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CBS Sports Adds U.S. Spanish-Language Rights For Concacaf Champions Cup on Paramount+

CBS Sports Adds U.S. Spanish-Language Rights For Champions Cup

Oct 22 • 9:56 AM EDT • Sports • concacaf.com

Jeremy Renner’s “Mayor of Kingstown” gets final season premiere date: A first look at season 5

The Paramount+ show will return next year.

Oct 20 • 11:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

David Arquette brings ‘Scream’ milestone to Cedar Rapids

Wes Craven was almost fired, the first kiss wasn't easy, and “Scream 8” is on the way. David Arquette looks back on 30 years of Ghostface before his Oct. 25 Q&A at the Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids.

Oct 20 • 7:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • thegazette.com

'Street Fighter' wins N. America box office, buzzy doc stuns in 2nd

Paramount's action film "Street Fighter" karate-chopped the competition this weekend with a $31 million debut at the North American box...

Oct 18 • 4:09 PM EDT • Entertainment • afp.com

Streaming’s Biggest Show Returns…and a Buzzy Genre Struggles

(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Obviously, the big news of the week (if not month) is Netflix letting go of executive Bela Bajaria, their chief content officer. I’m going to cover this in my next “Most Important Story of the Week”, but I also have a data angle that I might publish before then. (Too much news this month, am I right?) But first, I have a bonus Streaming Ratings Report issue for you. Today’s article is a bit of a grab bag of topics I’ve wanted to write about, but couldn’t squeeze into the (already very long) Streaming Ratings Report issues. The NFL drives huge viewership numbers, so I’ve got a look at that. A whole bunch of TV shows returned to the traditional broadcast channels, and I have thoughts. And I have a quick look at adult animated shows, since a couple flopped earlier this month. Plus, the Emmys aired earlier this month, and we got some fun data bout how popular those nominated shows are and why I’m not optimistic about the show’s future. That’s a lot, so let’s dive right in. Subscribe Sports - Football Remains the King of Streaming Over the last two Streaming Ratings Reports, I sorta ignored the biggest “show” each week. (I was tempted to say “piece of content” but I know that word bugs folks.) In my database, I call these “specials”, and they sure are special. I speak of the king of American TV: football!!! Streaming football is back and, unlike some other sports, it routinely dominates all viewership. Probably the best way to show this is to update one of my favorite graphics, the “40 Million Hour Club”1 since football games have joined that club each week they’ve premiered: (Yep, that’s the data through 28-Sep, the first four weeks of the season. As a reminder, I take the average minute audience provided by Nielsen, factor out a percentage of linear TV viewers in home markets, and multiply the run time by the three-hour runtime.) Again, the numbers are huge. Let’s start with Netflix. They grabbed the rights to the bonus opening week NFL Kickoff game (which was on YouTube last year) and it put up 18.5 million viewers on average. That nets out to 47.4 million hours of estimated streaming hours. That’s good! Though, notably, it’s well below Christmas Day games from previous years. Compared to other streamers/broadcasters, that’s a bit of a mixed result. On one hand, Netflix’s 18.5 million average is about what YouTube claimed last year, though Nielsen used a bespoke methodology at that time, so I trust this viewership figure more. So that’s good. (The game also shifted from a Friday to a Thursday and that could have helped the viewership as well.) And Netflix continues to best Prime Video in total viewership—as you’ll see next—though Netflix has had much higher-profile (opening week and Christmas Day) games. NBC/Peacock’s opening game the night before averaged 25.1 million average viewers, which is just much bigger than Netflix (or Prime Video). That’s the big caveat to all streaming viewership records: even in success, they can’t compete with traditional linear TV. Previously, I called this my “hierarchy of viewership”, and the data keeps supporting that thesis. The downside for NBC is that this game’s viewership was down compared to previous years, though it may be a counting issue. Here’s a great chart from Sports Media Watch: Indeed, looking at all the opening week games across all windows, Netflix still lags the other primetime windows, but does well compared to the afternoon games: I saw a few folks make the case that streamers still lag traditional broadcasters in reach, and I’d add they really lag compared to “broadcast plus streaming” options like NBC/Peacock, ESPN/Disney+ and CBS/Paramount+. The best data I saw for this came from Samba TV, who charted reach through the 2025 season, and, wow. (Samba TV’s numbers are historically lower than Nielsen’s, so don’t compare their household figures to Nielsen’s hours, but use them as a proxy for the relative reach of the streamers.) The good news is Prime Video is NOT having a down year. Their opening Thursday Night Football game reached 18.6 million viewers (about what Netflix got), but that’s a high for Prime Video on Thursdays and the biggest Thursday night game since 2015. The TNF games the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep continued this streak, getting 43.1 (16.8 million average viewers) and 42.5 total hours (16.6 million average viewers), which were both up from last year. Still, that continues the (typical) season slide: (For those new-to-streaming-football-numbers folks, the viewership declines for Thursday Night Football as the year goes along.) Overall, it appears as if Prime Video is now part of the “football habit”, be it for customers at home or out at places like bars and restaurants. And its viewership is slowly catching up to broadcast. One last chart shows this. Last season, Nielsen started adding out-of-home viewership to the charts, so I try not to do season-to-season comparisons as I did for the first few years. And while Nielsen added Big Data viewing this year, I’m going to compare the last two seasons. Here’s that chart, which shows the season-over-season gains: When it comes to streaming football, we have to keep a few seemingly contradictory thoughts in our head… First, streaming doesn’t come close to matching broadcast’s reach and, thus, viewership. Second, even with that gap, football is still the biggest “thing” on streaming. It’s very, very popular. Third, while some methodology changes have likely helped Prime Video’s numbers, their viewership does appear to be growing. Lastly, yeah, the NFL started the season off poorly, with week one dragging down the numbers in year-over-year comparisons. However—and again, methodology changes may have helped this—the viewership grew compared to previous seasons over the next couple of weeks. So football is still king. On streaming and off. Television - Adult Animation Continues to NOT Make the Streaming Charts In the last two reports, two adult-animated shows whiffed: Netflix’s animated comedy, Dang! Paramount+’s Sega-video-game-inspired fantasy/comedy, Golden Axe. Neither made the charts, but that’s usually the case for animated shows. I mean, here’s literally every animated show that’s made the Nielsen Original charts since the start of 2025: And one of those shows is G_abby’s Dollhouse_! A kids show! The problem with charts like this is that they don’t give you a sense of how many shows miss the charts. Netflix had at least eleven animated flops, including comedies like Big Mouth (a show everyone assumed was popular in the pre-Streaming Ratings Era), Long Story Short, Haunted Hotel, Mating Season, Strip Law, and Alley Cats, and action shows like Blood of Zeus, Castlevania: Nocturne, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Prime Video had at least six animated misses, two in the same universe (Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss), three more comedies (#1 Happy Family USA, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy and Kevin) and an action show (The Mighty Nein). Disney+ had MCU and Star Wars animated misses (Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies, Star Wars: Visions, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, and Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld) but I can’t tell how many of those shows were geared towards adults. HBO Max had Harley Quinn and Hulu had Solar Opposites. None of these shows made the charts! That’s a lot of misses! If I remade the chart with all those misses, here’s how it would look: Listen, I know the counter arguments. First, it’s cheaper to produce animated shows than live action. Fair enough, but with viewership this low, even that cheaper price point starts to not matter. Second, just look at the acquired charts. Hit animated comedies can generate viewership for years! Shows like The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers do really, really well. Fair enough, but streaming has failed to recreate the dynamic that Fox has mastered so well. That’s a problem for streaming still. Television - Emmys! The annual Emmys broadcast was a few weeks ago, and I’ve got data on how the nominees performed on streaming, plus hot takes on this year’s viewership (and the big news about the broadcast’s, er, streamcast’s future). We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… The top Emmy-nominated shows… ...why I’m worried about the future of the Emmys telecast... ...the pros of broadcast television ...and the cons... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue (since the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep were so light), but then I’ll be all caught up after a deluge of streaming ratings data from Nielsen in September. In the meantime, I’m going to try to take a look at Netflix’s stats to explain why Bela Bajaria is out. But even light weeks give me plenty to talk about. The Great British Baking Show returns to Netflix and Apple TV has a buzzy new star-studded comedy. And Netflix has a controversial-but-appears-to-be-popular new game show. Plus big films like Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner head to streaming. And is East of Eden a hit? After that, The Kardashians return to Hulu, Prime Video has a reboot of Carrie, and Netflix has a horror show, Below. Disclosure Day heads to Peacock, The Housemaid heads to HBO Max_,_ a new Ben Affleck film, Animals, lands on Netflix, and Apple TV has a new John Cena action film based on, checks notes, Hasbro’s Matchbox toys. Okay. Longterm, some interesting TV production news. HBO Max ordered How to Survive Without Me, starring Kaley Cuoco, Joshua Jackson, Ray Romano and Rita Wilson, for fifteen episodes! I love that some streamers (or, at least, HBO Max) are finally ordering TV shows with more than eight episodes. In less wise production news, Landman does not appear to be coming back this year, since it just started production. Frankly, I don’t love this (get your shows out on time) but Landman is so popular, I doubt it matters.

