Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Weekly looks at the biggest news in entertainment.
May was truly “media merger madness month”. On May 17th, Discovery announced they were merging with Warner Media. (I was on vacation.) On May 26th, Amazon announced they were buying MGM. (Then it was Memorial Day weekend.) Then last week I had a consulting gig I couldn’t say no to.
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
Ever get a phrase stuck in your head? Like an ear worm? I had one of those this week, as I debated between anointing ViacomCBS, Comcast or Discovery as the “most important” story of the week. To exorcise that mental demon, and to mix metaphors, I plan to debunk it
Two and a half months back, I made a bold call. Looking at the pace of vaccinations, the growth of that growth and the incredible effectiveness of vaccines, I said, “By May, theaters will be back!” Since the only thing more valuable than making predictions is checking to see if
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
I may be cheating a pinch this week. I’m not sure this is the most important story, but it’s the one I think needs the most explaining. In a lot of ways, Amazon paying nearly half a billion dollars (to start) to make the most expensive TV series in history
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
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 entsplaining everything from “content arms dealers” to “portfolio theory” to “pay-1 theatrical films”. (And if you don’t know what those terms are,
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
The big story of last week is fairly obvious: Disney moved Black Widow to July, along with changing the distribution strategies for Luca (now straight-to-streaming) and Black Widow (now going to theaters and premium VOD). (Sign up for my newsletter to get my column and streaming ratings report delivered to