☀️ NETFLIX Mulls All-Cash To Speed Up WBD Deal Vote
PAR enlists Williams for Chazelle pic / Romance rules NETFLIX Films '26 start / NBC’s early 80s pilot season
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 Wednesday, January 14, 2026.
Where who took the POLYMARKET under that the Golden Globes TV audience would be bigger this year on CBS?
Oh, right, the app is banned in this country. Well, I’m afraid the award for “Biggest TV Audience” #Coming2027 went to last year’s show, as CBS got 8.7M for the Globes on Sunday, down from 9.2M last year.
Then again, as the show was up against a football game getting over 3x as many viewers at nearly 29M (more on that below), it is what it is.
AH: The CBS Evening News was -23% YoY in Tony Dokoupil’s first week, averaging 4.2M viewers. ABC was -9% YoY (8.1M viewers) and NBC was -9% YoY (7.4M) — the week a year ago included coverage of the CA wildfires.
Dokoupil was up slightly from the CBS Q4 average of 4M.
BUT: I’m sure the ratings from Larry Ellison’s SAILGP competitive sailing league will save the day for CBS — the network just renewed its U.S. TV deal through 2027.
And yes, Ryan Reynolds owns a team in this league, too — the Australian BONDS Flying Roos team — with his Deadpool co-star Hugh Jackman.
YAH: CNN set a non-exclusive video podcast streaming deal with LEMONADA MEDIA to add its podcasts to the CNN D2C streamer.
HUH: McConaughey has trademarked himself! Which kinda sounds dirty, but it just means he was granted approval for 8 trademarks around . . . himself! And yes, this is an effort to AI-proof his image, essentially.
The trademarks relate to clips featuring him staring, smiling and talking — yes, including this one (somehow he didn’t trademark the line about high school girls staying the same age).
THEN: Ya gotta love META cutting over 1k folks in the Reality Labs division, and specifically in VR and metaverse products — ya know, the ones that Zuck renamed his company after? #visionary
META is also putting its name on UFC’s APEX live event and broadcast
production facility in Vegas.
GOOD NEWS: MICROSOFT is going to pay its share of your electric bill once its AI data centers jack it up. How you’ll pay the rest of your electric bill once the AI has put you out of work . . . well, that part’s still TBA.
WELL: Here’s one SG&A “cost savings” boon 🫰 likely ahead for corporate legal departments (I’m sure including those at merging Hollywood studios as well) — using AI to write initial drafts of policy and documents instead of hiring outside firms to do it, saving money that would have otherwise gone to several billable hours.
OH: Did you hear the one about the 2 companies in a dying industry with declining revenues merging together . . . only to go bankrupt just a year later from all of the debt incurred in the process of making the deal? What’s that? No, I’m talking about SAKS and NEIMAN MARCUS, of course. Duh.
HMM: Ok, sure, this is the highest monthly grocery price increase in 3 years . . . but just think about all of that oil from Venezuela you’ll be getting from where our leadership has its attention focused, America!
THANKS!: To the folks at NETFLIX for the invitation to check out The Rip premiere last night in NYC. Man, Florida . . . amirite? Plus, all the cash counting in the film was really great for getting me in the mindset for Q4 earnings season next week. 👏
🧐 WBD Deal Watch
