A pair of Paramount executives who helped operate the company as part of its co-CEO structure are expected to leave in the next few weeks.
Chris McCarthy, a 22-year veteran of Paramount and CBS who recently served as the lead executive in charge of the company’s cable networks (except Nickelodeon), will depart the company immediately following its merger with Skydance Media, which is expected to close in August. Brian Robbins, the President of Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures, is also slated to leave, according to trade publication reports that first surfaced last year.
George Cheeks, the last of the three co-CEOs and the lead executive in charge of CBS, will remain with Paramount once the Skydance merger is completed, though he is expected to serve in a lesser role with the company. Skydance has already settled on former NBC Universal CEO Jeffrey Shell as the new president of Paramount once the merger closes.
As co-CEOs, McCarthy, Robbins and Cheeks were tasked with navigating Paramount through turbulent financial and regulatory conditions as the Skydance deal faced delays. In a bid to stabilize the company’s bottom line, they carried out multiple rounds of layoffs and organizational restructuring in recent months and agreed to key concessions with President Donald Trump and members of his administration to secure approval for the merger.
Those concessions include settling a controversial news distortion lawsuit brought by Trump last year over a “60 Minutes” interview with his then-political rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris. Legal experts believed Paramount would succeed in the lawsuit on First Amendment grounds, but the company — facing key deadlines in its merger agreement with Skydance — opted to settle the matter for $16 million instead. The settlement was announced earlier this month.
One element of the merger involved the transfer of CBS-held broadcast licenses from Paramount to Skydance, a matter that required the approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who delayed its approval until both companies agreed to further concessions. Executives from Skydance met with FCC officials earlier this week and agreed to pull Paramount’s DEI programs and exert greater oversight of CBS News as conditions of the license transfers. The FCC approved the license transfers on Thursday, clearing the last remaining hurdle before the deal could close.
