HBOMAX down nearly 2 million US subs due to AMAZON, but up Globally

CHAPPELLE teases 10 City US Tour / EMILY BLUNT joins CHRISTOPHER NOLAN pic / PINTEREST explores $45 Billion sale

Oct 21, 2021

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on THURSDAY October 21, 2021.

Where 1.2 Million accounts streamed “Halloween Kills” on PEACOCK PREMIUM this weekend according to SAMBA TV.

This puts it above “The Sopranos” movie (1 Million), but under the latest “Conjuring” movie this Summer on HBOMAX (1.6 Million). So - not bad for a service with a TBD but certainly far smaller percentage of paying subscribers than HBOMAX.

ALSO: SAMBA said about 550k people streamed the “Succession” premiere on HBOMAX Sunday night, which would leave 850k to come from TV and OnDemand based on HBO’s 1.4 Million reported total viewership number… if SAMBA is as accurate about HBOMAX viewership as it is about DISNEY+.

AND: The GOTHAM AWARD Nominations will be announced today at 10a EST, the link to the list of noms should be on this page for the inclined.

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

This is me every night around 1230am via Giphy

Emily Blunt added to Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” at UNI

She’ll play the wife of Cillian Murphy’s “J. Robert Oppenheimer” in the movie about the advent and aftermath of the Atomic Bomb. /Deadline

AMAZON PRIME spends $30 Million on Sci-Fi film from “Lion” director Garth Davis

Will star Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal (“Normal People”), as well as Aaron Pierre (“Old”, “The Underground Railroad”) who is replacing LaKeith Stanfield.

Called “Foe”, set in a near future of environmental decay, a couple lives on a remote Irish farm - stranger knocks on the door telling them the husband has been chosen to go to a large, experimental space station orbiting Earth, but promises the wife will have “familiar company” while he’s gone so… we’ll see what that means 🤷‍♂️ - will shoot early next year. /Deadline

📺 THE TV SET

Well my Valentine’s Day card this year is set. via Giphy

“The Bachelorette” stumbles in Tuesday Night TV ratings

“The Bachelorette” set a new season premiere low of 3 Million viewers on ABC.

Which did not help it’s lead-out “Queens” at 10p, which got 1.75 Million viewers despite heavy promotion and a new fan who writes a daily morning newsletter. (click here to watch it on HULU btw).

Elsewhere - everyone is pretty much holding even:

NBC “The Voice”: 6.7 Million, and “La Brea” 5.1 Million
FOX “The Resident”: 3 Million and “Our Kind of People” 1.4 Million

IN SPORTS

NBA Season Premiere doubleheader on TNT: 2.8 Million and 3.4 Million
MLB Playoffs - NL game on TBS: 4.3 Million, AL game on FS1: 4.1 Million

NETFLIX employee walkout protest draws crowd in the low hundreds, and met with group of Chappelle supporters

Sounds like words were exchanged but thankfully did not escalate into anything else.

NETFLIX issued a statement in advance of the event, saying they “…respect the decision of any employee who chooses to walk out, and recognize we have much more work to do both within Netflix and in our content.”

MEANWHILE: Chappelle held a sold out show in London last night, said he’d do a 10 City US tour to screen the concert special if it was pulled from the streaming service… though sounds like it may be something he’ll be doing either way - more to come I’m sure. /Variety

Donald Trump - the Social Media App and Streaming service coming soon

App is called TRUTH Social and will launch in beta next month, official launch is TBD 1st Quarter… but no word on how his blog will be integrated. Oh right it was shut down after a month due to miniscule traffic in May.

Well at least he also plans to launch a streaming service to go with the app at some point called TMTG+ (will there be a TMTG regular cable network to go with it? Not sure about that + there). It’ll feature “non-woke” entertainment programming, led by Scott St. John, an exec producer of “Deal or No Deal” and “AGT”. Oh TMTG = Trump Media & Technology Group. Catchy.

As one might expect it doesn’t seem like Trump is putting his own money into it, but rather the enterprise will look to go public via a SPAC, which…. sounds about right. /Deadline

But hey at least Don has kept his razor sharp sense of modesty and irony, saying this…. in a press release:

“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced.”

