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Nvidia CEO scandal shows how workplace romances go wrong, says HR exec
Microsoft's ex-VP of HR says the Jensen Huang situation reminds him of an important rule about office relationships: Get out.
Tuchel to remind England of anti-racism protocols
Manager Thomas Tuchel will remind England's players of Uefa's anti-racism protocols before Sunday's Nations League fixture against Spain in Madrid.
TULSA HEALTH DEPARTMENT STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF SAFE AND ADEQUATE HEAT DURING COLDER MONTHS
Tulsa, Okla. – [November 13, 2026] – As temperatures continue to fluctuate over the coming weeks into the freezing overnight lows, the Tulsa Health Department (THD) would like to remind Tulsa County residents of the importance of safe and adequate heat for your home or apartment. Heaters must warm the living space to a minimum […]
High school winter sports tryouts and practices begin Nov. 16
Our high school winter sports season will begin on Monday, Nov. 16, with tryouts and practices beginning for all sports. Winter high school sports include boys' basketball, girls' basketball, bowling, cheerleading, boys' indoor track, girls' indoor track, spirit team, boys' swimming and diving, boys' wrestling and girls' wrestling. Please register via Final Forms by Friday, Nov. 13! Tryouts and practice schedules Tryout and practice schedules are available via the practice schedules button located on the winter sports page of our website. Please note that practice schedules are subject to change due to inclement weather or unanticipated circumstances. Registration information As a reminder, students and parents must fill out all required paperwork on Final Forms to participate in tryouts and practices. A physical conducted within the last 12 months is mandatory for any student interested in trying out for an athletic team and must be uploaded into Final Forms platform. Academic Eligibility As a reminder, students must be in good academic standing to participate in athletics. Academic eligibility will start at the beginning of each academic year. Eligibility is determined based on quarterly grades, and interim progress reports will serve as an important academic checkpoint for all student‑athletes. For additional details about academic eligibility, please see our Athletic Code of Conduct. Falcons, we can't wait to see you soar this winter season!
What awaits Fernando Mendoza in his NFL debut? Facing Seahawks’ No. 1 defense, Raiders remind rookie he’s not ‘Spring Fernando’
Cade Cunningham’s historic 52-point masterpiece lifts Pistons over Wizards in double OT thriller
Cade Cunningham reminded everyone on Thursday why he is one of the elite players in the NBA, carrying the Detroit Pistons past the Washington Wizards, 144-140 , in double overtime at Capital One Arena. Cunningham put the Pistons on his back in crunch time, hitting timely basket after timely basket. He finished with a career-high 52 points, adding […] The post Cade Cunningham’s historic 52-point masterpiece lifts Pistons over Wizards in double OT thriller appeared first on ClutchPoints.
MDOT: It’s time to remove political signs
The Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) reminds politicians and supporters to remove political signs.
After the U.S. midterms, Dal students see reasons for political hope
From voter turnout to representation, Dal students see the latest U.S. election results as a reminder that political participation can still drive meaningful change.
The Best Sci-Fi Movies of 2026 (So Far)
Before ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Dune: Part Three’ compete at the box office, Godzilla returns to remind everyone why he’s called the “King of the Monsters.”
Subaru's Soaring Profits Prove That Avoiding Recalls Is Good Business: TDS
Subaru just reminded the entire auto industry why quality isn't just good for customers—it also saves you money in the long run.
