In his nearly 100 days as the C.E.O. of Paramount Skydance, David Ellison has learned a thing or two about mellifluous corporate pablum—knowledge that was on full display during the company’s first earnings call under his rule. “We’re encouraged by the meaningful progress we’ve made in a relatively short time,” Ellison said on Monday. “We moved quickly, laid a strong foundation for what’s ahead, and there’s a real sense of energy and purpose across the company.” Ellison also parroted David Zaslav, the C.E.O. of Warner Bros. Discovery, which has recently become the object of his public affections. “Our vision is to transform Paramount to be the global home of world-class storytelling, powered by one of entertainment’s most storied studios, a leading broadcast network, and a scaled global streaming platform that delivers must-watch programming to audiences everywhere,” he said, hitting all the talking points.

Ellison often speaks grandly about his desire to turn a historic media business into a tech company, without much specificity. On Monday, he offered little more beyond pointing to a recent C-suite hire and dropping a few lines about improved discoverability on Paramount+ and more efficient ad tech. Instead, he spoke about his three “North Star” priorities: investing in the company’s “growth businesses, anchored by its creative engines”; “driving efficiency enterprise-wide,” a reference to the $2 billion in cost-cutting already identified, with another billion around the corner; and making the company’s streaming business profitable and global.

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But not a whole lot of time was spent on the actual earnings. That was probably by design, too. There really isn’t much to say on that front, since the deal closed in August and any comparisons with past quarters would be incongruous. For junkies, the accompanying 28-page letter to shareholders laid out the financials and accompanying narrative. But, for me, the most interesting revelation was what Ellison & Co. had to say about their fourth-quarter performance and their projections for 2026.

Indeed, for all the talk about how great everything is going so far, Ellison and PSKY president Jeff Shell are forecasting the fourth quarter of 2025 to be pretty much on par with the fourth quarter of 2024: somewhere between $8.1 billion and $8.3 billion in revenue, compared with $8 billion last year, and “adjusted OIBDA”—an even more annoying version of adjusted EBITDA—of $500 million to $600 million, compared with $406 million a year ago. In other words, static revenue and marginally improved profitability, probably driven by those synergies, with more to come.

For next year, Ellison predicted that Paramount would generate $30 billion in revenue—up about 5 percent from the $28.6 billion in revenue for the four quarters ended June 30—and that adjusted OIBDA would be $3.5 billion. As Evercore analyst Kutgun Maral pointed out in a report the following morning, that profitability projection has been revised down by 15 percent from the $4.1 billion that Ellison originally predicted for the year when he announced the deal in 2024. As I read the report, I was reminded of Zaz’s downward-revised EBITDA projections for WBD after he got behind Jack Warner’s desk and started operating the company. (Through the recent acquisition of Air Mail, Zaz is now a small investor in the Puck.)

Beyond Ellison’s mastery of the modern corporate lexicon, it’s clear that the profitability fundamentals of the business still point to steady decline—at least until the streaming business becomes as profitable as the linear TV assets they must replace on the P&L. Of course, that’s the thesis of the entire WBD deal, and partly explains Ellison’s motivation to swallow the company whole. In that hypothetical, Ellison and his partners could not only synergize the streaming businesses, but also triage the linear assets, milking them far longer and more profitably given their leverage over distributors. The point is that the Ellisons have to buy something if they want to reverse the decline narrative and trajectory.

So, unsurprisingly, things got a bit spicier when the Ellison crew was confronted by analysts about their M&A ambitions—starting with WBD. Morgan Stanley’s Ben Swinburne raised the question, but Ellison gave listeners another example of how quick a study he is when it comes to being an ambitious public company C.E.O. “There’s no must-haves for us,” he said. The remark was itself a well-choreographed line imbued with deal implications and negotiating brinkmanship, given that he has already made three failed bids for WBD. “We really look at this as buy versus build, and we absolutely have the ability to build to get to where we want to go,” he continued. “We believe we can achieve our goals with our creative content engines.”

As for M&A, he said, “Everything for us is going to tie back to: Does it accelerate those three core principles? For us, we’re fortunate that we have the balance sheet to be able to be opportunistic when we think that M&A will accelerate our goals. But we’re also long-term disciplined owner-operators.”

What’s going on here now is an elaborate game of M&A poker, with the requisite bluffs. Zaz is meeting with Comcast executives, undoubtedly hoping to gin up interest from Brian Roberts and Mike Cavanagh. As I’ve reported, a deal for some or all of WBD is beginning to look like a must-have for Brian and Mike. And what better way to make the Ellisons antsy than by making it known that Zaz and Brian Roberts are talking, and that Brian has hired both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to advise him on a possible deal? Meanwhile, Netflix, another possible suitor, has hired Moelis & Co.

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But the Paramount executive team not-so-subtly offered clues regarding the upside of a potential WBD-PSKY deal. In response to a question that wasn’t asked, Shell noted that Paramount Skydance has no plans to spin off its declining linear TV assets, unlike Comcast and WBD. “This company has a history of spinning assets, and it hasn’t gone very well for us and, we think, for others,” Shell said. “One of the big rationales for spin is that when companies are stand-alone, they can focus on driving the value of the brands that they have in a more specific way. We are going to do that, but we’re going to do that within our company so our shareholders get the value of that.”

He then spoke positively about the company’s cable assets. Nickelodeon is, he said, “a core kids and family pillar for us” and will remain “a very important segment for our company not just in terms of streaming, but in terms of licensing and consumer products.” He praised MTV as “the traditional leader” in music and Comedy Central as “a great brand.” He said that BET, once on the block, had a “great position with that audience.” The goal, Shell said, was to “see if we can transform those businesses in a digital way to drive value long-term and make them increasing pieces of our overall scaled global streaming strategy, which is our core business.”

It’s an interesting moment in the WBD sale process, which Zaz has promised to conclude by Christmas, though that seems unlikely to me at this point. The Ellisons could go hostile and take their offer directly to WBD shareholders—making, say, a $25-a-share offer for the whole company that they won’t be able to refuse. So far, they seem reluctant. But I wouldn’t rule it out, since that might be the best way to position their $18 billion minnow to swallow a $57 billion whale, even with Larry’s $350 billion war chest.

Meanwhile, does Roberts think his donation to Trump’s ballroom project will help him through the regulatory minefield that Comcast will likely face in a deal for WBD? Maybe the donation plus spinning off MSNBC will do the trick? I don’t know. Even so, will Brian be able to compete with the Ellisons’ firepower? Probably not. The same goes if Netflix (market cap $500 billion) or Amazon (market cap $2.7 trillion) decide to get involved.

Of course, there’s always the fallback option of sticking with the original plan to split WBD into two. If the Wall Street analysts are right that Zaz has cooked up an alternative worth $30 a share—even if it’s at some point down the road—that might be the preferred option for the board. But the truth is we’re still just at the beginning. WBD’s public posturing about trying to get this all sorted out by Christmas was merely a clever move by Zaz, an experienced deal guy, to create more heat around the auction.

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