Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Entertainment topics simple and complex explored in-depth.
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
Over the last few weeks, the WGA leadership has been fairly consistent in their discussion about the dire state of screenwriting. Like, say, this: “I’ve also spoken to other writers who even though they sold a pilot and staffed on a show, they still filed for EBT that year in
(Just a reminder: every article in this series is being collected in one giant substack post/article here. It’s sort of like a little e-book for all of my subscribers.) PART III – Customer Reviews, Awareness & Interest Metrics Though I always push myself to question my assumptions, conclusions and data—hence
Yesterday’s article may have been a let down for some folks. I promised a big, deep analysis, and it only included four charts! Well, time to get on with it. With a ton of charts. Over twenty! But first, some more throat-clearing, explaining Nielsen’s data and dataset. And then trust me,
Well, it’s time to finally, officially and definitively answer the question… Should You Release Your Film in Theaters or Straight-To-Streaming? Rephrased, does it make sense to release films “straight-to-streaming” à la Netflix? (And formerly Apple, Prime Video, Hulu, sometimes Disney+, HBO Max in 2021 and occasionally Peacock and Paramount+?) Should
(As you may have seen on Twitter, I’ve been busy prepping something big: Still deep in the bunker. Brand new fortifications going up. We're talking LOTS of charts here. Maybe multiple data sources. Multiple looks. Honestly, this is gonna be a report McKinsey would charge $250K for, and you'll get
On a whim, last October, I started collecting news stories about which TV shows were getting renewed or cancelled, though I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do with the links. Mostly, I wanted to know if the TV shows I cover each week in the Streaming Ratings Report had already
Okay, I’ve spent the last week laying out which TV shows and films bombed or flopped in 2022, and figured out which TV shows won the whole year. Now it’s time to “rank” the streamers by winners—which are fairly obvious—and losers, which is a bit harder to figure out, since