Ankler Agenda

To hear Ted Sarandos tell it, things are going great at Netflix. “Our business and our business flywheel are working,” the co-CEO said on this week’s earnings call — a week after laying off a thousand employees, and unceremoniously firing content chief Bela Bajaria, whose sudden perp-walk out of the company’s HQ has shaken even an industry accustomed to volatility. So while revenue was up, engagement was up and churn was down, strange things are afoot at Netflix — and it’s now legacy studio operator Peter Rice‘s job to sort things out; to turn some of Netflix’s “doubles and triples,” in Sarandos’ words, into home runs. Is Netflix simply pivoting to a new growth era, or is the underlying streaming game going the way of basic cable did 10 years ago — disrupted by a player taking audience, in this case, YouTube. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey tackle that question and more this week — reading between the lines of the earnings call. What challenges does Rice face (local-language production, anyone)? How does the gutting of women and people of color from the top of the Hollywood food chain impact what stories are told? And are gourmet cheeseburgers still the right business model for Netflix? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Hilton has been talking with David Ellison, Ted Sarandos and Trump Hollywood ambassador Jon Voight about how to bring production back to California. And the Republican candidate for governor has a big idea: blow past the state’s existing film tax incentives with an uncapped credit that could reach 40 percent, covering everything from stars’ salaries to animation and postproduction. “We cannot let it collapse,” Hilton tells Elaine Low in a wide-ranging interview about Hollywood’s economic crisis, his conversations with industry power players and why he believes California is driving businesses away. He also calls the state’s now-settled legal challenge to the Paramount-Warner merger a “politically motivated stunt” and defends his campaign’s use of AI-generated political ads — even as he insists he’s on the side of Hollywood’s artists and creators. But Hilton isn’t the only candidate promising a Hollywood rescue. With Election Day nearing, Matt Hamilton of L.A. Material joins to break down the increasingly bitter Los Angeles mayoral race between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, the lingering Spencer Pratt effect, and Democrat Xavier Becerra‘s proposal to force streamers to reveal more of their closely guarded viewing data. The question for an industry desperate for help: Who’s offering an actual plan — and who’s just campaigning? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Ellison has an ambitious pitch for Hollywood: Skydance will spend more on content than Netflix or Disney, crank out roughly 190 series and 30 movies a year, find at least $6 billion in savings and pay down its mountain of debt. All while keeping the creative community happy. How, exactly, is all of that supposed to work when even Wall Street doesn’t see it? Ellison and new co-CEO Ynon Kreiz opened the Paramount lot to reporters Tuesday to sell their vision for the new lockup — and to explain why the old one needed blowing up. “The businesses didn’t disrupt themselves over a decade ago,” Ellison said of Paramount and Warners (just please sunset the moniker “WarnerMount,” he implored). “They didn’t transform, and they held on to the past for too long.” Now he’s betting the combo can create the scale to compete without sacrificing investment. Kreiz’s formulation: “Content is a spend, but you can also see it as an investment.” Is it magical thinking? Elaine Low and Sean McNulty break down what this means in practice: where the promised $6 billion in efficiencies might come from, whether three TV studios and a thicket of film labels can really coexist, and how many jobs could disappear once the machinery underneath consolidates (with the help of AI). Sean’s useful metaphor for the new Skydance: a giant food court — lots of storefronts, but one kitchen in back — and how that reveals where the first wave of layoffs will start. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new Paramount is taking shape fast. On the eve of the Warner Bros. deal concluding, David Ellison is bringing in fresh blood — and bloodletting. Former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz boards as the surprise co-CEO, charged with day-to-day management and integration (read: layoffs). And after months of heated rivalry between Cindy Holland and Casey Bloys over who would control the combined company’s original-content future, we have an answer: it’s Casey at the bat. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down what those choices reveal about Ellison’s coming structure at the combined company, soaked in debt, and who could be vulnerable next. Then: hundreds of layoffs hit Disney as Josh D’Amaro prepares to take over, with ominous promises of more technology (read: AI?) raising a bigger question: Is this only the beginning? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Schur calls Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. a “nightmare scenario” for Hollywood — and now that David Ellison has cleared the biggest obstacle to getting the deal done, he’s even more alarmed about what comes next. “It’s gasoline on a fire,” the Parks and Recreation co-creator and Dig producer tells Elaine Low, pointing to an industry already hollowed out by years of consolidation. “I hate to be doomsday-ish here… but the ecosystem is just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.” What does that nightmare look like? Fewer buyers, fewer jobs and ultimately fewer kinds of shows getting made — and, Schur fears, even HBO may finally be vulnerable after surviving one corporate owner after another. One of the loudest voices against the merger, Schur is particularly skeptical that the concessions Paramount made to Rob Bonta and 11 other state AGs will provide much protection. “All of these provisions, they’re only meaningful if they’re enforced. Who’s enforcing this?” he asks of the proposed consent decree. He has equally sharp words for Ellison’s suggestion that Paramount could leave Los Angeles amid the antitrust fight. “This person wants to win the hearts and minds of this industry that he is now the most important player in, arguably — and his opening salvo is, ‘Give me what I want, or I’m going to Nashville,’” Schur says. “This is not a good way to earn our trust or respect.” Plus: Elaine and Natalie Jarvey dig into what Ankler staffers are watching closely through the fall across the TV and film business, from DC superhero-horror film Clayface to Mark Rober’s new show on Netflix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So after months of big talk about only settling for structural remedies, i.e., selling off assets, what did California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the 11 other state AGs suing Paramount Skydance wind up getting? Less than you think. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Lesley Goldberg break down the settlement terms — loopholes, fine print and all — and what they mean for the future of Hollywood, including looming mass layoffs, the fate of three TV studios and why the promise of 30 films a year may not be what it seems. Then: Can a Paramount+–HBO Max superstreamer finally give Netflix a real rival? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A dire warning from Anthropic and OpenAI that increasingly autonomous AI agents could launch cyberattacks – or worse – has an especially chilling implication for Hollywood, where studios and streamers are rapidly weaving AI into their businesses. "Imagine a world in which there are thousands of Sony hacks happening in real time," Reel AI columnist Erik Barmack tells Elaine Low and Sean McNulty. "You could take down the entire industry. Confidentiality, protections, the secure release of IP – all of those things could be harmed." And while the guilds fight generative AI and Hollywood hashes out rules for how the technology can be used, Erik says the industry may be focused on the wrong threat: "What happens when recursive learning gets better and better, and these agents go off and do thinking on their own?" Plus: There may finally be momentum behind a federal film and TV tax incentive. Rep. Laura Friedman tells Elaine that lawmakers from both parties are working with Hollywood's guilds and Jon Voight – Donald Trump's special Hollywood ambassador, whom she describes as a key bridge to the president. Friedman says she hopes the proposal can move by year-end – and describes the unusual bipartisan effort as giving lawmakers "an extra sort of joy" in working together: "We're still one country." 00:00 Intro 00:24 Welcome To Ankler Agenda 01:35 Paramount Vs. State AG Showdown 03:00 Did Bari Weiss Sink 60 Minutes? 04:46 Ai Leaders Sound The Alarm 05:53 The 1,200 Agent 'Collective' 08:21 Hollywood's Big AI Bet 09:41 Bots That Lie And Hack 10:49 The Next Sony Hack, Times 1,000 12:59 Will A Slow Down Actually Happen? 13:41 Guilds Fighting The Last Battle 15:20 Studios Vs. Big Tech Power 17:44 Bring Back The Landline 18:40 Next: Rep. Laura Friedman 19:01 Hollywood's Economic Freefall 20:40 143,000 Jobs On The Line 21:51 From Film Producer To Congress 24:38 Inside The Bill And The Timeline 26:30 Jon Voight's Role As Trump's Bridge 29:05 Bipartisanship In A Polarized Era 31:05 Selling It To Non-Hollywood States 32:28 California's $750 Million Fight 34:30 The Goal: Every Soundstage Full Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inside President Macron’s summit, where Ted Sarandos, Dana Walden and Hollywood power players attended — very quietly French President Emmanuel Macron summoned some of the biggest names in global entertainment to the south of France this week to talk about nothing less than the future of cinema — and Hollywood came. Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Disney’s Dana Walden, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley and other industry heavyweights attended the first-ever Lumière Summit, co-hosted by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, as filmmakers, executives and government leaders grappled with AI, the attention economy and the threats facing traditional entertainment. “He did something that I think people who work in the entertainment industry in the U.S. have been really hungry to see happen,” says Ankler EIC Janice Min, who stops by the pod after attending the summit at the invitation of the French government. “Somebody in charge saying things about an industry that’s struggling.” But if France was eager to lead the conversation, Hollywood’s own leaders were considerably more cautious. Sarandos and Walden were seen but not heard, while Sony’s Tom Rothman and a very pointed George Clooney were among the few major American figures willing to speak freely. “No one’s saying Trump, but it’s kind of about Trump,” Janice says of the geopolitical undercurrent running through the gathering. “It was great that Hollywood showed up — and it was revealing that a lot of them didn’t feel like they could take the stage.” Plus: Thanks to Widow’s Bay, Apple TV leads the pack ahead of the primetime Emmy telecast, and Natalie Jarvey crowns a winner in the Ankler Agenda summer box office draft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It wasn’t long ago when studios took the biggest jewels of their fall slates — the Gravitys and Jokers and First Mans — to the Venice Film Festival to kick off awards season and put A-list talent on a gondola. But this year, not so much: The Venice lineup is light on flashy studio premieres — don’t look for Tom Cruise and Digger or Timothée Chalamet and Dune: Part Three or Jeremy Strong and The Social Reckoning — and heavy on indie and international titles. Elaine Low and Sean McNulty talk to Ankler awards editor and Prestige Junkie host Katey Rich about how the studio calculus on festival season has shifted — and how best picture winner One Battle After Another was a canary in the coal mine for this year’s underwhelming slate. Then: Katey sticks around to talk with Elaine and Natalie Jarvey about the top Emmy storylines — including the Television Academy’s controversial decision to boot major categories from the primetime show (sorry, David Harbour and Dakota Fanning) and why, with the final season of Hacks and prohibitive drama frontrunner The Pitt leading the way, this could be the last stand for HBO Max before the merger. Also: Elaine and Sean on Donald Trump‘s sudden renewed enthusiasm to bring production back to Hollywood and why there’s actual bipartisan support for federal film and TV tax incentives. Make Hollywood great again? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hollywood’s newest talent war isn’t over movie stars. For years, YouTube was treated as a “farm league,” in Ted Sarandos‘ words — a place where talent dreamt of graduating to Hollywood. Now smaller player Netflix is raiding the world’s biggest streamer, scooping up creators, podcasters and personalities who built their audiences on YouTube. And YouTube has had enough. Natalie Jarvey shares her scoop on the millions that Neal Mohan‘s tech giant is throwing down to keep its creators exclusive — and names who’s been offered the cash — in an escalation one dealmaker says reveals that YouTube is “scared shitless.” Natalie joins Elaine Low and Sean McNulty to unpack her fresh reporting on the new creator bidding wars — and debate the bigger question: Which company is actually playing defense? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So much for détente. California Attorney General Rob Bonta canceled Monday’s planned meeting with Paramount after accusing the company of leaking — and misrepresenting — confidential settlement discussions to the press. “They need to sleep in the bed that they made,” Bonta tells Elaine Low in this bonus episode of Ankler Agenda, blasting Paramount for “playing games” and waging a PR campaign while, he says, losing where it matters: in court. The rupture comes even as Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and several Hollywood guilds have all voiced varying degrees of support for getting the two sides to the table. Does that growing pressure change Bonta’s thinking? “Not at all,” he says. But Bonta also makes clear that the door isn’t permanently shut. He says he’s ready to resume negotiations if Paramount stops the leaks and comes back in good faith — and, for the first time, gets unusually specific about what a deal might require. Forget the chatter about CNN: Bonta says the news network “is not our focus” and that resolving the states’ antitrust concerns would require some portion of Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery’s combined cable portfolio to be placed under separate ownership. Bonta also explains why behavioral remedies are a nonstarter, says he hopes Republican attorneys general may still join the case, and dismisses as “meritless” and “silly” a request seeking his correspondence with Mark Ruffalo following backlash over the actor’s criticism of the Paramount deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hayden Panettiere worked in Hollywood since she was 11 months old, and by the time Heroes made her a household name at 16, she was already navigating the darker side of child stardom. The Wall Street Journal‘s Esther Zuckerman joins Elaine Low to reflect on Panettiere’s life, career and exploitation — including a top NBC exec kissing her on the lips when she was a teenager, and an Oscar winner who exposed himself — and the extreme emotional toll of growing up in front of the camera. Then, California Attorney General Rob Bonta tells Elaine he is ready to talk to Paramount, a slight shift from his earlier hard-line posture. “Let there be no doubt here, now, or anywhere for any time. It has always been our position that coming to the table is always on the table,” he says, adding, “We prefer to resolve cases in the boardroom instead of the courtroom.” So what’s stopping them? Bonta accuses Paramount of “playing cute” and mounting a PR campaign instead of offering the structural remedies the state AGs want. He’s equally dismissive of Paramount’s threat to move and request for a $1.9 billion bond: His argument is that Paramount voluntarily agreed to the ticking fee it faces — and now wants California taxpayers to pick up the tab for a problem it created for itself. “It’s revealing the weakness of their position. It looks desperate,” Bonta says. Elaine and Sean McNulty break down her chat with the California AG, as Hollywood guilds plead for resolution and the town lingers in uncertainty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Everyone has dry powder for sports,” Ashley Cullins heard while reporting her recent look at the private equity firms circling Hollywood. It’s a truism Bob Iger and Josh Kushner‘s Thrive Capital proved, buying the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion. But sports is only part of the story. With billions in undeployed capital sitting on the sidelines, where else is private equity looking to spend — and what kinds of Hollywood companies still look attractive amid lofty valuations, delayed exits and fears of an AI bubble? Ashley joins Elaine Low and Sean McNulty to break down the biggest players, the sectors they’re chasing and the deals that could come next — plus the bigger question hanging over all of it: Is private equity actually good for Hollywood? Plus: David Ellison turns up the pressure in the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery fight, threatening to move the company out of California as Rob Bonta calls it “blackmail” — even as both sides signal there may still be a path to a negotiated settlement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a while since Hollywood has seen a power couple quite like Zendaya and Tom Holland. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey, the newlyweds helped drive more than $2 billion (and counting) at the box office this year. What makes them so bankable to Gen Z in a volatile theatrical landscape? And how much does the audience’s parasocial investment in them help sell tickets? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down what each star gets right in an era of fractured attention. Meanwhile: David Ellison breaks his silence! Paramount’s chief took to the New York Times to defend his planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The crew parses what he really means (“Unfortunately, I can’t give anyone a view into my heart and mind”) — and what he’s trying to signal to Hollywood as his company heads to trial in 2027 amid increasingly long odds and states unwilling to show mercy to “kings and oligarchs.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What a difference a month makes. With Paramount’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery now in limbo, 35,000 Warners staffers have plenty of time to reconsider their options. Could HBO chief Casey Bloys or WBTV head Channing Dungey be tempted by more stable pastures? Is Warners still a haven for top showrunners? As confidence in the deal crumbles, Hollywood is taking sides. (Case in point: Ari Emanuel‘s WSJ op-ed dismissing the state AGs’ lawsuit as “trash.”) The Ankler’s Lesley Goldberg joins Elaine Low and Sean McNulty to break down the quiet panic inside WBD, and why anyone senior at the company who hasn’t spoken with David Ellison yet might want to be looking for a new job. Then, Degen Pener pops by to talk about the 4,000 newly minted SpaceX millionaires in L.A. and the luxury real estate they are about to snap up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What could Paramount Skydance do to make a dozen attorneys general drop their lawsuit against the Warner Bros. Discovery merger? Sell off CNN? Paramount Pictures? According to California Attorney General Rob Bonta: not much. “We’re not talking about settlement. We’re going to be telling the judge when we want a trial date,” he tells Elaine Low on Friday, shortly after Paramount announced it would delay the merger until June 2027 or until a pair of antitrust lawsuits against it work their way through the courts — whichever comes first. “We’re not going to have oligarchs or kings in the economy,” says Bonta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Ellison may be calling Paramount’s agreement to delay its $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition a “significant win.” Wall Street appears less convinced. Paramount Skydance shares sank to a new low after the company agreed Friday not to close the deal until the antitrust lawsuits brought by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America are resolved — or until next June, whichever comes first. The delay starts an expensive clock. Beginning in October, Paramount must pay WBD shareholders roughly $7 million a day, or about $650 million per quarter, while the acquisition remains unfinished. Even a resolution early next year could cost close to $1 billion. A fight stretching to June would push the bill toward $2 billion — on top of the nearly $80 billion in debt the combined company is already expected to carry. “The state AGs are clearly making a lot more noise than they probably were expecting,” MoffettNathanson senior analyst Robert Fishman tells Sean McNulty on a special bonus episode of Ankler Agenda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who’s buying Letterboxd? The social media platform, prized for its Gen Z audience and movie fan bona fides, is on the market for a rumored $250 million — with multiple studios circling. Dealmakers columnist Ashley Cullins, who broke the big news of A24 pursuing the platform, joins Elaine Low to reveal the other potential buyers and why the price tag is raising eyebrows, and what other M&A moves could come next — including likely outcomes for Lionsgate and whether Disney might split up a la Comcast-NBCU. Plus: Elaine, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey dissect IMAX’s sudden resurgence as Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey keeps the box office in a chokehold – and turns access to premium screens into the summer’s biggest FOMO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

