Paramount CEO Reportedly Negotiated Bundle Partnership Options With Peacock Without Board’s Knowledge

Consumers who follow the streaming world were surprised earlier this year by news that Paramount had engaged with NBCUniversal regarding a potential team-up of their streaming services Paramount+ and Peacock. Speculation became rampant about what a deal could look like, and what it would mean for the future of an industry that will almost certainly need to experience some consolidation to survive moving forward. But, a new report from The Wall Street Journal explains why those discussions never went any further, and how they could have contributed to the anticipated ouster of Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish.

Key Details:

• Several possible combinations of Paramount+ and Peacock were discussed by executives of both companies.
• Bakish did not keep Paramount’s board of directors or controlling shareholder Shari Redstone updated on the talks during the process.
• Redstone described the terms negotiated by Bakish as bad for Paramount, and did not want any complications to hold up its merger with Skydance.

News of a possible partnership between Paramount+ and Peacock first arose in February, though details on what the team-up would look like were scarce. The WSJ reports that a deal could have been structured in several ways; Peacock could have licensed all of Paramount+’s content — including live sports — or the two streamers could have fully integrated via a joint venture that NBCU’s parent company Comcast would control.

While a potential deal between two of the biggest legacy media companies in the world was shocking enough, the new Wall Street Journal reporting indicates that there might have been an even bigger surprise happening behind the scenes. The WSJ indicates that while Bakish was heading up the discussions on the Paramount side, he did not provide company controlling shareholder Shari Redstone or the company’s board of directors updates during the negotiations. When he presented the terms he had settled on with Comcast, Redstone found that they were too favorable to Comcast and worried that any deal might complicate a merger between Paramount and Skydance Media.

WSJ also reports that this is not the first time that Comcast and Paramount have had discussions about combining their two streaming products. In 2021, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts asked Bakish if he’d be interested in a European partnership between Paramount+ and Peacock. Bakish declined, ironically believing at the time that such a deal could make selling Paramount Global more difficult.

Did Comcast Talks Lead to Bakish’s Ouster from Paramount?

Bakish is reportedly not long for the CEO chair at Paramount. Rumors began to circulate late last week that the CEO was on his way out at Paramount and that the change could happen as early as Monday. Apparently, Redstone’s displeasure with not being kept in the loop regarding negotiations with Comcast could be a contributing factor.

Despite whatever friction the failed negotiations caused, there are certainly other issues at play between Bakish and Redstone. Paramount has been engaged with Skydance Media in exclusive negotiations regarding a merger of the two companies for almost a month, and Skydance recently presented its final offer to the Paramount board. Bakish has reportedly raised concerns over the deal’s value to shareholders in private, which has likely not gained him any esteem in Redstone’s eyes.

Customer frustration regarding the difficulty of locating desirable content shows why streaming bundles are increasingly important, and Bakish was certainly trying to satisfy consumer demands by attempting to bring his streamer together with Peacock in some form. Such a platform could have ended confusion regarding where viewers can stream “Yellowstone” (currently on Peacock) and shows set in the same universe like “1883” (now found on Paramount+), and it would have carried an impressive array of NFL and other live sports rights. But talks on such a combination became another point of contention between Paramount’s CEO and its controlling shareholder, and now that Bakish is on his way out those negotiations seem poised to come to naught.