Skydance is firming up its post-merger television structure as the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery transaction nears its Oct. 6 close. George Cheeks, currently Chair of TV Media at Paramount, is expected to add Warner Bros. Television and Paramount Television Studios to his existing CBS Studios remit, Deadline reported.
The new chain of command
Cheeks has overseen CBS Studios since 2020, with CBS Studios President David Stapf reporting to him. In the expanded role, Warner Bros. Television Group chair and CEO Channing Dungey and Paramount Television Studios President Matt Thunell are both expected to stay on and report to Cheeks.
- CBS Studios: the clearest lane, as CBS’s primary supplier and home of Star Trek, NCIS, Fire Country, Matlock and Ghosts.
- Warner Bros. Television: historically the largest independent studio, with recent momentum from The Pitt, Ted Lasso, Rooster and Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.
- Paramount Television Studios: built from Skydance Television and Paramount’s cable units, producing the Taylor Sheridan slate and Reacher for Paramount+.
The move mirrors the combined company’s film and streaming tiers: Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg are set to run the movie studios, while HBO’s Casey Bloys is lined up to lead the HBO Max-Paramount+ combination. For the CEOs, Cheeks helps keep direct reports across film, TV and streaming roughly level with the pre-merger arrangement.
The role expansion is also expected to include some oversight of WBD cable brands, even as a settlement with 12 state attorneys general says Paramount and Warner Brothers must continue negotiating their cable packages separately. That keeps distribution questions separate even as studio oversight is consolidated.
Why this matters for buyers
Three studios under one executive could reduce overlap and set the stage for future consolidation. Warner Bros. Television and Paramount Television Studios currently share an open streaming market, sell to multiple platforms, and mine their sibling film IP. Cheeks’s background is legal and business, but he is known for creative involvement; he is credited with spotting the franchise potential of CBS’s Fire Country.
Day-to-day selling relationships may not change immediately: Dungey and Thunell stay in their jobs, and David Stapf continues at CBS Studios. The larger signal is strategic. A single TV chief can set priorities across content categories, decide where projects are pitched, and begin aligning sales approaches that currently overlap in the open streaming market.
The open question is broadcast. Warner Bros. Television has pulled back from developing for broadcast as networks increasingly keep shows in-house, but it would now be vertically integrated with CBS for the first time. That does not guarantee a shift toward CBS, since CBS Studios is already closely aligned with the network.
The Disney precedent
Further studio integration may not be quick. Disney took six years after acquiring Fox assets to fully merge 20th Television, ABC Signature and Touchstone Television, doing it in two stages. If Skydance follows that path, the next steps are more likely to be staged than sudden.
Source: Deadline
