Paramount Global Says It Will Take $1B Charge Related To Layoffs And Content Strategy Shifts

deadline.com:

Paramount Global expects to take a $1 billion charge in the current quarter due to ongoing programming shifts and the layoffs it announced earlier this month.

CFO Naveen Chopra delivered that outlook during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call with Wall Street analysts. The company is “making a variety of important changes to our global workforce and content strategy,” he said. “These moves reflect decisions we’ve made to transition our business and enhance our future value proposition.

They will also result in a programming and restructuring charge in Q1, which we currently expect to be approximately $1 billion.” The company has been increasingly “optimizing and sharing” programming across streaming and linear TV, Chopra noted. “We’re also focused on using the collective power of Paramount Global to unlock synergies more broadly.

This mindset enables headcount cost reduction, including the action we announced earlier this month.” The company announced on February 13 it was eliminating nearly 750 domestic positions, or about 5% of its domestic workforce.