Deep Dives

Predicting the future is hard. Four years ago, I didn’t think LeBron would ever pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all time scoring leader, because I never thought he’d keep scoring at this elite rate or not suffer a major injury late in his career, à la Kobe Bryant or

(Update: Nielsen’s data only came out today, because they dropped their fascinating “Nielsen Streaming Unwrapped 2022” report yesterday. I can’t wait to dive into that data. Luckily, I promised you a deep dive in Christmas films last week, so that’s what you’re getting today. On Monday, you’ll get this week’s Streaming Ratings

If I had my druthers, the “entertainment year” would start in September. That would put it between the start of the broadcast fall season (and three of the major sports seasons), and right after the grand finale of summer theatrical revenues. As is, the calendar year comes in middle of

In 2022, the media coverage certainly took a negative turn. I’m no exception. What started as me pondering “worst case scenarios” at the beginning of March shifted to believing that literally every force buffeting the entertainment industry got worse. (I’ll have a piece on that for the Ankler at the start of

Yesterday, I went over the data on how well the MCU is doing. Read the whole thing here, but in short, it’s a mixed bag. The films haven’t done as well as they have in the past, especially with audiences’ ratings, but Marvel Studios is still cranking out huge hits.

If I had to pick one word to describe the MCU in 2022, it would be this: Uneven.  Even though I’m a huge, die hard MCU fan, my most common reaction after watching an MCU TV show or movie has been, “Oh, that was pretty uneven.” And that pretty accurately

Take a look at this headline (from 2019): “League Of Legends Gets More Viewers Than the Super Bowl” Maybe you saw this; maybe you clicked on the link; maybe you even shared it. But if you did, you should know that… MORE PEOPLE DID NOT WATCH THE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

When I wrote my deep dive on “Myth of the Global Streaming Hit” for the Ankler last week, I knew what was going to happen. It’s almost inevitable that the next time Netflix has a global hit, someone will be like, “What about [future global hit], Entertainment Strategy Guy? You’re

While we all know about “holiday creep”—holiday retailers start putting up Christmas decorations in September and pumpkin spice comes out in August—I don’t think we talk as much about “Big Halloween”. Compared to, say, the 1990s, it feels like Halloween, as a holiday, moves a lot more product than it