☀️ Contagion: Studio Job Axings Spread

Mornin! Here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026.

Where, WARNAMOUNT, it’s been real — David Ellison revealed that SKYDANCE is indeed the name winning out in the corporate brand wars (even though I’m thinking WARNAMOUNT may stick around for a bit).

The PSKY ticker will be dropped, so meet SKYD! Which, yes, I’m sure will be called “skid” in some corners.

WARNER BROS. and PARAMOUNT will still exist as brands, but they’ll now essentially be SKYDANCE CORP. joints (exact description to be determined), and here are the main brands that made the end of the new sizzle reel (sorry, MTV and HGTV, among several other brands relegated to the second-tier collage — but please still send those monthly affiliate profit checks to the home office).

Elsewhere at WARNAMOUNT SKYDANCE, good news for any folks being laid off in the months ahead — the guy put in charge of the process isn’t affected by the “cost savings” whatsoever in his new 5-year contract! 🙏

Enjoy that $31.5M restricted stock signing bonus, co-CEO Ynon Kreiz! Or, potentially / broadly about $3,200 per laid-off employee . . . give or take, depending on where the numbers come in at. #FFS

Although that’s only about 50% of what his CEO counterpart David Ellison made in total comp last year — I mean, we have to have some distinction between titles or else they’re meaningless, amirite?

However, while that signing bonus vests, the new co-CEO will have to get by on a $5M salary, $4.5M target bonus and $20M of stock options a year.

Although I suppose ya gotta have some incentive to get that stock moving . . . other than preventing angry calls from pa Ellison — who probably isn’t too happy with PSKY stock being -9% yesterday (more on this below), falling below $10 a share and now -50% vs. where it was before the whole WARNAMOUNT saga meaningfully began, just about one year ago. #RememberWhen

ALTHOUGH: At least the Digger situation is getting plenty of cover fire from all of this 🤷‍♂️? The attention spans can only hold so much. Make your own analogy about this being the movie opening the weekend around the deal closing.

• Digger took in just $1.2M in Thursday screenings.

BUT: At least we’ll always have the Spirit Tunnel dance.

OH: Landman season 3 just started shooting . . . so, likely no November streaming date this year.

THEN: NETFLIX made its next YOUTUBER deal, as the final season of Chicken Shop Date will debut simultaneously on both NETFLIX and YT, starting today. Previous episodes of the show will also be added to NETFLIX.

• UNRELATED, BUT: NETFLIX shares are back below $70 again, down to $67.85 after rising back above $80 in early September.

PLUS: ESPN is adding 5 more Inside the NBA editions this season so that the show doesn’t go quiet between the season tip-off in October and the Christmas holiday, like it did last year.

• AND: The first UNC vs. DUKE college hoops matchup this season will air on ABC on Feb. 13 — the first time the game has aired on broadcast TV since 2011 (it’s usually on ESPN).

NICE: NBC/PEACOCK got the 2nd biggest audience for an MLB Wild Card playoff game since the 3-game format started in 2022, with 7.6M for the YANKEES vs. RED SOX game 1.

• No breakout for NBC numbers vs. PEACOCK numbers.

WELL: Just a couple of economic snapshots today to keep in mind at large:

• Mortgage rates are up to 7.28%, with new mortgage applications taking a decent hit last week.
• The economy added just 29k jobs in September, well below analysts’ expectations of about 89k. July and August new jobs numbers were also revised downward by 60k jobs.

THANKS!: To the several Wakeup readers and pod listeners who said hello IRL at the Bloomberg Screentime conference over the past 2 days! Really great to hear from all of you — connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like, or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com anytime.

Here’s what stood out from the action on stage yesterday:

• Casey Bloys nodded to how HBO MAX and PAR+ may co-exist, using the HBO MAX / HULU / DIS+ bundle analogy, which has been seen as a big success at WBD — suggesting HBO MAX and PAR+ may indeed remain separate offerings to the public, with a big discount for bundling. But much more to come on this.
• Donna Langley had this to say about the WARNAMOUNT deal: “I think it is bad. I think it’s bad for everything.”
  • She also sees 2027 likely not to be quite as successful as 2026 at the overall box office — but 2028 should be much stronger.
• Dana Walden nodded to the fact that all the millions of YOUTUBE views for Jimmy Kimmel Live monologues come nowhere near paying the bills for such a production, saying YT was “not a lucrative opportunity” for the show.
  • She also described the situation as “We’re trying to make sense of the business while also honoring a deep partnership.”
  • So, kinda sounds like 2 sides are negotiating to me . . . and one side wants some significant spending cuts, but we shall see.

FINALLY: Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and I dive into the crazy week that was on the Ankler Agenda pod . . . as well as what’s ahead, and why it’s sadly just the calm before the storm.

Watch:

BONUS: Thanks to Sonny Bunch for having me on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood pod to discuss the state of WARNAMOUNT (this was recorded before the SKYDANCE CORP name announcement), federal tax credits and also dive into something I’ve been tracking more closely over the past month — the state of sports streaming audiences, and what it portends for upcoming sports league rights negotiations (that begins around the 30-min mark of the pod).

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💼 The Hollywood Executive Suite

Yes, more layoff talk — and no, not just the ones at PARAMOUNT