Oct 18 • 3:59 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Box Office: Elizabeth Holmes movie ‘You Can See Everything’ is now a hit in theaters too

Paramount's “Street Fighter” leads the box office this weekend, earning $31 million from 3,575 theaters in the U.S. and Canada | WBBM Newsradio 780 AM & 105.9 FM

Oct 18 • 12:50 PM EDT • Entertainment • audacy.com

Box Office: Elizabeth Holmes movie ‘You Can See Everything’ is now a hit in theaters too

Paramount's “Street Fighter” leads the box office this weekend, earning $31 million from 3,575 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. However, the spotlight is on the Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You

Oct 18 • 12:50 PM EDT • Entertainment • lancasteronline.com

Box Office: Elizabeth Holmes movie ‘You Can See Everything’ is now a hit in theaters too

Paramount's “Street Fighter” leads the box office this weekend, earning $31 million from 3,575 theaters in the U.S. and Canada | KNX News 1070 AM

Oct 18 • 12:50 PM EDT • Entertainment • audacy.com

Box Office: Elizabeth Holmes movie ‘You Can See Everything’ is now a hit in theaters too

Paramount's “Street Fighter” leads the box office this weekend, earning $31 million from 3,575 theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

Oct 18 • 12:50 PM EDT • Entertainment • news4jax.com

When does ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ season 2 premiere? Everything we know about the new killers

Michael C. Hall dodges old allies and faces new killer foes in ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ season 2, premiering on Paramount+ very soon. Here’s everything you need to know, including who’s joining the cast and who’s returning.

Oct 17 • 12:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Arts & Entertainment Calendar

Ghost Walk: Farmville Community Arts Council’s annual Ghost Walk will be held today and Thursday-Saturday. Tours will leave from the Paramount Theater, 3723 N. Main St., Farmville, every 10 minutes

Oct 16 • 8:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • reflector.com

CD Projekt Red Says Paramount Cyberpunk Film Will Not Retell the Game

CD Projekt Red's joint-CEO says the Paramount live-action Cyberpunk film will tell a new story in Night City, not a one-to-one retelling…

Oct 16 • 11:23 AM EDT • Entertainment • northeasttimes.com

Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Frisco King’ sets release date

FORT WORTH, Texas — Taylor Sheridan’s “Frisco King” will release in time for the holidays. Paramount+ announced Thursday that the Samuel L. Jackson-led series will premiere two episodes on Friday,

Oct 16 • 10:28 AM EDT • Entertainment • recorderonline.com

IP Saves the Day On Streaming

(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get started, I wanted to highlight a new idea I saw from Real Good AI, proposing a ratings system for AI use. (H/T to Anthony Kaufman’s article highlighting this.) It would look something like this: In general, I think that this is a solid, middle-ground solution that should appease both the pro-AI camp (who love AI) and the anti-AI camp (who wants to know if what they’re watching didn’t come from humans). Regardless of your feelings on AI/LLMs—I’ll never use it for my writing—transparency is often the best solution to many problems. In general, I think way more media outlets need to be using way more AI disclosures. My quick “Yes and...” to this idea: what about ads? In particular, I hate it when I see or hear ads that are obviously AI-generated, but a person or voice says, “I used this product”. AI doesn’t use products! Just today, I watched a YouTube ad where a “person” said they use some sort of rain wind chime...but that’s not a real person! They didn’t use this product. (Especially since the video of the wind chime itself also appeared to be AI-generated...) I believe most traditional advertising already has standards like this anyway.1 Okay, on to this week’s issue. We’re covering the week of 14-Sep, and then next issue, I’ll be fully caught up with Nielsen’s new release schedule. In the future, I plan to put out Streaming Ratings Reports each Monday after Nielsen’s Thursday releases. Overall, we had some big new shows this week, like Prime Video’s Reacher spinoff_, Neagley_, which is off to a big, big start, and Netflix’s latest in its Monster anthology, which is their largest opening since June and the second-largest since One Piece came out in March. All that, plus Slow Horses returns, the trio of returning shows (Lioness, Reacher and Ted Lasso) continue to dominate the top tens, Paramount+’s latest crime drama, a big whiff for a Netflix original film and a precipitous drop for Netflix film charts, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of September 14th to September 20th 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - IP For the TV Win Can I use the dirty word of entertainment journalism right now? IP. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone I said it. But IP works at the box office, and we’ve seen some evidence it works in TV too. Not as well, and not all the time—no absolutes here!—but often enough. And glancing at the Nielsen top ten…it worked this week! Take Prime Video, who has a monster hit in the crime drama Reacher. Would a spinoff work for that show? Yep! They binge-released Neagley, about a detective from the original Reacher series, and its eight episodes debuted to 29.6 million hours. Here’s how it stacks up to Reacher, one of Prime Video’s biggest shows: That’s great. Nearly as strong as Reacher’s opening! (Both shows started with eight, binge-released episodes, so this comparison is apples-to-apples.) Notably, Prime Video scheduled the debut of Neagley to overlap with Reacher’s most recent season, to help drive tune-in. Obviously, I love smart release strategies like that. And even though I wrote “obviously”, it’s not really that obvious, since streamers don’t often take advantage of natural overlaps like this_._2 Other data backs how well Neagley performed. It opened at second place on Samba TV for two weeks and got 51.7 million hours on Luminate. That’s the eleventh biggest opening on Luminate since May of 2024 and tied with Bridgerton’s third season opening. That’s a huge opening! Its IMDb is solid too, a 7.7 on 24K reviews. Netflix’s latest edition in the “Monster” series—which started with Jeffrey Dahmer and comes from Ryan Murphy—did well too, opening to 24.7 million hours. That’s the biggest opening for Netflix since I Will Find You in June, and second biggest since March. Unlike the Reacher series, this franchise is trending downward, though. The first Monster show—Dahmer - Monster—was giant. More than anything, I think this reflects that Netflix running out of extremely popular—if that’s the right word?—serial killers to feature. Still, the data says this is a very good opening. It made it to third place on Samba TV for two weeks. It also opened to 40.0 million hours on Luminate. That’s not quite as elite as Neagley, but still very, very strong. I’ll be honest: my priors coming into any given week are that IP works to help drive buzz for new shows, but TV shows need to stand on their own even more than movies, so they will succeed or fail based on their quality. But these two spinoffs definitely worked. Quick Notes on TV The top show, film or special this week? Football, again. Specifically, Prime Video’s season opener of Thursday Night Football. The games run long (three hours) but mainly a lot of people watch each game. That adds up to a lot of viewership. Paramount released the second season of MobLand on an unusual day for that service, a Friday! Often, they put their new shows out on a Sunday, as they did last year with a run of shows (Lioness, Tulsa King and Landman). MobLand didn’t make Nielsen in its first week, but on Samba TV it got to eighth and seventh place. Luminate had a smaller opening too, only 5.3 million hours. MobLand missed the Nielsen charts for its first eight weeks, so this season is off to a stronger start. (Bonus note: the first season streams on both Prime Video and The Roku Channel, but I only have it as Paramount+ on those charts.) I’ve mentioned a few times that foreign-language originals do lower numbers than English-language originals on Netflix most of the time. But I don’t usually emphasize what country those originals come from, and observationally, they tend to be from Western or Northern European countries, in general. So credit to Not a Stranger, a Turkish Netflix original, for breaking through on Luminate, getting to 7.9 million hours in its first full week on those charts. As I mentioned last issue, Crew Girl ended up making the Nielsen charts in its second week. That’s still a soft performance compared to many shows, but again this, one looks affordable. And if you’re curious, here’s how it stacks up to some other sports romance shows: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… …about a new data source and how it drives streaming viewership… ...what reality show is struggling in its latest season…. ...what Netflix film bombed…. ...How Reacher, Ted Lasso, and Lioness are doing on the charts… ...what obscure sport put up great viewership numbers… …how far streaming films are falling… …all the flops, bombs and misses for the last week… …and more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue, then we’ll be all caught up with Nielsen’s data. Yes! The goal is to have my report out on the Monday after I get Nielsen’s data. So next issue, I’m looking at East of Eden, The Great British Baking Show, a Willy Wonka game show (that people are upset uses AI, but viewers might not care), and a Cosby show spinoff reboot on Netflix, and Brothers on Apple TV (starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey). That’s about it for TV, but who’s going to win the streaming week, The Breadwinner or Backrooms on streaming? Answer: Toy Story 5. Plus Netflix has a Unabomber film and a new Tyler Perry film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma tries to repeat The Substance’s run on MUBI, and Paramount+ has Jackass: Best and Last. Long term, Netflix is remaking Lonesome Dove. I love this choice, but man, there are a lot of westerns on TV right now. And they’re making Sega TV shows, including a Crazy Taxi TV show and Sonic show with an “edge”.

