☀️Late-Night Misery Watch: CBS Rents 11:30 to Byron Allen
SAG, DGA set deal talks timelines / NETFLIX launches kids gaming app / FUBO sets profitability plan
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 Tuesday, April 7, 2026.
Where a congrats goes out to MICHIGAN fans on winning men’s March Madness for the first time since I was about to enter high school, and Pat Sajak had a late-night talk show.
Although from the descriptions of the game this morning . . . it sounded like a pretty bad one (MICH going 2-for-15 in 3-pointers, with UCONN shooting 31% from the field).
Alas, I did not actually watch the game as it was on cable — just like college sports’ other major playoffs/championship with the CFP 🏈.
Yes, both also now come with streaming options . . . that come with $19 and $30 pricetags to watch (and services that don’t report any viewership data). Always great for sports with specific youth appeal.
But hey, it’s not as if both sporting events are locked into (predominantly) cable TV bundle contracts until the early 2030s or something! Well . . . at least men’s March Madness does its final rounds on CBS every other year, and the women’s championship game is on ABC. 🙏
AND: SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP will resume deal talks on April 27, giving them 2 weeks to seal a deal before the DGA begins talks on May 11.
WELL: #Dunesday seems to be keeping its Dec. 18 release plan this year, as Dune: Part Three sold out its first round of IMAX 70mm screenings for opening weekend yesterday.
YAH: AMAZON is the latest #bigtech company to be accused in a lawsuit of scraping YOUTUBE videos to train one of its AI offerings.
AH: DISNEY is expanding ESPN’s distro in the DIS+ app to more than 50 new countries in APAC and Europe, bringing the total above 100.
WELL: CAA is allowing equity holders to liquidate up to 5.6% of their holdings, according to Page Six Hollywood.
YUP: The world’s largest music label, UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP, got a $65B takeover bid from buy high/sell low NETFLIX investor Bill Ackman’s PERSHING SQUARE hedge fund, which already holds 4.5% of the company (yes, this is a bid to make that stake richer).
The offer for the EU-based company is mostly in stock in a new company that would then be formed in Nevada / listed on the NYSE (only 23% would be in cash for existing UMG shareholders).
French billionaire Vincent Bolloré is the majority shareholder in the company through both his family fund and VIVENDI, so he would basically have to go for this idea — no word on that.
ALSO: ANTHROPIC is now up to a $30B revenue annual run rate according to The Information (take the last month of revenue and multiply by 12 — ANTHROPIC did not actually make anywhere near $30B in the last year), surpassing OPENAI’s most recently announced $25B run rate. But, I mean, it doesn’t even have a daily talk show with 70k viewers, so . . . can we even take it seriously?
OH: If you thought #AmericaSoExpensive was trending strong these days — just wait until the rest of the world shares the news about the joys of $20 (or more) beers at sporting events, and, uh . . . $80 round trip tickets just to take the train to the World Cup matches from Boston to Gillette Stadium this summer, 4x the normal cost.
THEN: As expected, PSKY has indeed secured commitments for $24B from the Saudis (about $10B) and Abu Dhabi and Qatar (the other $14B-ish) for equity in a new WARNAMOUNT company.
Again, this is equity/ownership in the company — not debt that will be eventually repaid (which represents the largest tranche of money in this whole thing at a $54B from BOFA, CITI and APOLLO).
The Middle Eastern countries will have no voting power at the company 😉, but if you want to know where seemingly most of the actual new investor money came from to buy WBD ex. debt, it’s not the Ellison family or REDBIRD — it’s the Middle East.
While no single country is a majority owner of the equity, the largest ownership stake in the new combined company that will own CBS is seemingly foreign / from the Middle East.
Democratic leadership has pointed out that the Communications Act prohibits foreign entities from holding more than 25% of the equity or voting interest in a U.S. company that holds a broadcast license without the FCC’s approval.
FCC ruler Brendan Carr has generally thrown his hands up here, saying there’s no actual transfer of a broadcast license in the WARNAMOUNT deal, so . . . I’m gonna get back to bothering Roger Goodell and the NFL, thx.
THANKS!: To NETFLIX for the invite to check out the NYC premiere of Big Mistakes last night. Dan and Taylor make for a scarily believable sibling combo, although that Laurie Metcalf kinda steals the show — what a talent, who knew?
IN TODAY’S EDITION
It’s time we have a real talk about late-night TV again, as CBS is essentially going back to the ’80s with its new late-night TV strategy.
Let’s take a look at:
How do audience sizes stack up across both linear and YT so far in 2026 for all late-night TV properties (including FOX NEWS)?
Why the Colbert cancellation still really gets a 😏 . . . at best.
How the next 12 months could be an even bigger year of disruption, given the state of contracts and, uh, the looming change in ownership we’re staring down.
What are the options for the genre and its marquee talent at this point?