☀️ PAR Cuts Spend to Boost Profit in Q1

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me atseanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Tuesday, May 5, 2026.

Where let’s start the day with something we can all relate to for once!

You know that thing where the $10M you spend throwing a party in NYC totally digs into your annual super-yacht maintenance fund? Ugh, the worst, amirite? 🙄

While likely not correlated, it seems the $10M that the Bezos’ spent on the totally worth it sponsorship of the Met Gala last night (no word if Justin Theroux was invited) comes just as Bezos is reportedly having a rethink about his boat ownership.

The reported $30M a year maintenance on his Koru yacht and “support ship” Abeona are apparently getting to be a real drag, and he’s looking to offload the dingies, according to Page Six.

People say there are no victims of high gas prices, but clearly a man has his limits (btw, that hit a new high today at $4.48 a gallon).

Also, kinda strange for Bezos to spend $10M on a gala and . . . skip the red carpet, as did fashionista Zuck (no word if there was a new gold chain necklace on display), although Sergey Brin and Evan Spiegel both strutted their stuff for the cameras.

So, if you’re in the market for a $500M boat with a busty statue that looks a lot like Lauren Sanchez on the prow, well — the good news is I’m sure the bidding war shouldn’t be too intense.

AH: The great national nightmare is over.

AND: Just in time, as the world now apparently has uh, cardboard attack drones.

BUT: Here are your Tony nominations.

YAH: One more reminder for the cheap seats out there (and for your college-age / young-adult son), this time in visual form from the WSJ:

OH: This was an interesting read on how Markiplier couldn’t sell PVOD rentals/digital purchase for his Iron Lung pic on YOUTUBE himself, as . . . YT has no apparatus for its creators to do that!

It only features movies/shows from studios/other 3rd party distributors (who would like a cut of those sales).
So, after some talks with Neal Mohan to devise a workaround, he figured out a solution.

AH: YOUTUBE is also giving creators a button to replace copyrighted music in their videos, often that have triggered a copyright claim, with a choice of 4 AI-generated tracks that I’m sure totally don’t resemble the copyrighted song that is being replaced. 👀

YUP: A #goodread here from the NYT about local opposition mounting in states like Michigan to AI data centers that are often approved with heavily redacted documents and code names that have nothing to do with data centers to ~~throw people off the scent~~ be totally transparent with the rural communities where they’re building facilities as large as 250 acres.

AHA: The NYT also has a good look at how AI is taking the microdrama production field in China by storm, and not in the “good for jobs” kind of way.

Here’s how AI use is playing out for talent in India, another country with no protections from unions or the like.

THEN: NBC/PEACOCK got 19.6M viewers in prelim NIELSEN numbers for the Kentucky Derby, which is +11% over last year’s and the biggest ever. No word on how the NBC and PEACOCK numbers split out, and of course, this is in the era of BIG DATA + PANEL, which sees full counting of out-of-home audiences, unlike any numbers prior to 2020.

PLUS: Demi Moore, Stellan Skarsgård, Ruth Negga and Chloé Zhao are among the names added to the Cannes main competition jury this month.

KUDOS: To the SAVANNAH BANANAS on selling out TEXAS A&M’s Kyle Field for their game on Saturday, selling a whopping 102k tickets . . . including a Dude Perfect cameo, and a pretty huge fan party beforehand.

REST IN PEACE: Goes out to:

Longtime JERRY BRUCKHEIMER FILMS Prez Mike Stenson, who died at the age of 65 last week.
Longtime NY YANKEES announcer John Sterling, who died at the age of 87 this week. John called almost 29% of all YANKEE games and nearly 3% of all MLB games . . . ever. 🤯

FINALLY: Wait, is Robert Pattinson going to win The Odyssey buzz?! Just print this box office money now.

PARAMOUNT Q1 2026: New Trends Are Afoot . . .

PSKY had some overall positive metrics on the big board in Q1 2026 — although it’s really worth looking at how they were achieved . . . as not all growth is, well, growth.

The big metrics to start:

Q1 REVENUE: $7.35B (+2% YoY)
NET PROFIT: $168M (+10.5% YoY, or +$16M)
Adj EBITDA (internal profitability): $1.16B (+59% YoY)
FREE CASH FLOW: $96M (-22% YoY)
DEBT: $15.5B (+12% or $1.8B vs. Q4 — that NETFLIX check didn’t come from the executive compensation pool).

So, revenue saw a small bump, as did net profits . . . but internal profitability/EBITDA saw a very hefty bump. What gives?

Let’s take a look at:

Where PAR cut back in Q1, what strategy changes are underway and where the resulting profit boost landed.
The up/down narrative trends in linear TV, and how the tactics will likely supercharge matters at least in the short term in a WARNAMOUNT company.
How the UFC affected key PAR metrics.
The important new streaming business tactic afoot that is affecting the PAR+ subscriber numbers.
The outlook for Q2, the big streaming services merge ahead and more.