☀️CHARTER 'Free Studio Streamer Deal' Is Not Much of a Deal
DISNEY's next cuts: news & local TV / MIRAMAX & PAR get Channing Tatum pic / NASCAR sued over TV 💰
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on THURSDAY, October 3, 2024.
Where it’s time to update your address books, folks — West 44th Street in Times Square outside of 1515 Broadway is now known as Sumner Redstone Way.
You can’t miss it, just hang a left when you pass the Philippe Dauman Dumpster on Broadway.
ALSO: Aidy Bryant will return to host the Independent Spirit Awards next year on Feb. 22.
PLUS: Oasis added additional U.S. tour dates next summer, including to the NYC (north Jersey) and L.A. stops.
OH: The VP debate got 43M viewers across 15 TV networks. 40M was on the 4 broadcast networks, and 3 main news networks.
That’s -25% from the Harris-Pence debate in 2020.
The 1996 Gore-Kemp debate is still the lowest, at 26.6M.
Harris-Trump got 67M last month.
THEN: OPENAI’s new valuation came in just a smidge above the projected $150B estimates, at $157B (although it’s entirely possible the AI just hallucinated the extra $7B — you know how it gets 🙄).
The actual money coming in the door to the company’s coffers in this round is $6.6B, the largest venture capital round ever, beating Elon’s $6B for xAI.
#FunFact Comp: Hurricane Helene is projected to cost insurers roughly $6.4B. Keep burning up more of those fossil fuels to power that AI though!
Investors can ask for their money back if OPENAI isn’t a for-profit entity within 2 years, according to Axios. 👀
No APPLE involvement, as rumored, and A24’s favorite financier, Josh Kushner’s THRIVE CAPITAL, is the lead investor on this round again.
Note: These OPENAI’s investors cannot invest in certain AI competitors, according to the WSJ
The company was valued at $86B in an employee share sale window opened in Feb., i.e. just 8 months ago.
YES!: Local Salt Lake City government approved giving a billionaire about $900M of taxpayer money to refurbish the DELTA CENTER arena where his hockey 🥅 and basketball 🏀 teams play, and to improve the surrounding area with hotels, luxury apartments and high-end restaurants, all of which the taxpayers won’t own, and most of them won’t be able to afford to enjoy. All citizens will now pay 0.5% more sales tax for 30 years to pay for this.
AND: A happy Rosh Hashanah to those who observe. Depending upon the news cycle today — there may or may not be a Wakeup tomorrow.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
WB’s Joker Folie a Deux is here! It’s looking at broadly $50M to $60M+ (the original opened to $96M on the same weekend in 2019). Riddle me this:
IN THIS EDITION
As CHARTER will now be giving its SPECTRUM TV subscribers all free studio streaming services (except HULU) — with the state of cable TV bundle pricing what it is in 2024 (#cordcutting is happening for a reason, folks) . . . is this really a bargain?
See how the numbers play out for the American TV customer — but let’s just say the cable TV business is keeping it on brand.
Sports rights have a very active day — from a big NASCAR lawsuit, to an expanded deal at WBD, to DIAMOND pulling yet another surprise on a league, the WWE getting a big welcome at TheCW and much more.
Plus, TV and movie activity at PAR, MIRAMAX, NETLFIX, AMAZON, those next DISNEY job cuts (yes, different from the ones yesterday), AMC THEATERS gets a favorable court ruling and much more.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
