Showbiz Sandbox 555: Modern Media Consumption Metrics Are A Big Mess

September 14, 2021

Keeping track of television ratings, streaming viewership and music revenue has become a hopeless task in the digital age. Everyone is mad at Nielsen though how can they realistically capture all the eyeballs content on TVs, phones, laptops and tablets? Meanwhile, Billboard keeps changing the formula they use to count album sales by working in various flavors of streaming. What the most popular shows, movies, albums or songs are at any given moment has become impossible to decipher.

The good news is, according to new data from the Recording Industry Association, music revenue for the first half of 2021 grew $1.5 billion driven by music streaming, which accounted for 84% of the $7.1 billion earned.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including an executive shakeup at Paramount Pictures, the outcome of Apple’s epic legal battle and the Venice Film Festival kickstarts this year’s awards season in a big way.

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Showbiz Sandbox 545: Writer Paul Rudnick On The Royals, Romance And Rudin

June 15, 2021

When multi-hyphenate Paul Rudnick isn’t writing hit movies or award winning plays he is working on Broadway musicals with the likes of Elton John or busy writing novels. Rudnick joins us for a detailed and humorous conversation about his work and his latest novel, “Playing the Palace.”

We’ll also take a look at the final ratings figures for the primetime television season. Only four network shows increased in total viewers out of over 120 programs that aired during primetime. The numbers for key demographics don’t look much better.

Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including how Sony Music is changing up how they pay royalties to artists, country singer Morgan Wallen returns to radio and North Korea bans all things K-Pop.

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Showbiz Sandbox 516: What Went Wrong With Quibi

October 27, 2020

Quibi, the bite-sized content platform founded by media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and business leader Meg Whitman, has been mocked since it was first announced. Now after six months and $2 billion, Quibi is kaput. Unable to find an audience, and despite a fruitless attempt to find a buyer, Quibi is officially shutting down.

The company insists people were gunning for them from the start, but the simple truth is that Quibi always seemed like a solution in search of a problem. Besides, however good the content may have been, it was going to be very hard to convince people to plunk down $5 a month just to watch random videos while commuting.

Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including Netflix misses its third quarter subscriber goal, television ratings for live sports events plummets and box office continues to soar in China and Japan.

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Showbiz Sandbox 468: A Rundown of This Year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees

November 10, 2019

Next year’s nominees for placement into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio include candidates considered in previous years, including Depeche Mode, Judas Priest and Todd Rundgren. They join new nominees such as Pat Benatar, Dave Matthews Band and Whitney Houston, among others. We speak with Sal Nunziato, a music blogger and drummer for the band The John Sally Ride, to get his encyclopedic thoughts on which of the nominees should actually get the nod.

We also discuss the pros and cons of streaming music services. There is no dispute that it’s great to have an archive of music, not to mention new releases, all available for listening within a few seconds. On the other hand, it’s also nice to support the music we really like by actually buying physical copies.

Meanwhile, the video game industry made some headlines this week after a Chinese team won the latest “League of Legends” world championship. At the same time the latest “Call of Duty” release has generated some controversy since it is set amidst the Syrian Civil War and depicts child soldiers, the killing of civilians, among many other issues.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Woody Allen dropped his lawsuit against Amazon Studios, HBO Max sets its subscription price and technology is allowing filmmakers to cast the late James Dean in an upcoming movie.

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Showbiz Sandbox 461: A Crazy Example of Hollywood’s Gender Pay Gap

September 9, 2019

Pay disparity based on gender is not a new thing in the entertainment industry, especially in the movie business. History is rife with examples where leading men got paid multiples more than their leading ladies. However, gender pay gaps behind the camera aren’t often publicized. That wasn’t the case when Adele Lim, the co-writer of “Crazy Rich Asians” found out how much more her male co-writer was being paid for the sequels, she went public.

The good news according to a new study is that in front of the camera Hollywood is becoming more diverse. Women and people of color are being cast more than ever with 39 out of the top 100 films in 2018 featuring a female lead. Last year also marked a 12-year high for minorities being given speaking roles.

Meanwhile, advertisers and television networks are concerning themselves with a different set of numbers; viewership ratings. For the first time ever, Nielsen is counting all the people who watch TV in bars, airports and hotel lounges. Ratings will surely go up for some big categories such as sports. But will ad rates go up too?

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why author Walter Mosley quit his “Star Trek: Discovery” writers gig, music sales are up for the year and, despite lots of new competition, Netflix looks poised to maintain its dominance of the streaming market.

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Showbiz Sandbox 331: Apparently Warner Bros. Needs to Start Making Donuts

August 16, 2016

In a scathing open letter published last week, an alleged ex-Warner Bros. employee took the studio and its chairman Kevin Tsujihara to task for a number of recent missteps. The author mocks studio brass for doubling down on the talent delivering critical duds such as “Batman v Superman” and their inability to make a hit movie, despite somehow managing to keep their jobs.