Health insurance navigators available to help in Genesee and Orleans counties
BATAVIA — With open enrollment underway through the NY State of Health Marketplace, Orleans Community Health is reminding residents of Orleans and Genesee counties that assistance is available to help
Moana, The Invite and “What Customers Want”
(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 going, I wanted to acknowledge that two of the most important figures in sports media (at least to me and my team) are stepping back from two of the best sports shows of all time. First off, Ernie Johnson will no longer host possibly the greatest studio show in the history of all sports, Inside the NBA. (Charles Barkley has said in the past that he’s retiring when Ernie does, which would be even worse!) EJ is one of the greatest to ever do it, and the NBA won’t be the same without him. Next, Michael Wilbon is taking a leave of absence from PTI, my favorite sports news show. I’ve been listening to the podcast for this show since the 2010s, if not earlier, treating it as my daily sports page. Wilbon, along with his co-host Tony Kornheiser, is also one of the greatest to ever do it. The sports media landscape will be worse without these two in it! Wishing all the best to Wilbon and EJ. Okay, on to this week’s issue. We’ve got two big shows—the second season of Prime Video’s The Terminal List and the third season of Netflix’s _Nobody Wants This—_but both were bested by an acquired title landing on Netflix. All that, plus an Original film from Mexico makes the charts but a formerly huge foreign TV show does not, a notable creator’s latest standup special flops, Ted Lasso finishes as a top season four series of all time, big numbers for the NBA’s new season (finally), the top animated shows on linear and streaming, movie budgets, and all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. But first, on the film side, I’m taking a look at Moana and A24’s buzzy film from last summer. 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 October 19th to October 25th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - What Do Customers Want? If I could remove one phrase from entertainment journalism, it would be “what customers want”. It’s not that it’s not wrong per se, but I read a lot of articles that use that phrase, but then don’t provide evidence of what customers actually want.1 For example, look at the bar chart below. It shows customer interest as measured by how much customers actually spent at the American box office, comparing four films to four others. Which films would you say represent “interest” the most? The one on the left certainly seems bigger, right? So it seems like “customers” wanted to see those films more. So here’s that chart with names attached: That’s right, four very buzzy films—The Invite, You Can See Everything, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Primetime—went up against four notable “flops” or underperformers—Moana, Disclosure Day, Minions and Monsters, and Supergirl—and the latter clearly had more interest. That doesn’t mean they’re more profitable2 or well-liked by critics, but if you’re asking what customers want to spend their money on, it’s those movies. I’d especially argue that You Can See Everything had about as much media coverage as a film can get—I saw/read about it constantly; whenever random NBA podcasts are talking about it, you know it’s everywhere—and yet Moana will likely best it. I bring this up, because this week features a showdown between a notable box office flop, Moana on Disney+, and a buzzy dramedy, The Invite on HBO Max. Moana was widely considered to be a flop, and it was a disappointment at the box office, only earning $126 million domestically (and $323 million globally). For the budget, that’s a big miss, down from Moana 2’s heights of $1 billion globally. But as I’ve written a few times this summer, we often confuse “this film is profitable” with “more customers want to watch this film”, which is not the same thing. But that’s the box office. Let’s look at the streaming numbers, starting with the Moana live-action reboot. Where, yes, Moana (2026) also disappointed. It made Nielsen, but under 10 million hours, which is low for kid-skewing Disney+ films: It did make Samba TV, but at tenth place for only one week: Those numbers stand in stark contrast to some of Moana’s previous superlatives on streaming. Moana (the original animated film) has made the Nielsen charts 130 times since 2021. Moana 2 opened to 33.3 million hours on Nielsen. Moana was the biggest film on streaming in 2023 and 2024, second in 2020 and 2021, and top six in 2022 and 2025. Moana 2 was second overall in 2025. To be clear, the Moana live-action reboot didn’t work, given how much it cost to make. It’s absolutely a disappointment. But more families paid to see it than people paid to see most of A24’s buzzy films this year, with one notable (horror film) exception. Okay, on to The Invite, A24’s buzzy summer release, which just came to HBO Max. Mainly, I’m curious: Who made money from this film? Or who lost money: the stars of The Invite or A24? No, seriously, read this Deadline article for the details. The Invite’s budget was allegedly “under $15 million” (so...$14 million?) then A24 bought it for “a sum north of $10 million”, which I saw elsewhere as over $12 million (so...