☀️ Linear TV Winners & Losers Q2

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Friday, August 7, 2026.

Where good news — you can now buy up enough local TV stations to start your own national TV network with 100% coverage in the U.S. if FCC kingmaker Brendan Carr says so, because Brendan Carr said so yesterday.

Yeah, that sounds like a much better system. Let the legal chapter of this begin.

AND: New Mexico upped the compensation it is ordering META to pay to $942M after it was found liable in March for harming teens’ mental health in the state.

• The new $567M will go toward a fund to remedy damage, including treatment of young people who have been harmed by social media.
• META is going to appeal.

YAH: All due respect to the 234 stories over the past year about the NFL renegotiating its TV rights deals before its contractual right to do so after the 2029-30 season . . . but FOX will not be doing any kind of renegotiation with the NFL about its deal until the NFL’s official early-out (should it choose to do so) following that 2029-30 season.

• NBCU has also basically said nothing on this either, and DISNEY/ESPN’s deal isn’t up for talks isn’t until after the 2030 season (and does not seem to be talking about this either), and AMAZON’s deal seems locked in for the duration. Basically — we have contracts for a reason.
• AND: CBS has paused its NFL talks until the WARNAMOUNT matter is settled . . . so, I guess see you in about a year.
  • It’s the only rights holder that has to contractually deal with this (at some point) given the change in control of CBS in the Shari sale to SKYDANCE, which the NFL can use to re-open its deal there for renegotiation.

PLUS: I know I make jokes from time to time about how the C-suites in entertainment never share 💰 from increased profits or the proceeds from deal sales with their rank-and-file employees . . . but this chart kinda sums up what that actually looks like in America pretty well. No, it wasn’t always this way — and it is getting worse. I’m also rather confident saying CEO pay is going in the other direction over that time.

BUT: I guess . . . be glad you have a job? Gotta love when the economists predict monthly job growth and are, uh, completely wrong. Quite a year’s snapshot here in Trump 2.0. Now, what happened around March . . . 🤔.

YEAH: Gotta love NETFLIX putting some guy stuck inside of a billboard above Selma Ave. and Sunset in L.A. for 3 days to promote The Last House.

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💻 The Media Biz

The Linear TV Iceberg Melt Report: Q2 2026

Now that all the numbers are in, we have our latest insights into the health of the linear TV ecosystem that was once the strong backbone of Hollywood, and currently walks around with a cane.

However, it is definitely not one-size-fits-all — and DISNEY gives zero visibility into this #thx (although ESPN gives some).

So, listed in order of health, here’s how the various players in the linear TV ecosystem fared from April through June this year.

Just to re-state: this is a look at the data for Linear TV only (yes, I know streaming revenues are making up at least some of the gaps you see here at some of these entities).