☀️SPOTIFY Crosses 600M Users, Still Loses Money
YOUTUBE TV passes DISH sub count / NFL adds new game in Sept. / CNN scraps morning show
Mornin’! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKED-IN here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY Feb. 6, 2024.
Where I hope your atmospheric rivers are not flowing through your driveways this morning — the only kind of rivers we have here in NYC are the kind they tell us to never, ever swim in.
But uh, is it too early to start talking about the next NFL season? 🙋♂️ And no it isn’t so I can forget this year’s GIANTS season sooner.
It seems the NFL is expanding its opening week in September! In addition to the NBC Thursday night season kickoff on Sept. 5, its adding a Friday game from Sao Paulo, Brazil with the EAGLES vs. TBA. No word on a game time or a network, but yeah we’re lookin’ at you AMAZON 🤑.
The NFL can do it this year thanks to a calendar loophole - due to a federal regulation from the 1960s protecting high school & college football… the NFL can’t hold games from Fridays at 6 p.m. ET through Saturdays, starting the second Friday in September through the second Saturday in December.
HOWEVER: Labor Day is early this year, so Fri. Sept. 6 is technically the first Friday in September. Gotta admire that NFL calendar creativity.
ALSO: The NFL is also really testing the enthusiasm of the German NFL crowd… by giving that game to the CAROLINA PANTHERS (2-15 record) next season😬.
ALSO: APPLE TV+ will release 16 scripted and documentary series (and one docu) in about a 16-week time frame (from mid February to mid June) - link to sizzle trailer here. Ya know, just like HBO does… over a three-year period. And yes, there will be a pop quiz to name me five of them come July 4th.
AND: For True Detective fans out there — you can stream this Sunday’s episode on MAX starting Friday night at 9 p.m. ET #ThanksSuperBowl.
WAKEUP POLL RESULTS
Taylor Swift The Grammys took it up a notch this year, to 16.9 Million viewers across CBS and PAR+ according to early NIELSENS, so rare kudos to the 13%, which is the % of you who picked 15 Mil to 17 Mil in the poll. Although it’s possible the 18% “17+ Mil” bulls pull this one out in the final numbers.
But either way — an impressive bump from 12.4 Million last year, and is getting close to its pre-pandemic averages.
Ok Oscars, all eyes on you to put a nice cap on the return of the award show genre! Any chance Taylor can fly back from her Saturday March 9 concert in Asia to present an award at a Sunday evening event in LA on March 10? I mean hey, she’s young, she can do it twice in one month’s time.
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
YOUTUBE TV posts impressive growth.
SPOTIFY takes Hollywood’s layoffs + cutbacks playbook to restore cash flow, profit plan for 2024. A look inside the numbers to know.
Project news at UNI, PEACOCK, NETFLIX, SHOWTIME and more.
CORRECTION: My apologies for a misspell, putting Matthew Macfayden in the “Mc” club with me last week. Wishful thinking.
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
