ICYMI: Tubi or Not Tubi; Rushfield Golden Ages; AI vs. Animation
Catch up on our recent best
Happy Sunday! Hope everyone is enjoying the last embers of summer. Just four more days until the pumpkin spice latte returns to Starbucks, marking the unofficial beginning of fall. Speaking of milestones this week, tomorrow marks my six-month anniversary at The Ankler! No idea where the time’s gone, but we’re having fun. Email me at david@theankler.com and let me know how we’re doing.
And now, our best of the week, ICYMI:
Fear and Change as Tubi Surges
As premium streamers raise prices and cut titles, free ad-supported services like Tubi in particular are gobbling up audience share. Entertainment Strategy Guy goes deep on the FAST phenomenon, including what Tubi has in its library and why it’s connecting with audiences; the percentage of total viewing audience of FASTs vs. paid streamers; what connected TVs home screens have to do with it; and what Tubi’s success tells us about Disney, Paramount and WBD’s stock market woes:
Rushfield’s Guide to the Golden Ages
In a five-part series for paid subscribers only, Richard Rushfield looks back on the four times Hollywood fired on all cylinders, how all the stars aligned to make it happen and what they suggest for creating a new gilded era:
AI: Labor Strife and . . . Opportunity?
SAG-AFTRA’s video-game workers are on the picket lines — and animators may follow — over one particular issue: AI. In this week’s Series Business (for paid subscribers only), Elaine Low talks to Animation Guild president Jeanette Moreno King about how each studio is creating its own proprietary AI tools; why SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland believes this video game negotiation will impact all 160,000 members; and where animators already are seeing evidence of AI today:
Did you know the Olympics used AI and a synthetic voice of Al Michaels? The technology generated millions of personalized highlight reels for Olympics fans in an instant. In this edition of Reel AI (for paid subscribers only), Erik Barmack explains how “highlight reel AI” could revolutionize streaming apps and all unscripted TV:
Stars Align for Prestige Junkie
Some big interviews for Katey Rich this week: The Dark Knight co-writer Jonathan Nolan about his Amazon hit Fallout; Oscar winner Gary Oldman about the joys of serialized TV with Slow Horses; and she shares her first live podcast taping, with Fargo’s Noah Hawley, Juno Temple and Lamorne Morris:
*Here’s the link to listen to on Apple if you prefer. A technical glitch prevented the Apple link from embedding.
THE WAKEUP
It may be vacation time, but the smartest people in the industry still read Sean McNulty for his trenchant news analysis, such as this week’s dives into the Paramount TV Studios closure and the benefits of Sony’s “arms dealer” strategy:
🎧 PODCASTS
THE ANKLER
Tubi Puts Hollywood on Edge How FAST services are upending the Streaming Wars:
👓 THE OPTIONIST
FINAL HOUSEKEEPING!
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