Oct 15 • 3:32 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Samuel L. Jackson's 'Tulsa King' spinoff 'Frisco King' gets premiere date — and Sylvester Stallone is back

Taylor Sheridan's new Paramount+ crime drama premieres Dec. 18, with Jackson reprising his role as hitman Russell Lee Washington Jr.

Oct 15 • 11:08 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

When 1 + 1 = 1: The Miserable Math Behind Many Media Mergers

(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) The last few issues of this newsletter have circled two topics: September’s streaming viewership and all the Paramount/Skydance/Warner Bros./Discovery merger news. I’m happy to say on the Streaming Ratings Report front, we’ll be all caught up by early next week, then the SRR will come out on a tight weekly schedule. Then, after today, I’ll have slayed my PSWbD dragon. It’s such a big story, it demanded multiple issues. With the announcement of a name (just Skydance) and executive team, though, I think we can almost close the book on this story. In terms of topics, it becomes just another studio to cover. So today, I have one last set of takes on that merger. As I’ve sat with it, reading about who was staying and who was going, a big worry crystallized in my brain, and I gotta get that take out. Plus, I still owe you a host of “ugliness” that didn’t fit in my previous “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” takes. Let’s dive in! Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - As Paramount Shuffles Deck Chairs, Will They Build or Consolidate? On social media—I try to avoid most social media platforms, but sometimes I end up checking in—the best joke I saw about the announcement of the new name of Skydance was from fellow reporter Claire Atkinson who pointed out… Yeah, I laughed out loud at that one. Later, though, I saw another Twitter response (that later got deleted, so I can’t shout the person out) that did give me pause. The person noted that the Titanic film made the better analogy: a super expensive project everyone in the town doubted that went on to conquer the globe. So yeah: on one hand, the image of the Titanic recalls the actual ship and its infamous end, but that clip is from a movie which proved the doubters wrong. So for all the skepticism of the latest massive media merger, one could wonder which way this one goes. Does it crash like the Titanic or rise to glory like Titanic, the movie? Either way, this deal is “Titanic”, looking at the massive debt required to close the deal, which is not going well when it comes to borrowing costs for Paramount… …or borrowing costs for Oracle. But I’ve started to get worried about another outcome: the sum of this merger will be smaller and weaker and less profitable than its former parts. In other words, one plus one won’t equal three or two, but an even smaller number. Skydance paid to take a traditional studio off the board, but they won’t really capture the upside. Let me explain what I mean, but first, let’s look at the series of news that inspired this thought. Skydance Sets Its Leadership Team As soon as the Paramount-Skydance-Warner Bros.-Discovery merger closed, the new leadership team announced a new name—Skydance, which I’ll use going forward—and a new executive leadership team. You’ve probably read through all the executive shuffling, but if you haven’t, here’s a quick, incomplete summary, in rough order of importance: Mattel’s CEO Ynon Kreiz—who previously ran Maker Studios—joined as co-CEO with David Ellison. HBO/HBO Max’s Casey Bloys will stay and run streaming. Former head of streaming for Paramount-Skydance Cindy Holland—who was also at Netflix—will depart. The former heads of Warner Bros.—Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca—are out. The film studios will be run by Dana Goldstein and Josh Greenstein. George Cheeks of Paramount will run Skydance TV, controlling all the TV production units. In comic book news, the DC films will still be run by Peter Gunn and Peter Safran. Lastly, the head of CNN, Mark Thompson, will stay in place. Let’s quickly opine on the particulars before diving into the broad ramifications. We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… Who I like and dislike in their next gigs… Why I think this consolidation will likely leave Skydance worse off… The math behind which mergers succeed and which don’t… A lot more ugliness in this merger… And a whole lot more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.

Oct 13 • 3:20 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Skydance raises Discovery+ prices, a week after Skydance merger

Discovery+ is getting more expensive just a week after Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery became Skydance. Here’s what subscribers will pay, and when.

Oct 13 • 3:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

Streaming deal: Get 2 months of Paramount+ Premium for $0.99/month

Lock in two months of the ad-free Premium tier for less than $2 total with this code.

Oct 13 • 11:08 AM EDT • Entertainment • mashable.com

Paramount takes over Netflix's Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades, plans reopening

LOS ANGELES — Skydance-owned Paramount Pictures has taken over the lease for the Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades and intends to reopen the cinema, which has been closed since the

Oct 13 • 10:59 AM EDT • Entertainment • thederrick.com

What does the combined Skydance, now in business, mean for Hollywood?

It's been just about a week since the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal closed. In the months ahead, Hollywood will determine its future.

Oct 13 • 10:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

What does the combined Skydance, now in business, mean for Hollywood?

