Mornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on WEDNESDAY February 16, 2022.

Where COACHELLA and STAGECOACH will have no covid precautions in April – no proof of vaxx, negative test or masks required…. although – face protection is encouraged. For the dust.😎

ALSO: Talent agency WME reopened all offices yesterday, employees back to work IRL. No updates on policies at other talent rep firms.

AND: CNN Marketing head Allison Gollust resigns after internal probe into Zucker scandal found she violated company policy. /Deadline

📽 THE SILVER SCREEN

Just 2 items…

• “Dune” hits $400 Million global ($107 Mil US), as “Spider-Man” moves ahead of “Avatar” to #3 on all time US Box Office list. /Deadline

• PAR will release “A Quiet Place III”… 3 years from now. Thanks for the heads up. Krasinski will likely be doing that one… but a non-Krasinski directed spin-off will come out next year TBD. /THR

📺 THE TV SET

PEACOCK orders kidnapping series starring Anna Paquin

Called “A Friend of the Family” and based on the true story of a family whose daughter was kidnapped multiple times. Apparently by someone they knew.

Colin Hanks and Jake Lacy are co-starring, Nick Antosca (HULU’s “The Act”) is writing and showrunning. /THR

TV RATINGS OF NOTE

• SUPER BOWL gets 112 Million viewers across all platforms. 101 Million on NBC & TELEMUNDO. No specific PEACOCK numbers released… but gotta think the majority of that 11 Million was from there. Biggest collective audience since 2015 🏈. /Deadline

  • 21.3 Million stuck around for THE OLYMPICS afterward.

• HBO’s “Euphoria” hits 5.1 Million viewers across platforms on Sunday opposite The Big Game, sets new audience high. /Deadline

• “Today Show” wall-to-wall OLYMPICS coverage hurting the show audience – loses week 1 of the games to “GMA”, ties in 25-54 demo. 1st time NBC has been beat in an Olympics week in the AM in 30+ years. /Deadline

ALSO IN TV

• ABC moves “Promised Land” over to HULU exclusively. Final 5 eps will drop weekly starting March 1. Show only averaged 2.9 Million viewers in Live+7 ratings. /THR

• HULU renews “How I Met Your Father” for Season 2. 20 episode order. /THR

• APPLE TV+ orders 10 episode docuseries on NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS called “The Dynasty” from IMAGINE DOCUS. In case the 9 episodes of Tom Brady’s ESPN+ docuseries “Man In The Arena” didn’t quite do it for ya. /THR

• E! sets Nikki Glaser for reality show “Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?” about her moving back to her St. Louis hometown. Premieres May 1. /Deadline

• HULU picks up SUNDANCE docu “Aftershock” about how the US maternal health system often fails Black women. Will be under the ONYX imprint, and stream on DIS+/STAR+ globally. /Variety

AND NOW… All the VIACOMCBS news you could ever possibly want read 🤓

First, VIACOMCBS is now called PARAMOUNT. Or technically PARAMOUNT GLOBAL… but it’s only called that when caught sneaking in late after curfew. But finally nice to see a name change that makes sense 👍.

And shows they’re officially putting all chips in on Streaming as the future for the company.

• Plus – new stock ticker!! #PARA

PARAMOUNT PICS

• PARAMOUNT PICS puts 3rd “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie in development, and a live-action PAR+ series… that still needs a creative team but apparently will be on the service sometime in 2023. /THR

• Will reunite the Chris Pine-led “Star Trek” cast for a 4th film… although no deals are in place . Matt Shakman (“Wandavision”) is directing, and it has a Dec 2023 release date so… Chris Pine’s agent just got a lot more leverage. /Deadline

PARAMOUNT+

(all links from THR for convenience)

• Will get all PARAMOUNT PICS in the PayTV window starting with 2024 releases. Currently they split them with EPIX. No word if they’ll shorten the window between theatrical and streaming premiere.

• New “Beavis and Butt-head” series unsurprisingly moves from COMEDY CENTRAL to PAR+. Will hit the service this year TBD, along with a movie “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe”.

• “South Park” library will move to PAR+ from HBOMAX when their deal is up in 2025. New “South Park” episodes will stream on PAR+ come 2024.

• “Halo” renewed for a Season 2. Season 1 premieres March 24.

• “Yellowstone” gets another PAR+ prequel called“1932” which is set… well think you get the gist. 🤠

  • And “1883” getting “another round of episodes” (don’t call it a renewal. for… some reason).

• Billy Bob Thornton will lead a different new Taylor Sheridan PAR+ series, “Land Man” set in the world of TEXAS oil rigs. Yeah that tracks.

• Rosario Dawson will star in “Lioness”, about a Marine recruited by the CIA to befriend a terrorist’s daughter.

• “Sexy Beast” series moves from PAR NETWORK to PAR+ – a UK series, but will air through the Int’l footprint. /Deadline

• “SpongeBob” getting 3 animated movies, and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” getting 3 spinoff movies after the new Theatrical film drops this August. 🐢

• “SEAL Team” getting a PAR+ movie, as is MTV’s “Teen Wolf” show.

SHOWTIME

• SHOWTIME renews “Super Pumped” for Season 2, will focus on FACEBOOK. Already putting it in direct competition with HBO’s FB series project picked up earlier this month with Claire Foy as Sheryl Sandberg. “Super Pumped” Season 1 on UBER premieres Sunday. /THR

  • “Billions” will also get a Season 7. 💰

CBS / MTV

• CBS will air an iteration of MTV competition series “The Challenge” this Summer, featuring former contestants on CBS series “Survivor”, “Big Brother”, and “The Amazing Race”.