States, 1. Paramount, 0. The $111 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger has hit its first real wall after a coalition of 12 states won a temporary restraining order blocking the deal. And California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the charge, isn’t interested in helping Paramount find a way around it. “We love the judge’s order,” Bonta tells Elaine Low in an exclusive interview recorded just hours after the ruling. The decision gives Paramount as many as 28 days to choose among three bad options — settle, fight or walk away — and Bonta argues it has already undercut one of the company’s central defenses: that the merger would help it compete with Netflix, Amazon and Apple, even if it reduces competition in theatrical film and cable. He explains why more states may now join the challenge, what happens at the pivotal preliminary-injunction hearing and whether any concession could persuade him to stand down. His answer, essentially: Don’t merge. Plus, Sean McNulty and Richard Rushfield join Elaine to explain why the deal is no longer inevitable — and whether this is merely a two-week delay or the beginning of the end for Paramount-WBD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a bad week for David Ellison, with Paramount Skydance facing two concurrent lawsuits seeking to block its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery — plus a shareholder case accusing Ellison and his father, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, of corruption. On Monday, 12 state attorneys general — led by California AG Rob Bonta — filed their long-expected lawsuit, claiming the proposed merger was “unlawful.” On Tuesday, the Writers Guild of America stepped up, saying the combined company “threatens the economic and creative health of the American entertainment industry.” Former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and WGA West board member Adam Conover join Elaine Low to explain the states’ and WGA’s respective suits — and the harms they see the deal causing to an entertainment industry already under strain. Plus, all good things must come to an end: Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the power of Love Island USA and the ratings bonanza that is the World Cup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Netflix’s hard pivot. Faced with lagging engagement from its users and signs of audience disinterest in some of its top shows between seasons, Netflix’s next big thing might be… cable television. Live channels, more talk shows (via video podcasts) and creator content and bundles with other streamers (including perhaps Peacock) to recreate the lean-back appeal of watching TV on the couch. Certainly, it’s possible Netflix makes a play for another company — perhaps NBCU now that Comcast has split the film and television studio from its broadband company, or Starz. But Jessica suggests there’s an even better fit for M&A hiding in plain sight: Spotify. Listen to today’s bonus episode for more from Sean and Jessica on Netflix and the next steps for Paramount, plus hear Sean’s conversation with Fandango’s Shawn Robbins about the weekend box office, where Disney’s live-action Moana added another flop to the summer tally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Monoculture may not be dead after all — it just needed Taylor Swift in a wedding dress and Christopher Nolan in IMAX. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down an old-fashioned July of cultural spectacle, from the Swift-Travis Kelce nuptials to Nolan’s star-studded Odyssey, which arrives with sold-out premium-format screenings and billion-dollar expectations. Is this the summer moviegoing comes back? And is Nolan the last director in Hollywood whose name alone can make audiences show up? Plus: hot takes on this week’s Emmy nominations — including big love for Widow’s Bay and another tough year for YouTube’s contenders as they inch into the race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Books run on word-of-mouth. So what are the people who shape what gets made, watched, read and bought reading? Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty dig into The Ankler’s inaugural summer reading list, where 100 notables — including Sony Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sherry Lansing, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Netflix film chief Dan Lin, Gillian Anderson and Janelle James — shared the books they’re packing, recommending and obsessing over now. Plus, with every major buyer adapting a glut of novels for the screena — see Elaine’s Series Business sellers’ guide — the team unpacks why book-based IP is hotter than ever and which major titles are in development. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another Monday, another huge deal in Hollywood. Two weeks ago, Fox Corp. announced its intentions to acquire Roku for $22 billion. Now, it’s Comcast’s turn — in reverse. Today, the company revealed it will exit Hollywood completely, spinning off another division, consisting of NBCUniversal and Sky Media, as a publicly traded company, and joining Versant outside the Comcast gates. Comcast hopes to have all this done by summer 2027 – just like Fox and Roku. On Monday’s special extra-bonus edition of Ankler Agenda, Sean McNulty and Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz dive into the strategy afoot here, how Wall Street is driving the split, and the challenges and opportunities for both companies going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oprah flew in to close deals, FOX Entertainment CEO Rob Wade came to talk up his investment in creator-led programming and even the Teletubbies arrived, ready to party. Last week, a cross-section of dealmakers, executives and stars flooded the Croisette for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where the battle between YouTube and Netflix was hotter than France’s record-setting heatwave — and “creator” was the buzzword for the second year in a row. Ankler Media CEO Janice Min and Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey break down who broke through in a week where, as Janice noted, subtlety was not the name of the game. Then, listen to Janice’s full conversation with YouTube chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe and Royal Court host Brittany Broski, where Coe came to the Croisette ready to hit back at Netflix’s podcast poaching with a few choice words, including “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” It’s on! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leave it to the U.S. sports-TV machine to turn three-minute hydration breaks at the FIFA World Cup — a new feature to prevent players from collapsing in the heat — into a multimillion-dollar ad opportunity for Fox. With 48 nations competing for global football domination on U.S. soil, the World Cup is a cultural and ratings bonanza, delivering NFL-sized audiences for marquee U.S. matches and proving once again why global soccer is the one sports property that can make even the Super Bowl look local. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Reel AI columnist Erik Barmack break down Fox’s incredible broadcast bargain, Telemundo’s crossover to English-language viewers and whether Netflix could get the rights to the 2030 World Cup. Plus, Natalie Jarvey pops by from the South of France to talk Cannes Lions — the canapés, conversations and the buzz on the ground about the Fox-Roku deal and how fandoms are driving entertainment’s future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Cannes Lions, the exec tells Ankler CEO Janice Min how the hardware behemoth became a streaming empire — 'We really do have almost Super Bowl-size audiences every day' — and makes his first public comments on the Fox acquisition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Los Angeles mayoral candidate and Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman is acutely aware of what’s at stake as local Hollywood production craters — 42,000 jobs lost over two years between 2022 and 2024, shoot days down 50 percent below the five-year average. Many of her constituents in District 4, which stretches from the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains, work in the industry — and her husband, Vali Chandrasekaran, is a longtime writer and producer, with credits on television comedies like Modern Family, 30 Rock and Netflix’s The Four Seasons. Last week, Raman came by the Ankler offices for a conversation with Richard Rushfield about her plan to save the industry, as well as her thoughts about how we got here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Would you rather spend $18 billion a year on content like Netflix does, or $22 billion once to buy the remote? That’s the bet Fox Corp. is making with its blockbuster acquisition of hardware and distribution behemoth Roku, a deal that suddenly turns the home of Fox News, Fox Sports, Tubi, cable channels and a broadcast network into one of the most unconventional combatants in the Streaming Wars. While Netflix continues to flex its massive annual content budget, Fox initially sat out the arms race, buying Tubi in 2020, investing in creators, AI-fueled microdrama company Holywater and podcast company Red Seat Ventures. Now, as a combined Tubi-Roku puts Fox behind only YouTube and Netflix in TV viewing share, Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey declare the winners and losers — including what the executive shakeout might look like inside — why Wall Street isn’t fully sold and how this repositions Fox in the entertainment landscape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nothing like a $22 billion deal to start a week, as Fox was revealed as the mystery buyer for the Roku business — furthering Lachlan Murdoch’s company’s diversification from being heavily based in the linear TV ecosystem, to extending strong tentacles in the digital and streaming space. In this bonus episode of Ankler Agenda, Business Insider columnist and Channels podcast host Peter Kafka joins The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty to dive into the strategy, what this means for Hollywood streamers and more as consolidation continues to ripple across the ecosystem. Plus, Christopher Rosen joins Sean for a Monday Box Office conversation about the … mixed opening for Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day and what lies ahead, as well as the big drops from opening weekend for Masters of the Universe and Scary Movie — two pictures with vastly different fates at the box office. And, why Universal will still likely win the summer despite the cloudy outlook for Disclosure Day, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a deal that would have been unimaginable a decade ago — maybe even two years ago. But last month, motivational speaker and On Purpose host Jay Shetty signed a reported $100 million agreement to move his video podcast exclusively to Netflix and Spotify. In the era of Alex Cooper, Joe Rogan and the Kelce brothers, streamers are battling for podcast talent as the once audio-only medium morphs into the next Hollywood battleground — with Netflix, naturally, upping the ante. Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty dive into the rise of podcasting post-Covid and post-strikes, Netflix and Spotify’s pod strategy as a bulwark against YouTube and why streamers are betting that video podcasts are really just the next generation of low-cost talk shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“I would not be feeling good right now if I was sitting in my corner office over at Disney after this weekend,” one source tells Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey about the box office success of Backrooms and Obsession — two movies from popular YouTube creators-turned-filmmakers Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, respectively. Both low-budget breakouts leapfrogged over Star Wars’ The Mandalorian and Grogu last weekend, raising questions about what this unprecedented success says about moviegoing’s future and Gen Z taste. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie dive into the YouTube revolution, then examine the growing disconnect between what Hollywood is saying about AI in public vs. how it’s using it — and how even cinema giants like Martin Scorsese are coming around. (For an inside look at the next gen of horror, listen toNatalie’s conversation at NAB Show with Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear, Mark Fischbach aka Markiplier, and M3GAN writer Akela Cooper.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Angelenos are on the clock. The Los Angeles mayoral election is set for June 2, and even those who don’t live in SoCal should pay close attention to the outcome. Hollywood is taking center stage in a way it rarely has before as local production plummets, jobs shrink and frustration ripples through the city. Has Mayor Karen Bass done enough? Could City Councilmember Nithya Raman or former reality TV villain Spencer Pratt (and his surprising donor list) shake things up? Richard Rushfield joins Elaine Low and Natalie Jarvey to break down what each major candidate has said about the film and TV industry and whether anyone at City Hall can save L.A. production. Come for the voters’ guide, stay for Richard’s tale about interning for Mayor Tom Bradley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The summer box office is already popping, with The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Michael raking in millions before Memorial Day — and with new movies coming from Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Marvel, Pixar and A24’s youngest director ever, it feels like the industry might have its best summer since 2019. (Even if The Mandalorian and Grogu fails to launch.) Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey make their picks for the season’s biggest hits in Ankler Agenda‘s first-ever summer box office draft (fantasy football-style), as they predict the next top performers of the summer. Plus: With President Trump voicing support for The Hills alum Spencer Pratt in his run for mayor of Los Angeles — “I’d like to see him do well” — and Pratt gaining ground among the Hollywood elite, the town gets closer to seeing the reality show president push the reality show mayoral candidate to the top (or is it bottom?) of the food chain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People still want to be scared out of their minds together, and Atomic Monster president Michael Clear, M3GAN writer Akela Cooper and YouTuber-turned-filmmaker Mark Fischbach (aka Markiplier) are all in the business of giving audiences those thrills. Their conversation, which was moderated by Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey on the Ankler’s Business of Media and Entertainment Stage at NAB Show in April, also highlights how horror is opening new doors into Hollywood. Fischbach details how fan demand helped boost his self-distributed film, Iron Lung, to $50 million at the global box office, while Clear points to more YouTube creators like Backrooms filmmaker Kane Parsons disrupting Hollywood's horror pipeline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the end of Upfronts week, better known as Hollywood’s annual pilgrimage to woo Madison Ave. Formerly about broadcast TV schedules, Upfronts has become a showcase for a much stranger, fragmented TV future: creators, podcasts, live sports, live events, movies, dog shows and, yes, lots of AI, the cringe buzzword of the week (and jeez, sorry, scripted). Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the major themes from Disney, Netflix, WBD and others, including top living room streamer YouTube, whose competing Brandcast cast a long shadow over the festivities — and the choices highlighted on rivals’ stages. The gang also crowns the best and worst celeb cameos (Anne Hathaway, Mia Hamm and Matthew Stafford), musical performances (Olivia Rodrigo, Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves) and, of course, ad pitches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quarterly earnings season isn’t just MBA word salad. Earnings calls are where Hollywood’s biggest companies tell Wall Street what matters most — and where employees often learn what’s really happening inside their own studios. This week, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount reported earnings, and Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down what the companies are signaling about the future of Hollywood: Disney’s “super app” ambitions, the industry’s AI push, vertical video and what the looming Warner-Paramount merger could mean for the business. Plus: What did new Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro reveal in his first earnings call from the C-suite? And what does Warners have planned as it exits the stage? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The agency formerly known as Wasserman — made infamous in recent months by founder Casey Wasserman’s flirtatious emails with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell — is up for sale. So who wants it? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Ashley Cullins break down the bidders, the stakes for the representation business and what the multibillion-dollar price tag reveals about the industry — and who has the juice. Plus, Kimmelgate 2.0: The FCC goes after Disney, and Paramount discloses just how foreign-funded a combined Paramount-WBD could be. (Hint: a lot!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The entertainment industry’s economic and existential tailspin is playing out on the political stage, as Los Angeles’ mayoral candidates curry favor with the Hollywood set before the June 2 primary. Incumbent Karen Bass, city council member Nithya Raman and former The Hills star Spencer Pratt aren’t wooing the A-list, but the rank-and-file of an industry being squeezed by runaway production. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Ashley Cullins break down the crisis and — finally! — the growing bidding war between California, New York, New Jersey and beyond as states fight to keep film and TV projects in the U.S. Plus, Natalie Jarvey gives us the NAB Show recap, and the crew contemplates what comes next for WarnerMount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone talks about taking big swings again, but few Hollywood execs feel like they’re actually in a position to do it — without fearing for their jobs. But former Showtime head Jana Winograde and ex-Warner Bros. Television pres Susan Rovner are greenlighting shows from the backseats of cars and searching for new talent right out of film school, after making the leap from legacy TV to microdramas with aTwist (nee MicroCo), a vertical series app backed by Chris McGurk-led Cineverse and former WME chair Lloyd Braun.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During Warner Bros.’ supersized CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas, the studio’s sale to Paramount went unmentioned — even as it touted a theatrical slate stretching into 2028. But the contentious merger was impossible to ignore, dominating chatter across the convention floor and even inadvertently pulling The Ankler into the mix thanks to what’s now being dubbed “pin-gate.” Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the drama, along with the biggest takeaways from this year’s theatrical showcase. Plus, the trio is joined by special guest John August — Big Fish and Corpse Bride screenwriter and co-chair of the WGA West negotiating committee — to go inside the guild’s surprisingly swift deal with the studios. He unpacks the WGA’s divisive bargaining agreement now up for a vote, including major changes to the healthcare plan, and addresses the criticism head-on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The tentative deal between the Writers Guild and Hollywood’s major studios has quelled fears of another strike — all while shaking up the major guilds’ contract cycle. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the key terms, including a $321 million infusion into the WGA health plan (alongside higher deductibles and premiums) and a shift to a four-year bargaining agreement rather than the usual three. The deal — and its limited movement on AI — will shape not just the upcoming SAG and DGA negotiations, but the industry’s broader trajectory. Plus, the trio looks at a rare bright spot: box office ticket sales are up 23 percent year over year, fueled by hits like Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Project Hail Mary and other family-friendly fare. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sean Penn, puffing away inside the Beverly Hilton at the Golden Globes. Kylie Jenner, with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, on the cover of Vanity Fair. Nurse Dana, taking a drag on The Pitt. Smoking is back — both IRL and on screen — just as Hollywood’s shrinking career ladder leaves many millennials feeling stuck and a stressed-out Gen Z, inheriting the collapse, searches for connection and release. Editor, writer and former pack-a-day smoker Degen Pener joins Elaine Low and Sean McNulty to explain what’s driving young Hollywood workers to light up after talking to young industry workers outside clubs across Los Angeles — and what Gen Xers like him and Sean make of it. Plus, Elaine and Sean debate which generation really has it worse in today’s business — and whether boomers are to blame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Silicon Valley was supposed to be satire. In 2026, it plays more like a warning. In a look back on the iconic 2010s HBO comedy, co-creator Mike Judge and exec producer Alec Berg reflect on how “incredibly intentional” they were in making tech startup life feel plausible. But what’s wilder is how close to reality some of their storylines actually got, from AI to the ruthless capitalism of the real-world Silicon Valley. Judge and Berg recall the real-life tech titans who informed the show, the Stanford math professor who helped them construct academically sound dick jokes, and the making of the series' mockumentary-style finale. As Berg puts it: “It’s beyond satire.