Ynon Kreiz begins at Paramount today with responsibility for delivering more than $6 billion in synergies from the company’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, expected to close the next day.
David Ellison retains strategy, creative direction, talent relationships, technology and capital allocation. Kreiz will run day-to-day management and the integration of the combined businesses. Paramount has already pointed to early savings from a single enterprise resource planning system, consolidated streaming technology, procurement and real estate.
According to Forbes, The larger constraint is what must stay separate. Paramount has committed to keep both studios and to invest in the creative engines of both companies. Under a settlement with 12 state attorneys general, the merged company must negotiate carriage for Paramount and Warner Bros. basic cable channels separately for five years and release at least 30 films a year. The task is to cut duplication without requiring every part of the company to operate the same way.
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| Ynon Kreiz |
Earlier roles tested the same approach at production scale. As chairman and CEO of Endemol, then the world’s largest independent television producer, he oversaw more than 10,000 hours of programming a year and franchises including Big Brother and Deal or No Deal, formats that traveled globally but were made for different broadcasters, budgets and audiences. He co-founded Fox Kids Europe, building pay-TV channels across Europe and the Middle East that operated in multiple countries and media markets rather than under a single model.
Ellison has assembled the assets. Kreiz now has to find the $6 billion across them without treating scale as a reason to make every studio, market or production company alike.