The Paramount Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has been going about as well as expected. The stock has been dropping, down about 35% over the past year, and questions swirl in how the new mega corporation will solve its massive debt problem that lingers over like a guillotine ready to drop.

With its third-quarter fiscal report, Skydance has now disclosed its cost-cutting initiative that it says will save at least $6 billion over the next three years.

Mentioned are:

• $2.2 billion – Corporate and administrative costs including eliminating redundant management, consolidating duplicated back-office roles, and downsizing its real estate footprint. Short version, job cuts and selling property. Remember how all of those Attorneys General cave to save jobs?

• $1.4 billion – Merging back-end tech, database architectures, and engineering operations, as well as automated AI workflows for transactional support and enforcing a strict five-day return-to-office policy. Paramount+ and HBO Max are expected to merge, so consolidating tech makes sense. That will also mean fewer individuals will be needed to manage two tech stacks, so more layoffs. A return-to-office policy is laughable as that increases property costs instead of allowing individuals to work from wherever and being able to reduce office space.

• $1.4 billion – This is focused on procurement and vendor management costs. Overlapping third-party supplier contracts will be eliminated (potentially more job loss) and consolidating purchasing decisions to maximize volume discounts.

• $1 billion – Marketing and promotional expenses but leveraging cross promotion through its broadcast, streaming, and media network. Media buying will also be unified (ie more job loss).

That’s a lot to say, firing a lot of people, consolidating overlapping departments/roles, and streamlining process.