☀️The Chaos Meter: What's Ahead in H'wood After June Gloom
Iger talks HULU’s future / APPLE’s ‘Presumed Innocent’ plans / NBA Finals woes continue
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 Wednesday, June 11, 2025.
Where you know it’s getting bad when AI is now coming for #BigTech ad biz jobs too — who’da thought GOOGLE and news publishers would finally be in the same boat?
Yes, GOOGLE is joining the great June ‘25 downsizing chorus . . . offering buyouts to staff in its Search and Ads divisions according to The Information (uh, just WTF exactly is going on in the Q2 numbers?? Gonna be a fun earnings season this July/August).
So GOOGLERS — media & entertainment folk will be happy to give you the gist on what happens next if there aren’t many takers of GOOGLE’s offer, should you have any questions.
BUT: Hey, it sounds like CHIPOTLE is adding jobs! Its CEO is touting that its AI hiring platform, called . . . oh boy, AVA CADO, is helping the company cut the time it takes to find/hire people by 75%, thus allowing CHIPOTLE to open a new location almost every day (it’s targeting 300 this year).
HUH: X’s new sales pitch to advertisers this year? Buy with us or we’ll sue you, according to the WSJ. Always a sign of rabid demand for your platform.
AND: Nothing like the clarity that only comes at 3 a.m.
OH: Zuck is now personally recruiting for a new AI “superintelligence” exec team . . . and personally arranged the desks so they’ll sit near him #BigPerk.
This, after also spending nearly $15B for a 49% stake in AI firm SCALE AI (don’t worry, government regulators — we’re not officially buying the company!), and its 28-year-old CEO will likely join this “super team” once the deal is final.
SCALE has a massive database of labeled data / curated training data for AI to learn from — I’m sure all put together by workers in America being paid a healthy wage.
THEN: Vanity Fair has a new editor — Vogue’s Creative Editorial Director Mark Guiducci, so apparently the search was far and wide. Breaker cites sources that he’s referred to as “The Anna Whisperer” inside CONDE.
UH: PACERS, you know the KNICKS did this same dumb thing before you beat them, right? Eh, at least you waited until the NBA Finals — have fun in game 3 tonight.
PLUS: If you wanna check out that Wizard of Oz movie experience at The Sphere, tix are now on sale (it debuts August 28). Nice touch with the legs there at the bottom, Sphere.
YUP: Now that the official college sports ruling allowing for direct payments to college athletes is set — cue the private equity money!
BOISE STATE expects to have PE investment in its athletic program within 6 months. 2 other unnamed schools have already set agreements to take PE money as well, according to FOS.
ALTHOUGH: Full barber setups at college football training facilities don’t pay for themselves, folks. Just ask TEXAS TECH and its $250M “football resort” home (and folks say Hollywood is extravagant 🙄).
FINALLY: Gotta love FANDUEL adding a $0.50 tax / surcharge on every sports gambling wager that folks make in Illinois starting Sept. 1, due to a new gambling tax the state passed. Keep an eye out for the DRAFTKINGS 50 Cent spokesperson deal — although DK also said it "anticipates taking action” soon.
THE STATE OF HOLLYWOOD, MID-2025 EDITION
As the corporate moves we’ve seen this week (much less this month — how is it only June 11?) have given off a feeling of . . . depression hopelessness uncertainty, I sat down with the bigger picture of the industry at this point to really just tally up the state at where its major players stand.
Thus, here’s where the chaos and stability ranks stand for each Hollywood player at the midway point of the 2020s, and the numbers aren’t pretty.
An optional exercise — when looking at this . . . just imagine taking off the company names here, and envision instead this list being the state of major players in say, the hotel business or insurance business, and the sentiment you’d walk away with about that industry accordingly. 😳