It's been just about a week since the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal closed. In the months ahead, Hollywood will determine its future.

Oct 13 • 10:00 AM EDT • Business • latimes.com

Paramount takes over Netflix’s Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades, plans reopening

Paramount Pictures is taking over the Bay Theater at Caruso’s Palisades Village, closed since the January 2025 fire, and plans to reopen it as a dine-in cinema.

Oct 13 • 9:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

What will Skydance do with the industry’s most complex sports rights portfolio?

With the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger now complete, forming Skydance, many in the sports media world are watching and wondering what happens to the combined entity’s sports rights. Certainly, this seems like a good time to examine what the folks at Skydance Global Sports Group (now to be called SGSG forevermore) are, and…

Oct 12 • 8:00 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

When does ‘Tulsa King’ season 4 premiere? All about Dwight’s next big score

Dwight Manfredi’s empire is growing — and so are his enemies. Here’s everything we know about Sylvester Stallone’s ‘Tulsa King’ season 4, premiering this month on Paramount+.

Oct 10 • 12:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

‘Avatar: Seven Havens’ review: Beloved franchise gets vibrant expansion

The sequel to "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and "The Legend of Korra," premiering Friday on Paramount+, is a worthwhile franchise addition, writes our reviewer.

Oct 9 • 4:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • yakimaherald.com

Avatar Kuruk gets his own animated TV series in “Wave of Chaos” first look

Paramount+ revealed imagery of young Kuruk and his animal companion, Nikik.

Oct 9 • 12:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

'Avatar: Seven Havens' renewed for Seasons 3 and 4 on Paramount+

Get ready for a lot more Avatar.

Oct 9 • 12:15 PM EDT • Entertainment • mashable.com

David Ellison expects CBS to be in business with NFL for ‘foreseeable future’

Skydance CEO David Ellison is full speed ahead on a press tour to promote his freshly combined media company, which formally brought together Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery after a lengthy process earlier this week. Since the company’s formal combination, Ellison has fielded questions during a press conference and given a handful of interviews. Most…

Oct 9 • 9:30 AM EDT • Business • sports.yahoo.com

In brief: 'Stick' season 2 trailer and more

Bill Murray stars in the official trailer for A Course Called Ireland. The six-part documentary series premieres on Paramount+ on Oct. 25. The show follows Murray and his friends as they travel across the island to explore Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland's best fairways ...The Die Hard films are getting a brand-new home media release. All five of the movies will be released on physical media in 4K Ultra HD on Dec. 1. Bruce Willis stars as John McClane in all of the Die Hard films. The original movie finds the New York City policeman taking on terrorists after he flies to Los Angeles to be with his estranged wife and two children on Christmas ... TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); The trailer for Stick season 2 is here. Owen Wilson stars as the talented golfer who strives for second chance in the sophomore season. Peter Dager, Timothy Olyphant, Rhea Seehorn, Marc Maron, John Higgins and Billy Zane also make up the cast of the new season. The Apple TV series premieres its first two episodes on Nov. 4. A new episode drops weekly every Wednesday that follows until the season finale airs on Dec. 30 ...Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

Oct 9 • 8:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Paramount to develop Cyberpunk 2077 film, lifting CD Projekt RED's shares

Oct 9 (Reuters) - Paramount Pictures is developing a live-action film set in the universe of CD Projekt RED's video game "Cyberpunk 2077" alongside producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, entertainment

Oct 9 • 3:41 AM EDT • Entertainment • centraloregondaily.com

Skydance CEO David Ellison: AI is going to transform every part of the business

CNBC’s David Faber and David Ellison, Skydance Chairman & CEO, and Ynon Kreiz, Skydance co-CEO, join 'Squawk Box' to discuss Paramount's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, what to expect from the new combined entity, the decision to bring Ynon Kreiz on board, future of the company's linear, streaming and movie businesses, integration of AI, and more.

Oct 8 • 9:21 AM EDT • Business • cnbc.com

What the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger means for the future of film

Paramount now owns Warner Bros., CNN, and HBO Max. FSU students explain what that means for the movies you see and the jobs they want.

Oct 8 • 9:02 AM EDT • Entertainment • fsunews.com

Who Won August and September: Original Films or Franchises?

