Paramount Global on Monday announced that Bob Bakish is stepping down as CEO of the film, television and multimedia company.
Bakish will be replaced by a troika of executives who will form a new "Office of the CEO." The group includes George Cheeks, the CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, the CEO of Paramount Pictures.
The company said Cheeks, McCarthy and Robbins will work closely with Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra and the board of directors. Among the issues the new CEO trio must face are a reported $11 billion offer from private-equity firm Apollo Global to acquire the studio, which produces films and television programs and runs the streaming service Paramount+.
There have also been reports of a possible merger with Skydance, David Ellison's media company that has helped produce such Paramount releases as "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning."
Co-CEOs are rare but far from unknown; roughly 100 public companies such as Salesforce, Netflix, Chipotle Mexican Grill, SAP and Oracle have all had co-CEOs for various periods of time over the past quarter century. A 2022 study published in the Harvard Business Review found that among 87 co-CEO led companies, dual leadership coincided with better-than-average stock performance. Roughly 60% of these companies outperformed.
CEO troikas, however, are far rarer, and their organizational issues can be much more complex. For instance, instead of being forced to compromise the way co-CEOs often are, two members of a troika can just outvote a third.
Paramount also released earnings for the quarter ended March 31 on Monday, reporting a net loss attributable to Paramount of $554 million, or 87 cents per share, a reduction from a $1.1 billion net loss, or $1.74 per share, in the same year-earlier period. The company reported revenue of $7.66 billion, a 5.8% increase from $7.27 billion a year earlier.
The earnings in the latest quarter, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to 62 cents per share. That topped expectations of 35 cents a share, according to a FactSet poll.
In what may have been a sly nod to the challenge it faces, Paramount closed out the Monday conference call in which it described the CEO changes and earnings with the theme to "Mission: Impossible."
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More