Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Entertainment topics simple and complex explored in-depth.
(Welcome to my series on an “Intelligence Preparation of the “Streaming Wars” Battlefield”. Combining my experience as a former Army intelligence officer and streaming video strategy planner, I’m applying a military planning framework to the “streaming wars” to explain where entertainment is right now, and where I think it is
HBO Max launched last week! A $4 billion endeavor that required a monumental merger to make it happen. Can one measly column capture all my thoughts on HBO Max’s launch? Of course not. So here are my extra thoughts, strategic insights and, in a first, a mail bag of questions/comments
Do you remember last year before Disney+ launched and I had this series of recommendations for how they could catch up to Netflix? They were… 1. Go dirt cheap on the prices. [Check] 2. Schedule weekly releases for adults [Check] 3. Bundle with other streamers [Check] 4. Get all your
Over the last few articles, I’ve avoided the “C word”. Not that one, the Covid-19/Coronavirus words. If some of you are like me, you both devour coronavirus content, but sometimes find yourself sick of reading any more of it. (Every so often I just delete all my news podcasts that
My most popular article of the year is clearly this buzzy headline titled, “Netflix is a Broadcast Channel” Why? Since Netflix is the sexy topic in entertainment—a titan of digital subscriptions—my article probably got some clicks because it’s an “aggressively moderate” take on Netflix. (A lane I’ve decided to lean
This is part III in a multi-part series estimating how much money Disney made off “Star Wars” in 2019. Go here for my larger series on Disney purchasing Lucasfilm in 2012.) – Introduction and Feature Films – Television I started this series in January. Do you remember back then? Before
One of my big frustrations with the “debate” over Netflix is how little we know. That’s a gripe I share with a lot of folks. One of my big frustrations with coverage of Netflix is how seldom folks try to step into the gap and estimate data points for Netflix.
Star Wars did so well in TV this year, that virtually everyone knew which character was the “symbol” for 2020: Baby Yoda! We know Baby Yoda conquered the social landscape, but how does that translate to Lucasfilm/Disney’s bottom line? Well that’s my topic for today. If you missed it, read
If I didn’t have a little Padawan join my family in November, one of my goals was to update my massive “How Much Money did Disney Make on the Lucasfilm Acquisition?” series. That delay actually helped because I wouldn’t have been able to get that article up before Rise of
Since 2019 started, there has been a debate among the entertainment biz literati (you know who they are): Should you keep releasing your films in theaters, or go straight to streaming? I first saw this in January when some folks on Twitter argued Disney should release Star Wars films straight-to-streaming