(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) I just heard someone say that if you’re reading a pundit or data analyst, and they don’t tell you that they got anything wrong, they’re not a pundit but an “influencer”. I agree with that. You have to tell your audience when you get things wrong, or they won’t (or shouldn’t) trust you as much. Today, we’ve got another edition of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. In general, I’m patting myself on the back (and patting very hard) about a few things like IP at the box office, LIV golf, horror films, crowdfunding movies, superheroes, and old people going to the theaters. That said, I also made a couple of data mistakes on the streaming bubble popping and HBO’s datecdotes, so I’m not perfect. But first, I need your feedback... Subscribe Follow-Ups: What Should We Call Mid-Budget Movies Which Aren’t Cinematic Enough for Theaters But Are Too Expensive to Make Money on Streaming? After I asked for feedback on what we should call straight-to-streaming films that are too big to pencil out on streaming but not really big enough to resonate in theaters, I got some great suggestions from you all, including... “Moldilocks” from John Aboud “Little Big Indie” from Travis Frick1 “Midflicks” from Jonathan Funke. “Extra-Medium” from Jona Nwuke. (Read the explanation in the footnote.) Between these and Brandon Katz—who suggested “Bermuda Budget Triangle”, “The Platform Gap” and “The Distribution Deadzone”—we’ve got some excellent suggestions. And they’re better than my suggestion, the “Streaming Budget Dead Zone”, so let’s take a poll! The winning entry becomes the new term. Loading... RIGHT: LIV Golf is Fully Bankrupt…Is Anyone Else Next? A few years ago, I was always a bit perplexed at all the articles I’d read praising LIV Golf and their strategy to disrupt the PGA. LIV Golf, a brand new professional golf league, offered PGA stars ten times what they made on the PGA Tour to join their new league. And folks praised this strategy for its initial “success” in that a lot of big names did indeed leave the PGA. Yeah, of course the players came over. LIV Golf paid them so, so, so much more! But LIV Golf hadn’t discovered a way to increase potential revenue. So think about this in basic business terms… They paid much more in costs… …but had no real way to increase revenue. That’s not a strategy! That’s deficit financing. It won’t work unless you bankrupt the competition (and then turn around and pay those same golfers much, much less). It’s not a sustainable strategy and only lasts as long as the company/person/nation backing it decides they’re cool with losing money. For LIV Golf, that meant Middle East oil wealth, in particular Saudi Arabian money. Clearly, the current Iran War has hurt Middle East finances, so they need to trim their more exorbitant spending. And LIV Golf was part of that trimming. This should be a major warning for others. TGL’s parent company, TMRW Sports, just got a $1 billion valuation, despite TGL’s (the indoor golf league) horrible TV viewership of less than half a million viewers per match. Unrivaled, the women’s basketball league, just secured a $650 valuation, despite its horrible TV viewership and a new rival (Project B) entering the scene next year. To relate this to streaming, Hollywood should ask which streamers may have wealthy patrons funding their losses. (Let’s be clear: Google, Amazon and Apple.) Could those patrons lose their appetite? For Amazon, probably not. But Apple has a new boss, so maybe! WRONG: My Analysis of the Streaming Bubble Was Missing a Week I’m going to be congratulating myself a lot today, but I make mistakes too, like this data goof. When I last compiled the data on the decline in TV shows, I was missing one week at the end of June. If you look at the first image, you can see that one week was mislabelled as “July”. Mainly, this image got updated to show a 27% decline, not 29%: This change doesn’t really impact the overall analysis, but it is two percent better. By the way, through the third quarter, the decline increased and it’s now a 30% decrease since 2022. (I’ll write/visualize this in an upcoming article.) But I want you to trust me and my data. Especially these days, when many people are using LLMs that I know are inserting faulty data into their charts, I want to keep earning my audience’s faith. So that’s the accurate data. RIGHT: IP Remains Very, Very Popular In July, I wrote a giant (and I mean giant) article on Backrooms, Obsession, and the box office, going over what we know, what we don’t know about what works in theaters, looking at YouTubers, IP, the horror genre, comic book movies, and a whole lot more. The month of August really tested a lot of my theses and, being honest, mostly supported my arguments. Let’s start with IP. Looking at 8-Aug (the weekend after Spider-Man: Brand New Day came out) to 18-Sep (the weekend that Resident Evil came out, which I think provides a nice bookend to this time period), there were seven films based on pre-existing IP: Resident Evil (2026) ($126 million) Practical Magic 2 ($65 million) _Insidious: Out of the Furthe_r ($65 million) Coyote Vs. Acme ($59 million) Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie ($53 million) Tony ($15 million) Super Troopers 3 ($7 million) Compare those to the notable original films from the past month—I actually could have included more movies, but here are just thirteen, bringing us to an even twenty films—including.... The End of Oak Street ($54 million) Buddy ($26 million) Mutiny ($15 million) By Any Means ($15 million) The Dog Stars ($14 million) Runner ($14 million) One Night Only ($11 million) Hope ($8 million) Spa Weekend ($7 million) The Uprising ($6 million) Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma ($6 million) Onslaught ($3 million) Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man ($2.8 million) Here’s that in chart form: Five of the top six films in this time period were all based on IP. I made a big chart of films that grossed over $200 million at the box office before Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey hit theaters. Let’s update that chart! By the way, if you want to see how I categorized each film—so another bar chart—here it is: I know that many of my fellow critics/pundits/analysts dislike films based on IP and how Hollywood is making so many of them. And I’m sympathetic to this point of view. As I’ve written many, many times before, you need a balance between existing franchises, new IP, and original films. And Hollywood clearly needs to make more films like Resident Evil (a well-made film from a visionary director) and fewer Practical Magic 2’s (which didn’t get critical or customer buzz). But at some point, critics and pundits need to contend with what audiences are telling them: Movie-goers aren’t showing up to original films. Audiences are speaking with their dollars, telling you they want more IP and franchises. You can try to convince studio heads to make fewer IP-based films and franchises, but the data and numbers aren’t there. Instead, critics need to work harder to convince audiences to show up for original films. Aim your ire/concern at the average person, not studio heads.2 Because they’re just making the films that audiences are telling them to make. WRONG: Original Horror Films Didn’t Break Out I’ll be honest, even though I wrote an article casting some skepticism on the horror genre in July, if you asked me to make a prediction, I would have predicted that, in August, a new, original horror film would have blown up. No, seriously, I just assumed that Obsession and Backrooms presaged a change in audience behavior. But none of the buzzy new original horror films from August—Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Onslaught (not an action film in spite of the ads), The End of Oak Street, Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man, or _Buddy—_broke out. To be clear, exactly one of those films (Buddy) had good “ROI”, but again—I try to be specific in my language—none were “popular” in any broad sense of the word. None of them will be “saving” movies theaters like Backrooms or _Obsession_helped save the summer. The new Insidious film and Resident Evil, both based on IP, were far and away the biggest horror films since July. (We’ll see if this changes in October/Halloween season.) RIGHT: Stay Skeptical about Crowdfunding... I’ve long been skeptical about crowd-investing platforms as one of Hollywood’s saviors, mainly because there’s so much hype/buzz. People need to stay more skeptical about more things, explaining both the potential upside but also the downsides. In particular, the media often hypes crowdfunding at the start and never checks in on the actual results after they’ve come in later. And August gave us our first update! _Ice Cream Man—_directed by Eli Roth—grossed $6 million off of a $5.5 million budget. This is a production of The Horror Section, which was one of the first “crowd investing” studios with 2,400 investors, which means that 2,400 investors probably lost money. They certainly aren’t getting as great of returns as if they had just invested their dollars in the stock market. Hopefully Stiletto (Tagline: “Someone’s Going to Make it Rain Blood!”) does better next month. WRONG: Another Data Goof Here’s another data error. When the first episode of House of the Dragon came out, HBO put out that it had 21.5 million viewers in the first three days, and I read that to mean in the US…but no, it was global. So my US-only datecdotes charts shouldn’t have included it. We never got US-only numbers for the first episode, but for the final episode, HBO put out that it had 11 million US viewers. (And that global dropped to 21 million viewers.) Here’s the updated chart (which I’ve since used in the Streaming Ratings Report): Still, this show is absolutely huge. RIGHT: Superhero Films Remain Very, Very Popular After Supergirl flopped, I read a few takes that “comic book movies are going the way of the Western”. Post-Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that take didn’t age well. To be fair, I have a very nuanced take on the superhero genre right now; it’s down right now, for a lot of reasons. But it’s not “dead”. Maybe _Spider-_Man is just a really popular character? I saw that take, and it’s a fair counter-argument. (But pundits arguing that superhero movies were dead should have mentioned this $1.5 billion counter-argument…) But is it just Spider-Man? The next Avengers film already has $50 million in pre-sales (and I was skeptical that that film would do well) and the Avengers: End Game re-release topped the box office two weekends ago (over three original films). And I wouldn’t bet against Batman or Superman. So maybe it’s just Spider-Man, Batman, Superman and the Avengers. Oh, and Deadpool, of course. And Black Panther. And Wolverine. And probably the X-Men. Plus a well-made Wonder Woman or the Hulk film could break out. But that’s it! It’s just those ten characters/teams. Oh, what’s that? Lanterns is also doing well on HBO? (See previous section…) To be fair, I’m actually pretty sympathetic to the argument that more popular characters—like Spider-Man and Batman—anchor more popular films. In fact, I made that exact argument three years ago when I first wrote about the “Marvel-cession”. In many ways, you can blame The Guardians of the Galaxy for fooling Marvel Studios (and the rest of us) into believing that any character could pop. It turns out, the list of iconic characters is probably smaller than most people think. But it’s probably too early to say that superhero films and comic book movies are dead unless “death” means a slight decline over a longtime. RIGHT: Who Killed Theaters? Old People I get frustrated whenever I see headlines or analysis about how young people are “returning” to theaters. As I’ve detailed(for years), young people have always powered the US box office, despite narratives about “kids these days” and their “phones”. Really, what’s changed post-2020/pandemic is that old people aren’t going to the movies nearly as much. This summer, I saw a movie (from an older director) in a theater near a retirement community, and multiple older people at the theater were talking about how this was their first time seeing a movie in years. I dislike personal anecdotes, so YouGov can fill in the data, best summarized by this headline: “Who killed movie theaters? Not the youths”. According to them, 64% of people aged 18-29 have seen a movie in the last year, but only 30% of 65-and-older. 20% of 18-29 have seen a movie in theaters in the last week and 42% in the last month. Here’s the polling data: Most concerning? Many Americans (17%) think theaters are a worse or much worse experience than watching films at home. Slight WRONG: Hadestown Opens Big A live theater capture of the Broadway musical, Hadestown, made $20 million at the US box office, which begs the question: was I wrong to be skeptical about musicals a few years ago? Yes and no. On the one hand, $20 million is a far cry from being “popular”, so yeah, the genre isn’t that popular overall and Hadestown is one of the more popular musicals from recent years (i.e. the “Taylor Swift Data Fallacy” in action). On the other, I doubt filming this cost all that much, and I don’t think that they spent much on marketing, so this is a good source of ancillary revenue. Smaller Updates WRONG: As I mentioned in a Streaming Ratings Report, I underestimated the budget for Enola Holmes 3. It probably cost more like $50 million, if not more. But... I’m not sure that it really matters? At sub-10 million hours, prices have to come down to make this work. WRONG: Netflix is giving Ink a 27-day in theaters! To quote the kids/YouTubers these days, let’s go! Now I might actually have a chance to see Danny Boyle’s latest in theaters. I’d complained about this in a “Coming Soon” section, but I was heartened to read that Netflix is giving multiple films longer theatrical windows this year. RIGHT: Netflix is sending 4-5 films per year to theaters. Netflix is slowly but surely sending more and more films to theaters, as I cautiously predicted earlier this year. For now, it’s just three big films and a number of awards contenders, but still, this is great news. And they’ll be releasing box office grosses! Just this week, Ted Sarandos confirmed that KPop Demon Hunters 2 will come to theaters (and my guess is it performs in the box office top ten at a minimum). WRONG: Angel has 3 million subscribers! How do I know this? Well, they told Deadline, who reported it. I marked this as “wrong”, since they’ve doubled their subscribers in one year but, you know, they don’t really have a hit film to speak of and they’re still losing money. WRONG: Furious was only renewed for one more season. I accidentally wrote “two more seasons” in my latest “Renewals, Cancellations, Un-Orders and Removals Update”. RIGHT: House of David is ending with its third season. In July, Prime Video renewed House of David for a third season, as I just wrote in my latest “Renewals and Cancellations” report. Well, now it’s ending after that third season. Why? As I’ve been writing, its viewership wasn’t great. I got feedback that this show didn’t cost very much, but it cost enough that its limited viewership didn’t save it. WRONG: Adults was a Hulu original! So I missed Adults when it first came out last year; I saw that it aired on FX and just assumed that it was a linear-first program. Turns out, it aired three episodes on FX, but binge-released the rest of its episodes the next day on Hulu. Huh. So I should have covered it last year! But I just wrote about it. 1 “When I was a kid in the 90s, if you wore a t-shirt to school that wasn’t too big and also wasn’t too small, but somehow didn’t quite fit, we’d say you were wearing an “extra-medium” shirt.” 2 As always, a huge exception is Disney, which barely makes anything original anymore.