$13 million?), but then it just made $26 million in the US. So basically, The Invite’s investors only made money after they sold foreign territories—it made $33 million overseas—but A24 might just make its money back in the US in the theatrical window, assuming it had $0 in marketing. I read one article analyzing this film’s marketing campaign which assumed no marketing spend, even though that article went on to detail how much marketing and PR and ads this film had. For what it’s worth, I saw a lot of marketing for it. A24 will likely just break even after factoring in other windows, but no matter what, this isn’t a hugely profitable juggernaut from Hollywood’s most-heralded film studio. (And, I’d note, most coverage of IP or superhero failures doesn’t account for profitability in future windows.) Really, I’m guessing that the stars—Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Ed Norton and Penelope Cruz—had or kept their backend, hence why they did so much press for this film, which brings me to my actual takeaway, which I just mentioned two weeks ago about Backrooms: I don’t trust A24’s reported film budgets anymore. Either A24 is strategically releasing low numbers to get good press or they’ve really cracked the code on how to make movies at prices no one else can approach. But I’m skeptical about that last point. You don’t keep elite talent happy by keeping budgets in check—see: Dan Lin getting fired—and by all accounts, A24 keeps talent very happy. There’s another option: not paying big name actors their actual quotes upfront by giving away back end/profit participation. Offering backend is one great way to keep the reported budget lower than it actually is, but it makes the film less profitable for A24. (By the way, I’m still running down the numbers on Backrooms’ budget. If you know its actual budget—not the reported $10 million number—reach out to me on my contact page. I’ve heard rumblings I’m on to something, but would love something more concrete.) Okay, enough asking questions about A24’s business model. To the streaming ratings! The Invite came to HBO Max on 23-Oct, so we could look at the streaming numbers now… …and I don’t have any for you since it didn’t make any of the charts I track. And that’s pretty much the moral of the streaming story. Even though it disappointed on streaming, Moana wins this round, too. Quick Notes on Film The only other notable new straight-to-streaming film was S_urviving Hurricane Otis_, a Mexican Original on Netflix. It made Nielsen with 3.4 million hours and Luminate with 4.8 million hours. Overall, I’d call that very solid for a foreign-language title, but still far from a hit. Overall, the Luminate and Nielsen charts felt very light this week. Gladiator II also came to Netflix non-exclusively (it’s still streaming on Paramount+) and had 5.0 million hours according to Nielsen. That’s up from the 3.7 million hours it had when it premiered on Paramount+ a year and a half ago. Netflix’s Animals fell to 4.9 million hours according to Nielsen and fell off the Samba TV charts. Peacock/Universal’s Disclosure Day actually made it for a third week, but only at 2.8 million hours. Apple TV’s Sacrifice was down to 2.7 million from 3.2 million. Still, for an Apple TV film to make two weeks is solid (for them). Toy Story 5 made a fifth week on the charts. 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… ...how The Terminal List did after a four-year break... ...what acquired surprising title topped the charts… …where Ted Lasso finished in the all-time charts… ...big NBA opening week ratings... …a controversial new reality show that missed the charts... ...what very notable foreign TV show flopped... ...all the flops, bombs and misses... ...and a whole lot 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.
Luka Doncic Ruthlessly Mocks Hawks Fans During Lakers Win
Lakers star Luka Doncic made waves by reminding the Atlanta Hawks of their 2018 draft-night mistake during his team's win on Monday. The post Luka Doncic Ruthlessly Mocks Hawks Fans During Lakers Win appeared first on HEAVY.
Silicon Valley couples therapist shares lessons from CEO Huang's affair
A Silicon Valley couples therapist comments on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's disclosure of his affair and reminds couples of the importance of connection.
Luka Doncic Taunts Hawks Fans With Painful Draft History
Luka Doncic scored 32 points against Atlanta and reminded fans they could have drafted him. He now leads the NBA in scoring while wearing a Lakers jersey.
Every senior with an Apple Watch should set up these 5 health alerts
Seniors, especially those who live alone, could benefit from a number of Apple Watch health alerts, including medication reminders and fall detection.
Wow, Trump Actually Comes Within Shouting Distance of Empathy During His 60 Minutes Interview
Then, of course, the president does something to remind us who he really is.
After midterms, health care costs to be top priority for Democrats
While there will be urgency to pass bills, President Trump quickly reminded Democrats eager to reform the health system that he wields the veto.
How the midterms shook up Senate delegations for 2027
The changing political map is also a good reminder that American politics are more elastic than many people realize.
'Weekend Update' Turns Trump's Midterm Blame Game Into A Devastating Epstein Reminder
The “Weekend Update” host delivered a wild take on the president’s recruitment strategy following the red wipeout.
'I am a combination of all the Lindas I've ever been': Old friends remind us of who we are
A longtime friend said it better than I could. This week’s Long Story Short is about old friends and why they matter. Who’s the friend who knew you first?
Game Discussion Thread: Knicks at Cavaliers, November 7, 2026
Why do Cavaliers hate witches? Their brooms remind them of the ECF.
Supreme Court’s trend on church and state is a reminder conservatives have a steady grip on the nation’s laws
The Supreme Court first agreed to hear the case that launched the justices’ current trajectory protecting the free exercise of religion in January 2016. But after Justice Antonin Scalia suddenly died the next month, creating a possible 4-4 split, the court postponed the hearing for 15 months, past the presidential election.
