☀️ PSKY-WBD Reality: Huge Debt, Layoffs, Streaming & News Chaos
The DOJ may be the easy part: HBO MAX/P+ mess, 🥴 movie math, exec egos, cable melt issues all await
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 Friday, February 27, 2026.
Where PSKY caught a real break today!
No, not the NETFLIX thing (although thanks for that, Ted 🫶) — TWITTER co-founder Jack Dorsey just did a layoff that will likely make WARNAMOUNT’s at least slightly less garish.
Yes, Jack’s BLOCK payments company (the CASH APP with all of those weird Chalamet ads, plus the SQUARE merchant payments system) is laying off 40% of the staff — over 4,000 people — because essentially, AI can now do their jobs.
And no, this is not because business is struggling — Dorsey said “our business is strong . . . gross profit continues to grow.” Instead, he had these reassuring words for the American workforce:
“Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”
But wait, NVIDIA leader Jensen Huang said it was just going to make us all a lot more effective just 4 months ago! Jensen — what happened, bro?!
BUT: Good news for your 5-day-a-week NYC office commute, PSKY folks! Your subway ride may now be accompanied by audio ads. Yes, the MTA is testing a program playing 30-second audio ads on station platforms . . . although if they sound anything like the actual service alerts — at least you won’t be able to understand what the ads are saying.
AND: NETFLIX and APPLE TV are doing an F1 collab! NETFLIX is licensing the new season of Drive to Survive non-exclusively to APPLE in the U.S. — and NETFLIX will stream the Canadian Grand Prix this year in the U.S. (in addition to it being on APPLE TV globally).
OH: Trump’s big SOTU speech on Tuesday was his least-viewed ever, at 32.6M viewers across all broadcast and cable news networks (15 in all).
That’s -11% from last year and below all of them from his first term — so NIELSEN BIG DATA + PANEL couldn’t even save the numbers.
It also matches Biden’s final SOTU in 2024.
2M of the 32M were 18-34.
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL
I’ve been burned by blind optimism the past 2 weeks . . . so I’ll temper it just a little bit on PAR’s Scream 7. A lot of enthusiasm out there — not a lotta great reviews.
AND: Dive into the potential anti-trust / DOJ and other considerations for the WARNAMOUNT DEAL here with Richard and anti-trust expert Matt Stoller, and I shared a couple thoughts for CBS Mornings’ roundup of the action this morning.
The WBD Auction: SOLD! AGAIN! Welcome to WBD 2.0
So, who besides James Cameron is excited for WARNAMOUNT? Then again, if anyone’s gonna love a now $111B deal, it’s James Cameron.
But I doubt that PSKY deal excitement includes any folks at WBD who aren’t in the C-suite or don’t have contracts with guaranteed payouts, as the company that needed the asset most in the bidding war seems to be getting it.
Also just gotta love those optics of NETFLIX immediately bowing out after a day of meetings with DOJ and Trump admin officials.
A lot to dive into, including:
The hard financial realities ahead — WBD 1.0, meet WBD 2.0.
The impending streaming mess on . . . HBO Mountain w/P+? 🤷♂️
NETFLIX’s win-win-win situation, even though it “lost.”
The new cable TV network behemoth that no one is even talking about
Ellison’s huge looming PR challenge
Big executive decisions and more — and let’s start there.
So, who wants to place bets on how many employees from the combined companies will still be, well, employed at WARNAMOUNT by 2028? Here are the latest counts