☀️NBCU In Talks With Sheridan-Whisperer; FCC Eyes TV Net Affiliate Deals
MLB Finalizes TV Deals / HALLMARK rules ‘entertainment’ cable / AMAZON sets Nanjiani pic
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 Thursday, November 20, 2025.
Where good news! DISNEY is finding new ways to ‘extract value’ from its theme park tickets — and that value is coming from you. Ah, sorry, I should have clarified that the good news was for DISNEY.
CFO Hugh Johnston said “dynamic pricing” is on the horizon for ticket prices at the U.S. parks (it’s been testing it in DISNEYLAND PARIS already), whereby prices go up in times of higher demand . . . and go down in lower demand times.
Basically, if a Tuesday in February at DISNEYLAND is your idea of a good time, you’re in luck.
“Dynamic pricing” is also what companies like hotels and airlines do with their tickets/inventory — so if you’re happy with what you’re paying to fly home for Thanksgiving next week . . . then you’ll be very happy with DISNEY later in the 2020s.
Personally, I’m holding out for the launch of the dynamic food pricing policy. Oh, you wanted to eat that hot dog at lunchtime . . . well, that’ll be an extra $2. Don’t forget the 90-degree-day bottled-water surcharge to wash it down!
AND: NVIDIA poured a fresh gallon of kerosene on top of the AI bubble flame 🔥🫧 #mixedmetaphor, with revenue +62% YoY in Q3 beating Wall Street analysts’ expectations. So — I think that means we have 3 more months of winter?
$32B of net profit on $57B of revenue — not a bad business ya got there, especially with a 65% growth rate forecast for Q4. 61% of Q3 revenue came from just 4 companies, and it’s spending $12B a quarter simply buying back NVIDIA stock on the open market.
So, when do a few of these AI companies driving the demand for all of these NVIDIA chips get annual revenue anywhere near . . . 25% of that? See you in . . . 2029?
Always great when the company supplying the parts for an industry makes exponentially more than any company in that industry.
UNRELATED BUT RELATED: Elon’s xAI is looking to raise $15B to pay for more access to those chips, asking for a $230B valuation on the company.
xAI is also partnering with the Saudis to build a new data center, due to the country’s renown and plentiful water resources (no timeline was given for the project).
HAH: Gotta love this look at how some of Jersey’s more affluent North Jersey suburbs (looking at you, Summit) are chafing at adding state-mandated housing growth projects.
PLUS: AMAZON PV is now using AI to create recap videos for TV seasons, so if a line from Mrs. Maisel ends up in your Reacher season 3 recap, that explains that.
ALSO: TKO set the 2nd of its 2 promised new sponsorship deals this Q4 — this time adding DOOR DASH as a sponsor across WWE and UFC. It previously signed up gambling app prediction market POLYMARKET as a UFC sponsor earlier this month. No word on a 💰 value for either.
AH: WARNER MUSIC settled its lawsuit with AI music company UDIO, and set a licensing deal 🤑. UNIVERSAL MUSIC set a deal with the company last month.
Divisions of the 3 major labels also struck deals with AI music creation company KLAY, which trains its bots on licensed music.
So, the industry that first suffered collateral damage from a tech revolution (and the hardest, alongside “print”) . . . seems to be the first one now making deals on the forefront of the next one. Hmm.
THEN: It’s WBD offer submission day! 😱 Just a note for Rushfield — there are 9 zeros in billion, so make sure you get one of those huge novelty-style checks.
YAH: DISNEY was shot down in its efforts to get a preliminary injunction against DISH for offering SLING 1-day, weekend and 1-week TV bundle subscriptions, but we’ll see if the matter still goes to trial.
In celebration, DISH is offering $1 TV bundle day passes to SLING bundles until Nov. 30.
GREAT JOB: The U.S. won’t publish an unemployment rate for October thanks to the Trump administration’s government shutdown, the first time a month will be missed in 77 years. So yeah, wouldn’t count so much on that year-end interest rate cut from the Fed.
DON’T WORRY: The 46% of Americans who said they’ve been hurt by the Trump administration’s economic policies (15% helped, 39% no effect) came from a poll by that lefty news organization, FOX NEWS.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
Ok! Wicked day has finally arrived . . . and perhaps we’ve had too much time, as no one seems to have any real idea of what to expect from Wicked: For Good.
UNI and folks wanting to have a laugh are in the $115M to $120M-ish camp (the original opened to $113M) . . . while some are up to $150M+ . . . and others think more $175M/$180M. Nothing quite like a sharp target, so we gotta go wide.
🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
