Explaining the Business of Entertainment
[Hey, you may be thinking, this isn’t a Streaming Ratings Report! True. I spent almost all of this week (and some of last week) updating my “U.S. Subscriber Estimates for Q1 of 2021.” Given that I just published a sneak peek at the Ankler yesterday, I wanted to put up
Any big news stories this week? Let me check: Oh dear, that will inspire lots of noise and coverage. (Want my thoughts? I don’t value executive shifts as much as some, which I’ve explained before and in this Twitter thread today.) How can I tie this to the streaming ratings? Some
Want a little secret? I have a ton of fun writing these weekly ratings reports. More fun than I should. Each week, I have little mysteries to solve and unpack. Eternals had a big number this week, but is it doing better than Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten
Today, Netflix’s global viewership data will start to sneak into this report. But just the initial peeks. If the Netflix data were a garden, consider these the budding flowers just poking out of the dirt. For an introduction to this new data, I wrote a “Quick Explainer On Netflix’s New
To quote Will Ferrell in Old School, Hulu is going streaking! Specifically, they’ve launched their second successful TV series in August. Toss in an okay film performance and The Handmaid’s Tale’s good run, and they’ve had a successful summer. Of course, a Hulu “success” isn’t a Netflix success, or even
Folks, last week I promised you a show down of straight-to-streaming films, and by golly, we got it. Given the datecdotes, Nielsen ratings and creative auspices of the films involved, the battle lived up to the hype. (Reminder: The streaming ratings report compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership
Let me level with you: if Netflix took over the entire rankings list for another week—like they did the last two weeks—I probably would have quit. That level of dominance ceases to be impressive and just starts to be boring. (Fine, I wouldn’t have actually quit. But I would have
The last time I wrote about price increases was last November, when Netflix decided to up their monthly prices by $1. At the time, I thought this was big news because it really signified a change in focus for Netflix. The news that Hulu will raise prices by a similar
Hollywood can have a short memory. All it takes is one good weekend, and suddenly Hollywood is back! Since we went long on Wednesday writing about Apple, app stores and distribution fees, here’s all the other stories that caught my eye in the realm of entertainment business strategy. (Apologies for
Folks, let’s call it. This is the week that Netflix won the streaming wars. Last week, Netflix owned almost every spot on the TV lists. This week they went even further: they have every TV series on the top Original and Acquired Nielsen lists. This war is over. Kidding! The