How David Ellison Can Reinvent His Cable Brands Without Cable
Observer ·
David Ellison has inherited cable brands with audiences, libraries and talent relationships. Brandon Katz argues that their next act should focus on what they offered viewers, rather than how viewers watched.
David Ellison’s sprawling portfolio of Skydance brands runs longer than the bathroom line at a Rush concert. After combining Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery on Oct. 6 , he has inherited cable networks that once defined popular culture. Most concerning: The old distribution model is shrinking. In May 2025, streaming surpassed broadcast and cable combined in Nielsen ’s U.S. television measurement for the first time.
Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz put the combined company’s annual revenue at nearly $70 billion and are targeting at least $6 billion in annual savings within three years . The proposals below are an argument for how Ellison could use that scale, not initiatives the company has announced.
The cost cutting has already begun. Skydance offered some employees voluntary buyouts and announced a five-day office requirement in an Oct. 26 memo reviewed by Reuters . With the combined company expected to shoulder approximately $80 billion in debt, Ellison has to preserve cable’s cash flow while developing what comes next.
Skydance will report its third-quarter results Nov. 9 . The reporting period ended before the Oct. 6 merger, so those results will not represent a full quarter of the combined business. The call could nevertheless give Ellison another opportunity to explain his plans for the networks.
Much like ringtones and the original Four Loko formula, cable television is on its way out. But that doesn’t mean that once proud cable brands Comedy Central , MTV , BET , TNT and TBS are worthless in this modern media hierarchy.
Paramount leadership previously said it won’t be selling off cable networks. To extract value out of these declining assets, the company needs to focus more on what they once provided audiences rather than how they were watched. That way, Skydance can reinvent these linear brands into something valuable. Specifically low-cost, digital cultural destinations.
Traditional media long prioritized the company and/or institution above all else. The brand was the star, cultivating the channel, recruiting appropriate talent, and delivering tailored content. You tuned into ESPN , not necessarily for anchor Scott Van Pelt himself.
Digital media flips the equation. A creator’s authenticity is the most powerful currency with audiences, before brands swoop in with fancy offers of infrastructure and resources. Talent creates the content, which is distributed directly to viewers, develops a following, and then teams with bigger brands as their popularity rises.
The latter is an easier entry point for talent, but more crowded competition in breaking through. For Skydance, it can mean a smaller upfront investment, more flexibility and built-in audiences. It’s not dissimilar to what Fox is doing with Tubi ’s Stubios , which is a creator talent scouting and development pipeline.
Nothing can stop the Grim Reaper from collecting cable’s corpse. But Skydance has a valuable opportunity to create cost-effective cultural hubs around these brands for digital-native viewers.
Across television ( South Park , The Daily Show , Chappelle’s Show , Key & Peele, etc.) and signature stand-up specials ( Mitch Hedberg , Amy Schumer , Kevin Hart , etc.), Comedy Central’s strengths were always identifying talent, building careers, and developing stars. Here’s the rub: Emerging comedians no longer need Comedy Central to reach audiences. TikTok , Instagram , YouTube and podcasts do that for you.
But the brand can still help independent creators in ways they can struggle to build organically: development support, production investment, film and TV crossover opportunities, and a shot at star-level compensation.
Skydance can reposition Comedy Central as the definitive curator of emerging online comedic talent. It should be the go-to destination for young audiences to find the funniest creators across (deep breath) TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snap , Telegram , WhatsApp Channels, Discord , Reddit , Pinterest , Threads , and even X /Twitter (I’m aging myself with that last one).
Scout and recruit a rotating roster of about 20 promising online creators to develop recurring social formats: sketches, themed showcases, challenges, crossovers, livestreaming events, etc. Allow them to continue posting on their own channels while contributing to Comedy Central’s new-look social accounts. It’s only a good thing to start with more entry points for fans. Open up the historical IP vault for new spins on familiar material (please revive Drunk History ). The aim is to build mutually beneficial partnerships.
Most importantly, treat this as a developmental minor league where successful talent can be strategically promoted. Successful social clips and creator showcases develop into episodic digital series and podcasts. Continued success warrants expansion into stand-up specials, live events and comedy tours. Then you get your true breakout with original television series, films and broader IP access.
The digital world is dominated by passionate subcultures that reward authentic and distinctive voices. In this way, Comedy Central becomes a mix of SportsCenter for comedy discovery and Saturday Night Live for creators.
