☀️ Inside the $11B PAR Offer
NBCU touts AI use in Upfronts process / ABC gets Ryan Murphy show / TKO's $335M settlement
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on THURSDAY, March 21, 2024.
Where it’s March Madness time 😱, so know that tomorrow’s newsletter may be a little hoops gif heavy.
30-second ad prices range from about $200k for early round games to $2 Million for the Championship on TBS, and ad sales have already crossed $1 Billion — WBD & PAR write about a $900 Million annual check to the NCAA for the rights.
Although as the women’s 🏀 tourney TV audiences are likely to be even bigger than last year’s record-setting numbers . . . with an accompanying TV rights fee of conservatively about 3% the cost of the men’s fee (the women’s tourney goes up to $65 Million starting next year) — ESPN/ABC may have already won March Madness.
AND: No matter how bad your Thursday may look, at least:
Your interpreter wasn’t losing $4.5 Million worth of sports bets with a California bookie, that he may or may not have asked you to cover for him — or may have been using your money to gamble with in the first place without your knowledge, depending which Shohei Ohtani account you want to believe.
You’re not likely being sued by the DOJ today for antitrust violations, as APPLE may be, relating to blocking rivals from accessing iPhone hardware and software features.
AND: META, X, MICROSOFT and MATCH teamed up to make a joint filing asking a judge to reject APPLE’s plan to “open up” its App Store, saying it really doesn’t address the problem that a ruling against the company noted (basically, the 30% vig on all app revenues thing).
THEN: NBCU will be using AI as part of its Upfronts ad sales process to uh, honestly I couldn’t tell what the hell this is — over 300 “emotion-based, AI-powered audience segments” anyone? — but here’s the link.
PEACOCK will also introduce a 4-feed multi-view option for the Olympics this summer, so you can keep track of more events at once on your screen.
PLUS: It looks like the CHATGPT store that OPENAI set up for uh, ‘entrepreneurs’ to create different GPTs with various uses . . . is, wait for it, full of GPTs that seem to infringe on a lot of film, TV and video game IP (“Generate Monsters Inc. PIXAR style monsters”), and ones that boast they can bypass various AI content detectors. What’s that? Oh yeah, AI’s goin’ great, thanks.
A REST IN PEACE: Goes out to legendary actor M. Emmet Walsh, who died at the age of 88 this week. From Blood Simple to Fletch to My Best Friend’s Wedding and . . . well the IMDB is impressive, a great talent.
FOLLOW UP: Thanks to the folks who dropped me notes on my WB piece yesterday — and to the Wakeup reader who reminded me that I should add an eighth Oscar-nominated director (also Oscar-winning) to WB’s next-12-months lineup, as Clint Eastwood has a new pic coming too, called Juror #2 that will likely also hit theaters in that time range (it doesn’t have a release date yet).
WAKEUP BOX-OFFICE POLL
Alright, what’s the bill for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire come Sunday? Tracking is circa $45 Million, about what the previous installment opened to. It’s on 4,300 screens, including most of the IMAX ones (a few are sticking with Dune 2).
In the spirit of college sports, let’s narrow the targets here to separate the pros from the amateurs.
AH: Look, it’s Bob Chapek! CNBC just dropped its new mini doc looking at ESPN’s D2C future and business model challenges, featuring new interviews with top DIS execs past & present.