What the Paramount Layoffs Reveal About the Future of Work in Media

They want to cut $2 billion out of operating costs. That's a fancy way of saying I want to fire a whole bunch of people. And if we have to cut quality control, so be it. Paramount skydance to cut 2,000 jobs in massive October Layoffs According to Variety magazine, mass layoffs are coming to Paramount Skydance the week of October 27th. A new CEO, David Ellison, brings a sweeping cost cutting overhaul. About 2,000 jobs are expected to be eliminated with more cuts internationally as the company races to achieve $2 billion in savings following its $8 billion merger this summer. Jeff Schell, former NBCUniversal CEO and now president of Paramount Skydance, said the layoffs will be completed before the company's next earning report on November 10. The new management, backed by Ellison's father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is attempting to streamline operations and pivot more aggressively toward digital and streaming growth. Despite the layoffs, Paramount Skydance is still making huge content investments. It just signed a $7.7 billion UFC broadcasting deal. It acquired the Free Press for $150 million and locked in the Duffer Brothers from Netflix to produce exclusive programming. Industry analysts say the layoffs may please Wall street, at least in the short term. But for thousands of workers across cbs, mtv, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures, the transition underscores an uncomfortable truth. In the streaming era, even success can cost you your job. Okay, so what's the real message here? If you work for Paramount or any big media company today, you need to be chewing your fingernails down with the quick. You need to be nervous because there's an excellent chance that you could be fired in the next week, the next month, the next quarter, or certainly the next two years. There is no safety working in any big media company because every day AI is making things more efficient and corporate overlords are trying to reduce cost. If you want a media job, there's only one solution. You've got to be your own media company. Work your way up from day one. Get your own YouTube channel, your own substack, your own podcast. Let's dig a little deeper here and look at some of the facts. As I mentioned, 2000 jobs are going to be cut, really, in just the next week. They want to cut $2 billion out of operating costs. That's a fancy way of saying I want to fire a whole bunch of people. And if we have to cut quality control, so be it. I mean, you look at just how they've essentially destroyed cbs. Those of you who haven't followed it, I would urge you take a look at John Oliver on HBO and one of his recent pieces where he analyzed exactly what happened with the history of the Free Press and Barry Wise. So CBS was, it was a part of this major acquisition of Paramount, and it was done by supporters of President Trump. Larry Ellison, big fan of Donald Trump, big fan of the Trump administration, saying, hey, acquire anyone you want. There's no such thing as anti or anti trust anymore. Do whatever you want. He likes that. That helps him line his pocket. So they've essentially installed a right wing henchwoman, a propagandist, to be the editor in chief of CBS News, which is appalling considering the Tiffany reputation this network had. This the network of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, people I grew up with, and now their editor in chief, who really only has two ideas in her head. Now, she's never managed a single TV network or a TV show for that matter. She's never really been a reporter. But she knows two ideas. And sometimes knowing two things is enough to be rewarded by people. If they have a huge incentive of promoting that idea. It helps mask political problems they have. So here are the two big ideas that Bari Weiss and the Free Press have. One is, here's another example of how the far left has gone too far. Story after story after story of the Free Press is about one thing. It's about how the far left has gone too far. Now, does the far left occasionally go too far? Sure. But we live in a time where right wing extremists control the United States government, specifically the White House, specifically the House of representatives, specifically the U.S. senate, specifically the Supreme Court, specifically the administrative state, and I would argue they really control the media and the media narrative in the country as well. So when one extremist faction that is actively shredding our Constitution, actively destroying norms about separation of powers in our country, when that's what's happening every day, when American citizens are being knocked to the ground, when American ministers are having gas balls shot at their head. And Bari Weiss thinks the only thing we got to talk about is the far left has gone too far again, my goodness, someone said the word Latinx in a faculty lounge. And. And 2017. Let's do another story on that. It's totally bizarre. So that's her one big idea. Her other big idea is Israel can do no wrong. Anyone who ever criticizes Israel is an anti Semite far left extremist. That's her other big idea, and that is appealing to certain political factions as well. Not news, but it meets an Ideological