Oct 7 • 6:41 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Glen Powell Says He Doesn't Talk Politics: 'My Calling Is Elsewhere'

The actor told Esquire that engaging in political conversations was "not presently possible" and that Paramount "let go of an entire marketing department a month before ['The Running Man'] came out in the middle of a merger."

Oct 7 • 2:58 PM EDT • Politics • hollywoodreporter.com

Skydance mashes proven properties of Paramount and Warner Bros. into an uncertain Hollywood hybrid

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Continuity will be the immediate emphasis for Skydance, the newly created entertainment behemoth borne of Paramount's $81 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery that closed on T...

Oct 7 • 12:06 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Skydance now runs two of Hollywood’s legacy film studios. A look at the new company, by the numbers

David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance has completed its $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing two of Hollywood’s most storied legacy film studios under one mammoth media and entertainment conglomerate named Skydance. Now, Skydance must decide how to make the most out of a trove of entertainment assets, including the HBO Max and Paramount+ video streaming services, a film library that includes “Star Trek,” “Barbie,” “Top Gun,” “Harry Potter,” and “Superman,” and two major news organizations, CNN and CBS News. Here’s a look at the new company, by the numbers.

Oct 7 • 12:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • mymotherlode.com

Read the memo Skydance product chief sent after Paramount-WBD merger

The product chief at Skydance said in a memo to staff after the Paramount and WBD merger that they will "move at a pace that matches our ambition.'

Oct 6 • 8:25 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger closes, creates combined company Skydance

David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance, speaks during CinemaCon 2026 on April 16, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (David Becker/Getty Images for CinemaCon)

Oct 6 • 2:35 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Entertainment: Paramount closes deal with Warner Bros.

Paramount has closed its $81 billion dollar purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery, forming a new Hollywood giant now called "Skydance".

Oct 6 • 1:13 PM EDT • Entertainment • hawaiinewsnow.com

Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery Officially Merge Into Skydance

Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery complete their $110 billion merger, creating Skydance, a new global media and entertainment giant.

Oct 6 • 12:16 PM EDT • Entertainment • lamag.com

The Best Taylor Sheridan Shows By Rotten Tomatoes Score, From ‘Tulsa King’ To ‘Mayor Of Kingstown’

Taylor Sheridan rules the roost at Paramount, and has now gotten a number of his shows on Netflix as well. Here are the best ones by Rotten Tomatoes score.

Oct 6 • 12:09 PM EDT • Technology • forbes.com

Warner Bros. and Paramount are now Skydance – What the merger means for you

Say goodbye to decades of Hollywood history and hello to the era of mega media corporations.

Oct 6 • 11:50 AM EDT • Entertainment • sanluisobispo.com

Warner Bros. and Paramount are now Skydance – What the merger means for you

Say goodbye to decades of Hollywood history and hello to the era of mega media corporations.

Oct 6 • 11:50 AM EDT • Entertainment • ledger-enquirer.com

Skydance's $80 Billion Debt: Warner Bros., Paramount Owner's Reality

The combined company now has the scale to take on Netflix and Disney, but little room for error as it balances massive spending on film and TV with servicing its crushing financial obligations.

Oct 6 • 11:43 AM EDT • Business • hollywoodreporter.com

Mega-merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery takes effect

Oct 6 • 10:39 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com

Paramount-WBD deal closes; here are top quant-rated entertainment stocks

The merger of Paramount Skydance (SKYD) and Warner Bros. Discovery NASDAQ:WBD marks a major shift in the entertainment industry after months of competing bids, lawsuits, and uncertainty.With the deal now closed, here are the top 20 Seeking Alpha's quant-rated stocks in the Movies and Entertainment…

Oct 6 • 10:39 AM EDT • Entertainment • tradingview.com

Paramount-WBD deal closes; here are top quant-rated entertainment stocks

Paramount Skydance–WBD merger reshapes entertainment—see 20 top quant-rated movies & broadcasting stocks (AMC, DIS, NFLX, ROKU).

Oct 6 • 10:39 AM EDT • Entertainment • seekingalpha.com

Paramount-Warner Bros merger: Four ways the deal could affect you

The deal is expected to alter the entertainment and news industries but could it mean higher prices for consumers?

Oct 6 • 9:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • bbc.com

Paramount-Warners Mega Deal Closes Creating Skydance Hollywood Giant

The combined company, Skydance, will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange this week.

Oct 6 • 8:54 AM EDT • Business • hollywoodreporter.com

Paramount and Warner Bros. to become one Hollywood giant: Skydance. Here's how we got here

Skydance-owned Paramount is expected to close its $81 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday. The new Hollywood giant will have a shorter nametag: “Skydance.” But it marks one of...

