Showbiz Sandbox 530: Spotify Leans Into Original Content
February 23, 2021
Spotify continues to be the most popular music streaming service in the world growing 24% over the past year to 155 million paid subscribers. However as the subscriber count rises, so too does the amount Spotify must pay in royalties. This might be why the company has been focusing on exclusive original content such as podcasts for which they don’t have to share revenue.
Meanwhile, the box office continues to recover from the pandemic, at least in China which set new records over the Lunar New Year holiday, proving that moviegoers actually will return to the cinemas when given the opportunity. Hollywood is rejoicing, even if North America and Europe is still six months away from getting back to normal.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including the BBC’s new streaming service, Roku’s surprise profit and this year’s Writers Guild Award nominees.
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Showbiz Sandbox 529: Hollywood Grapples With Cancel Culture
February 16, 2021
Whether it’s sexual misconduct, misogynistic behavior or social media missteps, the careers of numerous entertainment industry figures have recently been upended after allegations of their moral misbehavior surfaced. The repercussions are impacting every part of the industry, from the upper echelons of the French film industry to the rose ceremony on “The Bachelor.” Agencies, studios and record companies are now left to decide whether to jettison stars that have become tainted.
Meanwhile, one year after China closed movie theaters to contend with a growing coronavirus epidemic, the country is showing the world how to revive the cinema business. Apparently all it takes is a few blockbusters to get audiences back into the very theaters many had predicted would never reopen.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including how the cast of the “Umbrella Academy” got a raise, Disney continues to add subscribers to its streaming service and why Dave Chapelle’s old show is back on Netflix.
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Showbiz Sandbox 528: Crunching The Numbers On Cinema Attendance Trends
February 9, 2021
With media reports constantly declaring that cinema admissions have been steadily declining for the past two decades, we set out to determine if such proclamations are actually true. Has moviegoing kept pace with population growth or fallen off? With some help from our listeners we do the math to answer the question once and for all.
Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America is taking a victory lap after they reached a deal with William Morris Endeavor, the last of the major Hollywood talent agencies yet to sign a new franchise agreement. This means that television packaging fees and ownership of affiliated production companies will be winding down at agencies over the next two years.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why TikTok will start paying for music, Nielsen revamps its streaming charts and this year’s SAG Award nominations.
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Showbiz Sandbox 526: Hollywood Reshuffles 2021 Blockbusters
January 26, 2021
The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc throughout the film industry. With most movie theatres around the world currently closed due to COVID, Hollywood studios have delayed almost all of their major releases into the latter half of this year. There is even talk that the Cannes Film Festival will move from May to sometime in July.
Unlike cinemas, streaming media companies are currently thriving, with Netflix surpassing 200 million subscribers worldwide. Despite all of the competitors entering the marketplace, the company set a record high stock price after announcing they won’t need to borrow any additional money to fund new content.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including the new “High School Musical” generates a chart-topper, Viacom changes up its streaming strategy and Spotify ventures into audiobooks.
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Showbiz Sandbox 524: Cable News Networks Make Big Moves
January 13, 2021
Thanks to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and amped up political unrest, viewership of cable news networks has reached record levels. Now that the presidential election is over in the United States, some are making changes to both their anchor and programming lineups. Maybe the biggest move is Fox News, which is moving an opinion show to their early evening rotation.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. is subtly pushing back against critics of its workplace environment on DC titles, despite top talent like Gal Godot and Jason Mamoa weighing in with concerns. Walter Hamada, the head of DC Films, seems to be taking most of the heat.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including the return of “Sex and the City,” Kevin Hart heads to Netflix and the Grammy Awards get postponed.
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Showbiz Sandbox 521: Words In Bubbles – Behind the Scenes of the Comic Book Industry
December 16, 2020
Everyone in the entertainment industry has suffered the disruption caused by the COVID pandemic, including those who create and publish independent comic books. Kyle Higgins knows a thing or two about that. He’s known for his work on the Batman franchise for DC and the Power Rangers franchise for Boom Studios, not to mention his own ground-breaking work on originals like C.O.W.L.
We talk to Higgins about his latest creation, “Radiant Black” as well as the challenges of creating comics during a pandemic. He gives us a unique peak into the world of conceiving, creating and publishing independent comic books.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including the fallout from Warner Bros. sending all their movies to HBO Max, all the big announcements from Disney’s investor day and the latest additions to the National Film Registry.
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Showbiz Sandbox 520: Writing Hollywood’s Obituary… Again
December 8, 2020
The film industry is facing an existential crisis due to the COVID pandemic; film productions are struggling to continue, cinema chains have become burdened with debt and studios are sending their blockbuster releases directly to streaming services. In fact, last week Warner Bros. announced that its entire 2021 slate of movies would be released both in theatres and on their streaming service HBO Max, at least in the United States.
Brooks Barnes, a reporter for the New York Times, recently wrote a feature story detailing the death of Hollywood…again. Literally the headline used the word obituary. Barnes joins us to discuss the unprecedented challenges and disruption the industry is facing and helps us understand their overall ramifications.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Disney is putting the Fox film library back in its vault, Bob Dylan sells the publishing rights to all of his songs and an all-Spanish album tops the Billboard charts for the first time in its 64 year history.
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Showbiz Sandbox 517: Movie Theaters Brace For A Dark Winter
November 10, 2020
With a second wave of COVID sweeping through Europe, cinemas in England, France and Germany have begun to shut down. Can movie theaters in North America and elsewhere soon follow their lead as infection rates rise? Even if cinemas remain open, they won’t have many new movies to show with studios moving major releases into next year.
As major cinema chains around the world report cratering third-quarter revenue they have begun to accept they may have to play titles with shorter release windows, at least until the pandemic is over. This has led to the National Association of Theatre Owners saying that if Congress doesn’t pass a relief bill soon, some 70% of cinemas in North America will declare bankruptcy or go out of business entirely.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Jay-Z is looking to get high on his own supply, Johnny Depp gets dumped from “Fantastic Beasts” and Netflix goes linear (at least in France).
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Showbiz Sandbox 516: What Went Wrong With Quibi
October 27, 2020
Quibi, the bite-sized content platform founded by media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and business leader Meg Whitman, has been mocked since it was first announced. Now after six months and $2 billion, Quibi is kaput. Unable to find an audience, and despite a fruitless attempt to find a buyer, Quibi is officially shutting down.
The company insists people were gunning for them from the start, but the simple truth is that Quibi always seemed like a solution in search of a problem. Besides, however good the content may have been, it was going to be very hard to convince people to plunk down $5 a month just to watch random videos while commuting.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including Netflix misses its third quarter subscriber goal, television ratings for live sports events plummets and box office continues to soar in China and Japan.
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Showbiz Sandbox 515: Disney Restructures Its Magical Kingdom
October 20, 2020
One week after the Walt Disney Company announced that it would be premiering its latest Pixar film on Disney+ rather than in movie theaters, the media giant says it will reorganize its corporate structure to focus the company’s content creation on streaming. Is this a hasty pivot, long in the works, or just making official the obvious? The move left many industry watchers a bit confused.
Meanwhile, movie theaters in most of New York state can reopen, except in New York City itself. Even so, studios still won’t be releasing a blockbuster soon enough to help struggling cinema operators like AMC, who claims they will run out of money before the end of the year.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Kevin Hart is taking over for Jerry Lewis on the muscular dystrophy telethon, K-Pop boy band BTS might be enlisting in the South Korean military (literally) and this year’s slimmed-down Tony nominations.
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