Paramount Skydance held its first upfronts presentation for advertisers on Thursday, April 16, gathering media buyers, talent and reporters on the Melrose Avenue lot to hear the new-ish company’s marketing pitch.
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| Paramount CEO David Ellison at CinemaCon 2026 | Gilbert Flores/PMC |
Paramount will continue the road show in the coming days, with several more meetings and events planned in markets including New York. But this week’s event — kicked off by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) David Ellison, who had just made an appearance earlier in the day in Las Vegas for the company’s CinemaCon presentation — was perhaps the largest.
Coming a day after CBS unveiled its fall schedule — and had its own “CBS Fest” on the Paramount lot — it was the entire company’s turn to give its comprehensive pitch. Before Ellison came out, a new company branding video — narrated by Tom Cruise — showcased talent on the Paramount lot and featured heavy hitter creatives like Jerry Bruckheimer, James Cameron, the Duffer Brothers, Mark Wahlberg and Will Smith. (The same sizzle reel ran at CinemaCon earlier that day.)
“This moment is especially meaningful for us as it marks the first upfront as the new Paramount,” Ellison said, opening the upfront inside Paramount’s Sherry Lansing Theatre. “We launched Paramount Skydance nearly nine months ago, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the progress and momentum we’ve achieved in a relatively short period of time. Our goal is to build a leading media and entertainment company that strengthens competition, better serves the creative community and delivers even more compelling stories to audiences around the world.”
As a nod to the importance of live sports for the company, The NFL Today anchor James Brown hosted the upfront and introduced various executives.
There was no mention of the company’s impending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, but plenty of talk about how the company was focused on tech. Paramount also took the time to introduce three of its key players: During a sit-down, on-stage segment, chief revenue officer Jay Askinasi interviewed direct-to-consumer chair Cindy Holland and chief product officer Dane Glasgow about why they joined Paramount, and their plans for the future. The trio represent the new regime at Paramount assembled last fall after Ellison’s Skydance Media completed its $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global from Shari Redstone and National Amusements. Askinasi came to Paramount last October after heading ad sales for Roku and serving as CEO of Publicis Media Exchange U.S.
Holland credited next-day CBS series as “an incredibly important foundation” for Paramount+, in addition to NFL and other simulcast sports. She also credited the Taylor Sheridan series portfolio, including, most recently, The Madison. “Obviously, the NFL is a huge audience funnel, very large, very diverse, and we want to continue to program against different segments,” she said. “And the job is to increase the programming. We’re also going to welcome the BET+ community to Paramount+ [in June]. And it’s a privilege and an honor for us to welcome that community and their stories and bringing them to a larger audience as well.”
As for new programming for Paramount+, Holland said she was focused on more “female-forward” content, following the recent success of The Madison, starring Michelle Pfeiffer. That includes Fear Not, starring Anne Hathaway, and Discretion, starring Nicole Kidman and Hathaway.
“The audience for Landman is about 50% women, but people perceive it in the slightly more male lens,” Holland said. “And we know that that female-forward ensemble shows, dramas, legal thrillers, soapy thrillers, are things that we were looking for.”
Glasgow also discussed the refocus of Pluto TV on the Gen Z audience: “When we look at our data, specifically for Pluto, the 18 to 34 year old segment is actually the fastest growing segment for us, 30% over the last year,” he said. “What that means, the way that people are using our product is changing, and that’s exciting, because that means that we can deliver a whole new set of experiences and capabilities. We have talked publicly about the fact that we are converging the stacks for Pluto and Paramount+. But what that ultimately is going to mean is that we can deliver a significantly better experience for Pluto, and at the same time, we’re going to bring a bunch of new content together. So this summer, we’re going to be relaunching Pluto in a pretty significant way.”
As NickALive! recently reported, Pluto TV is in the midst of adding several The CW staples from the 2000s and 2010s, including Hart of Dixie, Arrow, The 100 and Everwood, in a bid to program for those young adults who have nostalgia for the shows of their youth.
Also during the upfront, Paramount TV Media chair George Cheeks and CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach repeated Wednesday’s news about the Eye network’s fall schedule and its position in the marketplace.
