☀️PSKY Extends Offer; NETFLIX Can’t Get Enough Wahlberg
Oscar noms day / SORA 2 underwhelming / UNI’s new college comedy / NFL's up, down Saturday
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 22, 2026.
Where once again, I was snubbed for an Oscar nomination — but these folks got them.
Prestige Junkie cohorts Katey Rich and Christopher Rosen watched the nominations live here, and Katey will have a dispatch with all the intel to know about the noms coming to inboxes later this afternoon.
ALSO: A happy Sundance to all who are trekking to Utah for one last hurrah.
OOH: Get ready for the big 2027 AI pin showdown! 😱 APPLE is planning an AI-enabled pin of some sort, potentially for next year, that’s about the size of an Airtag, according to The Information . . . just as OPENAI’s Jony Ive pin should be hitting the market.
SO: Tony Dokoupil’s week 2 wasn’t much better than his week 1, according to Status, averaging 4.2M viewers for the CBS Evening News. ABC got 8.2M and NBC got 6.7M.
AND: Bari Weiss’ dumping of the “Inside CECOT” piece had its desired effect — 60 Minutes got only 4.9M viewers up against the NFL playoffs, one of its smallest audiences ever.
YUP: SEATGEEK and STUBHUB are seeing increased search activity and weekly ticket sales for NHL games since the Heated Rivalry uh, heat began rising at the end of 2025 . . . suggesting the show is creating at least more curiosity about the sport outside of usual NHL fan enclaves.
OH: MRBEAST finally got the big 💰 investment it was long searching for, and you’ll never guess where it came from! Ok, fine — yeah, it’s crypto. Ethereum treasury company BITMINE took a $200M equity investment in MRBEAST in a deal that closed this week.
PLUS: Trevor Noah will host a watchalong show on YOUTUBE for 25 men’s World Cup matches this summer, featuring special guests.
HUH: The NBA Finals will not have a Sunday night game this summer for the first time since 1970 (it’s scheduling around those World Cup games Trevor will be watching).
SEPARATE, BUT: ABC will air 3 MLB games this summer on weekends as part of ESPN’s revised 30-game MLB regular season package this year.
OOF: For all of the hype around Michael Jordan’s “special contributor” deal with the NBA On NBC this fall — all of the content that’s been shown to date is from . . . one sitdown interview MJ did before the season started. Nice paycheck if you can get it.
SIDEBAR: I think someone forgot to tell the BROOKLYN NETS that there were two halves to play against the KNICKS last night — gotta love a 120-66 score for an NBA game.
BUT: Add DAZN to the list of growing POLYMARKET sports odds / gambling prediction markets partners.
AND: SORA 2’s downloads haven’t exactly lit up the room (make your own energy joke here) since it hit the 1M downloads mark after its first 5 days in September. It’s only been downloaded another 5M times globally since.
OH: Brendan Carr’s latest FCC 🔥 💩 lobbing — floating the notion that broadcast TV talk shows (Fallon, Colbert, The View, etc.) may no longer qualify for the “bona fide” news program designation, which exempts them from having to give equal time to political candidates. Ya know, just a little something Carr’s workshoppin’ to follow up his self-described “banger of a year” in 2025.
YAH: OPENAI’s Sam Altman is the latest American corporate titan to go around the Middle East with the tin cup out, asking for cash — looking for a fresh $50B at a valuation of roughly $800B.
OPENAI will also take a 4% cut of purchases made by its AI bots at merchants that use the SHOPIFY payment system. And yes, that 4% . . . will very likely be paid for by you. Not me — I’m an all-cash enterprise.
YUP: Here’s another chart to add to the U.S. economy list — on top of 49% of U.S. spending coming from the top 10%, nearly 60% comes from the top 20%.
YA HUH: HULU’s favorite fraudster, Elizabeth Holmes, is the latest convicted criminal reaching out to Trump for, ya know, “justice” 😉. She has about 6 more years left to serve on her prison term at a minimum-security facility in Houston.
Over on Wall Street, convicted fraudster and noted former brief but large early 2020s VIACOMCBS stock owner, Bill Hwang of ARCHEGOS, also threw his name in the Trump pardon request box.
FWIW: Another American citizen with no criminal record was forcibly removed in his underwear from his home by ICE in MN on Sunday with no warrant, but released about an hour later with a ‘Hey, our bad 😁’ from the U.S.
secret police forcegovernment.BTW: It took Australia a whole . . . uh, month to pass new laws limiting imports of firearms, firming a national gun buyback, and tightening background checks after the Hanukkah massacre last month.
YES: Add UBISOFT (Assassin’s Creed) to the list of video game companies enacting layoffs and canceling titles over the past couple of years.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
AMAZON MGM’s first big theatrical volume year begins with Chris Pratt’s Mercy, looking to come in somewhere in the low teens.
Although keep in mind there’s a major snowstorm coming to the Southeast/East this weekend too (and the NFL’s 2nd biggest day of the year on Sunday).
🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
