Looking to save $2 billion and having handed out more than $9 billion to UFC and the South Park guys in the last two weeks, everybody knows that David Ellison’s Paramount is going to have to make some deep cuts.

Those cuts are likely going to be coming in one fell swoop, Paramount president Jeff Shell made clear Wednesday as CEO Ellison and his top team met with the press in Los Angeles a week after officially taking over from Shari Redstone in an $8.4 billion acquisition.

“We do not want to be a company that has layoffs every quarter,” Shell said, an obvious swipe at the past Paramount regime and its water-torture approach to cost- and staff-cutting. So, it’s going to be painful. It’s always hard, but we don’t want to be a company that every quarter is laying people off.”

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