A wide variety of clips included talent such as Helen Mirren (Mobland), Michelle Pfeiffer (The Madison), Nicole Kidman (Lioness), Zoe SaldaƱa (Lioness), Kathy Bates (Matlock), Kelly Reilly (Dutton Ranch) and Annette Bening (Dutton Ranch).
But noticeably, the focus was mostly on Paramount+, CBS Entertainment and CBS Sports — with no mention whatsoever of Paramount’s embattled CBS News division. Cable TV — once the bread and butter of Paramount — went virtually unmentioned, other than a quick flash of South Park, a few references to MTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race and the MTV Video Music Awards. It’s perhaps painfully clear cable is seen as the past, and this is a company now really eager to rebrand itself as tech-first.
“It’s all accelerated by technology,” Askinasi said. “We’re thinking and operating like a platform.”
Original source: Variety.
From Deadline:
Pluto TV Upgrade On The Way As David Ellison Reiterates Paramount’s Commitment To “Movies And Storytelling” At L.A. Upfronts
David Ellison once again leaned into his love of filmmaking as he welcomed media buyers, talent and reporters to the Paramount lot in Los Angeles on Thursday for the company’s first upfront presentation under his tenure.
“We launched Paramount Skydance nearly nine months ago, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the progress and momentum we’ve achieved in a relatively short period of time. Our goal is to build a leading media and entertainment company that strengthens competition, better serves the creative community and delivers even more compelling stories to audiences around the world,” the CEO said to those inside the Paramount Theater on the L.A. lot just hours after committing to a 45-day theatrical window at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.
During the presentation, the Paramount leadership team sought to lay out its plans for the company’s evolution in the near future as it adopts a more “tech forward” approach. That includes upgrading Pluto TV to adopt the same tech stack as Paramount+ to improve the user experience.
“We’re investing in Pluto. We’re doing quite a bit,” chief product officer Dane Glasgow said during Thursday’s presentation, which also featured a brief glimpse at the interface upgrades coming soon.
Glasgow also revealed that Pluto’s growth is currently led by the 18-to-34 demo, “so when we think about what that means, the way that people are using our product, the way that people are addressing and thinking about content is changing, and that’s exciting, because it means that we can deliver a whole new set of experiences and capabilities”.
Converging the operating systems for the two streaming platforms will ultimately “deliver a significantly better experience for Pluto, and at the same time…bring a bunch of new content together,” Glasgow continued.
That Pluto TV update is expected this summer, but Paramount did not specify a date.
Thursday’s presentation was surprisingly scarce in numbers, considering the room was primarily filled with advertisers. Typically, studios will take this opportunity to reveal some sort of audience metric, but Paramount’s leadership team kept the conversation extremely high level.
The company has previously touted many of the series that were at the forefront of Thursday’s event, including Marshals, which nearly tripled its audience over 28 days to lead a strong CBS midseason slate. On the streaming front, Paramount also relied on Taylor Sheridan fare to illustrate its reach, reminding the audience that The Madison recently became the creator’s biggest launch to date.
Thursday’s affair was relatively scaled back compared to most studio upfronts presentations. Starting in 2023, Paramount ditched the traditional presentation in a large New York City venue in favor of a set of smaller dinners and events in Chicago, L.A. and New York. For the first three years, the events were off-limits to press and were exclusive to advertisers. This year, with new leadership running the company after last summer’s Skydance merger, Deadline was among a limited number of press outlets given a look inside at the presentation.
Asked during an interview prior to the event if the company has had second thoughts about scaling back, with all of its rivals (including newer players Amazon and Netflix) still pedal-to-medal with customary upfront blitzes, Askinasi said the strategy hasn’t changed.
“I do think it’s the right thing,” the exec said. Even though the new batch of events are smaller, “they are major productions and really high-end experiences for our customers and partners,” he added. With the more intimate settings, moreover, “you get a much better client dialogue in those settings than you do in the one to many approach of sort of the big sort of theater setup in the past.”
While Ellison didn’t speak for long, ceding the most time to the television executives whose roles more directly impact the ad buyers at Thursday’s event, he spent the majority of his time reiterating his affinity for telling stories — a point he’s made continuously to try to satisfy the skeptics of his Paramount takeover.
