Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Entertainment topics simple and complex explored in-depth.
A character in The Sun Also Rises described going into bankruptcy as happening “gradually and then all at once.” This apt description has been applied to everything from debt insolvency to failed democracies. The U.S. recovery from Covid-19 will likely feel the same way. Right now, most of the coverage
This year marks a pretty significant upgrade in the amount of data we have available about streamers. At the start of the year, we had to rely on Netflix to tell us during the quarterly earnings (or selectively on Twitter) how well their content is doing. Since then, we’ve gotten
(This is the last article in a three part series estimating how many US paid streaming subscribers there are in the US. Read the numbers here, and the first half of the explanation here.) If you’re wondering, yes, I deliberately wrote three (almost) contradictory headlines for the last two days. In
(This is the last article in a three part series estimating how many US paid streaming subscribers there are in the US. Read the numbers here, and the second half of the explanation here.) I’ve become a pinch frustrated with media folks who don’t differentiate between the US subscribers compared to
My last few weeks have been spent digging through all the data I could find on the streaming wars. What makes this different than the past is that we finally have a lot of data to parse. Firms like Nielsen, Reelgood, 7 Park and even Netflix themselves have started releasing
(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
Last week, we figured out that Mulan was likely watched by 1.2 million Americans on its opening weekend. (Plus or minus 1-1.5 million.) We estimated this means it likely ends up with a global PVOD of $150 million. But what I didn’t do was explain what all that data means.
At first, I was tempted to call “Mulan vs Tenet” the biggest battle of the streaming wars. Each weekend in September, we’ve eagerly awaited answers to the hottest questions in film: Will Tenet save theaters? Will Mulan blow up the model? Who is making more money? Who is WINNING?!?!? It
How many folks bought Mulan? That’s the buzziest question in the streaming wars right now. Since we don’t know, we’re left to pick at the analytics tea leaves. Fortunately, as each day passes, we’ve got more tea leaves to pick through. (Partly, the question is relevant because it gets to
The first thing to know about the streaming wars is that it is really multiple wars simultaneously. One war is between the streamers. They compete fiercely against each other, with Netflix in the lead. (This is by far the most covered battleground.) If those are the established powers, the upstarts