AI nerves reinforce age-old investing lesson: Get diversified
A $2.5 trillion wipeout for the Nasdaq Composite this week is reminding even the smallest investors just how reliant we’ve all become on the success of the artificial intelligence buildout.
Razorback Report Card: Auburn Pregame
Arkansas doesn't need another reminder of what went wrong against Missouri. It needs a performance that makes the corrections visible. The Razorbacks visit Auburn on Saturday, November 7, with kickoff scheduled for 11:45 a.m. CST on SEC Network. Arkansas enters 3-5 overall and 1-4 in SEC play. Auburn is 4-4 and 2-4 in the conference. …
State DFR issues health insurance coverage advisory
The Oregon Division of Financial Regulation (DFR) reminds Oregonians who receive or want to apply for individual or family health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace, called
Reminder: Zelda: Ocarina Of Time - Playable Ocarina Available Now On The Nintendo Store
Check your local store for stock
Fit Tips: The science of recalling your forgotten glutes
To fix gluteal amnesia (or “dead butt syndrome”), you need to stretch tight hip flexors and retrain your brain to fire your glute muscles using targeted activation exercises. Movement is how you remind your glutes what they’re capable of doing.
\'You\'re going to have fun\': Metal band Nail Bite to perform its last show of 2026 at Phantom Power
Lonna Nelson, one of two vocalists in metal band Nail Bite, says that concertgoers will often walk up to the band after it performs, saying that the band reminds them
The Last Disney+ Original?
(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 going, I wanted to remind readers about how I plan to keep your trust while I add advertising to this newsletter. As you’ve no doubt noticed, I’m running ads now, but the danger is that it could impact my analysis and writing. I have a list of sponsors on my About Page, so if you think I’m biased, you can check out who’s sponsored this newsletter! This is something that I’m not sure anyone else in digital media does (if you’re a writer or media outlet and you do this, let me know and I’ll shout you out!) but it’s something I’d love to see embraced by the entire industry. Sunlight, i.e. transparency, is often the best disinfectant. Okay, on to this week’s issue. We (finally) have another major Disney+ TV show to talk about, so that’s my main focus for today. Plus, we had a lot of new shows come out, including the fourth seasons of The Diplomat and Tulsa King! And Love is Blind! The Lowdown! Also, four (four!) straight-to-streaming films came out this week, featuring a lot of big names and celebrities, so I’m going to look at those. All that, mixed news for the WNBA, Reacher ends its run on the charts, Skydance does well in September viewership, NYU’s Sundance dominance, 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 October 12th to October 18th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Disney+’s Porridge Problem Listen, per my headline, VisionQuest isn’t the last Disney+ Original. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not. They have other MCU shows in development. Well, maybe one: But it sure feels like the end of an era. I’d call it their “porridge too hot” era, to quote myself from The Ringer. I told Ben Lindbergh that Disney+ seemingly couldn’t figure out the right amount of content. In the heights of the Streaming Bubble Era (circa 2019 to 2022), they started releasing an insane amount of TV shows. After their growth slowed, they’re down to two or three shows a year, and that might be down to 1 by 2027. Here’s my TV shows by year chart: Even at the time, I thought Disney was making too many shows (that cost too much). Today? They’re definitely making too few shows (though the budgets are more in check, at least according to the reporting). Porridge too hot, porridge too cold; too many shows, now not enough. Which makes evaluating VisionQuest so interesting. This show didn’t have a great lead-in, whether it be a Marvel Cinematic Universe film (the last non-Sony-produced-Spider-Man flick came out The Fantastic Four from July of 2025) or Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show (the two this year were Wonder Man back in January and _Daredevil: Born Again_in May, both of which underwhelmed). And so far, VisionQuest hasn’t quite recaptured the MCU Originals glory, but it has some signs of sparks. First, it made Samba TV, though at a lowly ninth place. At least it made it, a feat some other Marvel shows didn’t accomplish. (Ironheart landed on the Samba TV charts one week at tenth place, but Wonder Man and Daredevil: Born Again both missed.) VisionQuest also made Luminate, though with only 3.0 and 7.6 million hours. But it missed Nielsen in its first week. The best news might be its 7.8 on IMDb, on 12K reviews so far, great numbers, even for a superhero show. Looking at those numbers, this show will really need to pick up in future weeks—and it may since it’s coming out weekly—or Disney will have another disappointment on its hands. Disney+ binge-released their last few shows to try to boost numbers, but that meant shows like Iron Heart and Wonder Man didn’t last long on the charts. _Daredevil: Born Again’s_last season missed entirely (though it came out weekly). Here’s the Disney+ Originals by totals: And for a fun new look, here are those same shows, rearranged by the years they came out: That really shows that, in addition to Disney+ releasing fewer shows, those