Ellison took the stage after a Paramount Skydance sizzle reel, which aired earlier in the day at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, featuring James Cameron, Mark Wahlberg, the Duffer Brothers, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Will Smith. The energetic teaser ended with Paramount favorite Tom Cruise lounging atop the lot’s iconic water tower.
“I absolutely love movies and storytelling, and that passion still drives me today. In fact, it fuels our entire leadership team. We believe deeply in the power of stories to entertain and connect and to inspire audiences everywhere at the same time all of this in this room understand that we are competing for something incredibly scarce: attention,” Ellison told press and media buyers. “Attention only comes when audiences truly care about what they’re watching. That’s where the opportunity lies. When storytelling and marketing are aligned, something really powerful happens. Brands stop feeling like interruptions and start becoming part of the experience. It’s no longer just about reach. It’s about resonance in a world of endless choice. Our goal at Paramount is simple: to connect what audiences love and what brands need. That’s how we help you capture attention in a crowded market and turn it into lasting impact.”
Paramount is likely have a different hand to play in future upfront cycles. The company expects to close its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by the third quarter, bringing a swath of new platforms under the tent, including robust ad businesses at Turner Sports, CNN as well as the ad tier of major streamer HBO Max. Executives steered clear of acquisition talk on Thursday.
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From Deadline:
Cindy Holland Reiterates Paramount+ Focus On “Female Forward Dramas” At Paramount Upfront
Paramount today held its first upfront presentation since the company last held court at Carnegie Hall in 2022. Taking place almost a month ahead of the traditional upfront week, the event at the Paramount Theatre on the historic Los Angeles studio lot was the first upfront for New Paramount following the August acquisition by Skydance.
It marked the upfront stage debut for most of the presenting executives, including Paramount CEO David Ellison, who did opening remarks just a couple of hours after his appearance at CinemaCon in Las Vegas; Chief Revenue Officer Jay Askinasi; as well Chair of Direct-to-Consumer Cindy Holland, whose 18-year Netflix tenure wrapped before the streamer got into the ad business; and CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach, who was promoted to the job months after Paramount Global’s last upfront presentation.
“One of the things that we’re really focused on, the first few green lights, the decisions that we made when we got to Paramount, was thinking about female forward dramas in particular, even though it’s true that The Madison is sort of the first example that was already here,” she said.
The Madison, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, comes from prolific Paramount+ creator Taylor Sheridan. It recently launched as Sheridan’s biggest series debut, with Holland calling Pfeiffer “a revelation.” The push for female-driven shows, which Holland has telegraphed before, is designed to balance out the streamer’s current slate which is dominated by Sheridan and Star Trek series.
They are known for their male appeal even through Holland noted that “the audience for [Sheridan’s] Landman is about 50% women, but people perceive it in a slightly more male lens.” Sheridan’s other P+ hits include Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown.
Holland gave a couple of examples of some of Paramount+’s biggest buys under the new regime so far, all in bidding wars.
“We know that female forward ensemble shows, dramas, legal thrillers, soapy thrillers, are things that we were looking for,” she said. “So the first two things that we bring through that lens were a series called Discretion, starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning — it’s a mentor, mentee relationship set in a legal world — and also a limited series starring Anne Hathaway called Fear Not.”
Once the slate is balanced out, Holland will have the focus spread out as the goal for the streamer she shared on Day 1 after the merger was to “make sure that we’re offering programming for everybody.”
She reinforced that commitment today and confirmed the volume ramp-up signaled by Ellison who had promised increased budget for scripted originals.
Speaking of big sport franchises carried by Paramount, Holland highlighted NFL games, simulcast with CBS.
“Obviously, the NFL is a huge audience funnel, very large, very diverse, and we want to continue to program against different segments, and the job is to increase the programming,” she said. “We’re also going to welcome the BET+ community to Paramount+ in June. It’s a privilege and an honor for us to welcome that community and their stories and bring them to a larger audience.”
As Deadline reported in March, BET+ will be folded into Paramount+ in June.
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