Explaining the Business of Entertainment
One of the casualties of 2021 was my newsletter edition that featured links to my favorite stories, podcasts and newsletters every so often. Adding the “Streaming Ratings Report” every week was enough extra work that something had to go. Add that lots of other newsletters curate entertainment business news better,
What a time to be alive and writing a column on the business of entertainment. I get back from vacation, and not only do I get a mega Hollywood divorce, but I get a mega Hollywood marriage. In the same story! This deal—AT&T selling Warner Media to Discovery—has me bursting
With all the earnings news last week–including reports from Amazon, Google, Apple, Comcast, Discovery and more–you’d think we’d have gotten really juicy news. But I didn’t see it. Lots of “interesting” stuff, but nothing truly groundbreaking. However, two separate product announcements drew my attention. And I’ll be honest, I think
For the last two weeks, my weekly column overflowed into two articles. I promise I won’t make this a habit…unless everyone likes it better. Let me know on Twitter. Meanwhile, here were the other stories vying for the top spot last week. But we’ll start with the story that had
Well, living through the last two weeks of news has shown that the pace of news in 2021 isn’t slowing down. The most notable story for entertainment—though it was pushed off the front page within 24 hours—has to be the Democratic Senate wins in Georgia last Tuesday. This week, we’re
HBO Max made lots of news last week. First with a deal with Amazon. I thought nothing could top that. Then they announced that Wonder Woman 1984 was going to HBO Max. That’s a big deal, so let’s make that our story of the week. Programming note: I delayed last
The theme of the week is “antitrust”. It didn’t start out that way, as Friday night’s leadership change at AT&T would have been the story of the week most weeks. (Though, I consider it less of a big deal than most, and that’s why it’s at the bottom of this
Inspired by AT&T’s release of HBO Max “activations” and total HBO subscribers, here’s a timeline of HBO subscribers and HBO+Cinemax subscribers over time: If you’d like to see that in table form, along with some financial numbers, here you go: What about total subscribers? Again, we only have data from
Does anyone else watch Penn and Teller’s Fool Us? Probably, though it’s not cool to admit it with all the great peak TV shows to watch. In my defense, if you have a four year old, it makes for good family co-viewing. (Narcos does not.) Anyways, I love the magic
With no “big” entertainment news, my gaze fell on a story simmering all month. Call it the “story of the month”, which is that TV is planning its return to the small screen. By TV, I mean broadcast and cable television. Which are, obviously, dead. That’s the narrative. But since