☀️AMAZON Film Spree Grows; ROKU Turnaround Gains
New China AI freaks everyone out / NETFLIX trims product group / CBS NEWS layoffs loom
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, February 13, 2026.
Where it turns out that people being upset with the COINBASE reveal at the end of the BSB karaoke ad during the Super Bowl was not actually the worst part of COINBASE’s week.
In fact, they probably shoulda kept that $8M in the corporate coffers given that COINBASE revenue was -20% in Q4, and the company was -$667M in the hole for net income.
Eh, I’m sure BSB will totally turn things around for Q1.
ALTHOUGH: Ya gotta love the ingenuity with company leadership trying to get investors to take the company seriously (sadly, that animation 👇 was not set to “Larger Than Life” — guys, it was right there!).
YEAH: Gotta love the DOJ’s antitrust head, Gail Slater, leaving her position . . . with reports from CNN citing sources that say she was forced out. Given she was only there a year — yeah, that tracks.
Slater’s statement on X was pretty broad as to the rationale, so chalk it up to Trump D.C. swamp thickening as ya like . . . and reports of, and I hope you’re sitting down for this, internal clashes with her boss, Pam Bondi. I know, right? (And I heard she has yet to go see Melania.)
This comes just a few weeks before the department’s huge TICKETMASTER/LIVE NATION trial is to begin on March 2 (much less the NETFLIX BROS. deal).
Omeed Assefi will now lead the division on an interim basis, something he also did before Slater was appointed.
CNN also reported that David Ellison returned to the White House for another meeting with Trump last week. No word if he had a development report on Rush Hour 4 in hand.
SPEAKING OF: PSKY is considering adding an undisclosed top WBD shareholder to its new board nominees list in the potential upcoming board proxy fight, according to the FT.
YUP: CBS NEWS is considering layoffs of 15% (or more) of the staff, according to “people familiar with the matter” cited by Variety.
Claire Atkinson has a new Ankler #goodread looking at all of this CBS NEWS cutback activity in the context of PSKY’s big ‘cost savings’ promises to Wall Street . . . that still have quite a way to go 👀.
Plus, for an industry whose linear TV core is melting — these TV anchor salaries that Claire reports on are 🤯.
THEN: SNL set Ryan Gosling to host with musical guest Gorillaz on March 7.
PLUS: Nice to see a Winter Olympics ratings rebound at NBCU, with the first 5 days essentially 2x’ing the Beijing games to average 26.5M viewers across all platforms (NBC, PEACOCK, CNBC, USA NETWORK, etc.).
NIELSEN BIG DATA + PANEL measurement is giving this a bit of a bump vs. 2022, which also featured far less out-of-home audience measurement, and naturally, Beijing had greater time zone issues — but still a huge bounceback.
2030 will also be somewhat timezone favorable, taking place in France.
OH: The NBA has now fined 2 teams (the JAZZ $500k and the PACERS $100k) for, well, not exactly throwing games . . . but for “overt” tanking (essentially sitting top players in a manner that’s a big egregious). Again, the NBA season is only halfway over.
AND: NETFLIX set its next boxing match, Tyson Fury vs. Arslanbek Makhmudov (and yes, I totally copied and pasted that name from the press release), for Saturday, April 11, at the TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR Stadium in the U.K.
The event is slated to start at 5 p.m. ET (or at least for the undercard fights) according to the TICKETMASTER listing (tix go on sale this month).
HE Turki Alalshikh is behind the fight, with his property THE RING promoting it (this is unaffiliated with his TKO boxing promotion, ZUFFA, which has a deal at PAR+).
SO: The Wizard of Oz experience at The Sphere has sold 2.2M tickets since opening in August, generating $290M. The next pic for the venue is From The Edge from the Free Solo directors, centering on extreme/outdoor sports — it’ll debut either Q4 ’26 or Q1 ’27.
UH HUH: Add those left-wing radicals at the FEDERAL RESERVE OF NEW YORK to the list of folks pointing out that American consumers & companies have paid the vast majority of the #TrumpTariff costs, to the tune of 90%.
AH: One more economic data point from the NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR CREDIT COUNSELING — here’s the change in the average American that comes to them for help on getting out of onerous debt:
2018: $40k in income, $10k in debt
2026: $70k in income, and $35K in debt
And no, that’s not all just due to inflation.
WELL: At least the U.S. inflation rate (CPI) fell a bit in January to 2.4% YoY, so I’m sure Americans will start feeling a lot better about their prospects any day now.
That’s still above the Fed’s CPI target goal of getting that number under 2%.
YEAH: Ya just gotta love the irony of Wall Street analysts missing their bets on the 2026 revenue forecasts for a gambling company 🫣. Sadly, the actual numbers were lower . . . so it was DRAFTKINGS stock that took the hit, -17% on the miss. #KalshiWho?
DRAFTKINGS made just $3.7M in net profit in 2025, on $6.05B in revenue.
That’s an improvement from its -$507M result in 2024 (the year with all of the NFL favorites winning — that did not happen in 2025 #PATRIOTS).
Operating Income was -$16M in 2025, and -$609M in 2024.
But, ya know, sports gambling is a great business!
Monthly Unique Players remained flat a 4.8M in Q4, or roughly 1/3 to 1/4 of the audience size for a given NFL game.
While ARPU was +40% YoY, new/unique customers coming to the platform also topped off in 2025. 👀
BTW: 2 Israelis have been charged with using classified military information to make bets on POLYMARKET. The winnings were roughly $150k.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
Well, 2026 finally really begins at the box office! Nothing like a 6-week waiting period. WB looks to continue its 2025 heater with Wuthering Heights.
Quite a spread of thoughts this week — I’m going with the dreamers on this one. No major winter storms for once, and a little bit of love is all it takes.
NEW POD
TODAY IN AI COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS
Enter the BYTE DANCE folks, whose SEEDANCE 2.0 AI bot is vomiting out whatever American copyright violation videos you’d like! Enjoy a 15-second clip of Pitt vs. Cruise.
THUS: The MPA has already come out with a statement to BYTEDANCE to essentially cut the 💩, but yeah — add this one to the AI big board. 🤬
HOWEVER: Ya gotta love OPENAI once again crying foul on China’s DEEPSEEK for using results from CHATGPT to train its own bots.
Oh, does that suck when someone else uses your product to improve theirs and make money . . . without paying you? 🎻
🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
