Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect here on LINKED-IN if ya like) and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY Sept. 8, 2023.

Where… good news! Advertisers found a way to reach a large group of men on TV again!  

NBC had a winner of a game with DETROIT’s squeaker over Super Bowl Champs KANSAS CITY, 21-20, so we’ll see where the audience #s come in at… but recent years have averaged in the low 20 millions, and NBC’s fall promo machine was in full effect.

Remember – NBC is the only network with a variety of actual new scripted TV episodes this fall (Found, Quantum Leap, Magnum PI, The Irrational) plus the return of one of its biggest shows in The Voice.

• PEACOCK was also leaning heavy into male-demo sells… including Fast X, The Continental, Yellowstone 👀, Twisted Metal and ‘look at all of the sports on PEACOCK!’ promotion.

It almost felt like a “regular” fall for folks who didn’t know any better. Almost (having nothing Chicago or L&O just felt weird). It’s also very doubtful that FOX and CBS promo will feel the same this Sunday.

Movies also showed up to play last night, spending the likely $800k+ for 30 seconds of ad time… with a pretty wide representation across studios, further contributing to the impression to the American public of a continued robust Box Office ahead:

• DISNEYFOX Haunting in Venice

• LGF Expendables 4

• SONY Equalizer 3 (15 sec spot)

• WB The Nun II (15 sec spot)

• DISNEY The Creator (60 sec spot)

• SONY Dumb Money

  • the last 3 on the list were all in the later part of the 4th quarter, when the game was down to the wire #fortuitous!

The NFL also ran its “Hollywood Table Read” spot… capping a feeling of “strikes, what strikes?” at least for now. The shallow scripted inventory for TV promo will get quite repetitive quickly, and then quite thin in another month.

ALSO: Danny Masterson got a 30-year prison sentence from his rape convictions earlier in the summer.

PLUS: Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard will be doing the red carpets/press rounds at VENICE today and TIFF next week for their film Memory, which got a SAG waiver and is looking to make a sale.

THEN: Jimmy Fallon apologized to Tonight Show employees on a Zoom for overseeing a workplace that apparently many former staffers found highly stressful and highly erratic, in a Rolling Stone profile this week.

REST IN PEACE: Goes out to longtime Hollywood law stalwart, Jake Bloom, who died at 81-years old this week.

AND: D23 is this weekend. Can’t wait to see the creative CHARTER signs from the fans 🪧.

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