ALSO IN TV

BET renews “Tyler Perry’s Sistas” for a 4th season. /Deadline

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

(#MediaNerd returns, or scroll down to find out what time DUNE drops on HBOMAX early today, plus a great new BELFAST trailer)

HBOMAX takes 1.8 Million subscriber hit in the US from AMAZON dropping HBO from AMAZON PRIME Channels

HBOMAX US goes from 47 Million to 45.2 Million subscribers.

This drop was of course expected, as WARNER MEDIA finally pulled off the band-aid…. removing HBO from the AMAZON CHANNELS business this Summer, where AMAZON controls the customer relationship.

Globally - HBOMAX is now at 69.4 Million, which means they added about 4 Million accounts Internationally from July thru Sept. They launched in several LATIN AMERICA countries at the start of the quarter.

HBOMAX US Customer source breakdown:

29 Million people still get HBOMAX thru Cable/Satellite TV Companies & 3rd parties, down about 2.5 Million from June (aka the AMAZON CHANNELS hit, which was thought to be close to 5 Million so… that seems like analysts were way off)
12 Million people pay directly for HBOMAX, up about 600k.
3.5 Million are “HBO Commercial” subscribers which I think is their Hotel business? Either way I don’t think these are streaming subscribers… Anyone at WARNER MEDIA - definitely please email me to clarify.
- And then HBO & HBOMAX international subscribers stand at 24 Million, a mix of traditional HBO and streaming HBOMAX subscribers.

OF NOTE: HBOMAX Avg Revenue Per User #ARPU was down 8 cents to $11.82 - launching in LATIN AMERICA this quarter where HBOMAX is priced lower likely is the main driver.

For context - NETFLIX’s US business is still larger than HBOMAX’s total global business (74 Mil to 69.4 Mil).

WARNER MEDIA made $2 Billion from streaming in the quarter (which is mostly HBOMAX $$).

For comparison NETFLIX and YOUTUBE are $7+ Billion a quarter businesses
But WM Streaming / HBOMAX is above HULU’s $1.55 Billion.
That $2 Billion is about 25% of WARNER MEDIA’s total revenue

ALSO: Despite spinning off DIRECTV and selling off busineses like CRUNCHYROLL, AT&T long-term debt grew by $2 Billion vs. this time last year, now stands at $155 Billion.

VERIZON FIOS continues their subscriber trends

Loses 68k TV bundle subscribers, now at about 3.6 Million even (down 7% from last Sept).

Gains 98k Broadband subscribers, now at almost 6.5 Million even (+6% from last Sept).

ALSO IN MEDIA

First a TIKTOK deal, now SHOPIFY is partnering with SPOTIFY to let artists set up virtual stores on their pages. Any Music artist can now basically set up virtual Merch Tables on their SPOTIFY pages if they have a SHOPIFY account (starts at $30/month). Will launch in 5 countries to start including the US and CANADA. /Variety

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

PINTEREST up about 13% on rumors in BLOOMBERG that PAYPAL is looking to buy the platform for $45 Billion, a 26% premium on PINTEREST’s stock price. Well before today. PAYPAL is valued at over $300 Billion.

PINTEREST’s growth has plateaued, especially in the US where it makes most of its revenue but we’ll find out more when they report their 3Q Earnings on Wednesday.

👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

HBOMAX “Dune” - It hits the service early today at 6pm EST. Stream or add to Your List here then - reminder: it’s for ad-free/$15 a month subscribers only.

HULU "The Next Thing You Eat" - David Chang-hosted 6 episode docuseries about the future of food. Stream or add to Your List here

NETFLIX “Sex, Love and GOOP” - 6 episode docuseries about people exploring their sexuality. Stream or Add to Your List here

NBC “The Blacklist” Season Premiere at 8p

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🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

FOCUS FEATURES “Belfast” new trailer. Another look at the new kinda-autobiographical film from director Kenneth Branagh about growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1960’s. In Theaters Fri Nov 12, in case you need to find me that weekend 🇮🇪.

PARAMOUNT+ “The Game” reboot trailer. Premieres Thu Nov 11.

AMAZON PRIME “Everybody Loves Natti” docuseries trailer. 6 Episodes on the popular Latin Music & Reggaeton star, tied of course to the release of a new album. Premieres Fri Nov 19.