agenda. Okay, well, so what's the real message for you and for me? I think the message is don't waste time sending resumes to big media companies or don't put all your eggs in one basket. The beauty. And here's where I will give Barry Weiss credit. She famously quit the New York Times and she just said, I'm going to create my own thing. She started with a newsletter, unsubstack. She then started with podcasts. She then hired other people. She did bring in investors. You don't have to get that fancy. But she built her own media company from, from the ground up, using basically free tools. Substack is a free tool. YouTube is a free tool. TikTok that I'm on right now is a free tool. For the most part, it's free for distribution. You're not buying time the way a TV preacher buys time on the local ABC affiliate on Sunday morning. It's a free tool. So that's really my advice to you, is spend time using media tools that are free. Now, it's not free in the sense that you can snap your finger and it's done. You got to invest your time and you might want to invest in an idea microphone, as I have here, and lights. And you may want different cameras from time to time, but you don't have to. You could simply use your cell phone. And yet no one's going to give you a nice paycheck day one. But my, my big advice to any young person today who comes to me and says, well, tj, I want to be a talk show host or I want to be a news analyst, I want to be on espn. My advice to them is just start today, pick a niche, report on that, do commentary on that, interview guest in your niche and create content on a daily basis. And meanwhile, have a day job, work at Amazon Warehouse if you have, have a day job to pay your bills and then spend evenings, weekends, free time creating content, building a community of people who care about what you do building. And whether it takes a month, five months, six months, or six years, at some point it could get to the point where you can pay yourself a living wage, maybe more. Now, we're not all going to be Joe Rogan and get quarter million, quarter billion dollar payouts. We're not all going to be Alex Cooper, call me dad. We're not going to all make hundreds of millions of dollars. But rather than kill yourself sending resume tapes and demo tapes to every single network affiliate in every small town in America with the hopes of Getting that first job as a sports reporter where you have to move across the country to get a job that pays $27,000 a year and you're going to be fired six months later when they just shut news down. Start right now. Build your own media empire. This is the age of empire. I do believe that I'm trying to do it right here by doing a daily show that I then turn into 14 pieces of content, 14 editorial pieces of content, seven days a week. Now am I making billions of dollars from it? No. I mean I have a legacy business of I've got 12 million online student enrollments, but it took me a long time to get there. And that's another example of I didn't wait for a university to hire me as a public speaking and media training coach and a personal development coach. I just started making courses and I lost money for years, but ultimately it paid off. I can't tell you the best thing for you to start making courses or to make a YouTube channel or a podcast or focus all your energy really entertaining 14 second TikTok. I can't tell you what's right for you, but I can tell you the future, I believe is about individuals who create their own media companies, build an audience and then maybe CBS doesn't give you $150 million, maybe Spotify doesn't give you a quarter billion dollars, but more opportunities flow your way, more income flows your way and when you own your own show, nobody can find inspire you. That's what I like about my show and that's what I think is really meaningful to people in the long run. So please, if you have an interest in media, communicating or just if you have a muffler repair shop, you need to think of yourself as a media company because that's how you communicate with customers. Whether you're trying to sell more mufflers or you're a full time journalist or commentator, you're trying to sell your ideas to the largest audience possible so that you can then sell to advertisers and sponsors and partnerships. So I want you to really develop that entrepreneurial mentality. Even if you don't think of yourself as an entrepreneur, even if you think I just want to be a straight, serious journalist and work for the Financial Times one day. Okay? But I'm convinced that five years from now, the number one way to get attention from an editor at the Financial Times or any other publication is when they see your writing in a substack, that a newsletter or some other platform and they've been reading it for a while and they like your ideas and they see the massive following you have created. That's how you're going to get jobs in traditional media in the future. It's pretty much already happening. You don't get a job from the traditional media anymore unless you already have a huge following that you have built for yourself. So thank you for watching me, but I hope that more of you will spend time creating content and then pitching me saying, hey tj, come watch my new show. I will happily take a look at it.