Paramount executives have already said they plan to find $6 billion in “synergies” within three years, though they’ve emphasized that the majority of their cost cutting will come from “non-labor sources,” including consolidating their streaming technology and cloud providers, combining IT systems across the company and “optimizing the combined real estate footprint and the broader corporate overhead,” among other ideas.

And as I wrote last week, most Hollywood observers and those familiar with Ellison’s plans predict that Paramount will be forced make steep layoffs to offset the cost of the deal and eliminate overlapping roles and functions between the two historic studios.

The article is mostly about pure debt load, but this is the answer: no matter what they say, they will heavily lean into layoffs because they never had any other ideas. They leveraged way too much debt to “win,” and now Paramount/HBO will be defined completely by that debt and the opportunities it doesn’t allow.

From knowing people within the merged company, this is in line with Skydance’s management style. Their imaginations are not large enough for their ambitions, and think if they cut jobs they make the company more “nimble” or at least make Wall Street think that (not clear they know the difference). When in fact they’ve long ago cut the fat and the muscle, have a workforce with absolutely toxic morale from years of layoffs, and are now carving off bone.