Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Entertainment topics simple and complex explored in-depth.
In my last article, I looked at all of the films that flopped, bombed or missed in the first half of this year. Today, it’s time to look at TV. Lately, I’ve seen the take out there that “We don’t know the flops and bombs in streaming.” Well, next time
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Subscribe here.) It’s August, which means it’s that time of year…
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights
Last summer, when Warner Bros. Discovery started removing TV shows from Max, people weren’t worried. Everyone blamed the famously cost-conscious David Zaslav, since he’d just taken over Warner Bros. Discovery. Folks just assumed that this move was a cynical tax ploy from a famously cost-conscious manager, not a harbinger of
Whenever the subject of “copyright” comes up, one character inevitably comes up: Mickey Mouse! Mickey’s copyright protections are ending! Next year! And the horror stories are limitless. Non-Disney companies will be printing off Mickey Mouse shirts like crazy! There will be new “Mickey Mouse” shorts and films. And unscrupulous creators
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I’m a former business-executive-turned-entertainment-journalist and each week, I write a Streaming Ratings Report and a strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. If you were forwarded this email, please
Last year, four days after I published my not-seminal-but-it-should-be article, “The Algorithm is a Lie”, HBO’s Barry had this scene: The fake executive in the episode literally says, “The algorithm felt it wasn’t hitting the right taste clusters.” as if the “algorithm” is a thing that actually exists. (Or that
Today, I’m revisiting one of my least favorite Hollywood talking points, that the vaunted Netflix “algorithm” makes decisions about what TV shows and movies Netflix (and other streamers) should make. Since last year, I’ve been collecting examples of people complaining about the “algorithm” and I’ve collected a far-from-complete list of
Negotiations have a sort of Kabuki theater aspect to them nowadays. (By the way, I’m not an expert in high-level negotiations like, say, an agent or M&A banker, but I have done a few high-level negotiations, so I’m not a know-nothing novice either.) See, at this point, everyone has been
The coverage of the WGA versus AMPTP” negotiations has left me a bit wanting. My initial takeaway from 95% of the news coverage is that… Nothing happened? Not that nothing happened, per se, after the initial call to go on strike, there wasn’t really anything noteworthy. I mean, strike signs are