☀️PAR 2.0: Who's In/Out, Plus the New Board
Why FOX ❤️ linear TV as D2C future is set / TIFF, NYFF make additions / LGF's Jan. action swap
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, August 5, 2025.
Where every once in a while . . . some signals begin adding up in the larger economy that I think are worth threading together here — and today is one of those days.
First, it’s always nice when the stock market gets to the point where even Wall Street bank analysts say, “Guys . . . this is getting a little too ridiculous, even for us.” Many major bank analysts are now predicting a stock market correction in the next quarter-ish, some up to -15% #PlaceYourBets — now, who wants to tell Trump?
BUT: Whatever you do, don’t show the president this chart 👇 (you saw how it went for the head of the Labor stats department 😳).
EH: I’m sure it’s fine — I mean it’s not like Trump just cut a massive amount of government financial support for purchasing food in the Big, Beautiful Bill or something . . . which definitely won’t have a trickle-down effect to folks running grocery stores in rural areas that are already food deserts.
HOWEVER: Remember, whatever you do — don’t tell Americans about that pending 40% bump on Brazilian coffee tariffs mmkay? (aka the good Arabica beans)
BTW: China just coincidentally approved 183 new Brazilian coffee vendors to sell their product in that country.
OH: GOLDMAN SACHS also cut its Q4 GDP growth estimate from +2% to . . . 1.1%. Well, at least the jobs data should improve soon enough! 😉
NOW: Who’s ready to hike some more prices on streaming services to cover NBA deal checks?
We’ll also see if SPOTIFY decides to hike U.S. prices after bumping them next month by €1 for the Premium / ad-free tier in essentially most markets outside of North America.
PLUS: Here is your main slate of pics for the NYFF, including:
NETFLIX’s A House of Dynamite and Jay Kelly
Sundance fave If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind
ALSO: Your 55 TIFF Centerpiece films.
HUH: ROKU is launching kind of an ad-free ROKU CHANNEL service called, uh, HOWDY (🤠 optional) for $3 a month, offering an array of studio titles and others for on-demand streaming sans ads.
YUP: L.A., enjoy your daily dose of Trump-friendly front-page headlines early next year with the launch of the California Post from the NY Post people (i.e., NEWS CORP) . . . because there’s nothing quite like losing money in the newspaper biz on two coasts. Keep an eye out for it wherever you stopped buying newspapers 13 years ago.
THANKS!: To NETFLIX for the invite to get one step closer to filling out my WWE RAW punchcard — I gotta double check with Nick Khan, but I’m pretty sure I get to ref a match after my next one.
FOX continues to make a business on linear TV as D2C streaming era launches
First — gotta love when the boss shows up with a hacking cough to the morning meeting and jokes about getting everyone else sick between coughing fits. Thanks, Lachlan.
But ya gotta applaud FOX for continuing to increase revenues in a cable TV business ecosystem that continues to melt.
A cable TV bundle that is now pretty much:
Broadcast TV cop, lawyer and doctor shows
Sports events
68-year-olds watching cable news
FOX dominates the last category and has a significant share of the 2nd one.
As for the first one — the FOX network itself probably got maybe 1 minute of time (ex. local affiliate station/O&O talk) on the 50+ minute earnings call, despite being 51% of total FOX CORP revenue.
TUBI, which is nowhere near 50% of Q2 FOX CORP revenue, got several minutes.
But, here are the key thematic highlights to know, and some real insights into the size of the TUBI business for once, as well as what to expect with FOX’s D2C “push,” ahem.