Explaining the Business of Entertainment
I leave for one week of vacation and come back to not one, but two big merger announcements. If all the merger news of the last two weeks shows us anything, it’s the value of top tier content. And what’s the easiest way—allegedly—to do that? By mining “IP” to make
What a time to be alive and writing a column on the business of entertainment. I get back from vacation, and not only do I get a mega Hollywood divorce, but I get a mega Hollywood marriage. In the same story! This deal—AT&T selling Warner Media to Discovery—has me bursting
Ever get a phrase stuck in your head? Like an ear worm? I had one of those this week, as I debated between anointing ViacomCBS, Comcast or Discovery as the “most important” story of the week. To exorcise that mental demon, and to mix metaphors, I plan to debunk it
This week, Them, from Prime Video made it up to second place on the “Originals” top ten list from Nielsen. Which left me wondering: Is Amazon’s Prime Video having their best stretch ever? Let’s find out. That plus Thunder Force’s “good” debut, The Handmaid’s Tale having an (allegedly) strong debut,
Two and a half months back, I made a bold call. Looking at the pace of vaccinations, the growth of that growth and the incredible effectiveness of vaccines, I said, “By May, theaters will be back!” Since the only thing more valuable than making predictions is checking to see if
Folks, we’re on the cusp of a big moment for our data analysis. For the first time, I’ll be able to compare the latest week’s Nielsen’s rankings to the previous year’s trends. Combined with the fact that we have more than years worth of Netflix Top Ten data too—I use
With all the earnings news last week–including reports from Amazon, Google, Apple, Comcast, Discovery and more–you’d think we’d have gotten really juicy news. But I didn’t see it. Lots of “interesting” stuff, but nothing truly groundbreaking. However, two separate product announcements drew my attention. And I’ll be honest, I think