☀️ PAR Layoffs Signal Studio's Next Moves
Biel, PEACOCK part ways on series / YT Premium int'l price hikes / Huge Sports TV weekend audience roundup
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on WEDNESDAY, September 25, 2024.
Where kudos to the guy that Veronica used to be is in love with 👇 for choosing the WHITE SOX game to propose marriage, the very game where the SOX were going for the worst MLB record of all time. Hey — for better or for worse, amirite honey?
The power of love apparently moved the SOX to stave off history for one more night by beating the ANGELS — so now we just need 5 more proposals in the final 5 games to keep the “record” at bay. Who’s up next? 💍
THEN: WBD is deploying GOOGLE’s AI tools to do captioning for its unscripted programming, improving “efficiency and speed, while reducing costs,” to the tune of a 50% savings vs. current costs for the process.
#FunFact — “Increasing efficiency and speed, while reducing costs” is also the new slogan on the Hollywood sign.
AND: It won’t be a Tom Brady Christmas on NETFLIX — FOX said Tommy can’t come out and play in response to NETFLIX’s inquiry for Brady and Kevin Burkhardt to call one of its NFL games, according to the NY Post.
ALSO: MAX launches in Japan today in a hard bundle with U-NEXT. Well, that’s one way to add a nice chunk of subscribers in Q3 to hit that promised 6M mark.
AH: Good news for fans of 2002: Vice Magazine is returning as a quarterly thing in print for $10/month paid VICE subscribers (there is a digital access component to the subscriptions as well).
VICE hopes to have 20k subs in a year’s time, which would be a cool $2.4M annual revenue rate. I look forward to the updates on subscriber numbers.
PLUS: FOX NEWS had 74 of the Top 100 rated shows on basic cable last week.
If you want an indication of who still has cable TV — the network averaged 2.5M viewers in primetime . . . but only 310k were between the ages 25-54 (12%), and I’m gonna go with the “under 25” number not changing the overall picture here.
But — it certainly gives FOX leverage in those cable TV carrier negotiations every few years. I wouldn’t expect FOX NATION D2C to start streaming a live FOX NEWS feed anytime soon.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
