Who Owns Paramount?

Paramount is controlled by the Ellison family. Following the Skydance transaction completing in 2025, Paramount Skydance is directed by David Ellison, backed by the fortune of his father Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder. It owns Channel 5 in Britain and has an agreed, part-cleared takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Companies House holds Paramount companies dating to 1915. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Paramount?

Paramount Skydance Corporation is listed in the United States, but it is not widely controlled. The Ellison family holds the controlling position, acquired when Skydance Media merged with Paramount Global in a transaction completing in August 2025.

That deal ended one of the longest family controls in American media. Paramount had been controlled since 1987 by Sumner Redstone and then his daughter Shari Redstone, through the holding company National Amusements — a chain of cinemas that came to control a major studio.

So control passed from one family to another rather than to the market. Paramount has not had a diffuse shareholder base at any point in the last forty years.

Parent company and ownership structure

The British companies are among the oldest on this site:

• CBS ENTERPRISES (UK) LIMITED (00139268), incorporated 18 February 1915 — previously named Paramount Pictures (U.K.) Limited
• PARAMOUNT BRITISH PICTURES LIMITED (00143671), incorporated 19 April 1916
• PARAMOUNT PICTURES UK (01580904), incorporated 1981 — previously United International Pictures (UK)
• PARAMOUNT PICTURES INTERNATIONAL LIMITED (03458440) — previously Paramount Pay TV Limited

Two things follow. First, Paramount has had a British company for more than 110 years — six-figure company numbers in the 139,000s and 143,000s place these among the oldest active registrations covered here.

Second, the name has moved. The company now called CBS Enterprises (UK) was once Paramount Pictures (U.K.) Limited, and different companies carry the Paramount name today. As everywhere on this site, only the number is reliable — and the group’s 2019 merger with CBS is legible in the fact that a company once named for Paramount now carries CBS’s.

Channel 5‘s controller, incidentally, is still registered as Viacom Camden Lock Limited, a name three corporate identities out of date. That page is covered separately on this site.

Major shareholders or controlling interests

The Ellison family’s control comes through the share structure inherited from the Redstone era: Paramount has Class A voting shares and Class B non-voting shares, with the votes concentrated in a small number of hands.

That is the same device documented across this site in different national forms — Alphabet’s vote multipliers, Nike’s board-election classes, Comcast’s fixed constitutional third, Kering’s French double votes, Stellantis’ Dutch loyalty shares, Samsung’s and Hyundai’s cross-shareholdings. Paramount’s version is among the starkest: most shareholders hold stock that cannot vote at all.

Reporting on the Warner Bros. Discovery financing has noted substantial outside capital in the consortium, including from a Saudi sovereign fund. Those are financing partners in a transaction rather than controllers of Paramount.

None of this is on Companies House. The UK companies are subsidiaries of a foreign parent, and the register names neither the Ellisons nor the share classes.

Other media assets in the group

Paramount Skydance owns Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Paramount+, Pluto TV — and, in Britain, Channel 5 and My5.

Channel 5’s position is worth restating: it is the only British public service broadcaster wholly owned by a foreign commercial group, while still carrying Ofcom licence obligations on news, original commissioning and regional quotas. Those obligations survive changes of owner.

The Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, if it completes, would add HBO, Warner Bros., DC, CNN, Cartoon Network, Discovery and TNT Sports. Warner shareholders approved it in April 2026 and the US Department of Justice cleared it in June 2026, with FCC, EU and UK reviews reported outstanding. This page does not assert that it has completed. If it does, HBO Max and Paramount+ have been announced as combining, and HBO and Channel 5 would share an owner.

Ownership history

Paramount was founded in 1912 and is among the oldest surviving film studios.

• 1966 — acquired by Gulf+Western, a conglomerate, which later renamed itself Paramount Communications.
• 1994 — Viacom, controlled by Sumner Redstone, wins a contested takeover battle.
• 2005 — Viacom splits in two; 2019 — the halves recombine as ViacomCBS.
• 2022 — renamed Paramount Global.
• August 2025 — the Skydance merger completes; control passes to the Ellison family.
• 2026 — the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition is agreed and part-cleared.

The Redstone succession is the part worth understanding. Sumner Redstone’s declining health produced years of litigation over who controlled National Amusements, and therefore Paramount. His daughter Shari prevailed and then sold. Concentrated family control gives certainty until the family itself becomes the uncertainty.

Sources and verification

The UK company numbers, the 1915 and 1916 incorporations and the previous names are Companies House records and can be checked by number. They establish that Paramount has been in Britain for over a century and nothing about who owns it.

Everything material is American: SEC filings for the share classes and the Ellison holdings, the companies’ own announcements for the Skydance merger and the Warner transaction, and the DOJ’s clearance. The Warner deal was agreed but not completed as at this verification date.

Channel 5’s licence and public service obligations are matters for Ofcom. Companies House does not verify most filed information.