Explaining the Business of Entertainment
As the self-appointed judge of what is “most important” in entertainment each week, I often remind myself that “story” doesn’t mean “event”. That’s why I’m so excited about this week’s story. If a trend is happening slowly, sometimes it flies under the radar, and we miss it entirely, which doesn’t
Last week was my most viewed streaming ratings report to date. I guess that’s what happens when you write about WandaVision! (And as a result get featured in WordPress’ reader application.) The theme of the week is “slow”. We didn’t have a lot of buzzy new titles, and as a
The theme of the week is “context”. For the second week, Netflix is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for film rights. To put that in context requires “ent-splaining” everything from “content arms dealers” to “portfolio theory” to “Pay 1 theatrical films”. (And if you don’t know what those terms
If you’ve been reading my “Steaming Ratings Report” for the last few weeks, you might have noticed it has been fairly Netflix-centric. Netflix is the 600 pound gorilla in the streaming wars. Heck, it’s more like a Mighty Joe Young or Rampage-sized super gorilla, marauding over the globe, buying sequel
Much like Benoit Blanc, the title character of a film series I’m about to write about, every week I find myself hunting for clues. Tidbits. Hints. Insights to answer one yearning question: What was the most important story this week? This week required a bit more searching than usual. (I
Last week, the Nielsen Top Ten lists broke new ground when Hulu had its first title earn a spot on one of the three lists. This week, Hulu doubled its performance, earning two spots! As always, caveats abound. In particular, the top films have much less “total viewership” than TV
When I sit down each week to pull data for the “Streaming Ratings Report”, it honestly feels like Easter. (Why Easter? Well, we’re closer to that than Christmas, and my eldest child is excited for candy delivered in plastic eggs.) This week, my chocolate-filled egg was a new color on
Last week, the NFL media rights story went from “potential” to “actual” news. (The latter happens, the former is rumors.) Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote last week that the Disney-NHL deal would set the template for the NFL deal (and all future rights deals). And I
As often happens in scientific/data endeavors, sometimes you work for hours/days on a project with no results, then, all of a sudden, it comes together and you make tons of progress rapidly. And, usually, the “tons of progress” doesn’t happen without the days of drudgery. That’s what happened to me
I love when a weekly column like this ends up having a “theme”. This week, that’s the difference between “actual” and “potential” news stories. The former are things that happen: a movie opens, a company launches a new product, or a studio head steps down. “Potential” news stories are all