Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images
While addressing staff final month, NCS chief government Mark Thompson wasted little time citing “the generously proportioned elephant in the room.” Paramount’s imminent takeover of dad or mum firm Warner Bros. Discovery had made for a “difficult period” on the community, and Thompson shared his employees’s anxieties. “I swear to God, I go home and try and relax and I can still feel the tension in the room because I’m in the room, and I’m no different from anyone else,” he stated, in line with a recording of his remarks.
Thompson’s feedback got here on the outset of a city corridor for NCS’s international workforce of roughly 4,000 staff throughout greater than three-dozen bureaus, lots of whom at the moment are effectively practiced in navigating company mergers. Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of WBD, which was accepted by the Department of Justice final month, marks the third time previously eight years the community will probably be absorbed into a brand new entity. In 2018, AT&T purchased NCS’s former dad or mum firm, Time Warner, earlier than spinning off its media properties and merging them with Discovery 4 years later. But the Paramount deal is extra politically fraught and operationally advanced, bringing collectively main Hollywood studios (Paramount and Warner Bros.), streaming companies (HBO Max and Paramount+), and information organizations (NCS and CBS News) underneath the identical company possession. Significant cuts and layoffs are anticipated as a part of the consolidation, significantly with Paramount shouldering almost $80 billion in debt.
Inside NCS, staffers worry that programming and personnel modifications may very well be pushed by politics as a lot as economics given how keen Donald Trump and his allies seem for Paramount CEO David Ellison to take management. In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said “the sooner” Ellison steps in “the better,” whereas FCC chair Brendan Carr framed NCS’s future possession as a part of how Trump is “winning” in opposition to the “fake news media.” The following month, the president spoke for almost an hour at a personal, Ellison-hosted dinner “honoring the Trump White House.” Meanwhile, Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, reportedly informed Trump that the merger might result in an overhaul of NCS. Paramount denied to The Wall Street Journal that the Ellisons made any “commitments” to authorities officers “regarding the future of NCS or any other news property, other than the goal to deliver truth-based journalism,” and a White House spokesperson stated Trump “has consistently maintained that he was neutral to all parties throughout the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding process.”
Staffers are skeptical, with some anticipating that the brand new house owners will attempt to placate the White House. “At the end of the day,” stated one longtime on-air reporter, “Trump is going to want some heads on a plate.” Another worker prompt that any politically motivated firings will seemingly be part of bigger layoffs to keep away from dangerous optics. There are additionally considerations about NCS’s editorial independence and whether or not Paramount’s takeover will shift the community’s framing or strategy to tales. Thompson has tried to tamp down such worries, urging staff final month to “not jump to conclusions.”
“Let’s execute our strategy with confidence and gusto,” he stated. “It’s so easy to just get a bit paralyzed and sort of lay off and think, Oh, we don’t know what’s going to happen and maybe the new bosses will want something totally different, so why don’t we just back off?” Instead, Thompson stated, “we should go for it.”
While Thompson has tried rallying the troops, uncertainty within the newsroom reportedly played into chief authorized affairs correspondent Paula Reid’s determination to show down a contract renewal and decamp to MS NOW. Without readability about their new proprietor’s intentions, NCS staff have been anxiously watching the chaos unfold at CBS News since Paramount purchased the right-leaning web site The Free Press this previous fall and put in its co-founder Bari Weiss because the community’s editor-in-chief. On the identical day Thompson spoke on the city corridor, 60 Minutes veteran Scott Pelley angrily confronted the present’s newly employed government producer, Nick Bilton, and accused Weiss of “murdering” the newsmagazine. Weiss, who has primarily been often known as an opinion journalist, landed the CBS job with none broadcast expertise and proceeded to upend the information division. Her heavy-handed approach at overhauling the top-rated 60 Minutes has led to accusations of bias, whereas her efforts to reshape the community’s third-place night newscast with host Tony Dokoupil have been clumsy. Ratings for the CBS Evening News and CBS This Morning continue to slump.
Some at NCS hope the drama at CBS provides Ellison and different Paramount executives pause earlier than selling Weiss to supervise each information organizations — an particularly daunting process provided that the cable community is a considerably bigger, international newsroom that operates 24/7. The New York Times reported final month that NCS anchor Anderson Cooper, who had been a correspondent on 60 Minutes earlier than leaving the present in May, has informed colleagues that he doesn’t want to work for Weiss. Upon leaving the newsmagazine, Cooper stated the present’s editorial independence and belief with viewers has been crucial to its success, and he hoped that “60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes.”
Multiple NCS staff informed me they see similarities between Weiss and Chris Licht, Thompson’s predecessor whose stormy 13-month tenure at NCS led to 2023. Much like Weiss at CBS, Licht appeared intent on making the community’s protection extra palatable to Republicans. He pushed NCS to e book extra conservative visitors, whereas instructing employees to stop describing Trump’s election denialism as “the big lie.” His programming choices have been a flop, most notably an ill-conceived morning present and a Trump city corridor that turned into a MAGA rally. And Licht alienated some veteran journalists at NCS with criticism of the community’s strategy, whereas additionally showing distant from the rank and file — not not like Weiss at CBS. “People remember what happened to Chris Licht and they think, Oh, she’s toast at CBS and there’s no way she’ll get the keys now because she’s become such a problem,” stated one NCS staffer. “The more anxious types in here are just like, No, the world is crumbling. There’s no reason that David Ellison wouldn’t do the stupidest thing possible and give Bari Weiss the keys to NCS.”
