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Hey there. The still-brand-new Paramount Skydance is expected to start a painful layoff process this week, even as speculation about next steps in the Warner Bros. Discovery "auction" consumes much of the media business world's oxygen. It says a lot about the state of the business that the first four or five stories today all relate back to Paramount and David Ellison...

Jon Stewart wants to stay

Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New Yorker

Appearing together on stage at The New Yorker Festival yesterday, David Remnick asked Jon Stewart, "Your contract comes up in December. You're going to sign another one?"

Stewart said, "We're working on staying" at "The Daily Show" desk, but then he cautioned, "it's not as clear cut as all that." Stewart started to say the business is changing, perhaps alluding to Comedy Central's parent Paramount. But, Remnick said, "If it's up to you, you're staying?" Yes, Stewart said.

Remnick had brought up the political context earlier in the conversation: Jimmy Kimmel's suspension, Paramount's ownership change, perceptions of media mogul capitulation. So "what do you do" in those circumstances? "You don't compromise on what you do, and you do it till they tell you to leave," Stewart said. "That's all you can do."

 >> Bill Carter recently wrote about Stewart and the future of "The Daily Show" for LateNighter here. Scroll down for three more outstanding quotes from Stewart...

Sheridan gets poached from Paramount

Puck's Matt Belloni with the big Sunday night scoop: "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan, the mega TV producer, "has decided to leave Paramount when his film and TV commitments are up." He is setting up at NBCUniversal with Donna Langley, which "suggests that her company is still playing to win," Belloni says.

 >> I think the writing was on this wall in April when Sheridan publicly urged Ellison to keep interim co-CEO Chris McCarthy and said "I don't know of another executive that I could do this with." McCarthy left when Paramount changed hands. Belloni detailed some of the related/other reasons for Sheridan's exit here...

'Moving fast and spending big'

There are multiple profiles of Ellison in the works right now. The WSJ's version, by Joe Flint, Isabella Simonetti and Ben Fritz, came out over the weekend, and said he's "moving fast and spending big to remake Hollywood."

The trio quoted former Paramount movie chief Sherry Lansing, now a PSKY board member, saying, "The last eight weeks have just been thrilling to watch." And they wrote that the protracted, politically tainted regulatory review of the Paramount deal, "while frustrating, gave Ellison time to plan for his next acquisitions and start considering Warner Discovery so that he could build an entity that could truly compete with Netflix and have plenty of intellectual property to fuel a strong theatrical business."

 >> It's a great story, but this typo in the print edition is too amusing not to note: Someone (or something?) at the Journal changed Cindy Holland's name to "Cindy The Netherlands"