Amid Paramount Layoffs And Skydance Talks, CBS Sports Has Emerged “Largely Intact” And “Strong” Due To Viewer Demand, Division Chief David Berson Says
deadline.comCBS Sports CEO David Berson said the volatility at parent company Paramount Global, which is laying off 15% of its U.S. workforce and preparing to merge with Skydance Media, isn’t taking his division off its game. “There’s no doubt that the media and entertainment world is incredibly complex these days, but there’s no doubt that the sports world is growing in value every single day,” the exec said Wednesday at an NFL media breakfast at Paramount’s corporate headquarters in New York.
Berson has been in the top job at CBS Sports since the springtime. He was the No. 2 exec during the lengthy tenure of former Chairman Sean McManus and was named to the CEO position when McManus announced his plan to retire.
The two remain close, Berson said. Asked about managing through a whirlwind (something he and McManus experienced during the years when CBS Corp.
was a separate company led by Les Moonves), he said the sports division has been shielded from the worst of it. As to the layoffs, he said, “Every group’s impacted, of course, but we’re largely intact.” The layoffs followed an eye-popping write-down last Thursday of $6 billion of the value of the company’s cable networks, a move similar to one made the same week by Warner Bros.
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