shows just don’t hit like they once did. If I had to offer one main explanation, it’s that Marvel Studios moved away from characters who starred in the Avengersmovies (The Scarlett Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, Loki, Falcon, Winter Soldier) to characters who didn’t (Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Iron Heart, Wonder Man, Daredevil). It sounds trite, but more popular IP tends to do better than less popular IP. In Marvel’s case, beloved, decades-old characters trump newer ones. And yes, I think this is a problem for Disney. The failure of Marvel TV shows to linger for weeks on the charts, unlike in 2021 and 2022, explains why Disney’s share of the charts has plummeted: That’s a strategic issue. Yes, these shows are really expensive, but without them, Disney+ will struggle, especially if Disney+ keeps raising prices AND licenses out its shows non-exclusively. My recommendation? Return to the core value proposition, which is Disney+ as “genre HBO”. The goal is six shows a year, coming out weekly, spaced out throughout the year. When a show hits, keep it coming back. Make three to four of those shows Marvel or Star Wars, and fill out the rest with IP swings like Percy Jackson, Goosebumps or something like National Treasure. And make YA-skewing shows like Coven Academy to fill out the schedule. Disney, you can get this porridge just right, er, make the right number of shows. Quick Notes on TV Netflix’s sophomore, er, junior, er, senior season slump abated very, very slightly this week. I speak of The Diplomat, which returned for its fourth season on 15-Oct. Credit where credit is due, this show debuted in April of 2023, and has put out new seasons every year since. Has that helped the viewership? Not really. This season opened to 16.4 million hours, which is down significantly from the first season (21.7 million hours) and down somewhat from the second season (18.0 million hours), but it is up from last year’s 14.2 million hours opening. On Samba TV, it opened to third place; that’s also very good. On Luminate, it opened to 25.0 million hours, which is good, but over thirty million hours is a hit on that platform. Netflix wisely renewed it, since it’s steady and, frankly, Netflix needs hits.1 Paramount+ put out Tulsa King’s fourth season on a Friday. After putting out most of their big, usually-Taylor Sheridan-scripted shows out on Sundays last year, they’ve clearly moved to Fridays going forward. Was this a thought-out strategic change, Netflix mimicry, or a data-inspired move? Tough to say. Fridays are crowded with new movies, but so are Sundays with new shows. Anyways, this one is coming out weekly, and we haven’t seen it hit the Nielsen or Luminate charts yet. But it did make Samba TV at fifth place, which is a good opening. Still, if this doesn’t make Luminate or Nielsen next week, I’d call it a disappointment. Netflix had two unscripted shows hit the charts this week, one a docu-series and one a reality competition show. Tyson is a four-episode docu-series about one of boxing’s most popular fighters, and it made both the Samba TV and Luminate charts, but not Nielsen. That’s a solid run for only four episodes (assuming it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to produce). Netflix’s latest season of Love Is Blind also returned for its eleventh season, which opened to 10.0 million hours, down from previous seasons. It also had 11.0 million hours according to Luminate, roughly in line with the Nielsen numbers. Last issue, I analyzed the triple successes of Below, Carrie and Crystal Lake, noting that all three have done well. I mostly used Nielsen, but all three shows also made Samba TV (see above). Crystal Lake in particular did very well on Luminate, getting 35.0 million hours, top for Peacock among first seasons: The top “show” of the week would have been Thursday Night Football again, at 41.7 million hours. This is still above last year’s game, but it continues the season’s overall downward trend, which happens every year. (Though a big week is coming, based on the news stories I’ve seen.) As I said before, I’ll do a deeper dive on all the October games later this month, with comparisons to previous years. One company is quietly on a roll, when you consider the shows it makes and streams. I speak of Skydance—a point Variety made—noting that it produces Neagley and Reacher for Amazon, along with Paramount+’s Lioness, which means it produced three of the top four shows of September according to Nielsen. By the way, Neagley fell off the Nielsen charts after four weeks, which is a pinch short for how well it started, but it’s still a huge success. (Interestingly, it finished just 7.3 million hours ahead of the cancelled Ride or Die.) The point, though, which I’ve made before, is that Prime Video still has a problem with how many co-productions it buys, most notably _The Boys_from Sony and Reacher/Jack Ryan from Skydance. It’s not a critical flaw—everyone licenses shows—but Amazon still struggles to make its own hits. Reacher finally fell off the Nielsen charts, so here’s its final rank for season four: 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… ...An example of the algorithm NOT picking a film… …whether or not Netflix buys shows simply for the movie poster… ...if East of Eden is above the Obliterated Line... ...what four star-studded straight-to-streaming films didn’t chart... ...and a whole lot 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.
