Paramount posted a total loss of $257 million in its third quarter of 2025, including a $13 million loss under its new owner Skydance and $244 million under the media giant’s previous leadership, for its third quarter of 2025.
Total revenue was flat at $6.7 billion, which included $2.58 billion for the quarter under previous leadership and $4.12 billion under new leadership. The overall results were dragged down by declines in linear TV advertising and distribution, which was offset by growth in streaming.
Despite missing Wall Street expectations, Paramount shares jumped 6% in after-hours trading as the David Ellison-led media giant raised its cost savings target to $3 billion and outlined its vision for the future.
“While we’re still in the early stages, this is only day 96,” Paramount CEO David Ellison told analysts during Monday’s earnings call. “We’re energized by the progress we’ve made and the clear path ahead.”
Here are the results:
Net loss: A loss of $257 million, compared to a profit of $1 million in the year ago period.
Earnings per share: Loss of 37 cent per share, compared to earnings of 38 cents per share expected by analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance.
Revenue: $6.7 billion, compared to $6.99 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance.
Streaming subscribers: Added 1.4 million subscribers for a total of 79.1 million globally. Starting in the fourth quarter, Paramount will no longer include free trialers in its total subscriber count. As of the end of the third quarter, free trialers totaled 1.2 million.
Revenue in its streaming business grew 17% year-over-year to $2.17 billion, driven by a 24% increase in Paramount+ revenue to $1.77 billion. Paramount’s streaming business posted a profit of $340 million, including $105 million pre-merger and $235 million post-merger.
But the TV Media segment was a drag on the overall results, with revenue falling 12% to $3.8 billion, driven by a 12% decline in advertising, a 7% decline in affiliate revenue due to cord-cutting and a 22% decline in licensing and other revenue due to the timing of content delivery. The segment posted a profit of $822 million.
Filmed Entertainment revenue grew 30% to $756 million, primarily due to the consolidation of Skydance licensing and other revenue. However, the segment posted a loss of $49 million due to lower than expected performance of its film slate during the quarter.
Starting in the first quarter of 2026, Paramount will change its reporting structure to reflect its reorganization. The move will house all production and IP in one place with Studios, including almost all licensing revenue, while the remaining TV Media segment will be comprised of its broadcasting and cable businesses.
Paramount increases cost savings target to $3 billion, plans to invest $1.5 billion in content
Paramount has raised its cost savings target to $3 billion, up from $2 billion previously. That plan has included roughly 1,000 layoffs thus far, with additional cuts to come at a later date.
In addition to the formal layoffs, Paramount will begin a phased return to office in January. Approximately 600 employees chose voluntary severance packages in its first phase.
More than $1.4 billion in savings will have been generated between the merger closing in August and the end of 2025, with an additional $1 billion plus in cost savings planned for 2026. It expects to complete those cuts by the end of 2027, generating approximately $800 million in 2026 and between $400 million and $500 million in 2027.
In addition to labor, the media giant is also looking at areas such as real estate, procurement and workflow to find efficiencies. Paramount recently divested the Argentina pay TV network Telefe and is in the process of divesting Chilevision in Chile, which the company expects to complete in the first quarter of 2026. These divestitures will reduce the company’s workforce by approximately 1,600 additional employees.
At the same time, Paramount plans to invest $1.5 billion in programming, including streaming investment in the UFC, Paramount+ originals, third-party catalog licensing and ramping up its film slate, with plans to target at least 15 movies per year over the next few years.
The company has set new deals with the UFC, Professional Bull Riders and Zuffa Boxing, greenlit new series such as Jeremy Strong’s “9/12” and Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning’s “Discretion,” and forged partnerships with“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, The Duffer Brothers, Will Smith and James Mangold. Though Taylor Sheridan is set to exit the company after his contract expires in 2028, he has also been tapped to work on a film adaptation of video game franchise “Call of Duty” with Peter Berg.
Paramount also plans to raise prices for Paramount+ in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2026.
Paramount+, Pluto TV, BET+ to move to unified backend by mid-2026
Leadership has said they would look to transform Paramount into a technological leader in entertainment, with plans to use tools like virtual production and AI, which would increase efficiencies, help with search, discovery and recommendations and boost content creation.
“We really view AI as a tool for artists to be able to iterate more quickly, to be able to tell better stories and basically create even further accessibility, really, across the entire content creation pipeline,” Ellison said. “So from that standpoint, we think technology is going to impact all aspects of our business and we want to be a leader in that space.”
