AT&T sells off XANDER, the rationale for the WARNER MEDIA deal
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AT&T sells off XANDER, the rationale for the WARNER MEDIA deal
Colin Firth joins Sam Mendes SEARCHLIGHT pic / OSCAR Noms shortlists released
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on WEDNESDAY December 22, 2021.
Where let the holiday cheer continue with a new BETWEEN TWO FERNS “Happy Holidays Edition” with “Toby” and “Samuel L. Jack’s son” 👏.
ALSO: Break out the shots of marked-up French vodka - DIDDY the fashion mogul is back! He bought the SEAN JOHN brand out of bankruptcy for $7.5 Million. That’s about double what it was expected to go for, but it includes all the unsold pairs of jeans.
AND: In today’s Omicron postponements…
FOX somehow is the first network to cancel their NEW YEARS EVE special. So no Joel McHale & Ken Jeong, well at least in Times Square on your TV.
“The Lion King”, “Six” join the BROADWAY shutdown through the weekend. /Deadline
Across the pond, Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Cinderella” has cancelled all West End performances until Feb 9.
NY FILM CRITICS postpone their Jan 10 awards ceremony indefinitely. /Deadline
CES 2022 in Vegas is already getting big cancellations the first week of Jan - META, TWITTER, PINTEREST and IHEART are all no longer sending staff or doing their planned brand activations. /AdAge
OTHERWISE: Unsurprisingly another light news day… so this will be even quicker than yesterday.
📽 📺 THE SILVER TV
4 THINGS OF NOTE:
Colin Firth, Toby Jones join SEARCHLIGHT pic “Empire of Light” directed by Sam Mendes. Its a love story set in the South Coast of ENGLAND in the 80s, Olivia Colman starring. /Deadline
OSCAR Nomination shortlists for below-the-line categories plus Docs, Int’l feature, Shorts and Song released. OSCAR NOMS come out Feb 8 this year. /Variety
NETFLIX Co-CEO’s will be paid $74 Million next year:
Reed Hastings is getting $34 Mil, pretty much all in stock options
Ted Sarandos prefers to have a little walkin’ around money, taking his $40 Million in $20 Mil Stock + $20 Mil Cash… small bills only, to be given in a briefcase made of American-made leather, no questions asked 💼. /THR
Anyone wanna go watch the College Football Bowl games in a movie theater with a bunch of strangers eating and drinking? 🤔 The CINEMARK Movie Theater chain has you covered - a $10 concessions charge gets you in on New Years Eve. /Marketplace
💻 THE MEDIA BIZ
AT&T selling off XANDER, the stated rationale for the 2018 WARNER MEDIA deal to MICROSOFT
XANDER is their Ad-tech & programmatic Ad sales marketplace.
AT&T paid $1.6 Billion for XANDER’s tech when then WARNER MEDIA deal went thru… and was stated by Stankey & Bewkes to be the key rationale behind the whole WARNER MEDIA deal, as it would combine AT&T’s user data and WARNER MEDIA’s networks and brands to create a formidable ad-sales alternative to GOOGLE and FACEBOOK ad exchanges.
That never happened. The tech never lived up to the promise and it was known as pretty much a disaster from the start from a management POV (at AT&T, I know… 🤯). Now MICROSOFT is buying it for about $1 Billion according to BLOOMBERG. /Variety
This sale, plus the DIRECTV spin-off, and impending WARNER MEDIA sell-off, thus ends AT&T’s very expensive dive into the Media & Entertainment business which it never understood over the 7 year-ish run.
T stock is currently hovering about $2 above its 10 year low, at $24 a share. John Stankey is still getting paid $20 Million a year.
ALSO IN MEDIA
ONLY FANS CEO and Founder Tim Stokely is leaving the company. No destination or reason cited other than the to “pursue new endeavors” chestnut. Comms & Marketing lead Ami Gan will now step into the role. /Bloomberg
🏦 STOCK NOTES:
Most stocks had an up day, rebounding from Manchin Monday.
AMC NETWORKS makes up for yesterday’s losses, +4.5% ($35.07)
LIONSGATE +5% ($15.76)
👩💻 NEW TO WATCH:
UNI “Sing 2” - Only In Theaters
DISNEYFOX “The King’s Man” - Only In Theaters
WB / HBOMAX “The Matrix: Resurrections” - In theaters or Stream or Add to Your List here
NETFLIX “Emily In Paris” Season 2 - Stream or Add to Your List here
If you were sent this newsletter or… just kinda found it:
🎥 TRAILER HOUSE
HBO “The Super Bob Einstein Movie” trailer - Docu on “Super Dave”, Premieres Tues Dec 28
DISNEYFOX “Death on the Nile” new trailer - A lot more Gadot & Branagh… a lot less Hammer. In theaters Fri Feb 11
HBOMAX “Search Party” Season 5 trailer - The final season drops on Fri Jan 7
HBO “Somebody, Somewhere” series trailer - Bridget Everett comedy series about a woman trying to move on in a small town after the death of her sister. Looks good! Premieres Sun Jan 16
🎧 PLAYING ME OFF
A little K-Clark, “Winter Dreams” to start the day.
If you need new tunes:
Email me anytime - just reply to this email, or connect here on LINKED IN.
-SEAN MCNULTY
@theseanmac on TWITTER
@TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM