Skydance's sprawling TV empire: 120 series and counting

The combined company's TV operation is more than 50 percent larger than Warner Bros.'s TV slate -- there may be some tough choices ahead about what to combine and bet on.

One of the key points CEO David Ellison and Paramount executives reiterated ahead of the Warner Bros. Discovery takeover is that the combined company will produce 30 feature films each year.

That's a huge output - but it pales in comparison to the number of TV productions that the combined company Skydance now controls.

Warner Bros. Television was by itself the busiest studio in the business. It has more than 80 series of all kinds—from The Pitt to The Bachelor—on about 20 different networks and broadcasters.

The television studio operation is immediately more than 50 percent larger than WBTV's slate. That doesn't even mean the broad reach that Skydance's combined cable network and streaming operation would have. Here is a breakdown of each of those aspects of the company's business.

CBS Studios and Paramount Television Studios, the Paramount division of the Skydance television series, together produce more than 40 current or upcoming shows. CBS Studios is responsible for most of its namesake network's scripted series, including the NCIS franchise, Sheriff/Fire Country and Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Paramount Television Studios owns all of Taylor Sheridan's current output, including Reacher (a co-production with Amazon MGM Studios), Dexter: Resurrection and others.

This is more than 120 series of new Skydance. And at least for now, that won't change.

"We're not looking to reduce production or production," CEO Yenon Kreis said at a press event the day the merger closed. "It's about efficient performance, and we have plans for how we're going to achieve that while still keeping the creative juices flowing to ensure the creativity continues to flow."

A day after the merger was made official, there are no concrete plans on how the three studios will combine some operations. Some consolidation is likely to happen, with Skydance aiming to achieve $6 billion in "synergies" — i.e., layoffs and eliminate some redundant functions — to help with its $80 billion debt load.

However, none of them came close to the scale of the new Skydance. In Channing Dungey (WBTV), David Stapf (CBS Studios) and Matt Thunell (PTVS), all three studios have leaders who have been in the business for a long time (Thunell led Skydance Television for several years before the PTVS restructuring). Each will likely try to protect their respective constituencies as best they can, although all three will ultimately report to George Cheeks, head of television.

The big question about Skydance's streaming operation isn't if HBO Max and Paramount+ will be combined into one service, but when? Ellison has repeatedly said he wants the two platforms to merge — but the "when" part is trickier. It will take some time for both streamers to be on a single technology platform and for the two big libraries to merge.

Casey Bellows (creative) and JB Pratt (business) will lead the streaming division of the company, both from WBD. HBO boss Blues will have a string of hits: Pete, Landman and Damon Farm were among the biggest shows in the US in 2025-26. Original HBO series like The White Lotus and The Last of Us and Sheridan's Paramount+ series (at least for the next few years) are also producing new seasons.

Cable: The biggest reach in a shrinking market

As he was at WBD, Dungy will now oversee Skydance's massive portfolio of more than 25 cable networks. These properties broadcast dozens of programs from foreign producers, mostly smaller companies specializing in unscripted programming and documentaries. Former WBD networks Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, TLC and ID are among the largest buyers of original programming in the cable industry.

There are also overlaps: Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon both target children and have strong animation businesses. TBS, TNT, TruTV (which for some reason isn't in the Skydance sub-picture), and the Paramount Network have similar general audience transfers (although Paramount has no sports rights). On top of all this is the decline of a decade of cable as a profit center.

The antitrust settlement between Paramount and state attorneys general requires Skydance to negotiate separate carriage agreements with cable and satellite operators — one for the former Paramount channels and one for WBD Media. This is perhaps a minor headache for Skydance. The bigger question is how long and on what scale the new company wants to be in the cable business.