She’s Back! Cindy Holland at ‘New Paramount’ is About to Shake Up TV (Again)
‘Taste, vision, has done it before,’ one source says of the former Netflix exec as the market expects Ellison coffers + a star to supercharge the #7 streamer
I cover TV from L.A. I scooped The Last of Us game co-creator Neil Druckmann’s exit from the HBO series, reported on job chaos at WBD, NBCU and Paramount and interviewed Kevin Beggs about Lionsgate’s indie playbook. Email me at lesley.goldberg@theankler.com. As a paid subscriber to Series Business, you’ll receive dispatches from Lesley, Elaine Low and Manori Ravindran on the TV business. This is a standalone subscription separate from The Ankler. For access to Series Business and everything The Ankler publishes, including The Wakeup and Richard Rushfield, subscribe here.
This is the first of two stories for The Ankler on Hollywood expectations and predictions for “New Paramount.” Ashley Cullins got the view from dealmakers (for paid Ankler subscribers only). To upgrade your subscription, contact subscriptions@theankler.com.
Cindy Holland already has climbed Mount Everest.
After joining Netflix during its DVD-by-mail days, Holland ushered the streaming giant into the world of scripted originals with prestige players like House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black. That disruption, in turn, pushed the television industry into the Peak TV era as legacy media companies Disney, Warner Bros., Comcast and Paramount spent with reckless abandon and launched their own direct-to-consumer platforms in a bid to compete with Netflix.
Now, Holland (presumably) is less than 90 days away from climbing another mountain: Paramount. The woman who led Netflix’s charge away from its red envelopes and into pricey original hits (Stranger Things) and a wave of landscape-shifting overall deals (Shonda Rhimes, Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss), is, sources tell me, excited by the challenge of reinventing Paramount+.
Holland officially has been working for David Ellison as a consultant on his Skydance deal to acquire Paramount Global, but when and if the merger closes, the well-regarded executive is expected to be given oversight of Paramount+, where insiders say she will build the platform around such pillars as its Taylor Sheridan slate, Alex Kurtzman’s Star Trek franchise and CBS originals. For the rest of the TV industry, the impending return of Holland — a savvy, artist-friendly exec and dealmaker — should be considered a boon for the town’s sagging mood and perhaps its business as well.
From conversations with more than a dozen industry figures — some from within the walls of Paramount and some from outside it, all of whom requested anonymity — Holland will represent a brand new buyer in town once she officially takes over Paramount+, which has been pretty much in a holding pattern while the deal plays out. Here’s what the town is expecting and hoping for when Holland sits down at her new desk.
In today’s column, I’ve got:
Where Holland is expected to buy — and which studios stand to gain
How she’s preparing to hit the ground running if the merger closes
The uphill climb ahead at a streamer trailing far behind Netflix and Disney+
The franchises she’ll lean on — and where she may push beyond IP
The Showtime hit she’s already quietly influenced as a consultant
The key relationship she’ll need to make this all work
Why insiders are hopeful despite layoffs and low morale
The big question: Do she and Ellison want to win — or just be No. 3?
The crucial relationship Holland must cultivate to succeed in her new role
How her work at Sister (and her collaborators) could shape her new era
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