Weiss, by all accounts, is near Ellison, and the 2 seem politically aligned, significantly with regards to their steadfast assist of Israel. In May, Ellison backed Weiss’s management of CBS News, calling her a “singular talent” who has been “empowered to run our newsroom.” But there are indicators that Paramount could preserve Thompson in a senior position; Ellison’s executives and advisers are “increasingly open” to the thought, according to the Financial Times. There have additionally been indications that Weiss isn’t a lock to take over NCS. People near Ellison have expressed concern to him about giving her extra duty, in line with an individual acquainted with the conversations. Gerry Cardinale, a private-equity investor whose agency was concerned within the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, said at an occasion final month that Thompson is a “phenomenal leader” and described Alex MacCallum, the community’s chief working officer and digital chief, as “fantastic,” as Breaker reported. Cardinale prompt taking a methodical strategy with NCS moderately than instantly shaking issues up: “I think we’ve got to spend time really getting in there and listening and talking to them before we can figure out ultimately, you know, how we can help.”
Thompson, MacCallum, and NCS’s chief monetary officer, Adam Cohn, successfully made the case for his or her management in a presentation to Paramount executives within the spring, in line with two individuals acquainted with the assembly. Their message to executives was that NCS’s enterprise technique, constructed round growing digital subscriptions as a buffer in opposition to the declining cable-television bundle, is working however that it wants extra time. (NCS declined to touch upon the specifics of the assembly.)
Given that Thompson minimize his tooth in British journalism earlier than ascending to the highest jobs on the BBC, New York Times, and now NCS, it shouldn’t be stunning that he has reportedly informed Paramount that he has no want to cede duty. That got here via ultimately month’s city corridor, the place Thompson described his “passion for NCS” and stated he felt “very protective of it.” He invoked the legacy of the late Ted Turner whereas talking from Techwood, NCS’s unique campus in Atlanta, which he described as “ground zero” for the group. But staff who sought reassurance or perception on the scenario seemingly left disenchanted. Thompson famous that he has had “productive, friendly, [and] respectful” conversations with Paramount executives, together with Ellison. The executives have been “fully engaged,” Thompson stated, and requested “really smart questions,” however these interactions didn’t present readability. “I don’t know of anyone in either NCS or WBD who knows what Paramount’s plans are for anything yet,” he stated.
Preliminary conferences between Paramount, CBS, and NCS brass are underway as the 2 sides hurtle towards the merger closing, which could come as early as this month however is anticipated by not less than September 30. CBS News president Tom Cibrowski toured NCS’s manufacturing services in Hudson Yards and Techwood, in line with Status, whereas the Times reported that NCS host Jake Tapper met with Ellison in Los Angeles. A NCS spokesperson stated that Tapper was in Los Angeles “for a prescheduled shoot for NCS” and that he “didn’t make the trip specifically for the Ellison dinner.”
Stars like Tapper could get a personal viewers with Ellison, however your common NCS worker is unlikely to listen to firsthand about how Paramount views the community. During the question-and-answer portion of final month’s city corridor, a longtime worker stated the approaching merger had pressured him to confront “the possibility of having to reconsider a job” he’s had for many years. “How do you talk to people in this room and in the company about that potential decision and where it’s going?” the worker requested. Thompson stated he, too, was cautious of any sweeping modifications on the community. “I talked earlier about, in broad uncertainty, being in the same boat as everyone else,” he informed the worker. “I think maybe you and I find ourselves in the same canoe on this one as well.” Then, in a message that appeared meant for NCS’s incoming stewards, Thompson cautioned in opposition to a significant disruption to the community’s model, which he stated was constructed on “credibility and trustworthiness.”
“It’s our difference, honestly, with some of our colleagues in American TV,” he stated. “They do some very good journalism, but you can’t look at some of our most famous and traditional competitors and say they take the exact same editorial approach to this question as we do. So I think it’s incredibly important.”
Thompson stated that strategy “makes business sense” for NCS and that “messing with it” or “trying to do too much to virtue signal [with] some new change in direction” might backfire. “I think messing with it is dangerous for audiences, both old audiences on which a lot of our economics all depends but also our new audiences,” he stated, including that he intends to “make that argument” to NCS’s soon-to-be new house owners. “I think we have a very strong case for it,” he stated.
As the city corridor wound down, the ultimate query got here from an worker who requested if Thompson meant to “stick with us through this merger and beyond.” While he stated he doesn’t intend to remain on “forever,” Thompson made it clear that he wished to stay “through this next chapter.”
“I’m totally committed to NCS and to its editorial values and standards,” he stated. “And so if the circumstances are right, I would love to continue to see this kind of transition into the future.”