Holland's Departure and Bloys's Rise
Cindy Holland is leaving Paramount Skydance, where she held the position of Chair of Direct-To-Consumer, with her final day being today. She announced her exit through a company memo. The departure resolves a major question about who would lead streaming following Paramount's pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max Content, is now the likely head of the combined streaming operation. Holland indicated in her email that she and CEO David Ellison had discussed his plan for the leadership of the merged HBO Max and Paramount+ service, and that he would prioritize HBO stability, a direction she supported.[S1]
Once Ellison revealed earlier this year that HBO Max and Paramount+ would be folded into one service following the acquisition, it was clear the decision on who would run the merged streamer rested between Holland and Bloys. Both are seasoned streaming leaders at the highest level, and neither was going to answer to the other. Holland's exit leaves uncertainty for her senior lieutenants post-merger, among them Paramount+ Head of Originals Jane Wiseman, a longtime collaborator from their Netflix and Sister days who later joined her at Paramount.[S1]
Holland's Tenure and Achievements
Ellison first brought Holland on as an advisor in January 2025 to assist in shaping the streaming plan for after the Paramount merger. By August 2025 she was running the operation as Chair of Direct-To-Consumer of Paramount Skydance, with Paramount+ and Pluto under her. In her memo, Holland looked back on 13 months of work, pointing to an all-time subscriber peak for Paramount+, the strongest retention the service had ever posted, and double-digit gains in both engagement and revenue. She also cited approvals for over 40 new and returning series and standout results from Landman and Dutton Ranch.[S1]
While she was in the role, Taylor Sheridan, the mind behind Paramount+ successes including Landman, Dutton Ranch, Lioness, and Tulsa King, revealed plans to shift to NBCUniversal in January 2029. Holland was also central to landing a wide-ranging film and TV deal with the Duffer Brothers, the Stranger Things creators she had backed during her Netflix years. Her memo implied Warner Bros. Discovery may have been in Ellison's sights months before his first unsolicited bid in September 2025, at a time when Skydance Media was still awaiting regulatory clearance for the Paramount purchase.[S1]
Career Background and Endorsement
Holland's Netflix career spanned close to twenty years, nine of them as VP Original Content, a period in which she shaped the company's original programming approach and drove the scripted hits that made Netflix a force, among them House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, BoJack Horseman, The Crown, and The Queen's Gambit. Following her September 2020 Netflix exit, she served in board and advisory capacities before stepping back into an executive post in 2023 as Global CEO of Sister, the company founded by Elisabeth Murdoch and Jane Featherstone. She stayed 15 months, then became Senior Advisor at Skydance.[S1]
Holland's memo offered her complete backing for the WBD combination, saying she had joined Paramount out of belief in its businesses and that pairing it with Warner Bros. Discovery is what best serves artists and audiences around the world. She said she looked forward to what the team would achieve in the coming chapter. Paramount CEO David Ellison called Holland one of the industry's most outstanding executives, crediting her with lifting Paramount+ to new heights, reshaping Pluto TV, bolstering the content and sports lineup, and assembling a remarkable team and a solid foundation for what lies ahead.[S1]
