派拉蒙併購案 開啟串流大戰新紀元

For the past decade, Paramount has been outgunned in the streaming wars, trying to keep up as tens of millions of people migrated from movie theaters and cable television and toward on-demand entertainment via the internet.

過去十年來，派拉蒙在串流媒體大戰中一直處於劣勢，努力追趕數千萬觀眾從電影院與有線電視轉向透過網路隨選娛樂的潮流。

Now the company, which owns CBS, Comedy Central, MTV and the movie studio behind “The Godfather” and “Top Gun,” will finally get much-needed reinforcements.

如今，這間旗下擁有哥倫比亞廣播公司、爆笑頻道、MTV，以及製作「教父」、「捍衛戰士」的電影公司，終於獲得急需的增援。

The $8 billion merger of Paramount and media company Skydance closed early Thursday morning, catapulting new power players to the top of Hollywood and ending a tortuous process that had lasted well over a year. Gone are the Redstones, whose family controlled CBS and Paramount Pictures for decades. In are the Ellisons. Skydance is controlled by David Ellison, a movie producer and the founder of the company who is the son of Larry Ellison, the tech titan and one of the world’s richest men.

派拉蒙與天空之舞傳媒的80億美元合併案於周四凌晨完成，將新的權力玩家推上好萊塢之巔，也結束持續長達1年多的曲折過程。這讓掌控哥倫比亞廣播公司與派拉蒙影業數十年的雷史東家族退出舞台，艾里森家族取而代之。天空之舞由電影製片人兼創辦人大衛．艾里森掌控，其為科技巨頭、世界富豪之一的賴瑞．艾里森之子。

The new owners give Paramount stronger financial wherewithal and have ushered in a set of new executives to call the shots. The result, if Skydance has its way, will be a reinvigorated competitor in an entertainment landscape that has mostly settled into place — Netflix and YouTube at the top, Disney and Amazon in the second tier, and everybody else scrambling for steady profitability, relevance or survival.

新東家為派拉蒙帶來更強的財務實力，並引入一批新高層主導決策。若一切如天空之舞所願，派拉蒙在江山已大致底定的娛樂圈將成為重振的競爭者，目前Netflix與YouTube居於頂端，迪士尼與亞馬遜位居第二梯隊，其餘所有企業都為穩定獲利、維持影響力及求生存而奮力掙扎。

The merger could also usher in a new period of dealmaking, including future corporate mergers or streaming bundles.

這樁合併也可能開啟新一波交易潮，包括未來的企業併購或串流服務捆綁方案。

The challenges, however, for the newly combined company, officially called Paramount, a Skydance Corp., are significant. Paramount derives much of its revenue from its cable networks, which are in free fall. The company’s new leaders said they want to find more than $2 billion in cost savings, a considerable challenge given that the company has gone through numerous rounds of job cuts and budget reductions. And the coming disruption from artificial intelligence raises a new series of challenges.

然而，對新合併的公司（正式名稱為派拉蒙天空之舞公司）而言，挑戰依舊嚴峻。派拉蒙大部分收入來自有線電視網路，這部分正急遽下滑。該公司新領導說正尋求節撙超過20億美元的成本，考慮到公司已歷經多輪裁員與預算削減，這是相當大的挑戰，而正在到來的人工智慧也帶來一系列新挑戰。

Much of the entertainment industry is breathing a sigh of relief that the merger is finished. Paramount will remain a stand-alone studio, and the Ellisons could potentially offer the promise of greater investment in a period when production has slowed sharply and the Peak TV era is long gone.

整個娛樂產業對於合併塵埃落定普遍鬆了一口氣。派拉蒙將繼續作為一家獨立片廠存在，而艾利森家族有可能在製作急遽放緩、電視巔峰時期早已過去的當下，為業界帶來更大規模的投資希望。

聯邦員工超過15萬人接受川普優退方案

The Trump administration is paying about 154,000 employees not to work as a result of novel resignation incentives offered to federal workers since Inauguration Day, the government’s human resources arm said Thursday.

美國政府人力資源部門周四表示，由於自總統川普就職日以來向聯邦員工提供的新型優離退方案，川普政府支付約15萬4000名不上班的員工薪資。

That estimate is the first comprehensive disclosure from the government about the scale of President Donald Trump’s effort to downsize the federal workforce.

這是政府首度全面揭露總統川普努力縮減聯邦勞動力規模所達成人數的估計值。

Still, the figure represents just a portion of the total number of workers who have left the federal government since the beginning of the Trump administration — only those who accepted an offer to resign early in exchange for many months of pay. It does not include the thousands of people who were laid off or fired.

儘管如此，這項數據僅是自川普政府開始執政以來，離開聯邦政府勞工總數的一部分——僅包括接受以早日辭職換取數月薪資支付的人。這不包括數千名被裁員或解僱的人。

While the Trump administration has not made public a complete picture of the cuts, the work of Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk amounts to the largest reduction to the federal workforce in the modern era. The government employed roughly 2.3 million nonmilitary workers at the start of the year.

雖然川普政府尚未公開裁員的完整情況，但川普及由馬斯克領導的政府效率部的工作，構成現代以來聯邦勞動力最大規模的縮減。政府在年初時僱用了大約230萬名非軍事工作者。

A spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management said that as of June, about 154,000 employees had resigned or retired early with the promise of being paid through Sept. 30 or Dec. 31, depending on the offer.

人事管理辦公室的發言人表示，截至6月，大約有15萬4000名員工已通過辭職或提前退休，獲得承諾支付至9月30日或12月31日的薪資，具體取決於他們接受的條件。

The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that works to promote best practices in the federal government, had estimated the total number of departures — voluntary resignations, layoffs and firings — to be around 148,000 as of July.

致力於推廣聯邦政府最佳實踐的非營利組織「公共服務夥伴關係」估計，截至7月，總離職人數包括自願辭職、裁員和解僱，約為14萬8000人。

The organization relied on agency announcements, court filings and media reports to track the departures. It calculated the number of separations from the resignation incentive programs to be around 80,000, which is 74,000 less than the administration’s count. The disparity underscores how little information the administration has disclosed about the scale and scope of the separations.

該組織依據機構公告、法院文件和媒體報導追蹤離職情況，計算出辭職激勵計畫的離職人數約為8萬人，比政府官方統計少7萬4000人。這一差距凸顯了川普政府對裁員規模和範圍的披露極為有限。

“We are dealing with a pitch-black battlefield where there is enormous carnage growing every day, and there’s little penlights providing us some visibility in terms of what’s happening,” said Max Stier, the CEO of the partnership. “And we need a floodlight.”

該組織執行長史戴爾表示：「我們正面對一個漆黑的戰場，每天都有巨大的損失，而我們僅靠微弱的手電筒光線來了解情況。我們需要一盞強光燈。」

The total number of departures is likely to change, with more layoffs planned and continued efforts underway in some pockets of the federal bureaucracy to rehire employees deemed essential to operations.

隨著計畫裁員更多人，及聯邦官僚機構一些部門繼續努力重新聘用被認為對營運至關重要的員工，離職總人數可能改變。