CBS News staffers are “freaking out” over a mandate Thursday from the new boss of parent company Paramount Skydance ordering all workers to return to the office five days a week ahead of an expected cost-cutting bloodbath, The Post has learned.
David Ellison, who completed the long-stalled $8.4 billion merger with the media giant last month, gave employees the option to return to their desks full-time or take a buyout, according to the memo obtained by The Post.
“People are freaking out and wondering if they’ll survive at the company until Thanksgiving,” one source close to the situation said.
“They are hoping to get a lot of attrition.”
Paramount Skydance — home to ratings-challenged CBS News, along with struggling cable channels MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon — is looking to slash at least $2 billion from the budget, The Post exclusively reported last month.
Currently, each business unit has its own work-from-home policy.
Ellison said the “phased return-to-office” will start in January and would mandate employees to return to work in their Los Angeles and New York offices five days a week.
“I believe that in-person collaboration is absolutely vital to building and strengthening our culture and driving the success of our business,” the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrote.
“Our people are the key to winning, and being together helps us innovate, solve problems, share ideas, create, challenge one another, and build the relationships that will make this company great.
Those who refuse were offered a severance package Thursday. They have until Sept. 15 to make a decision.
A similar plan will be announced for workers in offices outside of LA and New York, including international employees who had been hired for fully remote roles. They will also be offered buyouts in 2026.
The Post reached out to Paramount Skydance for comment.
Sources told The Post that space at CBS News’ headquarters at the Broadcast Center in Hell’s Kitchen is already cramped.
The dingy facility will also have to make room for Gayle King and the rest of the crew from “CBS Mornings,” which will be leaving its plush digs at 1515 Broadway in Times Square, The Post exclusively reported in March.
The fears over job security at CBS News were further amplified after reports surfaced that Ellison was on the verge of offering Bari Weiss a top job at the Tiffany Network.
Some CBS News staffers were “apoplectic” over the prospect of Weiss — an avowedly pro-Israel journalist — gaining editorial control, according to Status.
The former New York Times opinion editor, who quit in 2020 after blasting the paper’s “illiberal environment,” has been in talks with Ellison about acquiring her startup the Free Press in a deal valued at up to $200 million.
The Puck News website reported late Wednesday that the deal is in advanced stages and likely to close soon.
“Not happy AT ALL,” one person familiar with the mood inside CBS told Status News, adding that many journalists are bracing for impact.
One prominent journalist outside CBS went even further, telling Status they would resign rather than work under Weiss, summing up the situation with a biting line: “Good night, and bad luck.”
Ellison has declined to comment on the talks.
Paramount’s job cuts, slated for mid November, will coincide with Paramount Skydance’s third-quarter earnings, as well as an investor presentation by new management on plans for the newly-formed company, a source said at the time.
New Paramount Skydance President Jeff Shell, the former NBCUniversal boss, had instructed his lieutenants to begin making “kill lists” ahead of the mass layoffs, The Post exclusively reported last month.
Shell told journalists at a press conference in Los Angeles after the Skydance-Paramount merger was finalized that the cuts will be “painful” and will take place in one fell swoop.
“We do not want to be a company that has layoffs every quarter,” Shell said, citing constant waves of cuts under Paramount’s previous leadership.
“So, it’s going to be painful. It’s always hard, but we don’t want to be a company that every quarter is laying people off. It is important for us to get done what we’re doing in one big thing and then be done with it.”
