☀️ COMCAST Q2: PEACOCK Frozen 🥶, Broadband Ugh 🤦♂️, Cable TV Improved 🧐
WB PICTURES’ sizable layoffs / NETFLIX ad buyer check-in / SONY eyes ‘Social Network 2’ leads
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 Thursday, July 31, 2025.
Where you may sense an air of calm coming over your household this evening if you have a hardcore NFL fan inside of it . . . as football is back on TV tonight!
Granted, it’s just the NFL Hall of Fame game at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, but trust me — you’ll definitely see a shift. The main NFL pre-season begins next Thursday.
AND: Average daily audio time share spent with podcasts in the U.S. according to new NIELSEN data:
18-34s: 32%
Over-35: 15%
UH: Well, that’s one way to go with a rebrand — DOTDASH MEREDITH is now PEOPLE INC. in case you wanted to know where the money really is. So, get that DOTDASH MEREDITH merch after you’re done swiping the MAX and WBD schwag for your 2028 extinct brand Halloween party!
BUT: ZIFF DAVIS laid off 15% of its unionized workforce, in the latest round of journalism biz cuts, totaling 23 roles.
UMPAH: COSM set Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as the next film it’ll adapt to show in its immersive video locations in L.A. and Dallas, as part of its partnership with WB.
ALSO: AMAZON is paying the NY Times a whopping . . . $20M to $25M a year to “license” all NYT journalism for its AI efforts, or about 1% of the NYT’s annual revenues. Eh, I’m sure the AI will just forget all of the NYT information it trained itself on if/when the license isn’t renewed in the future.
AMAZON reports its Q2 earnings later today, but made $17B in net profit in Q1.
PLUS: OPENAI hit $12B of annualized revenue, meaning the company has hit the $1B / month revenue point according to The Information. That’s about 2x where it was 7 months ago.
There are also 700M weekly CHATGPT users globally (+200M in 4 months), in case you’re wondering why Zuck is paying AI engineers $100M salaries to try and catch up.
3.5B folks use either FB, INSTA or WHATSAPP daily (no breakdown of how many use FB/INSA and how many are WHATSAPP).
THEN: ESPN and Shannon Sharpe have officially parted ways.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
A few new entries this weekend . . . but we gotta go with The Naked Gun. An 85-minute duration certainly allows for plenty of screening times!
$15M seems to be the over/under number here, so let’s go with 4 tranches with some optimism built in.
COMCAST needs PEACOCK, Broadband help, but TV Bundle sees (some) promise and Theme Parks 🔥
#medianerd🤓 is on his 2nd coffee already
Wall Street seems ok-ish with this COMCAST Q2 ‘25 report so far — although there’s not much overly positive news (outside of a big thank you card going to DISNEY) — and there are some sizable red flags here to dive into.
So, here’s how the business health looks across divisions to start, then I’ll break down the numbers driving all of this.