Showbiz Sandbox 647: Disney Teams Up For Sports Streaming Service
February 13, 2024
Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox are teaming up to deliver a new subscription streaming service that will combine all of their sports programming on a non-exclusive basis. It will have 14 channels including ESPN, ABC, FS1, Fox, TNT and TBS. The surprise announcement has generated more questions than answers, especially over whether any antitrust laws are being broken.
Meanwhile, awards season chugs along with the Directors Guild of America handing out its top prize to Christopher Nolan for “Oppenheimer.” Plus, the Oscars add a new category for casting directors.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Universal Music pulled all of its music from TikTok, Disney invests in “Fortnite” developer Epic Games and Paramount starts pulling content off its streaming service.
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Showbiz Sandbox 515: Disney Restructures Its Magical Kingdom
October 20, 2020
One week after the Walt Disney Company announced that it would be premiering its latest Pixar film on Disney+ rather than in movie theaters, the media giant says it will reorganize its corporate structure to focus the company’s content creation on streaming. Is this a hasty pivot, long in the works, or just making official the obvious? The move left many industry watchers a bit confused.
Meanwhile, movie theaters in most of New York state can reopen, except in New York City itself. Even so, studios still won’t be releasing a blockbuster soon enough to help struggling cinema operators like AMC, who claims they will run out of money before the end of the year.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Kevin Hart is taking over for Jerry Lewis on the muscular dystrophy telethon, K-Pop boy band BTS might be enlisting in the South Korean military (literally) and this year’s slimmed-down Tony nominations.
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Showbiz Sandbox 476: Four Movies Top This Years Oscar Nominations
January 14, 2020
When the nominations for the 92nd Annual Academy Awards were announced on Monday morning, for the first time in history four films wound up earning ten or more nods; “1917,” “The Irishman,” “Joker,” and “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.” While the media will focus on who was snubbed or the lack of diversity among nominees, the real story is just how wide open this year’s highly competitive Oscar race truly is.
Will this be the year that Netflix wins a Best Picture trophy? They wound up earning more total nominations than any other studio (or streamer). As well, a record 62 women received nominations, though filmmaker Greta Gerwig was overlooked as a director for “Little Women”.
Meanwhile, as CES wrapped up in Las Vegas last week a new standard could make televisions a lot friendlier when it comes to showing movies. And Jeffrey Katzenberg showed up to tout his new short-form video streaming service.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including “Hamilton” closes in Chicago after earning $400 million, some drama in the romance literary world and streaming music hits an all time high.
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Showbiz Sandbox 432: Peak TV Just Got Peakier
December 17, 2018
When John Landgraf, head of the FX network, proclaimed we had reached a state of “peak TV” back in 2015, he predicted the 422 television shows being produced at the time would inevitably decline since there was no way for audiences to keep up. Last year however, that number rose to 495 series being produced. To put this increase in perspective, there were 182 shows on the air in 2002.
It’s safe to assume these numbers are bound to rise with new entrants into the video streaming market launching in 2019 including Disney and WarnerMedia. What’s more, the annual amount of money being spent on all this content is astonishing with the likes of Netflix and Amazon each spending $8 billion and $5 billion respectively. And that’s nothing compared to the $22 billion Disney is shelling out.
Meanwhile, the awards season is underway with all sorts of groups weighing in on their favourites, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes and the first awards that matter: the Screen Actors Guild. Spoiler alert: “Roma” just hit a roadblock.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the Grammy nominations, new entrants to the National Film Registry and Mariah Carey’s latest chart-topping hit is a quarter century-old Christmas song.
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Showbiz Sandbox 419: Best Popular Film Oscars Category Proves To Be Rather Unpopular
August 13, 2018
It may come as a surprise after the #MeToo movement but it isn’t often Hollywood unites to agree on an issue. Last week when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed they would be adding a Best Popular film category to the Oscars the response was universal and swift; everyone hates the idea. In a train wreck of an announcement about proposed changes to the awards show, the Academy appeared to cede control to the network broadcasting the ceremony.
Speaking of changes, the moviegoing subscription service MoviePass doesn’t let a week go by without instituting a new set of rules for its customers. First they were going to raise prices and limit attendance to new releases. Before they could roll those changes out, MoviePass altered its policy once again, keeping the price at $10 per month, but limiting the number of movies that can be seen to just three.