Oct 6 • 8:53 AM EDT • Entertainment • newstimes.com

PARAMOUNT COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY, CREATING A NEW GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT LEADER, SKYDANCE

Skydance Corporation (f/k/a Paramount Skydance Corporation) (NYSE: SKYD) ("Paramount") today announced the completion of its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBD) ("WBD"), creating a combined company, named "Skydance." The company brings together two major film studios, two global streaming services, a premier television portfolio including CBS, HBO, and Paramount's and WBD's cable networks, two of the industry's most recognized news networks, CBS News and CNN, and a portfoli

Oct 6 • 8:38 AM EDT • Entertainment • finance.yahoo.com

Luis Silberwasser out at TNT Sports as CBS’s David Berson takes over Skydance’s combined sports group

The long-anticipated marriage of CBS Sports and TNT Sports now has a clear head of household, and it won’t be Luis Silberwasser. According to CNBC’s Alex Sherman, Silberwasser, chairman and CEO of TNT Sports, is exiting the soon-to-be combined Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, he told his staff in an email on Monday. CBS…

Oct 5 • 5:35 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

CBS Sports Chief David Berson To Expand Portfolio As TNT Sports Chief Luis Silberwasser Exits

David Berson, who has led CBS Sports as president since 2024, will expand his portfolio after the close of the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The exec will take responsibility for sports across Skydance, the soon-to-be-umbrella over CBS and TNT Sports and their respective parents, Paramount and WBD. The $111 billion merger is due to close …

Oct 5 • 4:20 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Why Taylor Sheridan signed with NBCUniversal after years at Paramount

Taylor Sheridan has had a long and successful stint with Paramount that included popular TV shows like "Landman," "Lioness" and "Tulsa King."

Oct 5 • 2:38 PM EDT • Entertainment • dallasnews.com

Why Taylor Sheridan signed with NBCUniversal after years at Paramount

Taylor Sheridan has had a long and successful stint with Paramount that included popular TV shows like "Landman," "Lioness" and "Tulsa King."

Oct 5 • 2:38 PM EDT • Entertainment • dallasnews.com

David Ellison names Skydance team that includes prominent Warner executives

Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison has rolled out his Skydance executive team, which includes several senior Warner Bros. executives who will segue into new roles at the soon-to-be merged

Oct 5 • 2:21 PM EDT • Entertainment • thederrick.com

TNT Sports head Luis Silberwasser to depart Skydance as CBS Sports chief David Berson takes over combined global sports group

TNT Sports chief Luis Silberwasser will be leaving a combined Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery company, sources tell CNBC.

Oct 5 • 1:04 PM EDT • Sports • cnbc.com

Mary McNamara: As David Ellison names his new empire Skydance, the message is clear: He owns Hollywood

LOS ANGELES — What a surprise. David Ellison has decided to name the Frankenstudio media company created by the merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery simply Skydance. And

Oct 5 • 11:45 AM EDT • Entertainment • thederrick.com

Skydance Executive Team Set By David Ellison Ahead of Deal Close

Skydance announced the executive leadership for the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery.

Oct 5 • 9:08 AM EDT • Business • hollywoodreporter.com

TV Tinsel: 'NCIS' franchise explores new territory in Big Apple

The long arm of naval law is stretching into the Big Apple as the new “NCIS: New York” premieres on CBS Tuesday and streams on Paramount+ Wednesday. The omnipresent “NCIS”

Oct 5 • 6:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • recorderonline.com

On cusp of merger, ‘Digger bombs for Warner Bros., ‘Verity’ takes No. 1 at box office

On the cusp of the studio’s merger with Paramount, Warner Bros.

Oct 4 • 12:41 PM EDT • Entertainment • seattletimes.com

On cusp of merger, 'Digger bombs for Warner Bros., 'Verity' takes No. 1 at box office

On the cusp of the studio’s merger with Paramount, Warner Bros | 830 WCCO

Oct 4 • 12:40 PM EDT • Entertainment • audacy.com

On cusp of merger, 'Digger bombs for Warner Bros., 'Verity' takes No. 1 at box office

On the cusp of the studio’s merger with Paramount, Warner Bros | NewsRadio 1080 KRLD

Oct 4 • 12:40 PM EDT • Entertainment • audacy.com

On cusp of merger, 'Digger bombs for Warner Bros., 'Verity' takes No. 1 at box office

On the cusp of the studio’s merger with Paramount, Warner Bros.

Oct 4 • 12:40 PM EDT • Entertainment • news4jax.com

Tony Gilroy Says Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Will ‘Destroy’ a ‘Healthy and Beautiful Business’ in ‘The Name of Venture Capital’: ‘It’s Tragic’

Tony Gilroy blasted the “tragic” nature of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger at the world premiere of his new film, “Behemoth!” Produced on a $36 million budget, “Behemoth!” is representative of the m...

Oct 3 • 3:15 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com

Tony Gilroy Blasts Paramount Merger at ‘Behemoth!’ NYFF Premiere

Tony Gilroy says the impending merger threatens to dismantle the very “healthy and beautiful business” he has worked in for over three decades

Oct 3 • 3:15 PM EDT • Business • variety.com

Can Skydance CEO David Ellison Make Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Fly?

David Ellison has to prove the merged Paramount-Warner Bros., dubbed Skydance, can become a profitable Hollywood powerhouse amid its massive debt.

Oct 3 • 9:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • variety.com

FTI, Oracle and Paramount: This Week's Top Five Stories

This week's top stories include, FTI Consulting on the AI slowdown, Oracle's US$664bn backlog and further news from Paramount's Warner Bros. merger

Oct 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • businesschief.com

European Leaders Mostly Optimistic About Paramount-WB's Future

European industry leaders are cautiously optimistic now that Paramount is about to complete its takeover of Warner Bros., but there are many unknowns.

Oct 2 • 5:10 PM EDT • Entertainment • variety.com

Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance

David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance, speaks during CinemaCon 2026 on April 16, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (David Becker/Getty Images for CinemaCon)

Oct 2 • 3:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

Paramount, Warner Bros. will be named Skydance after merger

David Ellison said the merged Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance — the moniker he picked nearly two decades ago when the tech scion began building his

Oct 2 • 2:01 PM EDT • Entertainment • thederrick.com

Skydance Is New Name for Paramount-Warner Bros. Company

Paramount and Warner Bros. will operate under the Skydance corporate name as the companies prepare to complete their $111 billion merger.

Oct 2 • 12:44 PM EDT • Entertainment • lamag.com

New name of Paramount-Warner Bros. revealed

CEO David Ellison announced that the merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. will result in Skydance ahead of the official deal closure on Oct. 6.

Oct 2 • 11:28 AM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Paramount’s Warner Bros. megamerger will just be called Skydance

David Ellison doesn’t want a ‘new corporate identity’ to overshadow Warner Bros. and Paramount’s brands.

Oct 2 • 9:42 AM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com

UFC 332 preview, predictions: Worst main event in history?

UFC 332 is set for Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Sat. night (Oct. 3, 2026) with the preliminary card streaming on Paramount+, followed by the main card on the CBS network — home to this 2008 record breaker. There exists a subset of combat sports fans who remain puzzled as to why a […]

Oct 2 • 9:31 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Paramount, Warner Bros. combine as new entity Skydance, David Ellison announces

He announced the updated on X

Oct 2 • 9:20 AM EDT • Entertainment • spectrumlocalnews.com

New Paramount Warner Bros. Name is Skydance, David Ellison Says

Paramount and Warner Bros. will exist as sub-brands in the larger corporate brand.