Siri AI Gets More Capable in iOS 27.3
Apple is expanding what Siri AI can do in and across apps in iOS 27.3, which is available to developers as of today. Siri can complete tasks across Calendar, Files, Finder, Journal, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, Notes, Photos, Preview, Reminders, Safari, Shortcuts, and Weather. You can ask Siri AI what you can do with each app to get more information on what's possible. In Mail, for example, Siri can unsubscribe you from mailing lists and undo recently sent messages.
Seasonal Health Reminder
As we enter the colder months, seasonal illnesses such as influenza, pertussis (whooping cough), strep throat, and other common viruses tend to become more prevalent. We want to take this opportunity to share a few reminders to help keep our students, staff, and school community healthy.
OpenAI: ChatGPT Search Is About 20% of Google’s, 250 Million People Speak With ChatGPT, and Chat Is Merging With Work
OpenAI says ChatGPT growth is accelerating. The company added 200 million users over just the past two months, jumping from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly active users in 60 days. Its search volume, it says, is approximately 20% of Google’s. Its users create 1.5 billion images with it per week. And its voice mode, between dictation and speaking with ChatGPT, now has 250 million combined weekly active users. ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry told me this during a brief fireside chat at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York City on Monday night. “The growth is just going big,” he said. During our conversation, Fry also revealed plans to merge ChatGPT’s Chat and Work modes (so that confusing toggle up top will soon go away), agreed with feedback that ChatGPT-created restaurant signage looks too uniform, and addressed the cost to serve its personal assistant Dots. Here’s a look at our full conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length. We also cover image generation, interactive interfaces, advertising, education, and public unease about AI: Alex Kantrowitz: OpenAI has analyzed ChatGPT’s search volume and compared it with Google’s. What did you find? Adam Fry: ChatGPT has been growing quite quickly. ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth the volume of queries of Google. It’s a pretty amazing statistic when you think about it, mainly because we started just about a year and a half ago. It’s hard to remember this, but ChatGPT at a time didn’t have any up-to-date information. You’d ask a question, it would say something like, “It’s past my training date,” and nobody had any idea what that meant. You’re saying ChatGPT’s search volume is one-fifth of Google’s. Bing’s share of the search market is around 5%. Does that make you multiple times larger than Bing? To say that more directly, ChatGPT has gone from one billion to 1.2 in just the last two months. That’s roughly 100 million users in 30 days, and another 100 million in another 30 days. The growth is just going big, and we’re staying very focused on how fast ChatGPT is growing. What counts as a search? I might have 20 prompts back and forth in a ChatGPT conversation. Does each one count as a query? Story continues below… A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR Move upmarket without a rebuild Moving upmarket means saying yes to what enterprise buyers ask for first: SSO, directory sync, and audit logs. WorkOS gives you all three, so your team keeps building the product instead of the checklist. Get enterprise-ready. Continued from above…. Adam Fry: What people came to ChatGPT for to start, if you go back about two years, is really writing help and coding help. Those wouldn’t be things that you really search for. What we’ve seen over the last year is people have grown into all these other topics. Things like you’re looking up a person or people or a place or a thing, and it requires up-to-date information. That’s a key element. Another big part is finance questions or health questions, where you really want to make sure it’s up-to-date information that’s quite factual, and we’ll do a web search for those questions. It’s basically anything that a user would have traditionally gone to a traditional search engine for, but is now deciding to go to ChatGPT for. Does each conversation with a search embedded count as one search, or does every question that requires a web search count? Every time you ask a question and go search the web, that’s a search. You used to work at Google. How would you say the nature of search is changing? One of the things that people really love about ChatGPT is this personalization and this understanding of the broader journey. If you look in the past, people would go for a Q&A box, and you’d ask a one-off question, like how tall is the Eiffel Tower. But there’s so much context in our lives around, “Maybe I’m taking a trip to Paris.” It’s actually helpful for ChatGPT to respond, “Here’s how tall the Eiffel Tower is, but I know you’re going on a trip to Paris.” It’s that ability for people to actually maintain context over time that has led them to start using ChatGPT in