Paramount’s Big Cable Comeback: Can MTV, Comedy Central, & Nickelodeon Rise Again?

Paramount Skydance is gearing up for a bold reversal in strategy—doubling down on cable networks like MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon, even as rivals like Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery race to spin theirs off. The media giant, fresh from closing its merger with Skydance on August 7, 2025, is defying market sentiment by trying to reimagine its cable properties rather than discard them. At a time when most of the industry is pivoting exclusively toward streaming, Paramount Skydance sees value in reviving its once-dominant brands through new digital initiatives, event-driven content, and strategic partnerships. CEO David Ellison and President Jeff Shell are leveraging insights from music executives and former MTV leadership to reposition these aging networks as modern cultural touchpoints. With the linear TV ecosystem continuing its decline, the company is betting that legacy brands, creatively leveraged, can still matter—just not in the way they did before.