When the Skydance C-suite started being unveiled last week featuring Davis Ellison’s key lieutenants, the international piece of the puzzle was largely left unsolved.
The list of senior executives did not answer the question of who would oversee the old Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) considerable presences outside of the U.S., which incorporates hundreds of staffers around the world in streaming, TV networks like the UK’s 5 and Australia’s Network Ten, and distribution of some of the biggest movie franchises and TV shows out there.
That left international insiders we spoke with through last week feeling a bit lost, and they were none the wiser following the Ellison town hall that took place Wednesday. “Everyone is in the dark at the moment, and I think that’s probably true for almost everyone globally,” said one such Warner insider late on that day.
Slowly over the past few days, the question in terms of at least the very top of the chain has been answered but with some caveats.
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JB Perrette, one of the big winners of the $110B merger, will take on streaming and networks outside of the U.S. as part of his tongue-twisting new role: Co-Chair & Chief Business Officer, Skydance TV and Co-Chair & Chief Business Officer, Skydance Direct-To-Consumer. One insider we’ve spoken to described his role as one of the most important at the new-look Skydance, given the scope of the role.
Perrette is well known in international circles and has spent much time abroad over the past 15 years, first at Discovery where he rose up to President and CEO of Discovery Networks International, and then at the merged WBD, where as part of his President and CEO of Global Streaming & Games role he led the global rollout of HBO Max, navigating the knotty exit of HBO’s long-term output deal with Sky in the UK, Germany and Italy, for example. That one has now been resolved and HBO Max is busy building around the world and commissioning local originals under Sarah Aubrey and a team of commissioners in different countries.
Sales & Free-To-Air Chiefs Installed
Perrette’s new role does technically incorporate global distribution, but it will be his trusted new lieutenant, David Decker, who is at this particular coalface, as he has taken on the post of President of Content Sales, shopping huge franchises from the Paramount and Warner libraries including NCIS, The Big Bang Theory, The Bachelor and Star Trek around the world.
The timing is good for former WBD content sales boss Decker, with the biggest international TV market of the year, MIPCOM Cannes, well underway. He has had a packed schedule this week as buyers get their heads around the ways of the new Skydance content sales team, and we hear he is encouraging a business-as-usual approach with his sellers.
Decker is one of three new reports to Perrette, alongside Chief Revenue Officer Jay Askinasi and President, Distribution Ray Hopkins. Yet Perrette and Decker’s meaty roles still leave gaps – slightly lower down the international chain, questions remain over how territories are divided up and who looks after what.
We can today reveal that CBS Chief Operating Officer Bryon Rubin is at least temporarily taking charge of free-to-air networks 5 and Network Ten, although an announcement on a more permanent future for these nets is expected over the next few weeks.
Rubin, who has been COO and CFO of CBS since 2020, reports into new Skydance TV boss George Cheeks.
With more announcements expected shortly, it could well be that Perrette, Rubin and co are planning to install a longer-term head of free-to-air networks or a separate head of international streaming (those who could be in the frame include the likes of Paramount+ EVP Marco Nobili and 5 boss Reemah Sakaan), while it remains to be seen how the world will be divided up in terms of territory.
A week is a long time in the world of entertainment and just a few days ago it felt as though things could have panned out oh so differently. It initially appeared that the top international job would be a direct run-off between Paramount’s Kevin MacLellan and WBD’s long-serving Gerhard Zeiler.
However, Zeiler has lofty political ambitions, which could even see him become Chancellor of his native Austria, and both Zeiler and MacLellan have now confirmed their exits. MacLellan’s came just a few weeks after he detailed at a London convention how Ellison had sold him the Skydance dream. Such is the way of C-suite politics.
In the meantime, the deep-lying concerns raised by Ellison’s planned $6B synergies are of course reverberating internationally and sources we speak with are quietly cognisant that big changes could be afoot. As MIPCOM moves into day two, more international clarity is desired following a week that will go down in the annals of entertainment industry history.
Skydance declined comment.