The all-new Hollywood Reporter offers unprecedented access to the people, studios, networks and agencies that create the magic in Hollywood. Published weekly, the oversized format includes exceptional photography and rich features.
Ad buyers at TV’s upfronts can be forgiven for asking: Who are all these people? Storming Manhattan stages beginning May 13 when the networks present their fall slates will be an almost entirely new cast of executives. To differentiate themselves from digital disrupters, they’ll likely pitch the promise of data-driven accountability to clients and a premium content environment that can’t be matched by big tech. WarnerMedia will hold its first-ever upfront with a “blue carpet” featuring its new AT&T-installed leadership team including Bob Greenblatt. A new, bulked-up Disney — thanks to more than $71.3 billion in assets from 21st Century Fox — will forgo separate presentations for ABC and ESPN and instead combine all of its networks for one event. At a slimmed-down Fox, where Fox News is now the…
Film Disney ‘Hangover’ After Endgame, 2020 is less certain for investors. p. 12 Digital Netflix Poll What it would take for subscribers to cancel. p. 16 Kenya Barris The showrunner will star in his first Netflix show, Black Excellence, and nabs a Black-ish renewal from ABC and a pickup for its second spinoff, Mixed-ish. Taylor Swift The pop star’s new single, “Me!,” fails to unseat Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” on the Billboard Hot 100, settling for No. 2 in its first full week. Billy Bush What Access Hollywood tape? The embattled host will return to TV this fall to anchor a new version of Extra called Extra Extra. Adam Fogelson The STX film chief weathers another U.S. bomb with his UglyDolls animated tent pole, which opened to a…
Four years ago, there was palpable excitement at the Digital Content NewFronts as executives at such would-be revolutionary businesses as BuzzFeed, Vice Media and Maker Studios boasted about how they were building brands that would someday rival those on TV. Events haven’t exactly played out that way. This was especially apparent when digital executives trekked to gloomy New York during the first week of May for a noticeably slimmed down NewFronts showcase. YouTube was still there, with CEO Susan Wojcicki touting 250 million hours streamed on TV sets each day. But companies like Maker, Fullscreen and Machinima that once commanded prime slots were absent, having been swallowed whole by their big-media counterparts and either disbanded or subsumed. Television networks have largely been able to stamp out those digital insurgents and…
New entertainment president Karey Burke’s early pickups (Mixed-ish, Stumptown) speak to a desire to promote women. She also wants to better position D.J. Nash’s A Million Little Things and is likely to sacrifice ABC’s Shonda Rhimes-branded “TGIT” Thursday block to do so. Co-presidents Paul Telegdy and George Cheeks may keep the status quo given that the network is No. 1 among adults 18-49 in all of TV. Still, there’s one glaring need: comedy. Rookies I Feel Bad and Abby’s flatlined and The Good Place’s end is in sight. New Fox CEO Charlie Collier’s network will debut with a big bet on live programming with mid-season surprise hit The Masked Singer expected to join a plethora of sports in the fall. Throw in animation on Sundays and Fox has little shelf…
Conventional wisdom may hold that the Walt Disney Co. has been firing on all cylinders, with its $71.3 billion partial merger with 21st Century Fox closed, streaming service Disney+ on pace to launch Nov. 12 and Avengers: Endgame rewriting the record books. But there are signs that a perfect storm of (gasp!) mediocrity for the $240 billion conglomerate may be on the way thanks to digital investments and the film calendar — at least for the short term. Disney CFO Christine McCarthy disclosed May 8 that the creation of Disney+ and ramp-up of ESPN+ will dent operating income to the tune of about $460 million in the current quarter alone. The company intends on spending about $2.5 billion on original and licensed content for Disney+ in fiscal 2020, rising annually…
Rupert Murdoch has a long history of taking bold swings. Now his newly formed Fox Corp. is betting on, well, betting. The company, created in the $71.3 billion sale of large parts of 21st Century Fox to Walt Disney Co., unveiled a deal May 8 between its Fox Sports unit and online gambling giant Stars Group to launch Fox Bet this fall, the first national media and sports wagering pact in the U.S. While daily fantasy sports leagues like DraftKings allow players to place wagers on athletes’ performance statistics and ESPN’s Daily Wager provides analysis, Fox Bet will offer national free-to-play games with prizes for predicting match outcomes and live wagering in states that have legalized it. Fox also agreed to acquire a 5 percent stake in Stars Group —…
