiere for a Netflix show.
(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)
Paramount told Wall Street it would find more than $6 billion in cost cuts or “synergies” within three years — a number that has weighed heavily on entertainment industry workers, particularly in Los Angeles.
Hollywood already is reeling from previous mergers in addition to a sharp pullback in film and television production locally as filmmakers chase tax credits offered overseas and in other states, including New York and New Jersey.
Some entertainment executives, including Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos, have speculated that Paramount will need to find more than $10 billion in cost cuts to make the math work. More recently, Sarandos went higher, telling Bloomberg News that Paramount may need $16 billion in cuts.
Cognizant of widespread fears about additional layoffs, Paramount Chief Operating Officer Andrew Gordon took steps this week to try to tamp down such concerns.
Gordon is a former Goldman Sachs banker and a former executive with RedBird Capital Partners, an investor in Paramount and the proposed Warner Bros. deal. He joined Paramount last August as part of the Ellison takeover.
During a conference call Monday with analysts, Gordon said Paramount would look beyond the workforce for cuts because the company wants to maintain its film and TV production levels.
Paramount plans to look for cost savings by consolidating the “technology stacks and cloud providers” for its streaming services, including Paramount+ and HBO Max, Gordon said. The company also would search for reductions in corporate overhead, marketing expenses, procurement, business services and “optimizing the combined real estate footprint.”
It’s unclear whether Paramount would sell the historic Melrose Avenue lot or simply centralize the sprawling operations onto the Warner Bros. and Paramount lots in Burbank and Hollywood.
Workers are scattered throughout the region.
HBO, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, maintains its West Coast headquarters in Culver City; CBS television stations operate from CBS’ former lot off Radford Avenue in Studio City; and CBS Entertainment and Paramount cable channels executive teams are located in a high-rise off Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard, blocks from the Paramount movie studio lot.
“The combination of PSKY and WBD could create a materially stronger business than either individual entity,” Standard & Poor’s said in its note to investors. “However, this transaction presents unique challenges because it would involve the combination of three companies, with the smallest, Skydance, being the controlling entity.”
David Ellison’s production firm, Skydance Media, was the entity that bought Paramount, creating Paramount Skydance.
Ellison has not announced what the combined company will be called.
Paramount shares closed down more than 6% Tuesday to $12.45.
Warner Bros. Discovery fell 1% to $28.20. Netflix added less than 1% to close at $97.70.
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