☀️2 Days, $15 Billion Wiped from Hollywood’s WorthPAR's big layoff timeline, and what's ahead / NBA team axes BALLY RSN for Free TV / ROKU adds Sports channel
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect here on LINKED-IN if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com) and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY, August 9, 2024. Where we may have lost UNITED’s Hemispheres magazine, but we’re getting back Playboy! Granted, I’m not quite sure what to call a print magazine that comes out once a year (a yearbook? 🤷♂️), but journalism jobs are journalism jobs (former Men’s Journal EIC Mark Healy will be heading up this effort). Although get it while you can — PLAYBOY corp also announced that it lost $16.7M on just $25M of revenue in Q2. But UNITED . . . if you’re looking to go in a different direction with your in-flight entertainment, I always hear good things about the articles.
AH: Strengthening company culture, adding more HR staff and a general counsel, launching things like sensitivity training . . . all delivered in a new company memo — no, not from an aging Hollywood studio, but rather at the MRBEAST organization. Gotta love it when the creator culture grows up. AND: The Sept. 10 Presidential debate will indeed happen with ABC running the show, and when you need a reprieve (5 minutes into it? 7?) keep your flipper handy 📺 to switch over to the VMAs on the same night (Gen Z — ask Richard what a flipper is). THEN: Ya know, I hate to say it but sometimes I just get the feeling that #BigTech doesn’t have “protecting the kids” as a key part of the mission statement 😱 — META worked on a “marketing project” with GOOGLE to target teenagers with INSTA marketing, even though GOOGLE has a policy against advertising to minors, according to the FT.
OH: ANTHROPIC AI (which counts AMAZON as a $4B minority investor) will give you $15k if you can make it’s AI bot tell you how to do things like, say, distribute anthrax or make chemical bombs. I’m supposed to find that reassuring, right? PLUS: Today’s economy snapshot shows that, well Great Resignation era, it’s been real — not sure that next job is out there waiting for ya as 2024 progresses. 2022 was fun though.
WAKEUP POLL RESULTSHuh, not as many bulls on It Ends With Us as I thought — count me in with the $33M to $40M bunch and let’s keep the good times rolling for another weekend and into Alien.
NEW ANKLER PODCAST EPISODE
PARAMOUNT pulls a WBD . . . and then some in Q2
Well, two days . . . and $15B axed from Hollywood’s value. Kinda glad today’s Friday. Although curiously — PARAMOUNT waited until minute 21 of its earnings call to announce its $6B write-down in value, vs. WBD’s 17-minute mark. Then again — when you’re also announcing a 15% global workforce reduction as PARAMOUNT did, I would have put that closer to the top too. PAR Q2 revenue was a #notgreat -10.5% YoY at $6.8B, PARAMOUNT’s lowest quarterly total since mid-2021, when it just began putting movies back in theaters. The quarterly net loss was -$5.4B thanks to that huge write-down. But as with WBD, let’s first start off with that “dumping $6B from our valuation” thing — how the rationale behind it differs from WBD, and why it could indicate an additional reason WBD may have made that $9.1B write-down move now. Then:
AND: My apologies to paying Ankler subs, but due to the, uh, popularity of “unpaid sharing” on my WBD breakdown yesterday — gonna have to click one button to continue on here. I promise you a nice gif on the other side. Email me anytime at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com or connect here on LINKEDIN. — SEAN MCNULTY @theseanmac on TWITTER @TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM Follow us: X | Facebook | Instagram | Threads ICYMI
The Optionist, a newsletter about IP
|