this way. You’ve also announced 250 million weekly active users of voice input, including dictation and conversations with voice mode. We are at 250 million weekly active users. What’s amazing about this is, if you look at those 250 million, what we’re seeing is it’s actually also incremental to the product. It’s no longer just a novelty. People aren’t just trying out voice. We’re seeing them use voice input day to day in their daily life, and it’s grown so quickly. Those 250 million users are using voice input, and that could just be a quick question or a long conversation. We’re seeing both behaviors. We’re seeing people just not want to type. You just hold it and start talking to it, or it turns into a longer conversation where people just sit with it. The big reason for this is the frontier capabilities of our models that we’ve shipped. We shipped what we call GPT Live 1, and then we shipped GPT Live 1.1. The big change with this is that it’s much more natural to speak with. It’s something we call backchanneling and interruptibility. Mhhhm… What you just did there is what the model does, because it’s really good at having a bidirectional conversation. That push to the frontier—we were the first to really release this at scale—has made it so much more natural for people to chat. That’s still only about 20% of the user base. From the outside, that looks small. Why is it exciting from the inside? It’s very exciting for a few reasons. We see from the data that when people start using voice, they stay around using voice. One of the things, transparently, we can do a better job of is bringing more people into discovering it. We see that the number of people who discover it could be a lot higher. But once they do, it’s a really new way for people to interact with AI. We’ve made a lot of improvements to it too, where we’re just going to see the number go up. You have background mode, so now by default, if you close the app, it’ll show, “Hey, the conversation’s still going.” If you want to walk around the house or you’re putting away the groceries, you can still have a chat. That kind of continuity has also changed how much people use it. Dots launched on September 29 and is about a month old. How’s it doing? It’s doing great. We talk to people about their Dot, and the first thing that everyone says is, “I love my Dot.” One of the reasons we’re seeing this is the proactivity, its ability to reach out to you and figure out things. The biggest use case I see all the time is, “Did I forget something today that I was supposed to do?” You can just say to your Dot, “Remind me of things at the end of the day that I may have forgotten. Somebody emailed me or messaged me,” and it’ll do that. This Dot changes the paradigm of the relationship with AI, where it’s actually helping you and giving you time back. You’re more conservative with permissions than some competitors. I tried to give my Dot my credit card, and it wouldn’t take it. With the creator of OpenClaw in-house, why are Dots’ permissions more limited? This is a space where we want to be very thoughtful and conservative because it’s a new space where you’re entrusting your Dot to take care of things on behalf of you that matter and are meaningful. We’ve just talked about how you go to this 1.2 billion user growth and asking questions. Now we’re asking people, “Can you ask ChatGPT or your Dot to help get things done?” But when you ask it to help get things done, it’s a whole new level of trust. We’ve built up a tremendous amount of trust in giving the right answers to your questions, and we want to make sure that when we build this new product, it has a high degree of trust. It’s a long game. We think this is going to be a new market for a very long time, and we want to make sure that we’re being this trusted player in the market to start. I initially thought Dots would be available on my $20 plan, then realized I had to spend $100 a month to get it. I upgraded, but I’d like to downgrade at some point…. We hope to keep earning your business and make the value good enough. It’s a really good point. ChatGPT’s goal more broadly, which I think is unique for us in the market, is we are focused on bringing intelligence to everyone safely across the entire world. For Dots in particular, there’s no difference. We don’t have anything to share tonight about the date of when Dots will go to a broader set of users. But you can rest assured we’re working very hard, and there are a couple things we have to get right. Over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The first one is, right now we wanted to make sure that your Dot is actually really helpful. We started with some of our best models, but over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The second thing is around proactivity. We’re still dialing in: How much do I message you to help you get things done? We can always play around with that to understand how much usage should a user use to have a successful Dot. We’re going to work on both, and our goal and ambition is to bring it out to all users. How much background computing does a Dot require? I’ve read estimates that serving a $100 subscriber