ICYMI: Brush Fires Still Burn

Catch up on our recent best

One week ago today, where were you when you heard the WGA and AMPTP had reached a tentative agreement?

That night cheer swept across the industry. One down, one to go.

The Ankler immediately after relayed history’s first draft of what happened, including Richard’s first stab at finger-pointing, a look inside the room with a member of the WGA negotiating committee, and breaking coverage from our Strikegeist newsletter. Our team also took to the airwaves: Janice on PBS NewsHour; Elaine Low on CNBC’s Power Lunch and CBS; Sean McNulty on KTLA and Reuters; and Peter Kiefer on ABC7 LA, to name just a few appearances.

But anyone looking for lasting peace in entertainment… well, that’s for another day.

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Agents: Just Like Us!

• Top CAA agents are frantically attempting to negotiate for a bigger slice of their pie too. Peter Kiefer reports on anger brewing at the agency, about to close on a majority sale that values it at $7 billion:

  CAA Agents Agenting for Bigger Slice of Sale

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Private Equity’s ProdCo Cliff

• Splashy valuations achieved by the likes of LeBron James’ and Reese Witherspoon’s production companies from private equity investments already had heads scratching, but now seem even iffier following the discount sale of EOne to Lionsgate, reports Entertainment Strategy Guy:

Danger Ahead: Celebrity Production Companies and Private Equity

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Cableocalypse and Q4 Warning Signs

• Sean McNulty dives into more messy details of the our Great Cable Rebundling, while also sharing a not-so-rosy economic outlook:

☀️The Costs of Re-Bundling the Cable TV Bundle

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Lastly.. So Why Did This Take 5 Months?

• Richard asks questions of our industry leaders as we “lurch from disaster to disaster with no vision to guide us in between”:

Well That Was Fun

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☀️The Wakeup

☀️Studios Un-Freeze TV Deals... but not all are getting extended

☀️WGA Gets Big Gains, but Writers still get little data

WGA Deal: How Much Streaming Data & Bonuses do Writers get

☀️AI Expands; SAG-AFTRA Authorizes Video Game Strike

☀️WGA DEAL Next Steps; Box Office Hits New Low

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🎧 Podcasts

If you like our shows, please subscribe on the podcast app of your choice. It’s the fastest and easiest way to hear our series, and helps us grow our audience. Thanks!

THE ANKLER

An Agency's Golden Handcuff Quandary

Listen here: Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts

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Five Days in September

Listen here: Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts

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🪧Strikegeist

• 'We Didn't Anticipate the Groundswell of Support'

• Here's the New Writers Guild Contract

• 'It Feels Like a War Ended': Elated Writers Exhale As Strike Poised to End

• WE'VE GOT A DEAL: Writers, Studios Reach Tentative Agreement

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👓 The Optionist

• IP Picks🔎: Extinct Killers Return, Cleopatra's Tomb and a Little Romance Plus, what book sales say about audiences' appetite for all things politics.