Oct 2 • 9:11 AM EDT • Business • hollywoodreporter.com

In brief: 'Reacher' spinoff gets a second season and more

We’ve got an official trailer for NBC’s Newlyweds, the new sitcom starring real-life married couple Tim Daly and Téa Leoni. The show, co-created by Jamie Lee Curtis, follows a later-in-life love story between a free-spirited woman and a professor who marry after a quick courtship. It premieres on Oct. 23 …The Reacher spinoff Neagley is getting a second season, just two weeks after the first season debuted on Prime Video. Maria Sten stars as the fan-favorite character Frances Neagley, a private investigator from Chicago and the former protégé of Jack Reacher, in the action series. The original Reacher series, starring Alan Ritchson, was picked up for a sixth season earlier this week … TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-top-asset', slot: 1, fold: "above"}); Bradley Cooper is gearing up to star in Paramount’s new G.I. Joe film. He’ll be playing Duke, the leader of the Joes. Danny McBride is on board to direct. Further details on the project have not yet been revealed …Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading kmaland.comAt KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

Oct 2 • 8:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • kmaland.com

What to stream in October 2026: ‘East of Eden,’ ‘VisionQuest,’ ‘Carrie’

Here's what's coming to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Prime Video, Peacock, Paramount+ and other streaming services in October.

Oct 1 • 4:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • yakimaherald.com

CNN chief Mark Thompson in talks to remain in role after Paramount takes over network

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison has approached Thompson about staying in charge following the merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Oct 1 • 2:12 PM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

What's new to streaming this week? (Oct. 2, 2026)

What’s new on Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount+, and more? We've got you covered.

Oct 1 • 5:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • mashable.com

Mark Ruffalo blasts Paramount–Warner Bros. merger after judge approves settlement

Mark Ruffalo decries the recently approved Paramount–Warner Bros. mega-merger as an ‘incredibly disappointing outcome’ that will ‘weaken free speech, and cost people their jobs.’

Sep 30 • 11:24 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com

Looking at the Ugly Side of the Paramount-Skydance Merger...And How I’d Fix It

A Message from Our Sponsor Certified Fresh with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, FX’s Adults is an ensemble comedy series about a group of twenty-somethings in New York leaning on each other to navigate love, work, friendship and family. Don’t sleep on “The Sitcom of the Moment” - Awards Buzz All Episodes now streaming on Hulu on Disney+. Watch The Teaser Trailer... (Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industr(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Before we dive in, I wanted to congratulate Broadcast Now for being the first to report that Netflix’s How to Get to Heaven from Belfast has been cancelled. (I saw this in a write-up by Kasey Moore of Whats-On-Netflix.) More importantly, I wanted to note that, as of yesterday, none of the other trades had reported the news yet. I have half a guess that eventually one of them will report this. Anyways, it’s time to take a break from my deluge of streaming ratings reports to continue my analysis of the Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery (PSWbD) saga. As I noted last week, a lot of times when folks use the (sometimes cliched) “the good, the bad and the ugly” framing for an article, “the ugly” section is just more bad. Or very, very bad. In this case, yeah, I do think it’s ugly. In more than one way. Unfortunately, we’re only going to have time to tackle one of those ways today: the ugly pile of debt to finance this deal. (In a future article, I may cover the entire process for how it went down, which was very, very ugly.) Last issue, I explained why I liked this deal in a vacuum. Unfortunately, “vacuums” don’t exist outside of space. Let’s dive in. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - The Ugliness of the Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger More than one person sent me a note speculating that the big problem with Paramount Skydance buying Warner Bros. Discovery is the “Warner Bros.” portion of the deal. In fact, that’s a take I read a lot about Warner Bros., ever since they caught Netflix’s, and then Paramount-Skydance’s, eye. In short, multiple companies (Time, AOL, AT&T, Discovery) have bought and then regretted buying Warner Bros. Since it’s nearing Halloween, you could almost say it’s like the folks think WB is cursed! It’s a haunted studio—like the town of Derry in movie studio form—and whoever takes possession of it will fall into misery! Yet...I just don’t like that story, because it doesn’t explain the “why” behind why those deals fell through. Especially when Warner Bros. has continued to succeed as a TV and film studio in the intervening two decades. Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? Game of Thrones? Everything HBO? Considering it never fully owned a broadcast TV channel, this media company has done pretty well. So what went wrong? Well, in recent years, companies bought Warner Bros. instead of the other, smarter option. Explaining POCD (And Applying It to Mergers & Acquisitions) As I explained last issue, one of my favorite frameworks is the POCD tool for evaluating venture capital investments: People Opportunity Context Deal The bar to invest as a VC is high. (Or I might say “was” since cheap interest rates made life easier last decade.) You review a thousand prospectuses, get pitched by a hundred, and invest in the ten best, with the hopes that one of those ten would pay for the rest. That means every element of a deal needed to pay off: you needed the right people running the companies, who could capitalize on the right opportunity, in the context of an industry that was ripe for disruption. If you could then not overpay, you could make some money in a smart deal. The analogy isn’t perfect here, but close enough. For a merger or acquisition to work, you need the combined company (which is the opportunity) to make more than the price you need to pay (which is the deal). Note: the people and context still matter, but with M&A, it’s a little more straightforward: does the opportunity exceed the cost? And usually with Warner Bros., it hasn’t. If you want to find out the single biggest mistake made by the Warner Bros. suitors over the last few years (and my simple fix) become a paid subscriber. I’ll also touch on who I think Paramount-Skydance could (shockingly) consider buying next, TBD, and more. Sign up here.

Sep 30 • 6:41 PM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Federal judge allows Paramount-Warner merger to move forward

A federal judge in Oakland has approved a settlement that allows Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison to finalize his $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Ellison is aiming

Sep 30 • 5:23 PM EDT • Entertainment • thederrick.com

Paula Patton’s Acclaimed Thriller TV Show Returns Today on Paramount+ After 5 Year Wait

Paula Patton returns to streaming today with the long-awaited second season of her legal drama. Sacrifice Season 2 premieres on Paramount+ on September 30, nearly five years after the first season pre...

Sep 30 • 11:46 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Paramount streaming chief exits ahead of Warner Bros. Discovery merger

Paramount Skydance's streaming head exits ahead of the WBD merger. She told staff CEO David Ellison was "optimizing for HBO stability."

Sep 29 • 9:26 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Cindy Holland Leaves Paramount Streaming as Casey Bloys Is Set to Lead Combined Services

Paramount streaming chief Cindy Holland left on Tuesday. HBO's Casey Bloys is expected to run the combined streaming business after the…

Sep 29 • 8:04 PM EDT • Entertainment • northeasttimes.com

Paramount streaming chief Cindy Holland exits studio

The announcement comes as Paramount waits for a judge's approval of its $111-billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Sep 29 • 8:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • latimes.com

V10 Entertainment Gears Up For MIPCOM By Tieing With Former Paramount, Amazon MGM Studios & Vision Plus Execs

EXCLUSIVES: Distributors are really getting into the pre-MIPCOM swing. L.A.’s V10 Entertainment is gearing up for the TV content confab by adding a trio of veteran sellers to its ranks. Michelle Payne...

Sep 29 • 10:46 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

V10 Entertainment Adds Ex-Paramount & Amazon MGM Studios Execs To Team

V10 Entertainment has added a trio of veteran sellers with histories at the likes of Paramount and Amazon MGM Studios to its ranks.

Sep 29 • 10:46 AM EDT • Entertainment • deadline.com

Paramount+ Picks Up US Rights for 3 British Series From A24

Paramount+ has picked up the U.S. rights for three British series from A24, "It Gets Worse," "Major Players" and "The Ministry of Time"

Sep 29 • 10:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com

Sting adds two new shows to sold-out Brooklyn Paramount residency: How to secure tickets today

Sep 29 • 9:33 AM EDT • Entertainment • syracuse.com