☀️NETFLIX '25: What Worked, What Didn't in Movies, Docs, Comedy
PAR says WBD TV nets are worth $0 / PAR sets more 'Jackass' / FOX expands creators biz
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, January 8, 2026.
Where sometimes the internet gives you a little light on a dark day.
Someone started an MTV Rewind site that pulls in things from YOUTUBE to essentially create TV channel streams of music videos, old commercials and movie clips from different decades, kinda giving you a broad feel for what it was like to watch MTV way back when.
And given that the #1 Broadcast TV show with the under-18 set in the ’24-’25 TV season was a 7-year-old ABC cop procedural . . . maybe it’s not too long before we’re back to this viewing lifestyle (and yes, that popularity is probably thanks to TIKTOK clipping of Rookie scenes).
ALSO: Here are your SAG Actor Award nominees, and your DGA Award TV, Doc and Commercials nominees.
OH: The Critics Choice Awards got 726k viewers across E! and USA on Sunday night.
THEN: VERSANT just . . . keeps . . . falling, -8% on the day yesterday, and another -3% this morning. Granted, yes — this is probably a lot of COMCAST shareholders who do not want to also be VERSANT shareholders exiting the stock. Still — not a great look.
So yeah, the Ellisons are waiting this out a bit longer to see where the VSNT bleeding tapers off . . . issuing a new statement this morning with their commitment to $30 a share.
It also said that DISCOVERY GLOBAL is worthless, at $0 a share value to WBD shareholders in the NETFLIX deal based on the latest VERSANT numbers, and things like the amount of debt WBD is planning to offload to the company.
Granted, PSKY is also offering to buy that worthless business and its $15B of debt so . . . yeah that’s a philosophical deal thinker.
PSKY walks through its numbers / analysis in the release for
WBD shareholdersanyone to peruse.
ALSO: Ali Wong and Bill Hader have broken up, according to People.
YAH: Not a lotta curiosity to check out the new Cronkite’s first official night at CBS Evening News on Monday evening — the audience was 4.37M, a 🤏 above its 4M average in 2025.
ABC got 8.2M and NBC got 7.2M.
AND: Here’s last night’s CBS Evening News show ender — a chopper ride with regular guy billionaire Jerry Jones, who assured Tony that “it never has been about the money.” #breakingnews
That was capped by a random group of people applauding the end of the news broadcast from the SMU campus . . . with a mention that tonight’s show will be in Minneapolis — and Dokoupil getting his biggest test navigating the unfolding ICE killing aftermath.
Just a note keep in mind in MN — the state’s voters will share their voices at the ballot box this November when selecting a new governor.
BUT: With Trump reportedly having a target of getting oil to $50 a barrel through the riches from our new state of Venezuela — who wants to break that news to Tommy Norris? Well, at least season 3 has a new plotline.
YES: Meet DIS TOK! DISNEY+ will be adding vertical videos to the app sometime later this year (ESPN already added this component with its big app relaunch in 2025), to turn DIS+ “into a must-visit daily destination,” according to the company.
No word yet on whether that will include SORA AI videos.
PHEW: CBS finally dropped the “Y” from its Yellowstone series Y: Marshals. The show debuts in March.
HMM: NETFLIX announced it’s doing a Bridgerton season 4 live-stream of its premiere on Jan. 14 in Paris (you can sign up here to watch) . . . but gotta wonder if this is another event it could have used movie theaters for? Jan. 23 only has AMAZON’s Mercy as the one big new release.
PLUS: Here are your next SNL hosts.
HMM: Now, what happened in April 2025? 🤔
FINALLY: Just some curious notes on the APPLE credit card:
First, if you have one, JP MORGAN CHASE will now be operating it instead of GOLDMAN SACHS. So if you find the interest rates egregious, just know they’re going to a good cause: giving CEO Jamie Dimon a $770M pay package last year.
Second, GOLDMAN had to offload the $20B-ish in debt that it was managing for the card to JP MORGAN at a discount due to a high exposure to subprime borrowers and a higher-than-industry-average delinquency rate. Kinda curious demos for an APPLE-branded product (and probably a solid reason why GOLDMAN wanted to exit the business..
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
LGF’s Greenland 2 and PAR’s Primate are both having pretty similar tracking, anywhere from $8M to $11M out there . . . so let’s start the year with an old-fashioned showdown — which one will come out on top on Sunday? Er, well, behind Avatar and perhaps Zootopia as well.
The Year in NETFLIX Films, Docs and Comedy
So, we now have all of our weekly data from NETFLIX for 2025 — again, the only streaming service that does this. By a mile. 🙌 #ItsGoodToBeTheKing
Would it be great to also get info like which films reach a 70% completion rate . . . or a view count for the U.S. charts specifically? Sure — consider my paper slipped inside the NETFLIX suggestion box on Sunset.
But still — a lotta great intel about what NETFLIX subscribers like to watch most in a given year.
CAVEAT: I will be updating these numbers once we get the H2 2025 #datadump in a few weeks, but this is all based on the data I track each week on the global NETFLIX chart and gives a very good snapshot.
So, let’s take a look at what worked on NETFLIX with its subscribers (and what didn’t) across Film, Docs and Comedy in 2025 — plus:
The shift in NETFLIX Films output from last year.
The biggest movie hits . . . and misses (IMO), and what genres are working.
Growth in international movies.
What themes work most in documentary.
Which comics are the biggest draws.
How NETFLIX’s other animated pics stacked up against KPop, and more.
FILMS OVERALL
First up, here’s how the total view count for the Top 9 movies globally each week compares from the past 2 years: