Explaining the Business of Entertainment
(Editor’s Note: Today, I am testing a new website feature, a weekly report on streaming ratings. One of the biggest pain points of the coverage of the streaming wars seems to be that no one knows what is doing well, what is doing poorly and, frankly, what customers want. For
Last week got away from me. Fine, I got away from it by diving down a data hole. Specifically, a Covid-19 data problem. For all the forecasting being done, few people are answering the query, “Hey, when will all this end?” I’ve seen answers ranging from “Never” to “2022” to
A character in The Sun Also Rises described going into bankruptcy as happening “gradually and then all at once.” This apt description has been applied to everything from debt insolvency to failed democracies. The U.S. recovery from Covid-19 will likely feel the same way. Right now, most of the coverage
The goal this week? Keep this column under 2,000 words and not split into two parts. Can we do it? Sure. Even better? We can do it with a story most folks missed! The only challenge will be restraining myself on Covid-19 thoughts. Let’s get to it. (Sign up for
Starting last August, Nielsen began releasing a weekly American top 10 most watched list for streaming video. I’ve been using it ever since. Nielsen mixed together TV and movies, and new (“originals”), second-run and library (“acquired”) titles on the same list. In their year-end top ten list, though, Nielsen flipped
Last week’s news was notable for how much “lots of news with no news” that came across my inbox. In other words, part of me thinks that following the news closely last week probably resulted in more misunderstanding than wisdom. Which we’ll get to, but first, a few companies reported
Jeff Bezos ending his run as CEO of Amazon is certainly neé clearly neé absolutely the biggest story in business this week. Is it also the biggest story in media, entertainment and communications broadly? Sure. Bezos is a man who built Amazon to be “the everything store”. That includes your
For the last two weeks, my weekly column overflowed into two articles. I promise I won’t make this a habit…unless everyone likes it better. Let me know on Twitter. Meanwhile, here were the other stories vying for the top spot last week. But we’ll start with the story that had