Paramount will also leverage Skydance’s existing relationship with Larry Ellison’s Oracle, which the company has paid $2 million for software support agreements and database licenses since the merger closed. Paramount+, Pluto TV and BET+ will move to a unified backend infrastructure by mid-2026 and the media giant will use a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) system by early 2027.
“That will lead to significant operational efficiency across the entire company. It will also give better real time information to managers,” Ellison said. “The better visibility you have in terms of how the company is doing on a day to day basis, that improves your decision making. So we’re in the process of deploying that.”
Ellison emphasizes ‘buy versus build’ mentality with M&A amid WBD pursuit
The latest quarterly results come as the company has submitted three separate bids to acquire all of Warner Bros. Discovery, which ranged between $19 and $23.50 per share and were rejected for being too low. It also comes on the heels of Paramount’s $150 million purchase of Bari Weiss’ The Free Press.
Ellison has argued the Paramount would be the “best partner” for WBD, adding that other potential acquirers would need to overcome “significant (perhaps insurmountable) hurdles given their dominant market positions.”
In an Oct. 13 letter to WBD’s board, Paramount argued that the value to shareholders in a break-up would be less than $15 per share or roughly $18 to $20 per share including a “robust, yet highly uncertain, M&A premium for Warner Bros,” an individual familiar with the matter confirmed to TheWrap.
In order to sweeten the bid, Ellison even offered Warner CEO David Zaslav a co-CEO and co-chairman title, as well as increasing the portion of the bid paid in cash to shareholders from 60% to 80% and increasing the breakup fee from $2 billion to $2.1 billion. CNBC reported that Paramount is also considering taking a tender offer directly to WBD shareholders and formalizing a hostile bid for the company.
If successful in acquiring WBD, TheWrap previously reported that Ellison would look to merge HBO Max and Paramount+ into a “super platform” under one scenario being considered. The theatrical model is also at the core of his vision and a combined company would look to target an output of 30 films per year as part of its commitment to that model.
“It’s important to know that there’s no must-haves for us — 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,” Ellison said on Monday’s earnings call when asked about WBD and the company’s M&A strategy. “We believe we can achieve our goals with our creative content engines. We believe we can achieve our streaming goals and that we can drive enterprise efficiency and create value and longterm free cash-flow generation all through the building standpoint.”
Ellison said it would make M&A decisions that tie back into its core principles.
“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,” Ellison said. “So from that standpoint, we’ll always approach things through the lens of, how do we maximize value for shareholders.”
Paramount president Jeff Shell also reiterated that the company would hang onto its cable networks.
“This company has a history of spinning assets and it hasn’t gone very well for us and we think for others,” Shell explained. “One of the big rationales for a spin is that when companies are standalone, 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 noted that Paramount would look at its brands such as Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and BET to see if it can “transform those businesses in a digital way to drive value long term and make them increasing pieces of our overall scale and global streaming strategy.” As for the broadcast side, Shell said the declines are “very modest” compared to cable and “increasingly a huge driver” for streaming subscriber growth and engagement. He noted that the company would increase its investments in CBS.
Paramount outlook
Looking ahead, Paramount expects $8.1 billion to $8.3 billion in revenue, or growth of 1% to 4% year over year, for the fourth quarter, driven by strength in streaming offset by declines in the TV Media and Filmed Entertainment segments. It also expects $500 million to $600 million in adjusted operating income.
Paramount+ net adds are expected to come in lower than the third quarter due to the termination of two international hard bundles. On a full year basis, it expects streaming to be profitable in 2025, but losses in the fourth quarter due to seasonally-weighted content costs.” Theatrical revenue is also expected to be down as it reworks its film slate and is impacted by the comparison to “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”
For 2026, it is forecasting $30 billion in revenue, a 4% increase from the midpoint of its 2025 forecast, driven by streaming revenue growth due to price increases and the termination of additional international hard bundles, and adjusted operating income of $3.5 billion, driven by progress in cost-cutting and investments in content and technology.
The company expects a “more moderate” decline in linear advertising versus 2025 due to political spending in 2026, new ad agency partnerships, the sale of Telefe and the planned sale of Chilevision. It also expects to grow streaming profitability in 2026, driven by the UFC, South Park and “several hundred million” dollars of investment in film and series for Paramount+. It also expects to return to profitability on a full-year basis in its Filmed Entertainment segment in 2026.
