David Ellison Named His Leadership Team. BET+ Was Already Gone.

David Ellison just told you exactly how he plans to run a $69 billion entertainment company. The leadership team he announced ahead of Tuesday's merger close keeps most existing division heads in place. Casey Bloys stays on streaming. James Gunn and Peter Safran keep DC Studios. Mark Thompson keeps CNN. But the choices that didn't make headlines tell a sharper story about where this company is actually headed. BET+ was already shut down in June. Bari Weiss runs CBS News. And the "editorial independence board" that 12 state attorneys general demanded for CNN will have its members picked by Ellison himself.

The combined company, which will trade on NASDAQ under the ticker PSKY according to Paramount's official announcement, controls Warner Bros., Paramount, HBO, CNN, CBS, BET, MTV, Nickelodeon, DC Comics, and one of the deepest film and television libraries ever assembled. SEC proxy filings project synergized annual revenue of $69 billion, $18 billion in EBITDA, and more than $10 billion in annual cash flow. Paramount is paying $31 per share for all outstanding WBD shares in a transaction that values Warner Bros. Discovery alone at $110 billion in enterprise value.

Who Runs What in the New Skydance?

Ellison serves as chairman and CEO alongside co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, who previously ran Mattel. The structure beneath them is a mix of Skydance veterans, WBD holdovers, and one appointment that generated more controversy than the rest of the lineup combined.

Casey Bloys becomes co-chair and chief content officer of the direct-to-consumer division, overseeing HBO, Max, and Paramount+, according to the company's press release. Bloys built HBO's current prestige run, from Succession to The Last of Us to The White Lotus. Max has struggled for subscriber growth against Netflix and Disney+, but the content quality is rarely questioned. Keeping Bloys signals that Ellison views the streaming challenge as a distribution and marketing problem, not a content problem.

Dana Goldberg, Skydance's president since its early days, becomes co-chair of the Motion Picture Group alongside Josh Greenstein. Goldberg produced Top Gun: Maverick and the recent Mission: Impossible entries. George Cheeks, who ran CBS for Paramount, becomes co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance TV. JB Perrette, previously WBD's streaming and games president, takes co-chair and chief business officer for both TV and DTC divisions.

James Gunn and Peter Safran remain co-chairmen of DC Studios. The DC Universe reboot under Gunn's creative direction has been the most anticipated franchise play in Hollywood for two years, and disrupting it would have scattered talent and destroyed years of production planning. Ellison made the obvious call. But making the obvious call on a deal this size counts for something, because media mergers have a long history of the new owner replacing everyone on principle.

What Happens to BET and Black Entertainment Under Skydance?

BET+ is already gone. Paramount Skydance shut down the dedicated Black streaming platform in June 2026 and absorbed its roughly 3.5 million subscribers and more than 1,000 hours of original content into Paramount+, which counts approximately 80 million subscribers, according to Variety's reporting on the closure.

Tyler Perry sold his 25% ownership stake in BET+ back to Paramount as part of the shutdown. His nine-figure overall programming deal, signed in 2024 and running through 2028, remains intact. BET's linear cable channel, its in-house production arm BET Studios, and BET Digital continue operating. The content itself will live in a "BET Hub" within Paramount+, branded separately and, in the words of BET president Louis Carr, "prominently featured and easy to find."

A hub within someone else's app is not the same thing as having your own front door. When a company generating $69 billion in revenue consolidates streaming services, the platforms with the smallest subscriber bases get folded in first. BET+ had 3.5 million subscribers to Paramount+'s 80 million. The business logic is obvious. But the cultural cost of collapsing a platform purpose-built for Black audiences into a general-audience service is real, even when it doesn't show up on a balance sheet. Discovery was the content that started disappearing from cable when Zaslav needed to cut costs. The question is whether BET content gets the same treatment inside Paramount+ when the next round of budget pressure hits Skydance.

Can CNN Stay Independent When the Owner Picks the Watchdog?

Mark Thompson stays as chairman and editor-in-chief of CNN Worldwide. But the more revealing development is the editorial independence board that a 12-state antitrust coalition, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, demanded as a merger condition.

The consent decree, approved on September 30 according to reporting from TechTimes, requires Skydance to create a five-member editorial independence board for CNN within 180 days of closing. Board members must be journalists with at least ten years of experience. No more than two can be affiliated with the same political party.

The board members are appointed by Skydance's board of directors. David Ellison chairs that board. The owner selects the people who are supposed to hold the owner accountable. Connecticut AG William Tong acknowledged this self-appointment mechanism as "a concern" but accepted it as the best available compromise after failing to secure CNN's full divestiture from the deal. The board can establish editorial principles and mediate disputes about alleged reporting bias. It cannot veto editorial decisions, require specific coverage, or override ownership decisions on personnel. It is, in practical terms, an advisory body appointed by the person it advises.

Meanwhile, Bari Weiss, the conservative journalist and Free Press co-founder, officially stays as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The appointment drew praise from Donald Trump and criticism from veteran journalist Dan Rather, according to CBS News' own reporting. Paramount acquired The Free Press as part of the deal. Weiss and Thompson both report directly to Ellison and Kreiz, giving the company's chairman direct authority over the editorial leadership of both CNN and CBS News simultaneously.

Will Ellison's Patience Survive the First Bad Quarter?

Ellison is 43 years old with a production track record built on franchise reboots that actually worked. He now controls intellectual property that includes Batman, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, SpongeBob, and the entire Paramount and Warner Bros. film vaults. In the company's announcement, Ellison described the vision as building "a creative-first home with the scale, imagination and technology to define entertainment for a generation."

The leadership team leans heavily toward continuity. The change, if it comes, will be in how these divisions work together under unified ownership rather than in who runs each one. That is a meaningful strategic choice. David Zaslav took the opposite approach at WBD, slashing costs and canceling projects. His exit package is valued at over $700 million, according to Deadline's reporting. He also sold roughly $200 million in WBD stock in the months before the deal closed, per Variety. The cost-cutting alienated talent and audiences at the same time, and it's the reason WBD was available for acquisition in the first place.

Ellison had a front-row seat to that collapse. Whether he learned from it or just benefited from the wreckage is the question the next four quarters will answer. Media mergers produce optimistic vision statements the way factories produce widgets. The test is always the same: what happens when subscriber growth stalls, a tentpole underperforms, and the board starts asking about cost savings. Ellison's leadership picks suggest he knows that. Whether the picks hold when the pressure arrives is the only thing that actually matters.