☀️Where FOX Found Q3 💰 Gains, as Big 2025 Questions Loom
Big linear TV ad rate drops / LGF keeps on buying / SONY + Nate Bargatze / ALTICE #cordcutting continues
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 TUESDAY, November 5, 2024.
Where America has already voted today on the most important matter if you ask me: Gilmore Girls is indeed the quintessential fall TV series.
Over half of its NIELSEN Top 10 appearances in 2022 & 2023 fell in the final 4 months of the year, and in 2024 so far — 5 of its 6 Top 10 appearances were in Sept & early Oct.
Never mind the fact that a WB series that went off the air 17 years ago is still one of the 10 most-streamed series in the U.S. 🤯
HUH: No Winter TCA this year in January. Basically, not enough networks/streamers committed.
HMM: APPLE is setting an internal committee to look at the smart glasses space — folks who were on the “bulky headset committee” are not invited to apply.
ALSO: Just some news for my niece — Outer Banks was renewed for a 5th and final season at NETFLIX. She prefers that we communicate via newsletter.
OH: Shari’s going to leave the PARAMOUNT board when the SKYDANCE thing is final.
Per a new SEC filing, the new PAR GLOBAL board will have up to 13 members, including:
5 appointed by SKYDANCE/Ellison
2 by REDBIRD
1 will be the new Prez of PARAMOUNT
Up to 3 will be independents, so keep us posted where Richard and I can apply.
WHY NOT: Slow weekend for IMAX, so it’ll be showing the PENN STATE vs. WASHINGTON “white out” game in some theaters this Saturday night at 8 p.m. Otherwise the game is a PEACOCK exclusive, so we’ll just call this “inspired” by the recent NETFLIX-IMAX talks.
PLUS: Here are the winning 3-minute short films from AGBO’s annual No Sleep 'Til competition, where folks are given 48 hours to make a short film with a certain theme — this year’s was to explore the dynamics of an unlikely alliance and how they can yield profound outcomes.
TODAY IN AI IS THE FUTURE
FIRST: Ever wonder how much these news publisher-AI lawsuits cost? The NY Times disclosed it has spent $7.6M on the OPENAI lawsuit in the first 9 months of this year.
THEN: Over at T-MOBILE, it’s paying $100M over 3 years to simply get rid of people — it cut a deal with OPENAI to figure out how many human customer service operators it can fire and replace with AI bots.
ALTHOUGH: If you’re Black male not named say, Steve, Mike or John and are applying for a job — let’s hope the company didn’t already replace its HR execs with AI, as a new UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON study showed that AI HR bots favored resumes from white-associated names 85% of the time.
The LLMs studied even preferred white guys for jobs that employment data indicates are more commonly held by women. Finally, thanks for the leg up, AI!
OH: AMAZON PRIME is using generative AI to create text recaps for TV seasons and individual episodes as part of its X-Ray features. Although it’s only for FIRE TV device users presently, it’ll roll out further at some point.
BUT: Thankfully the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chose “keep people’s home appliances running” vs. “feed AI bots” in its decision to deny giving AMAZON a lot more power from Pennsylvania’s nuclear energy grid to run AI data centers. Don’t worry, I’m sure Elon will make the same call when Trump gives him oversight over such matters.
MEANWHILE: Zuck was thwarted by, uh, rare bees that exist on the land META was looking at for a nuclear site. Don’t worry Big Tech, you’ll catch a break one of these days.
Side point — nuclear power getting hot again (in the good way) in the mid-2020s, who knew?
HOWEVER: Let’s bring it back to the human spirit to round things out here up top today . . . as I’m sure you saw, music industry legend Quincy Jones died over the weekend at 91 — but just a big reco here to check out the excellent NETFLIX doc Quincy, co-directed by his daughter Rashida.
FINALLY: Let’s finish out in the voting spirit — just something I’m curious about of my fellow Gilmore folk. I’m in the camp that NETFLIX should do another Gilmore Girls: Year in the Life limited run, but what say ye?
My reward to you for voting ☝️ is giving you $1 Million letting you know that KRISPY KREME is giving away free donuts today. DAVE & BUSTERS also has a $5 “big beers” special, but please only partake after you’ve voted.
🎥 THE SILVER SCREEN
