Paramount, the media empire behind CBS and ‘Top Gun,’ agrees to merge with Skydance

Paramount Global, the sprawling media empire behind CBS, MTV, and one of Hollywood’s most storied movie studios, has agreed to merge with technology scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media, ending years of speculation over the company’s fate.

Paramount Global—the sprawling media empire behind CBS, MTV, and one of Hollywood’s most storied movie studios—has agreed to merge with technology scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media, ending years of speculation over the company’s fate. The deal announced late Sunday comes just weeks after a previous offer from Ellison to acquire Paramount collapsed in the eleventh hour, stunning industry observers and raising questions about the beleaguered media company’s future. The agreement cements Ellison as a media mogul, ending Shari Redstone’s control of Paramount through her family’s National Amusements holding company, after her father, the late Sumner Redstone, won a fierce bidding war to piece together the media conglomerate beginning in the 1980s. The complicated transaction will see Skydance first buy National Amusements, then merge with Paramount, valuing Skydance at $4.75 billion. Ellison’s production company will “invest $2.4 billion to acquire National Amusements for cash and $4.5 billion for the stock/cash merger consideration to be paid for publicly traded Class A shares and Class B shares, as well as $1.5 billion of primary capital to be added to Paramount’s balance sheet,” it said. The combined company will be helmed by Ellison as chief executive and former NBCUniversal chief Jeff Shell as president.