One Skydance executive describes the mood inside the company as "the calm before the storm". The cause is arithmetic. Earlier this month, David Ellison, the 43-year-old chief executive, closed a $110bn deal that joins Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery. The new group owns two Hollywood studios that are each more than a century old, the networks HBO, MTV and Discovery, and the news outlets CBS and CNN.

It also carries more than $80bn of debt. Ellison has promised to reduce that burden within three years. He is also targeting $6bn in savings over the same period. Put simply, the company intends to cut roughly one dollar of costs for every thirteen dollars it owes, and then keep going.

Executives and financial backers say they want to avoid swingeing job losses. Yet a management memo has already warned of "difficult decisions that affect our workforce", and the company employs more than 53,000 people. "Cuts inevitably mean jobs," another executive says. What will be sold, merged or closed remains unannounced.