Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Early last week, I thought, “I really hope there aren’t any new streaming launches because I’d love to find a longer view article for this week.” The closest risk was Hulu raising and lowering prices, so phew, we made it. Then, when I saw multiple descriptions of revenue in the
Records have nearly been smashed! After decades in the doldrums, in this year’s Oscar’s telecast—for achievement in the year 2018—popular movies made a comeback. Here’s Todd VanDerWerff explaining for Vox: For the first time since 2012, the total domestic box office of the eight films nominated for Best Picture topped
Netflix moves the PR needle. Even I jumped into the Twitter maelstrom to generate clicks based on their two announcements last week, especially the decision to increase prices on US customers. The problem, for me, is that Twitter, as a medium, is really bad at digging into numbers. It isn’t
If you judged importance by following my Twitter feed, the most important story of the week is Netflix and Netflix and Netflix. For business leaders plotting the future of entertainment, though, remember to always look for the “signal” through the noise. A lot of Netflix news is Netflix noise. “Buzziness”
(To read my vision of a super-mega-conglomerated future—where six companies control all media, entertainment, technology and communications, click here.) Maybe I spent too much time on Wednesday’s essay. While I haven’t been working on it non-stop, I’ve been dabbling with it since December. Planning the next 12 years of mergers
It’s been two weeks into the new year, but M&A is back! Well, not officially. As I wrote about in December, despite the first six months of movement (with all its tricky ways to calculate), the last six months were relatively quiet in M&A in media and entertainment. (The biggest
(To read previous “themes”, click here: Theme 1: It’s Not Data, It’s Decision Making Theme 2: It’s Not Value Capture, It’s Value Creation) Imagine an officer in the military addressing his troops. The time period doesn’t matter, be it the Peloponnesian War of ancient times or the Iraq War of
This week was CES in Las Vegas. It seems like everyone had a great time on Twitter. Sarcastic question: do we need a few MORE conference in entertainment? The biggest “news” seems to be that TV screens are rollable now! Meanwhile, the implications for the steaming wars were less obvious.
(If you missed yesterday’s post, click here.) Let’s continue with where we left off yesterday. The risk for eliminating theaters and associated early windows (home entertainment and pay-per-view) is in the hundreds of millions of dollar range. So can Disney make that up by releasing new Star Wars films directly and exclusively on Disney
Last week, Bob Iger said in an interview with Barron’s that Disney had no plans to start releasing new Star Wars films—by which he means the ones that will come after Episode 9, releasing later this year—on Disney Plus, their soon-to-be streaming service. I agreed with this move. Some didn’t.