Music discovery has been democratized, removing MTV’s first-mover advantage from the 20th century. But MTV’s ethos wasn’t necessarily music videos. It was the ability to shape youth culture and determine what was cool. Let’s rebuild that.
Local: Younger audiences often encounter news through social media. Why not highlight bubbling music scenes with market-specific coverage? Emerging artists, regional music festivals, producer profiles, songwriting processes, tour diaries and more built around music epicenters. Close to home isn’t just a theme. It’s a tactic.
Internet culture: Reimagine successful unscripted MTV formats for the chronically online. MTV should be where young scrollers go for real-time interpretations of virality across trends, memes, vernacular, etc. Think Urban Dictionary meets Tosh.0 blended with Subway Takes .
Lifestyle and identity: Recruit niche creators as correspondents covering fashion, relationships, fitness, college life, early careers and other life stages. Audiences always want to see themselves mirrored on screen.
While MTV plays to Gen Z and Gen Alpha, VH1 should target millennials with pop culture nostalgia. Traditional Hollywood has spent 15 years mining the 1980s and ’90s to great effect.
The key isn’t to try and reclaim the throne as the only cultural trendsetter. It’s about building a dynamic social feed driven by young taste-testing personalities.
BET offers the clearest connective tissue between audience discovery, free streaming and paid customers.
The brand platforms Black culture, develops emerging talent, and serves underrepresented audiences. The streaming boom grew the volume of culturally specific entertainment, yet all that volume and choice made actually finding something to watch a headache. BET should once again serve as a cultural compass. This time, across three connected strategies:
Discovery: Social and digital programming populated by creators, music, interviews, cultural commentary and recommendations. Much like the Comedy Central plan, give creators access to past IP (please revive 106 & Park).
Engagement: Funnel viewers to Paramount’s free, ad-supported streaming television service (FAST) Pluto TV , which already curates culturally specific programming. (Pluto TV, Tubi and the Roku Channel together accounted for 5.7 percent of U.S. television viewing in Nielsen’s May 2025 measurement.) Content blocks can be extensions of specific themes, communities, genres, and personalities: HBCU culture, Black Horror/Comedy, current events, R&B, Eddie Murphy , etc.
Monetization: Try and convert that free engagement into BET+ subscriptions, or whichever consolidated streamer Skydance eventually settles on. If Tyler Perry , whose multi-year production deal with BET Media Group runs through 2028, wants to throw his muscle behind this plan, even better.
All of this lays the groundwork for BET to become a full-funnel brand for Skydance.
Thus far, I’ve focused on reinventing cable brands as digital assets. But TNT/TBS should return to developing long-running, broad-appeal sitcoms and procedurals. Just with an eye more towards HBO Max and Paramount+.
Legacy sitcoms and procedurals can deliver massive viewership that helps drive subscriber retention. TBS and TNT cable titles such as Animal Kingdom , The Closer , Rizzoli & Isles, The Last Ship and Major Crimes offer a library of shows built for habitual viewing.
The problem is that streaming services have struggled to consistently develop their own successful versions. There are exceptions, of course: The Pitt , The Lincoln Lawyer , Cobra Kai , Ted Lasso . Yet there are also quite a few one-season misfires such as Disjointed , Reboot , On Call , Pulse and others. Where is streaming’s version of the Law & Order or Chicago universes? Can the medium ever support sitcoms that run for 100-plus episodes? HBO chief Casey Bloys has previously discussed the importance of building on The Pitt ’s model. The show delivers 15 episodes per season, compared with the eight to 10 common among streaming dramas.
Rather than sink inordinate amounts of money chasing the next Stranger Things , leverage TBS & TNT as a development pipeline for habitual comfort shows like these.
Is all of this easier said than done? Undoubtedly. There’s risk in relying on fickle social platforms you don’t own outright, and corporate cultures don’t transform at the snap of a finger. Did I provide some blinding glimpses of the obvious? Absolutely. Cable bad, digital popular ain’t exactly rocket science. Will this replace the lucrative financials of cable’s heyday? No shot.
But these strategies are rooted in commercial logic. Comedy Central can still discover new comedians, MTV can still calculate what’s cool, BET can still amplify Black culture, and TNT/TBS can still develop popular programming. None of it requires the archaic cable TV industry at its center. The value unlock comes from applying these capabilities to new forms.
It’s not about rescuing the past. It’s about using what worked to build for the future.