☀️CHARTER's Huge Buy: What it Means For Hollywood
The MAX rebrand's unpsoken factor / LGF + Mel Gibson / SONY TV revenue drags FY 💰
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect here on LINKEDIN if ya like or email me seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com) and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY, May 16, 2025.
Where yes, it’s time for the “Yeah . . . buying a $3,500 face computer was kinda dumb” pieces, with this new WSJ piece looking at APPLE Vision Pro buyers’ remorse about 15 months since the devices went on sale.
In just the perfect 🤌 to go with it — this CBS TPIR clip this month really says it all about how much America really thinks something like the Vision Pro is worth. Not sure this is the ROI APPLE was looking for on this placement.
AND: CNN will air a live performance of the Good Night, and Good Luck Broadway show on Saturday, June 7 at 7 p.m. (the Tonys are the next night).
MAX wasn’t mentioned in the item, but gonna assume this will stream on the CNN feed that exists there too.
ALSO: Just a reminder that the WNBA season tips off tonight on ION, and tomorrow afternoon on ABC (which unlike ION, is not up against the big KNICKS vs. CELTICS game tonight on ESPN at 8 p.m.).
THEN: WALMART announced it’ll begin raising prices due to #TrumpTariffs at the end of the month and into June.
HUH: TIKTOK owner BYTEDANCE is targeting to match META’s revenue in 2025, around $186B, +20% from its 2024 revenue, per Bloomberg.
OH LOOK: People are being swindled out of their money by bad actors on META who are buying ads pretending to be real companies, which are then having to deal with the blowback to the fraudulent ads . . . and META is seemingly doing very little about it — while cashing the advertising checks from said bad actors. I mean, to stop taking the swindler money would hurt our revenue numbers so . . . 🤷♂️.
Gotta love this line: META “is increasingly a cornerstone of the internet fraud economy, according to regulators, banks and internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.”
Yeah maybe the streaming TV ad buy environment doesn’t look so bad now, Upfront ad buyers?
AH: META is also delaying the rollout of its new AI update because . . . well, it sounds like it’s not that much different from its current offering. It was previously set for June, but is now looking like “fall or later.”
WELL: So much for everyone leaving NYC and L.A. We’ll see what 2024-25 brings. Austin — where ya at, bro?
YEAH: It seems influencers are tripping over themselves to come speak to HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL students.
SO: YOUTUBE has now joined APPLE and SPOTIFY in publishing a weekly list of the most popular podcasts . . . although it’s U.S.-only, and ranked by watch time — so podcasts that are longer naturally have an advantage.
And yes, cue Joe Rogan’s 2.5 to 3-hour podcast episodes to the top of the list. Followed by Kill Tony and its 2+ hour podcast episodes.
PLUS: Going to the Beyoncé tour? Maybe check back in on the ticket prices — it seems that those who bought early are getting burned on the going rate for tickets closer to show date . . . with some seat prices dropping by more than 50%. Although all tickets on this tour seem to be down by a margin from the Renaissance tour.
SOME SPORTS BIZ #FUNFACTS
If you ever wondered how much a company pays to have their logo on an NBA team jersey — CNBC reports that CHIME FINANCIAL paid $11M a year to put its logo on DALLAS MAVS jerseys in a 3-year deal which includes some other promo rights.
Yahoo Sports notes that only 5 of the 10 NBA & NHL teams that won their divisions this year are still in the playoffs, and of the 5 still playing — none are ahead in their playoff series.
3 NFL teams were given, uh, zero primetime TV games next season: CLEVELAND BROWNS, NEW ORLEANS SAINTS and TENNESSEE TITANS. Sorry southern NFL teams (and well, the BROWNS are the BROWNS), although I doubt the hometown fans are complaining about not having to drive home from a stadium after 10 p.m. on a work night.
While NBA players have had 82 games a season for decades — the extreme run & gun nature of today’s 3-pointer-centric playing style may indeed be taking more of a toll on their bodies.
NEW ANKLER PODCAST EPISODE
Will be coming later today, as we obviously needed more time to think of things to talk about on such a slow news week.
As always, you can subscribe on APPLE, SPOTIFY or your platform of choice (just search for “The Ankler”).
HOUSEKEEPING MATTERS
FIRST: A clarification from yesterday’s Upfront roundup — WBD assures me that I was invited to its Upfront presentation, so I’ll chalk that one up to the spam gods . . . and somehow I’ll just have to get by with Elaine’s description of the dancing sharks to me afterward.
NEXT: Just a big thanks to all of the readers and pod listeners who took time to say hello this week during the Upfronts. It’s one of the best parts of doing this thing, and I really appreciate when folks do so. Even when they disagree with something I’ve written!
As always — connect / drop a note here to me on LINKEDIN just to say hi or share any thoughts, intel or insights anytime (email of course works too — seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com).
FINALLY: One of the most popular questions I get from folks is “Do you write The Wakeup all on your own?” which indeed I do (trust me, some days it would be really handy to have someone else upon which to blame the jokes that don’t land).
But a key component to The Wakeup process over the past year+ has been Ankler Executive Editor David Lidsky, and today is his last day!
David’s been great at not only catching my, uh, “occasional” 🥴 name typos in his morning edit on my working draft . . . but also putting pertinent things outside of the usual Hollywood purview onto my radar, and hence onto yours as well, in addition to being a trusted sounding board on ideas both long-term and in the immediate madness of an earnings report morning.
Farewell, David! You now know the answer to the first question you asked me when you started — how do you put The Wakeup together? The answer of course has about 196 variations depending upon the rate of the news cycle (see this morning’s big cable TV news).
Enjoy life back over at Fast Company and Inc., where for some reason they don’t capitalize company names or use gifs and emojis to communicate. 🤷♂️
💻 THE MEDIA BIZ
Massive Cable TV biz deal has future ripples for Hollywood studios
Nothing like a seismic, old-fashioned cable TV deal to round out earnings season and then Upfronts week . . .