Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Weekly looks at the biggest news in entertainment.
The common wisdom of the Coronavirus may have calmed down slightly. The hyperbolic take that “Everything has changed”–see Politico here. Or Deal Book this week. Or countless others–has given way to the narrative that, “Recessions/pandemics accelerate trends that were already occurring.” At first, I bought into this little bit of
You can tell we’ve hit peak coronavirus coverage when you see the headline “Did Disney predict the virus?” Because the film Tangled features a “quarantined” character in a town called “Corona”. Yep. In more serious coverage, the predictions that coronavirus is “no big deal” have shifted to “we’ll be in
The most important thing in this time of crisis is to focus on staying healthy and being good citizens. So don’t hoard food, avoid public gatherings, and try to donate blood. Still, the economic consequences will quickly become as real as the pandemic ones. This is really what we pay
In times of crisis, it’s important to thread the line between adequately explaining a crisis and avoiding exacerbating the worry about that crisis. Enter the “coronavirus” (or Covid-19), the global pandemic–even if it hasn’t been called that yet–that is impacting economies from China to America, and whose full impact won’t
Sometimes, you really don’t need to overthink your weekly column. Thank you, Disney, and really Bob Iger, for making this easy. Most Important Story of the Week – Bob Iger Steps Down Bob Iger stepped down from his role as CEO of Disney on Tuesday, but will remain as the
As I stared at the list of stories I wanted to put in my weekly column last week, I couldn’t help but notice that they all connected back to some previous article I’ve written before. So here’s an “All Update” column, starting with a distribution story that hits on the
When CBS finally merged with Viacom after a “will they/won’t they” that rivaled Ross and Rachel (and previously Sam and Diane, I’m told…). The big question was, “What is their strategy?” Will they be a content Arms Dealer, as Rich Greenfield suggested? Will they lean into the declining bundle, as
With the Oscars airing on Sunday, it seems appropriate to join the crowd asking, “What will happen to the mid-budget theatrical film?” This seems to always come up this time of year as folks–usually critics–bemoan that Hollywood doesn’t “make these types of movies any more”. But what types of moveis?
Hopefully everyone enjoyed the annual football spectacular known as the Super Bowl. Instead of parsing which ads did the best–we don’t have a data driven way to do that–or reviewing the half-time show–that’s what critics are for, I guess–we need to look for business lessons. Since we don’t have the
The Los Angeles region, and the entire basketball universe, is reeling from the death of Kobe Bryant, the legendary Lakers basketball player. If you’re looking for the “Hollywood” connection, I have two. First, the Lakers and “showtime” basketball have always been an influential part of the entertainment ecosystem in Los