EXCLUSIVE: The CBS leadership team is staying intact. With George Cheeks, formerly President and CEO of CBS, becoming the only member of Paramount Global’s top executive suite to transition to post-Skydance acquisition Paramount, Deadline can reveal that his lieutenants, Amy Reisenbach, President of CBS Entertainment, and David Stapf, President of CBS Studios, also are staying put as they both have signed new three-year contracts. With the latest extension, Stapf will become the longest-tenured head of a TV Studio in recent memory, eclipsing Peter Roth’s 22-year run atop Warner Bros. TV.
Reisenbach and Stapf continue to report to Cheeks, now Chair of TV Media for Paramount, who oversees all CBS divisions and the company’s cable networks. Their contract renewals were done before the merger was completed, sources said. Like with any big-ticket items, the Skydance leadership were briefed on the re-ups, I hear.
With sweeping management changes across the other divisions of Paramount Global post-merger, CBS has been an island of stability and continuity.
Stapf, who started at the CBS network, has been with the company for 26 years and head of CBS Studios since its September 2004 creation as then-Paramount Network Television from the merger of CBS Productions and Paramount Television Productions.
Reisenbach, who started at CBS Studios, recently marked her 20th anniversary at the company. She has worked alongside Stapf for all 20 of those years, most recently in her current role as CBS Entertainment President since she was named to the job to the November 2022. The duo are known for their close collaboration while also getting along well with their boss of five-and-a-half years, Cheeks.
And then there is CBS’ continuous ratings strength, finishing 2024-25 as the most watched broadcast network in primetime for a 17th straight season with CBS Studios as its main studio supplier.
The strong performance, acknowledged by the new Paramount brass, has translated into confidence in the CBS team of Cheeks, Reisenbach and Stapf who have now all been locked in for the next several years.
“Taylor Sheridan is working and CBS prime is working — those two places are working,” Paramount President Jeff Shell told Deadline at a post-merger press event in Los Angeles last month. “Everything else is not working optimum the way it should be so that is a huge priority.”
The past three seasons, CBS launched the #1 new show on broadcast in Fire Country, Tracker and Matlock, respectively; last season, CBS launched 4 of the top 5 new shows, including #1 new comedy Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.
At the same event, Shell also expressed the new leadership’s commitment to CBS continuing to program the 10 PM hour, which has been important to Reisenbach and Cheeks. Shell stressed that programs in the hour have to perform both on the linear network and on streaming to keep the time slot viable, noting that CBS’ 10 p.m. dramas have been doing that well.
That is part of a multi-platform strategy under Cheeks, with a number of CBS’ highly-rated series, including Tracker and the CBS Studios-produced Fire Country, Matlock and Ghosts, being also high performers on Paramount+.
Outside of primetime, CBS’ daytime lineup, also overseen by Reisenbach, finished as No.1 for the 39th consecutive season and successfully launched the first daytime drama in 25 years, Beyond the Gates. (CBS has been No.1 in late-night too but is exiting the talk show space with the pending cancellations of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Both Cheeks and Shell have pointed to the time period’s challenging economics as the reason.)
Last year, Reisenbach and Cheeks implemented a new, long-term development strategy for CBS that involves ordering series well in advance to give them a longer runway and stronger promotional push.
In the post-merger structure, CBS Studios’ primary focus remains supplying the CBS broadcast network while still being able to do streaming series for Paramount+ and outside streamers when an opportunity presents itself.
The studio’s top franchise, NCIS, which has produced more than 1,000 episodes to date, is an illustration of that. It recently introduced franchise expansions with NCIS Origins for CBS and and NCIS: Tony & Ziva for Paramount+.
CBS Studios also is behind the commercially successful CSI franchise which ran on CBS, and the Star Trek franchise, which has been a cornerstone of the Paramount+ slate alongside the Taylor Sheridan universe.
Upcoming series include Starfleet Academy for Paramount+, the Little House on the Prairie reboot for Netflix, as well as two new franchise expansions for CBS, Blue Bloods offshoot Boston Blue and Fire Country spinoff Sheriff Country.
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