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Casting Taylor Frankie Paul on The Bachelorette was supposed to revive the wilting franchise. Instead, a 2023 video of Paul attacking her ex-boyfriend triggered the meltdown of not one, but two of Disney’s biggest reality shows. Paul’s season of The Bachelorette is now sitting on a shelf, and production on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives — where Paul is a central character — is paused indefinitely. The Ringer’s Juliet Litman, host of the popular Bachelor Party pod, joins Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty to break down how the Paul catastrophe is reshaping the franchise, its fandom and the show’s future prospects. Plus, Lesley Goldberg stops by to unpack Netflix’s new bigger buying spree — and why sources say the streamer may be experiencing a case of “prestige envy.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s the irony: Even in the age of streaming, about 85 percent of profits from a merged Paramount Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery still would come from linear TV, as Sean McNulty points out. So what do you do with more than two dozen aging cable networks? Spin them off, reinvent them as digital brands or send them to TV’s great dead-brand graveyard in the sky — all while Wall Street watches with a serious stink eye? Enter March Sadness. Sean, Elaine Low and Natalie Jarvey build a bracket to crown the most valuable Warnermount cable asset, with CNN, HGTV, Nickelodeon, BET and more going head-to-head. Which properties are the No. 1 seeds, and which networks are… MTV2? The answers (and the ratings) might surprise you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“It’s a crazy irony that your reward for incredible artistic success in modern Hollywood is that you then get to lay off a bunch of your employees,” Prestige Junkie host Katey Rich tells Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey in the run-up to Sunday’s Oscars, where two Warner Bros. films — Sinners and One Battle After Another — are going head-to-head for best picture right as Paramount Skydance is about to swallow the studio whole. “It really couldn’t be a more perfect metaphor for how backward so many of the industry’s priorities are.” Speaking of which, The Business of Television author and former head of business affairs at Paramount TV and Amazon Studios, Ken Basin, stops by to chat about the current state of dealmaking in television, how much the Paramount-Warner merger is going to weigh on day-to-day business (“Warners is effectively frozen”), and what Netflix should do with its $2.8 billion breakup fee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Talk about whiplash: A week ago, a Netflix–Warner Bros. deal looked likely. Turns out, the winning combo may be… Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery. (Rolls right off the tongue.) That is — if it survives regulatory scrutiny, with California Attorney General Rob Bonta warning that the merger is “not a done deal.” Still, a swirl of questions remains — all driven by a strategy executives aren’t quite saying out loud: cut billions in costs, merge the streaming platforms (creating clear winners and losers), squeeze what’s left of the cable business for cash and use the scale of a combined studio to survive a rapidly shrinking TV ecosystem. And all that Middle East money? Sure, nothing to see here. Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey, Sean McNulty and Lesley Goldberg break it all down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just how much longer can the Netflix vs. Paramount merger madness go on? (Cue the eye rolls.) Paramount made a fresh $31-per-share offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, and WBD’s response — which can be boiled down to “We’re getting there, maybe” — is about as close to coquettish as a corporation can get. Meanwhile, Netflix is not-so-patiently waiting in the wings, as co-CEO Ted Sarandos wraps a weeklong press tour to convince Wall Street and Hollywood that his company’s offer for WBD (which, as he’ll remind you, was already accepted in December) is superior. So what happens now? Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty answer your burning questions about the whole saga and read between the lines of Sarandos’ press offensive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are the odds of another Hollywood strike in 2026? The answer to who has more leverage — the guilds or the studios — may surprise you. With AI, healthcare and streaming again on the bargaining table just three short years after the writers and actors strikes shuttered the town — Elaine Low, Sean McNulty, Natalie Jarvey and Dealmakers columnist Ashley Cullins discuss the talks between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Plus, who might buy Casey Wasserman’s namesake agency after his tawdry email exchanges with Ghislaine Maxwell came to light and blew up his empire? The team has some ideas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nearly 20 years ago, Spencer Pratt became reality TV infamous on the cover of Us Weekly. In this bonus episode, he sat down with Ankler Media CEO and editor-in-chief Janice Min — the editor who once put him there — to talk about his run for mayor of Los Angeles. Pratt calls Gavin Newsom a “demon” and a “reality star in charge of everything failing.” He slams the city’s response to the 2025 wildfires, argues L.A. isn’t ready for the Olympics — “not even ready for a USC game," claims he already has a Day One “blacklist” of city officials he’d fire and has sharp words for Hollywood unions and the CEOs who run the studios. It’s classic Pratt for those who first met him on MTV's The Hills: provocative, theatrical, and strategically aware of the spotlight. But it’s also a reminder that the machinery of fame and the machinery of politics are now fully intertwined. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” Casey Wasserman — founder of the Wasserman Agency, chair of the LA28 Olympic Committee, and grandson of Hollywood founding father Lew Wasserman — wrote in a 2003 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, later convicted of sex trafficking minors. The message is one of several exchanges included in the millions of documents released by the Justice Department as part of the Epstein files — and it has thrown one of the industry’s most connected executives into crisis. Chappell Roan and Abby Wambach publicly cut ties with Wasserman this week, with others threatening to follow. But he’s not the only major player to appear in the Epstein email archive, as journalist and author Allen Salkin found out. Still, the bigger story may be what the cache reveals about the clubby worlds of media and entertainment, industries built on proximity — who gets invited to the dinner, who makes the introduction, who vouches for whom. Salkin joins Elaine Low and Natalie Jarvey to unpack the boldface names surfacing in the files and what their presence — whether incidental, transactional, or something more — says about the networks that drive the entertainment business. Plus, Sean McNulty breaks down the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics ratings, and Paramount’s latest sweetened bid for Warner Bros. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bell Media President Sean Cohan tells The Ankler’s Elaine Low onstage at NATPE Global/Realscreen Summit in Miami about the pitch process for ‘Heated Rivalry,’ how the show’s creators protected its Canadian authenticity and why so many viewers are “reheating” (aka rewatching) the gay hockey drama. He also charts the growth of Bell-owned Canadian streamer Crave and takes a contrarian view on Hollywood consolidation, including the Netflix-Warner Bros. tie-up. “We run as an industry to a ‘sky is falling’ kind of a place,” Cohan says. While big mergers have undeniably harsh consequences, they also open “lanes of opportunity.” He adds. “It'll be a great time for entrepreneurship, because these distracted, big, lumbering giants are going to get a little slower.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Disney finally did it: Bob Iger has a successor. Parks chief Josh D’Amaro is taking the throne, with runner-up Dana Walden annexing more territory at the Mouse House (and earning a higher base salary than her new boss). Everyone in TV and film knows Walden, but who is D’Amaro? And what does this new era of Disney actually look like? Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty read between the lines and lay out the challenges facing D’Amaro on Day One. Then, Lesley Goldberg joins to share her reporting on Walden’s new remit, while theme park journalist Carlye Wisel discusses D’Amaro’s impact on the parks business. Plus, Matthew Frank is back with a look at the prediction markets ahead of perhaps the biggest sports betting day of the year: the Super Bowl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

'MeidasTouch' podcaster and progressive media exec Ben Meiselas joins Like & Subscribe's Natalie Jarvey for a fiery discussion of the risks and new rules for American journalists as they report in U.S. cities “that look and feel like Fallujah” and work to cover "a regime that is hell-bent on retribution and instilling fear." Meiselas also reveals his close ties with Don Lemon, now facing federal charges in connection with his coverage of a Minnesota anti-ICE protest, and why he sees the "weaponization" of the U.S. Department of Justice faltering. As Meiselas’ podcast sees explosive growth, he argues that legacy news has lost the plot and audiences — "people who feel, who are struggling, who are being left behind" — and shares the strategy to keep building his independent media empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Disney CEO Bob Iger is ready to abdicate the throne. Again. Six years after Iger first stepped down as CEO, and 38 months after he regained control of Disney following Bob Chapek’s disastrous two-year stretch, the succession planning committee is expected to announce the winner in “early 2026,” aka now. (Cue the Succession theme.) But even as the frontrunners have remained the same — it’s still a presumed two-horse race between Disney Parks head Josh D’Amaro and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden — the world has rapidly changed. Disney has to contend with AI, a behemoth rival in a merged Netflix-Warner Bros., and a charged political environment. Which of these heavyweights lands the TKO? Would co-CEOs, à la Netflix, make sense? Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty break it all down ahead of Disney’s next earnings call. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meryl, Leo, Scarlett, Zendaya — every generation produces its breakout stars. But minting the next one has never been harder amid the collapse of monoculture and the rise of social media. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey predict the top stars of 2026, share behind-the-scenes insights from the casting directors of Heated Rivalry on how they found Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie and that pivotal chemistry test, and explain how Snap is building a path to success for creators. Plus: The latest on the WBD-Netflix merger saga (now with all-cash!), and Matthew Frank’s update on his Netflix earnings call and talk-show bets on the prediction markets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nothing stirred more outrage at the Golden Globes than the integration of prediction market (read: betting platform) Polymarket in the telecast — Katey Rich called it “incredibly tacky,” and Richard Rushfield argued the show “milked opportunities for clickbait and cash grabs into the show like a BuzzFeed headline writer circa 12 years ago.” After years of harmless live-voting on American Idol or Dancing With the Stars, is betting the next frontier of interactive TV? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey trace the history of entertainment gamification — and the money now pouring in (see: Amazon and FanDuel’s NBA deal). Plus, an inside look at the first-ever Ankler Invitational, Elaine’s smashing new tennis event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One year after the L.A. fires and three years after the strikes — with another round of labor drama looming — it can feel like every creative you know is fleeing Hollywood. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty, and Natalie Jarvey dig into the actual data behind a yes, very real L.A. exodus — but separate panic, perception and think-piece fuel from reality. Then, MoviePass is back — this time as a predictions market. Matthew Frank risks $1,000 of The Ankler’s own money to explain how prediction markets work in 2026, why they’re called a “degenerate economy” and how you can bet on everything from Oscar categories and the ceremony itself (including the monologue) to what show will be #1 on Netflix. Plus: Richard Rushfield lays out the six fronts that will decide whether 2026 is Hollywood’s comeback year — or the start of its final slide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Which business trends are giving the Ankler crew hope in the New Year? Is the 2023 writers’ strike responsible for the current shaky entertainment economy? What streaming service would Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey bring back from the dead? (Spoiler alert: no one picked Go90.) You sent in your most burning questions for Ankler Agenda’s last episode of the year, and the gang delivers. This may be the first mailbag episode, but it’s not the last — send in your questions any time of year at podcasts@theankler.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Netflix, YouTube, horny hockey hunks — even amid rough economic terrain this year, these industry standouts and more not only survived through ’25, but thrived. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey are joined by a cavalcade of Ankler’s best — including Katey Rich, Lesley Goldberg, Matthew Frank and Ankler Agenda executive producer Shana Naomi Krochmal — to share their winners of the year, as well as the unfortunate losers. (Sorry, but if you’re reading this, Sean has you on the list — and he’s brought receipts.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a year when creators surged fully into the mainstream, ICYMI’s Lia Haberman joins Like & Subscribe's Natalie Jarvey for a Substack Live recap of the biggest highs and lows of 2025. From MrBeast going Hollywood to Ms. Rachel landing on Netflix, plus podcasts turning into video shows and YouTube cementing itself as television, they break down what changed, and what those shifts mean for the creator economy going into 2026. Natalie and Lia also hand out totally fake (but very fun) awards to the people, trends, and storylines that defined the year. And because looking back means being honest, they also dig into stunts and terms they want to leave behind in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some guys can’t take a hint. After half a dozen proposals and a hostile bid, Paramount Skydance got a definitive “no means no” from Warner Bros. Discovery’s board this week. Elaine Low and Sean McNulty break down how the tables turned on suitor PSKY, what this means for the timeline of a Netflix-Warner Bros. merger and the wild payouts David Zaslav and the WBD C-suite are getting regardless of what happens. (Contraction, schmontraction.) Then, Erik Barmack unpacks Disney’s $1B investment in OpenAI, Bob Iger’s claim that the deal poses “no threat to creatives,” and what it really means when 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters can now be remixed into user-generated Sora videos. Plus: Richard Rushfield on the tragic murders of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner. Want to be featured in a future mailbag episode? Send your questions to podcasts@theankler.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prestige Junkie's Katey Rich and Natalie Jarvey jumped on Substack Live to discuss why the Academy struck a deal with YouTube to air the Oscars, who might win the most in this deal, and what kind of changes we might expect for the Oscars going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Rushfield, Katey Rich and Christopher Rosen taped a special Prestige Junkie episode to discuss what Richard rightly hailed as Rob Reiner's “towering career of a towering presence” in the industry. From his early days as a sitcom star on All in the Family to his remarkable 12-year run of feature films, starting with 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap and ending with 1996’s The American President — with 1986’s Stand By Me, 1987’s The Princess Bride and 1989’s When Harry Met Sally among those in between — Reiner influenced a generation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Creator and actor Noah Beck and Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles join Natalie Jarvey to break down how athletes are building fandom — and entire careers — beyond the field. From NIL to fashion to acting, they share how they navigate social media pressure, pursue new opportunities, and stay competitive while staying themselves. Subscribe to Like and Subscribe for more conversations like these: likeandsubscribenews.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like sand through the hourglass, so are the mergers of our lives. With the Warner Bros. board now in a 10-day window to respond to Paramount’s newly hostile counteroffer, Hollywood is nearly guaranteed to be mired in this soap-operatic saga for months to come. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the latest — including the introduction of Jared Kushner and Middle East money as the majority financial backing of the new Paramount bid, how the industry and unions are looking to fight off this merger (and whether public sentiment matters), and the likely chill this is going to have on the day-to-day business of television and film until there’s resolution. Plus, Katey Rich offers the lay of the land now that Golden Globes nominations are out: who got snubbed, who got some love and how a combined HBO-Netflix would dominate awards season. And don't forget to take The Ankler's Hollywood in 2026 survey here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

WGA West president Michele Mulroney has a message for Netflix chief Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav: “We want there to be consideration of industry workers in these conversations… We don’t believe it was inevitable that Warner Bros. needed to be sold.” The guild leader sat down with Elaine Low on Monday morning as the town was still digesting the news of Netflix’s winning $82.7 billion bid to acquire Warner Bros. studio and streaming assets, not to mention the fresh shock of Paramount’s hostile takeover bid for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery.In looking at the impact of past mergers (Disney-Fox, Warner Bros.-Discovery, etc.) on writers, Mulroney says, “We sadly know how this movie ends,” and that the Disney-Fox merger didn’t increase employment or content production among writers. “We are doing a lot of advocacy at the congressional level and with attorneys general to outline what we see as the dangers for our industry, and for the wider, wider economy of the U.S., and they are hearing us.” Guild leaders urge members also to reach out to their elected officials about their concerns — and to lean into their creativity to navigate the current challenges. “This is a time to dig deep and be entrepreneurial where you can try and make things happen for yourself, rather than waiting around,” Mulroney says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey, Sean McNulty and Lesley Goldberg all gathered Friday morning for a special live episode of Ankler Agenda to break down the repercussions of potentially the most significant piece of show business news this decade: Netflix's acquisition of Warner Bros. Top-line concerns include: The thousands of lost jobs that will worsen unemployment in the industry — already at Depression-era levels Whether movie theaters can survive the “consumer-friendly” windows Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos referenced in a Friday call with investors Netflix’s potential new arsenal: all-star showrunners (J.J. Abrams, Greg Berlanti and Chuck Lorre, to name a few) and a gaming vertical at last Downstream effects on linear syndication The future of the peerless brand HBO “Everybody is just shell-shocked,” Elaine said of the calls and texts she fielded all day. “The main reaction that I’ve been getting is that people are scared. People are nervous.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One studio to rule them all and in the darkness bind them: Netflix, Paramount Skydance and Comcast have submitted new bids to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, part or parcel. One’s got cash (Netflix), another’s got Saudi money (PSKY), but the question is: Who needs whom more? And which studio exec would be most palatable to the town as the new head of Warner Bros.’ TV and film studios — Ted Sarandos, David Ellison or Donna Langley? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey suss out the latest (binding) bids for WBD and which combos make the most sense for the studios and for the health of Hollywood. Plus, the battle between idealistic Patreon and heavy-hitter Substack for writers and creators, and Richard Rushfield’s take on why anyone but a Hollywood studio should buy WBD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After ignoring weeks of theatrical disappointments, moviegoers fell under the spell of Wicked: For Good last weekend to the tune of almost $150 million in North America. Who does the industry have to thank for that total? Women, who made up 70 percent of the opening audience. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey examine how the fairer sex have been largely underserved at the box office this year, while Vanity Fair’s all-bro Hollywood cover boys like Glen Powell (The Running Man) and Jeremy Allen White (Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere) struggled to pull their weight as movie stars. Plus, Prestige Junkie’s Katey Rich lays out the key storylines as the Oscar race heats up — including what she’s hearing from voters (nope, they still haven’t seen all the movies) and why Warner Bros. is sitting pretty with best picture frontrunners One Battle After Another and Sinners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How long before Warner Bros. becomes another studio swallowed up by David Ellison? With final bids for WBD due this week, all eyes remain on Paramount Skydance — despite the Comcast and Netflix red herrings. