☀️ NETFLIX 🎥 Viewership Slump Continues
SONY gets Bullock pic / FIFTH SEASON spins off unscripted / Jeff Zucker's new production powerhouse
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, March 4, 2026.
Where let’s send a kudos to NBC for putting on a fun ‘retro’/’90s NBA game last night.
It brought back Bob Costas and the announcing team who called the games in the NBA ’90s heyday, with the teams playing in their old uniform look — plus some fun packages airing in the breaks to go with the “old look” back on screen.
Really a shame that the game itself was uh, terrible.
YAH: FCC honcho Brendan Carr reiterated again on CNBC yesterday that he thinks the WARNAMOUNT deal will be approved by the FCC “pretty quickly,” and he called the deal “cleaner” than NETFLIX BROS. . . . even though that deal did not involve a broadcast license. Thanks, Brendan.
No mention was made of selling America’s biggest TV network (and 28 TV stations) to a group whose majority equity financial backing comes from Middle East state funds.
THEN: Zaz sold $114M of WBD stock this week, but ya know, that’s before taxes. Other WBD C-suite folks also decided to unload some shares.
AH: The WSJ set another AI licensing deal, this time with META for “up to $50M a year,” for at least 3 years. This $50M a year is about the same price it got for its OPENAI deal last year.
OH: If you’re tired of seeing VERIZON everywhere in TV and music event sponsorships . . . it sounds like it feels the same way, as VERIZON is looking at ways to significantly pull back on its sponsorship spending — although sorry, NFL fans, it sounds like it determined getting out of that 10-year, $1B deal would be too onerous.
VERIZON spends over $250M a year on such advertising.
ALSO: If you watched the excellent 60 Minutes piece on Sunday night about parents of school shooters being held accountable by the courts for ignoring pretty blatant signs of trouble from their kids while also supplying them with weapons . . . another father was convicted in Georgia yesterday for similar activity.
PLUS: ANTHROPIC is the latest beneficiary of being banned by Trump administration officials — not just the resulting boom in app downloads, but ANTHROPIC has hit a $20B annual revenue run rate (the revenue from the last month x 12), up from $9B a little over 2 months ago.
All of the #freepress news about its bots coming for jobs in many fields in the first 2 months of the year was probably the larger boon, with corporate accounts likely driving this new revenue.
But the Pentagon fiasco should likely help it continue that growth on the consumer front in the coming months.
🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
