Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Last Monday, as I was assembling the flotsam and jetsam of news stories that compiled the week of news that was, I noticed a trio of stories about unions in Hollywood. SAG-AFTRA elected a new president, the Writer’s Guild East had a fight over its future, and then a little
Folks, last week I promised you a show down of straight-to-streaming films, and by golly, we got it. Given the datecdotes, Nielsen ratings and creative auspices of the films involved, the battle lived up to the hype. (Reminder: The streaming ratings report compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership
Jerry Seinfeld had a terrific joke about the news: somehow there was always enough for the daily newspaper. Never more, never less. Well, the internet blew that up by magnitudes. It turns out we–as a society/community–can crank out tons of words on anything. But is it all “news”? Maybe? Probably
Let me level with you: if Netflix took over the entire rankings list for another week—like they did the last two weeks—I probably would have quit. That level of dominance ceases to be impressive and just starts to be boring. (Fine, I wouldn’t have actually quit. But I would have
Inspired by DVDs of old, whenever I dig into a particularly juicy topic—especially for another outlet—I write up a director’s commentary article for my own website. (Speaking of which, how does Disney+ not have director’s commentary versions of every MCU film? You’re telling me a cut of Avengers: Endgame with
The last time I wrote about price increases was last November, when Netflix decided to up their monthly prices by $1. At the time, I thought this was big news because it really signified a change in focus for Netflix. The news that Hulu will raise prices by a similar
Manifest had quite the summer. The show of the summer, if you will. It went from cancelled on NBC—with a cliffhanger—to thriving on Netflix. Most headlines/coverage repeated something along the lines that this proved that Netflix could make hits where broadcasters like NBC had failed. At least, that’s the narrative.
Hollywood can have a short memory. All it takes is one good weekend, and suddenly Hollywood is back! Since we went long on Wednesday writing about Apple, app stores and distribution fees, here’s all the other stories that caught my eye in the realm of entertainment business strategy. (Apologies for
I hope everyone had a relaxing Labor Day weekend. (Or Monday, if you aren’t in America.) Now that the summer is behind us—with lots of writers/execs taking off for August—maybe some really juicy news stories will drop. In the meantime, I had my eyes on Apple, which made some small,
Folks, let’s call it. This is the week that Netflix won the streaming wars. Last week, Netflix owned almost every spot on the TV lists. This week they went even further: they have every TV series on the top Original and Acquired Nielsen lists. This war is over. Kidding! The