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down why a Paramount–Warners mash-up now feels less like speculation and more like destiny. Then Richard Rushfield reveals the whispers starting to circulate within the creative community about Ellison’s cozy ties to Donald Trump and how it might push back. Plus: As Disney becomes a luxury brand and even monthly streaming bills seem like an extravagance, has the middle-class been priced out of entertainment? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special bonus Ankler Agenda episode, Richard Rushfield chats with Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy about their journey to Warners, their record-breaking year at the box office and why their strategy paid off on hits from ‘Sinners’ to ‘Superman’ — all in the face of relentless negative headlines about their bold and risk-taking slate. With a combined 70 years of making movies, these two have seen it all — hits and flops, unexpected wins and surprising losses. But even now, with so many signs pointing to the contrary — and the fate of their studio in doubt, as it's officially up for sale — they both retain a sense of hope and wonder for the best that Hollywood can be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hollywood had its eyes on Web Summit Lisbon this week — where Tilly Norwood creator Eline van der Velden joined Ankler Media EIC Janice Min to showcase her AI “actress.” But Wild Sheep Content CEO Erik Barmack, our Reel AI columnist, tells Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey that the fixation on Tilly misses the far more consequential story: the unmistakable warning signs of AI’s encroachment and the decades of strategic drift that have left Hollywood uniquely exposed to Big Tech’s ambitions. Which jobs remain genuinely AI-proof? Which ones are already dissolving beneath us? And what does it mean for a creative economy when the apprenticeship ladder that produces future writers, directors and executives is sawed off at the base? Barmack offers a rigorous, unsentimental map of a crisis now unfolding faster, and more decisively, than the town wants to acknowledge. Plus: David Ellison hosts Paramount Skydance’s debut on Wall Street, and Richard Rushfield charts the steady disappearance of dramatic films from America’s movie screens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Election Day had New York City’s Gen Z cheering in the streets as proud socialist Zohran Mamdani crushed the Democratic establishment (in the form of disgraced state governor-turned-flop independent candidate Andrew Cuomo) in the mayoral race. But as election results from New York, New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere poured in Tuesday night, who was really watching TV? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey examine the rising tide of “newsfluencers” trumping old-school cable news as viewers get older (average age: 70-72), MSNBC becomes MS Now, and trust in media plummets. Then, Lachlan Cartwright of buzzy media newsletter Breaker joins with to relay his scoops about new CBS News chief Bari Weiss: her beefy bodyguards, the (surprisingly!) hopping NYC election night party hosted by Bari’s The Free Press and what’s actually happening inside the halls of CBS News. Plus: Richard Rushfield on the dire state of diversity in Hollywood’s film director ranks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thousands of jobs lost at Paramount Skydance and Amazon, quiet panic on the Warner Bros. Discovery lot, shoot days in L.A. on a continued decline — all while streaming churn, anecdotally, is becoming worse than ever as subscription prices skyrocket. As Hollywood embraced the most terrifying part of the industry during Halloween week — mass layoffs — Ankler Agenda host Elaine Low, along with Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey, take a look at the local economic indicators and how many are pointing south as we barrel toward next year. Then, to celebrate our big flagship podcast rebrand as Ankler Agenda, Richard Rushfield debuts his new weekly segment, Rushfield’s Rant, and rings the alarm about the grim reality facing female directors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Thursday, "The Ankler Podcast" relaunches as "Ankler Agenda," hosted by Elaine Low. Elaine, author of Ankler Media’s popular “Series Business” newsletter, will be joined weekly by her Ankler colleagues Sean McNulty, Natalie Jarvey and Richard Rushfield, in addition to a variety of expert guests, to break down the headlines, trends and creativity shaping the evolution of Hollywood, the creator economy and entertainment. Episodes will also be available every Thursday on YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another week, another industry-warping Hollywood shake-up. As Warner Bros. Discovery plants a “For Sale” sign in its yard, a Streaming Wars endgame is being unleashed. Is the billionaire class going to snap its fingers, Thanos-style, and squeeze the number of major studios through another round of M&A? Or is salvation coming instead for a storied studio? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down which suitors make sense, why a Paramount-Warner Bros. mashup would become the rival Netflix has never had, and which assets are most enticing, fantasy-draft style. Plus: Richard Rushfield stops by to weigh in on Zazpocalypse Now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A show filmed in real time, airing almost daily, and pulling in billions of viewing minutes a week? Prestige TV could never. But Love Island USA and other reality juggernauts are proving America is enamored again with the once declining genre. Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty break down the market forces leading to this TV plot twist worthy of The Traitors: the genres working, what Netflix has to do with it and why it’s thriving when scripted isn’t. Plus: Ankler writer Matthew Frank joins to preview Crowd Pleaser, our upcoming Letterboxd collaboration, and his ambitious plan to visit more than 50 movie theaters across the country in just two weeks. And Elaine and Natalie unpack what SAG-AFTRA’s new microdrama contract could mean for the booming world of vertical video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The strangest thing about the new iteration of ChatGPT? The sudden and full-throated embrace by once-squeamish execs and writers, says Reel AI columnist Erik Barmick (just ask around about the “GPT-5 pass”). Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey dig into how writers and producers are using GPT-5, which jobs likely will vanish, and how guilds are gearing up for the next AI fight (after missing on the last agreement). Then, Lesley Goldberg joins to reveal the 10 most influential showrunners right now, according to top execs and agents, and the surprising names who didn’t make the cut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forget the government shutdown — President Trump is back to targeting entertainment, from YouTube’s $24.5 million settlement with him to a floated “100 percent tariff” on foreign-made films. Host Elaine Low, Sean McNulty, and Natalie Jarvey parse what a “Made in America” movie even is anymore, while Gen Z correspondent Matthew Frank (writer of our coming Crowd Pleaser newsletter about audience), unpacks how under-25s are actually discovering shows in the fast-twitch age of clips and feeds. And finally: Taylor Swift takes on Leonardo DiCaprio and Dwayne Johnson at the box office, exposing the industry’s Gen Z blind spot in real time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six days. That’s all it took for Jimmy Kimmel to be yanked off the air by Disney under FCC pressure — and then rushed back after Hollywood revolted. Now Trump is circling, affiliates are defying ABC in a game of chicken, and Disney’s succession drama involving negotiators Dana Walden and Bob Iger is suddenly back in the spotlight. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty, Natalie Jarvey, and Richard Rushfield unpack the week that shook late night — and what it means for free speech, politics and the future of Hollywood. And no, this is nowhere close to being over. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Late on Sept. 17, the news broke: Disney’s Bob Iger made the decision to “indefinitely” suspend one of its marquee stars, Jimmy Kimmel of Jimmy Kimmel Live! from ABC. The news followed FCC chair Brendan Carr’s suggestion that the federal agency would move against the company if its leadership didn’t take action against the host’s remarks about Charlie Kirk. In this emergency pod, host Elaine Low is is joined by a rotation of our best and brightest to break down the shocking news and its chilling aftermath: Sean McNulty on Nexstar and Sinclair’s decision to not air Jimmy Kimmel Live on affiliate stations; Lesley Goldberg with a play-by-play on Disney’s decision to pull Kimmel off ABC; Katey Rich on the historical precedent and impact to the creative community; and Natalie Jarvey on how political creators on YouTube and elsewhere might react. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a multibillion-dollar business growing right under Hollywood’s nose: microdramas, those soapy, 60-second episodes Gen Z binges on their phones with storylines that can sound like bad 'Twilight' fan-fiction. Vertical dramas are a booming market in China, and now entertainment vets stateside like Lloyd Braun and Susan Rovner are getting in on the action. Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty tackle the big questions for the micro-curious: How seriously should Netflix view microdramas as a rival? Can anyone actually make a profit? And will it take household names to make them succeed — or is this another Quibi-in-waiting? Plus, Richard Rushfield makes his glorious return to the podcast with tales of TIFF: the best films, the Criterion Closet and his all-important Sydney Sweeney selfie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Telluride mountaintops to Toronto’s Tim Hortons, awards season is officially here. Before jetting to TIFF, Prestige Junkie’s Katey Rich joined Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey to dissect the quirks of each fest and how they influence not just Oscar voters but box office, too. Plus: the crew autopsies a limp summer box office that fell behind last year, and looks ahead to whether Nolan, Spider-Man, Baby Yoda and even the Minions can save summer 2026 — or if movies are still stuck in a death spiral. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And here you thought Hollywood might coast into Labor Day. Instead, summer’s final days delivered both the inevitable — Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement — and the unexpected: Netflix OG veteran Peter Friedlander’s exit after 14 years. Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty break down the business stakes of both before running through the five biggest stories of the summer you need to know into the fall, from the ongoing rise of microdramas to Paramount’s high-stakes reboot with Cindy Holland, to Gen X as Hollywood’s Rodney Dangerfield generation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comedies, dramas, animation and reality may be Hollywood’s bread and butter, but when it comes to what Americans actually watch the most, it’s live sports — and now, an avalanche of shoulder programming to support it. As ESPN, NBCU and Amazon spend $76 billion on NBA games alone over the next 11 years, Manningcast spawns imitators and sports docs and series eat up space once reserved for scripted, Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey reveal the aftershocks to traditional TV (hint: grab the hot dogs and peanuts). Then Dealmakers’ Ashley Cullins dives into the wild state of entertainment M&A right now, including why insiders are hyped about Hailey Bieber’s $1 billion Rhode sale, and what they’re saying about investors’ sudden interest in management companies, who’ll win the old media Hunger Games, and what in the world happens with Lionsgate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the end of an era — again — as the surprise finale of And Just Like That has fans bidding farewell (once more) to Carrie Bradshaw & Co. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey share their takes on the messy send-off (spoiler warnings!), and why Hollywood romance isn’t going away like Aidan just yet. In fact, the once-dormant rom-com is in the midst of a 2025 shopping spree, with Netflix, Amazon and others stocking up on meet-cutes to satisfy comfort-craving audiences. The team unpacks what the divisive Sex and the City spinoff says about the market, the genre’s economic appeal, and the next gen of rom-coms headed for your queue. Plus: They go inside Hollywood’s big four agencies’ war to rep digital creators like MrBeast, Alix Earle and Addison Rae, and the brutally honest scoop on whom digital stars choose (and don’t) when internet fame tips into “call my agent” territory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad Pitt, fast cars and Expensify receipt management software logos: Three things that go great together… when you’re shoring up millions to fund your F1 movie. On this week’s episode, Dealmakers’ Ashley Cullins breaks down how ad viewing is down but brand spending is up in hits from F1 to Superman to Jurassic World Rebirth in ways that go far beyond the usual logo slap: They’re narrative tie-ins where the ad is part of the story (host Elaine Low likens it to “hiding the pill in the peanut butter” for dogs, though, yes, Superman’s mutt, Krypto, hawks Milk-Bones). Plus: Elaine, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey unravel Disney’s latest moves — including a farewell to the Hulu app, a hello to ESPN’s standalone streamer and other shakeups from the company’s mic drop earnings call. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After just three years, the newlyweds known as Warner Bros. Discovery are headed for splitsville. Who gets the house? The dog? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the Hollywood divorce — including the surprising answer to which new company (Warner Bros. or Discovery Global) is making more money, why the film studio is laying off staff after a blockbuster summer, and what happens next. Then, the gang bops to the soundtrack from KPop Demon Hunters and dives into how this unexpected Netflix hit rewrote the rules for animation, fandom, and original IP — and why its lack of A-list stars should send a shudder down Hollywood’s spine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do Stephen Colbert and an entire generation of Hollywood veterans have in common? They're both facing abrupt career disruption. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey explore the existential crisis facing Gen X, as careers stall out amid consolidation, AI and a Boomer blockade — and reveal what’s coming next for millennials. Then, Lesley Goldberg breaks down the shocking cancellation of The Late Show, revealed days after a $16 million Paramount settlement with President Trump. Was the ouster of late night’s highest-rated star really just a matter of money? And why didn’t his manager tell him about it for weeks? Plus: Sean checks in on summer box office, where The Fantastic Four is about to face the audience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elaine Low and Lesley Goldberg dive into the world’s biggest media swap meet about to start: the great cable TV sell-off. They reveal who’s selling the declining assets, who’s actually buying them and why. Elaine is also joined by Natalie Jarvey, Sean McNulty and Katey Rich, who keep score of the recent Emmy noms including the triumphs, snubs and why, despite heavy campaigning, YouTube couldn’t get voters to “like” them. Also, the team breaks down Superman’s opening weekend and its impact on the summer box office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the Paramount–Skydance merger lurches toward an Oct. 4 deadline, Elaine Low, Sean McNulty, Lesley Goldberg and Ashley Cullins break down the latest on who’s in, who’s out, what Cindy Holland will do when she takes creative control of Paramount+ as expected, and Hollywood buzz about “New Paramount”: Who’s actually buying shows and who’s riding out the clock, and what the new org chart and spin-offs will look like. Plus: is a Peacock–Paramount+ hookup still on the table, is Skydance really calling the shots, and can any streamer survive without merging? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We kick off this holiday weekend on The Ankler Podcast with Matthew Frank exposing a rebellion brewing in film schools, where young cinephiles are shunning AI, while their mentors encourage them to embrace the new technology. Later, Sean McNulty breaks down the box office battles this July 4th, with Jurassic World Rebirth trying to take pole position away from Brad Pitt’s F1. But the real bombshell? Lesley Goldberg’s exclusive scoop: Neil Druckmann, the co-creator of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us games and the Emmy Award-winning HBO series, is abandoning the TV adaptation ahead of season three. Lesley, Elaine Low and Natalie Jarvey dissect how Druckmann helped shape The Last of Us, why he’s leaving now, and where that leaves the show and co-creator Craig Mazin ahead of its next chapter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week: Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey unpack a wave of moves shaking up Hollywood. First, the team dissect Spotify’s latest push into video, including a leaked pitch deck showing the platform’s aggressive play to lure creators from YouTube — and what it means for the future of podcasts, revenue models, and digital windowing. Then, six months after the L.A. fires. Elaine talks to Nicole LaPorte about her wrenching interviews with the displaced from Hollywood, now struggling, surviving and rebuilding. Then: the California legislature signed off on a $750 million tax incentive expansion for film and TV production. What’s in the deal, who benefits, and will it really bring jobs back to the state? Plus: a look at the summer box office’s first big flop: Pixar’s Elio, and if Brad Pitt’s F1 can defy the haters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live from Cannes Lions, Like & Subscribe editor Natalie Jarvey interviews creator Josh Richards and CrossCheck Studios CEO Chris Sawtelle about building a Gen Z media empire on the back of TikTok stardom. “I don’t mean to be dramatic here, but broadcast television is dead,” Sawtelle, a former ICM agent, said to a packed crowd at ADWEEK House at Le Majestic Hotel. These days, reaching young audiences means partnering with creators like Richards, who talked about how he helped Amazon drum up excitement for Thursday Night Football and is developing series aimed at Gen Z. Other highlights: Richards’ plan for outlasting his 15 minutes of social media fame ("You'll get lightning in a bottle, but you don't know how long you're gonna be able to hold that there"), how he's building his own IP and the investment advice Ashton Kutcher gave him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the ground at Cannes Lions, Janice Min and Natalie Jarvey join Elaine Low to break down the big Rumble(s) on the Riviera. First up: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan fired back at Netflix's Ted Sarandos in Janice’s newsmaking interview (come for the fight, stay for the sports, pod and AI talk); then it was all those creators stealing the thunder (and money) from traditional celebrities as they sped-dated with brands amid a historical shift in ad spend. Plus: Is “authenticity” the most overused word of the era?; a spicy moment onstage with Alex Cooper; and Amazon and Netflix go back to TV basics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final edition of this season’s Hollywood Stories, Richard Rushfield got to talk about "The Traitors" — a show of which he is an unapologetic superfan — with executive producer Mike Cotton, the man who brought it to both the U.K. and U.S. Originally a Dutch format, Traitors landed in Cotton’s hands when he snapped up the rights and then “took that idea and helped supersize it for a U.K. and U.S. audience,” as he puts it. Cotton shares how the show’s contestants get sucked into the game, why his team takes a “hands-off approach” to let the drama develop — and what might lie ahead for Peacock’s breakout hit. “What I love about this show is it’s a really rich world,” Cotton says. “We can take inspiration from murder mysteries, from thrillers, from horror movies, and we’re constantly thinking of what we can do different.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live from Cannes Lions, Ankler Media CEO Janice Min hosts a rollicking, wide-ranging conversation with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan about the platform’s growing dominance — both on TV screens and across culture — as ad dollars and audience swing decisively toward creators and away from traditional entertainment. Now that YouTube claims a larger share of TV viewership than Netflix, Mohan responds to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ swipe that YouTube is for “killing time” while Netflix is for “spending time.” “Who am I to say what’s spending time, engaging time, quality time, killing time?” Mohan told a packed audience at ADWEEK House. “It’s all of us as consumers — the 2 billion people that come to YouTube every single day — we get to decide how to spend our time.” (YouTube Originals shut down in 2022 before Mohan took the CEO seat.) Other highlights: Mohan answers whether YouTube’s reported $2 billion per year NFL Sunday Ticket deal is paying off; teases plans for global sports rights expansion; and breaks down how the company has quietly captured massive podcast market share from Apple and Spotify. And stick around until the end — for his final swipe back at Netflix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices