David Ellison took the stage in a converted Chelsea loft Tuesday night not to dazzle, but to converse — a deliberate pivot from the spectacle-driven norm of TV upfronts as he pitches advertisers on a reimagined Paramount built around storytelling precision rather than scale.
The setting itself signaled intent: no Radio City Music Hall, no Javits Center cavern, just a few hundred ad executives gathered around steel tables at Storied NYC for what Paramount billed as a partnership dinner, the first in a series of intimate gatherings stretching from Los Angeles to Chicago and back to New York. This was not the usual upfront barrage of sizzle reels and celebrity cameos, though those were present — Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser teasing the May 15 debut of Yellowstone spinoff Dutton Ranch, Ronny Chieng fumbling over the name “Omnicom” while joking the network was holding his family hostage, Wyclef Jean closing the night with a set that felt more like an afterthought than an finale.
What anchored the evening was Ellison’s core argument, repeated from his CinemaCon appearance just days prior: in a fragmented media landscape where attention is the scarcest commodity, the only path forward lies in aligning storytelling with marketing so deeply that ads cease to feel like interruptions and instead become part of the narrative experience. “We believe deeply in the power of stories to entertain and to connect and inspire audiences everywhere,” he told the room, echoing remarks made to theater owners in Las Vegas where he pledged at least 30 annual theatrical releases once the Warner Bros. Discovery distribution deal concludes.
This philosophy isn’t abstract. It’s being operationalized through tools like Paramount Media Labs, the in-house creative studio highlighted by Chief Revenue Officer Jay Askinasi, which aims to use data and technology to hyper-personalize ad insertion without disrupting viewer flow. Chief Product Officer Dane Glasgow and Direct-to-Consumer chief Cindy Holland reinforced the point, arguing that few companies have built their advertising strategy from the ground up using content as the foundation rather than bolting it onto an existing platform — a subtle dig at rivals whose ad businesses grew alongside scale-first streaming plays.
The timing is deliberate. With Warner Bros. Discovery poised to hold its own upfront in a few weeks, Paramount is moving early and in fragments, avoiding the noise of the traditional May upfront week while signaling confidence in its post-merger trajectory. Nine months after Skydance completed its acquisition of the studio, Ellison framed the moment as both a validation and a launchpad: “We launched Paramount Skydance nearly nine months ago, and we really couldn’t be more excited with the progress and momentum we’ve achieved,” he said, positioning the company as a renewed force in creative empowerment and technological enablement.
Yet beneath the optimism lies a tension familiar to legacy studios navigating transformation. While Ellison champions theatrical commitment and premium storytelling, the real test will be whether this narrative-driven ad model can scale without sacrificing the very intimacy and customization that defined these early gatherings. The shift from spectacle to conversation may resonate with Madison Avenue’s growing fatigue over blanket CPM buys, but it also asks advertisers to invest in a vision still being built — one where the promise of resonance hinges on execution that has yet to be proven at network scale.
For talent, the message was both reassuring and pointed. Reilly and Hauser framed the Dutton Ranch premiere not just as a continuation of the Yellowstone universe but as a narrative inflection point — “new allies, new enemies, more at stake” — language that mirrored Ellison’s own corporate narrative of renewal amid challenge. The presence of stars across film, television, and comedy underscored a deliberate effort to showcase depth across the Paramount portfolio, from franchises to unscripted to sports-adjacent programming like the appearances from JJ Watt and Elle Chapman noted in earlier stops.
the evening was less about revealing new slate details — many of which had already been teased — and more about demonstrating a shift in tone. By choosing dialogue over decibels, Paramount sought to reframe its value proposition not as a volume player in the attention economy, but as a precision operator banking on the enduring power of story to cut through the noise. Whether that bet pays off will depend less on the eloquence of its pitch and more on whether the technology, talent, and trust behind it can deliver on the promise that storytelling, when done right, doesn’t just entertain — it converts.
Why is Paramount holding smaller, localized upfront events instead of one large national showcase?
Paramount is opting for intimate, city-specific gatherings to foster deeper conversation with advertising partners and avoid the noise of the traditional upfront week, reflecting a strategic shift toward personalized engagement over scale.
How does Paramount plan to align storytelling with advertising in practice?
Through initiatives like Paramount Media Labs, the company is using data and technology to enable hyper-personalized ad insertion that aims to feel native to the content experience rather than disruptive.