• MTV renews “The Real World Homecoming”, this time with the original New Orleans cast from 2000.

💻 THE MEDIA BIZ

PARAMOUNT+ adds 7.3 Million subscribers in Q4, now at 32.8 Million total globally

No word how many of the 32.8 Million are US vs INTERNATIONAL.

• Or how many of these new Q4 subscribers came from their free bundling with T-MOBILE in November.

• Or breakdown of how many of the 32.8 Million subs take Ad-Supported vs Ad-Free versions.

• But 28% subscriber growth from Oct thru Dec is undeniable. #ThanksClifford! 🐾

BUT: US #ARPU for PAR+ is a solid $9, indicating the ad revenue they make on PAR+ is sizable. Well in the US.

ALTHOUGH: #Perspective – Q4 2021 revenue:

• NETFLIX: $7.7 Billion

• PARAMOUNT+: $443 Million

PARAMOUNT GLOBAL now has 56 Million total global streaming subscribers which… doing the math – leaves 23 Million subscribers as a blob of SHOWTIME, BET+, NOGGIN and some other small services globally combined. No seriously it’s ok, don’t break that out a bit.

IN FREE STREAMING

PLUTO now has 64 Million Monthly Active Users, +10 Million in 3 months.

• #ARPU is $1.64, +17% in a year. Meaning:

PLUTO will be a $1.3+ Billion a year business in 2022 (at this Q4 rate), and is on track to bring in about as much revenue as SHOWTIME, possibly more.

MEDIA NERD🤓 #FUNFACTS

• PARAMOUNT makes more money from Advertising revenue via PAR+ and PLUTO than from Subscription revenue from all apps (PAR+, SHO, BET+, NOGGIN).

• SHOWTIME Streaming & PLUTO make 75% more revenue than PAR+ & CBSN.

• PARAMOUNT PICS choice to sit out most of the 2021 Box Office resulted in just $241 Million in revenue for 2021.

$$ LOSSES MOUNT

PARAMOUNT Expects to lose $500 Million in 2022 on streaming (DISNEY+ likely to lose over 4X as much on a bigger content spend)… and expects bigger, but not specified losses in 2023.

• Will 3X content spend to $6 Billion in 2024, when they project to have 100 Million subscribers across all apps. No word on projected losses when they do so.

This kinda mirrors the forseeable future at PEACOCK as well.

NETFLIX is a consistently profitable company each quarter, and ended debt-based financing about a year ago.

VIACOMCBS PARAMOUNT GLOBAL missed earnings estimates (all that streaming spending eating into profits), and stock was -6% after hours.

ALSO:

• You’ll be able to watch SHOWTIME within PAR+ starting this Summer. You’ll also be able add SHO right there in the PAR+ app: $12 for the combo, $15 for SHO with the PAR+ ad-free version. Now… where have we seen that $15 pricepoint elsewhere in the past 2 weeks? $15isTheNew$10

• PAR+ also sets distro deal with CANAL+ in FRANCE. But as a free add-on for their CANAL+ CINE Séries package (which also gives subscribers access to NETFLIX, DISNEY+ and STARZ). SHOWTIME content will be included in this PAR+ version there too.

  • Will also be avail as a stand-alone app for purchase… but will give PAR+ a nice automatic bump come its Q3 launch there. /Deadline

    • CANAL+ has 9 Million subscribers, but no #s given for the CINE Series tier which carries a $17 / month vig.

AMC NETWORKS suite of streaming services ends 2021 at 9 Million

No breakouts for AMC+, SHUDDER, ACORN, etc individually… as per usual, or any ARPU info.

Total 2021 revenue: $3.1 Billion and Q4 Earnings beat forecasts.

For a random size comparison: PARAMOUNT GLOBAL had $8 Billion in Q4 alone. /Deadline

ALSO IN MEDIA

• META is changing FB’s “News Feed” to just “Feed”, realizing “news” is too loose a term for the things featured in there. Plus – it’s cleaner. /YahooNews

🏦 STOCK NOTES:

BUZZFEED +14% ($4.40)

AMC THEATERS +10% ($19.48)

LIONSGATE +7% ($14.37)

CINEMARK +7% ($18.35)

ROBLOX +7% ($73.30)

IMAX +6% ($20.68)

ROKU +6% ($168.15)

AMC NETWORKS +5% ($44.66)

ALTICE +5% ($14.65)

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👩‍💻 NEW TO WATCH:

• NETFLIX “jeen-yuhs” – 3 part Ye docu, 1st part drops today. STREAM HERE

🎥 TRAILER HOUSE

HULU “Fresh” trailer – SUNDANCE thriller pic with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan in a story of a romantic weekend away with the guy you just met who takes things… in a different direction. He eats people doesn’t he. Premieres Fri Mar 4.

NETFLIX “Windfall” movie trailer – Pic with Jason Segel holding a rich couple (Jesse Plemmons & Lily Collins) hostage in their home, with an… unusual tone. From the director of “The One I Love”, and writer of “Se7en”. Premieres Fri March 18

NETFLIX “Pieces of Her” movie trailer – Thriller starring Toni Collette as a mom with a mysterious past, trying to be understood by her daughter, based on the NY Times bestseller. Premieres Fri Mar 4

🎧 PLAYING ME OFF

New SAWEETIE with H.E.R. “Closer” – nice smooth low key uptempo jam.

If you need some new tunes:

Email me anytime – just reply to this email, or connect here on LINKED IN.

-SEAN MCNULTY

@theseanmac on TWITTER

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