Though the veracity of the letter is questionable, it caused ripples in Hollywood not because it revealed a trove of inside secrets, but more due to the fact that it publicly stated what so many have been whispering about Warner Bros. lately; a lack of leadership and a confused executive team have led to a year of mixed results.

Meanwhile, we’ve been watching the Rio Olympics, along with three or four billion viewers around the world. Despite audience figures that are down from the London games in numerous territories, the Summer Olympics is arguably still a ratings juggernaut hard to compete against, giving networks broadcasting the event a serious advantage.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how a Netflix documentary helped overturn a murder conviction, why Thomas Gibson got fired from “Criminal Minds” and Comedy Central cancels “The Nightly Show”.

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Showbiz Sandbox 297: Television Networks Brace For Media Measurement Mayhem

October 5, 2015

In the digital age the viewership of television content has been difficult to track across multiple platforms and devices. The announcement of a game-changing merger between web analytics firm Comscore and the TV and box office data outfit Rentrak suggests a much needed solution for cross-media ratings may soon be available.

The combination of Comscore and Rentrak would finally create a company with the deep pockets and technical expertise to legitimately take on Nielsen, the uncontested reigning king of television ratings for the last several decades. The industry welcomes such competition at a time when advertisers are clamoring for accurate audience measurement across all screens, including mobile devices.

Thanks to the increase in delayed viewing, television ratings have become near impossible to report in a timely manner. Overnight ratings have long been the standard for touting a television program’s success (or failure), but now such numbers can represent less than half a show’s total audience once DVR data is counted. This has made keeping track of who watched what when and on which devices extremely confusing.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including the plans to the former hit series “MacGyver” a makeover, “Ghostbusters” gets animated and some of the unnecessary recipients among this year’s MacArthur Genius Awards.

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Showbiz Sandbox 296: Entertainment Industry Numbers Are Often A Comedy of Errors

September 28, 2015

It is said numbers don’t lie, however in the entertainment business they don’t always tell the truth either. When it comes to box office grosses, television ratings, home video earnings and book sales, numbers can often present misleading or incomplete information which paint an unrealistic, or at times purposefully skewed, financial picture.

Netflix, for instance, released data detailing what they claim is the episode when their customers get hooked on a television series. However, the “hook study” performed by the subscription video streaming service was limited in scope and may simply be an example of how good Netflix is at spinning its numbers into great PR opportunities.

Meanwhile, like every other area of the entertainment industry, the book world has been rocked by the digital revolution. But publishers believe the business is leveling out based on sales figures which leave out large segments of the market. None of this explains why e-books cost more than paperbacks though.

Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including Amy Schumer’s big book advance, a lawsuit over the movie “Goodfellas”, which Warner Bros. says was a huge flop, and the Harry Potter origin story will become a two part theatrical production on London’s West End.

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Showbiz Sandbox 272: Why The TV Industry Is Fighting Over Your Viewing Habits

March 9, 2015

Time-shifting content consumption has grown astronomically over the past several years thanks to technology like streaming and DVRs. Nearly half of all TV viewers no longer watch shows when they are first aired, upending the traditional ratings system used to measure audiences. Networks now want advertisers to pay for all the viewers of a program up to a week after its original telecast.

Presently, advertisers only pay for viewers of a show during the first three days after its broadcast, a timeframe the don’t wish to extend. Complicating the matter is a dramatic increase in the number of shows airing during primetime, fracturing audiences and forcing ad execs to sift through 1,700 programs in which commercials can be placed.

Buying ad time during the Academy Awards ceremony is usually a no-brainer for marketing moguls, however the Oscars telecast has become so predictably dull that it’s audience has begun to shrink. In an effort to boost ratings, the Academy’s Board of Governors is now hinting they may revert back to having only five Best Picture nominees, rather than the potential of ten. We debate why this is not such a good idea.

Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news stories including the high profile court battle over the authoriship of a hit song, NBC goes over-the-top and Bruce Willis heads to Broadway.

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Showbiz Sandbox 262: Will “The Interview” Become A Rallying Cry For Freedom?

December 23, 2014

When the U.S. government identified North Korea as the culprit behind a cyberattack on Sony Pictures, the incident quickly became a matter of international security. As the studio halted the release of an upcoming political satire it seemed as if they had acquiesced to the hacker’s demands in what many saw as a direct attack on free speech. Now that Sony has reversed course and will distribute the film, will “The Interview” become a patriotic rallying cry for freedom?

Maybe one day “The Interview” will be selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry. This year’s entries include “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “The Big Lebowski” and “Rosemary’s Baby” along with many other influential movies.

Meanwhile, an upstart performance rights organization continues to threaten YouTube over more than 20,000 songs for which it says the streaming media giant doesn’t have a license. The details of the dispute get mired down in complicated copyright law, but it just goes to underscore how important streaming revenue is becoming to entertainment companies.

Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news stories including Madonna’s new album gets leaked online, the hit film “School of Rock” is heading to Broadway and why HBO is giving up on overnight ratings.

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