Meanwhile, music fans appear to be spending more money on music than ever before. At least according to a new report from Citigroup which says the industry is now pulling in a combined $43 billion in the United States, of which $5 billion goes to artists. Naturally, arguments over the accuracy and validity of the report are sure to follow.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including more on Jeffrey Katzenberg’s New TV venture, the dispute over star salaries on the latest “Star Trek” and Lady Gaga heads to Las Vegas. Read more
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Showbiz Sandbox 377: Disney Breaks Up With Netflix To Launch Solo Streaming Service
August 14, 2017
After years of licensing their movies to Netflix, Disney announced last week that it will be launching their own streaming service when their current deal expires. Then in a true reordering of the media landscape, Disney also revealed it will be creating a standalone subscription streaming service for ESPN. Realistically though Disney might be one of the few entertainment companies that could successfully pull off direct-to-consumer strategy on such a grand scale.
Perhaps Disney felt threatened by content distributors like Netflix and felt compelled to make a move. After all, just days after making their announcement Netflix said it had lured producer Shonda Rhimes away from Disney’s ABC Studios to make original programming for its own service. Netflix also stole hitmaker Chuck Lorre away from CBS and cut a deal with the Coen Brothers to make one of their next projects.
Meanwhile, there’s lots of drama on Broadway, literally and figuratively. Everyone is talking about the collapse of the musical “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812,” which has charges of racism, unprofessionalism and bad management swirling around it. Now the show is closing long before its $12 million budget was recouped.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how Warner Music Group posted big revenue gains thanks to streaming, Bruce Springsteen heads to Broadway and the emergence of a new Chinese media magnate.
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Showbiz Sandbox 308: Hollywood Thinks It Has Netflix’s Numbers
January 18, 2016
With Netflix now available in 190 countries, the upstart video-on-demand service has grown so big Hollywood studios and television networks are getting seriously worried. Sure, they’ve earned millions by licensing their content to Netflix, but they now find themselves competing with the company for new projects, not to mention the industry’s most sought after talent.
TV networks are especially upset Netflix can claim to be a success without ever revealing their ratings. Some have even gone so far as to commission studies to determine the true viewership of Netflix programming. Meanwhile, Netflix has become concerned about viewers bypassing geographic restrictions by subscribing to their U.S. service from international territories.
When it came to this year’s Academy Awards nominations however, Netflix was overlooked in all of the major categories. So were minorities. For the second year in a row all of the acting nominations and those for best director went to caucasians, giving rise to a repeat of the #OscarsSoWhite social media campaign.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including NBC’s plans to produce a live version of the musical “Hairspray”, Al Jazeera America is being shut down and the death of actor Alan Rickman.
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Showbiz Sandbox 299: The Gender Pay Gap Lands A Starring Role In Hollywood
October 19, 2015
Hollywood’s gender pay gap is once again a hot topic of discussion thanks to a frank essay on the subject by Academy Award winning actress Jennifer Lawrence. We are joined by Karen Woodward, an entertainment industry social media consultant, who suggests that the crass and angry tone the actress took in her piece helped gain attention for the issue and start a conversation on how to fix the problem.
We’ll hear what Lawrence had to say about being paid less than her male co-stars, specifically how she’s no longer concerned with being “liked” or finding a kinder, gentler way to express her opinion. Now at least one of her frequent co-stars has plans to take up the cause with what could be a very effective strategy.
Meanwhile, with the number of major record labels having already declined to three from what was once six, it appears the industry’s contraction may soon affect music publishing with Sony/ATV looking for a new owner. Could one of the world’s largest music publishers soon merge with a competitor?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why Playboy magazine is getting rid of its centerfold, how “The Walking Dead” went global in a big way and Netflix earnings and subscriber growth disappoint Wall Street.
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Showbiz Sandbox 292: There Is Simply Too Much Television
August 31, 2015
Television network executives have begun publicly acknowledging a predicament their audiences recognized some time ago; there is simply too much television. In the midst of what has been dubbed a “golden age” of television, viewers are becoming reluctant to sign up for yet another new or existing series.
In fact, John Landgraf, the head of FX Networks, recently told the Television Critics Association that the glut of TV content means it has become more difficult to “cut through the clutter and create real buzz” when producing a show. With so much programming available, great shows can often go unnoticed or take longer to find an audience.
Then there are countries in which content is being suppressed. In Russia a politically active Ukrainian filmmaker was recently handed a 20 year prison sentence drawing international criticism that the charges were fabricated. Bangladesh meanwhile has banned a banned a new movie because it shed light on the country’s billion dollar garment industry, which is well known for exploiting its workers.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why Warner Bros. is headed to China, Spongebob Squarepants is headed to Broadway and how Netflix is about to lose more than 1000 movie titles.
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