To say that reports of an imminent deal between actors and studios were greatly exaggerated is an understatement… would be an understatement. Talks that had reportedly been progressing nicely between the AMPTP and the Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA over the last several days didn’t just fade away this week. They blew up as the AMPTP walked …
The fact that the sudden deal this week between Charter and Disney came as a surprise even as “Monday Night Football” loomed tells us everything we need to know about the inhospitable state of the media industry right now. Like the 13 days that Kennedy and Khrushchev faced off over Cuba in 1962, the 10 …
The Hollywood strikes got real this week, although it’s unclear how the latest machinations between the Writers Guild of America and the AMPTP will ultimately affect what still seems like an intractable gulf. On the positive front, Tuesday brought a much needed sit-down between WGA negotiators and AMPTP President Carol Lombardini, who showed up with …
“I’m pleased with how much we’ve gotten done in such a short period of time, but I also know we have a lot more to do.” – Disney CEO Bob Iger It’s increasingly clear that Disney CEO Bob Iger is in transformation mode. And the calmer, gentler Bob is giving way to the new Bob …
With the Upfronts and Newfronts now in the rearview mirror, the buzz is that brands and agencies are leaving more dollars in their coffers to play the scatter market amid a fast-changing media landscape. That makes perfect sense. And it’s also potentially good news for the connected TV marketplace, whose primary octane is programmatic buying …
The idea that HBO would license out high-profile, prestige originals to a competitor like Netflix would have been laughable only three years ago. Today, the idea makes some sense considering Warner Bros. Discovery’s mission to monetize as much library content as possible to shed merger debt and find at least $4.5 billion in synergies. This …
With fewer industry gatherings these days, we tend to pack as much discussion and debate into the ones that remain – and the StreamTV Show in Denver this week was no exception. Nearly 1,000 streaming execs, entrepreneurs, and business gurus converged on the Westin Westminster to try to derive order from an industry that seems …
Whether it’s the implosion of the RSN ecosystem or the gradual migration of sports content to streaming platforms, the entire TV sports infrastructure is experiencing its biggest sea change since the launch of ESPN in 1979. The turmoil threatens to upend the economics around live sports, even as leagues continue to extract more money than …
It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to Disney’s fiscal Q2 earnings call, which revealed plans to combine Hulu and Disney+ into a “one-app experience” in the U.S. and Canada by year-end, as well as strip enough content from its streaming services to incur $1.5 billion-$1.8 billion in impairment charges this quarter. …
Warner Bros. Discovery executives went biz-casual this week (sneakers and all) at a Los Angeles press event to unveil their new “Max” streaming service blending HBO Max and Discovery+ into a significantly retooled app that will launch in the U.S. on May 23. Prices won’t change for the old HBO Max ad-supported and ad-free tiers …