might cost OpenAI $3,000 in compute, and mine seems to read every email that arrives. How often is it checking connected data sources? Right now, Dots are on the compute-heavier side, and this is one of the things we want to make sure that we can dial back over time. But the goal is to give you the best product. This is our premium, always-on personal assistant. Once we nail that, we’ll figure out how to dial back the compute needs. The thing we’re seeing also from our models, as we train frontier models, is just how—I can’t even keep up with how quickly we have a new model, and each new model is more efficient. If you looked at 6.1 Sol when it came out relative to Astra, much more efficient. I’m very excited about the next set of models we have coming too that’ll be even more efficient that we can use. Elon Musk said the cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue. Is efficiency the key to winning against competitors, or is there more to it? There are a couple of factors that go into it. One is the cost side, but the other is the revenue side. On ChatGPT and on our consumer business, we’ve been extremely proud of our ability to diversify different revenue streams in a way that’s growing really fast. To give you another stat, we announced several months back that we had passed 50 million subscriptions, and the number has grown considerably since then. On ads, within 200 days, we reached more than a billion in ARR, and that business is growing extremely quickly. We also have credits. Rather than paying for subscriptions, users can buy more credits. Between credits, subscriptions, and ads, I’m confident that the value of a Dot is going to be able to pay for itself. Elon has subscriptions too. This is clearly an expensive product to serve. One thing we continue to bet on at OpenAI and ChatGPT more broadly is that the models will continue to get much better and much cheaper, way faster than any of us think. If you look back at the historicals on it, it continues to be true. From what I’ve seen, I see no slowing down of that. What is Meta doing right with Muse? It has spent a lot of time atop the App Store charts. There are a couple of things they’ve done well. The first is people have been craving simplicity in their products. One of the things we have stated publicly as well is, at times AI products can be too complex. We’ve announced we’re merging ChatGPT’s Chat and Work. We’re making it much more simple in the products. You don’t have as many toggles or sliders between efforts and different model pickers. One of the things they’ve done well is this simplicity. You just go in and you can ask a question. You don’t have to think too much about what you’re doing. That’s one thing that seems to have resonated with users, which we also believe in. Second, there’s something really nice about being able to access your agent across many different channels. We just announced and launched Dots on iMessage. Whether you talk to your Dot on email or iMessage or within the ChatGPT app, the ubiquity in getting your assistant out there is going to be key. Those are two things that, if I had to be nice to our competitors, I would say were two big ones. So Alexandr Wang’s meme-tweeting strategy isn’t something you’re going to emulate? I have a different tweeting style. ChatGPT still asks me to choose between Chat and Work, even though some people call this technology AGI. Will that distinction go away? Couldn’t agree more. We have to solve this. Asking users to choose — we’ve heard repeatedly from all of our users it’s too much to understand. When should you go to Chat? When should you go to Work? It’s solvable. There’s real research to solve to make sure the models can understand what your intent is. Are you asking for a fast, quick reply? Are you asking me to go do a long agentic task? We’re going to solve it, and the plan is to bring Chat and Work together. So one interface will work out whether I’m asking for a conversation or a task. When? Coming soon. You told me the majority of ChatGPT’s 1.2 billion users are using image functionality. What are they doing? Today, 1.5 billion images are created per week. It’s hard to even wrap my head around that number. They’re doing a wide range of things. One of the most interesting things they’ve started to do is really use it for productivity use cases. The first thing it started with—I don’t know if you saw the ’80s trend, but it was quite fun. You could take a photo of yourself and say, “Put me and my family in ’80s outfits.” I did this for my family, and it was a really fun poster. But what we’re also seeing is businesses for their menus, or posters for birthdays. People are using it almost in a productivity-like fashion to create visual diagrams of what they would like to see. We’ve actually brought the latency down on images as well, so it’s gotten a lot faster. It went from a very high number of seconds to getting much faster. As it comes down even further, the number of images people are creating and the number of use cases is going to grow a lot. My feature request: When a restaurant makes a menu or sign, prompt it for more specificity so it doesn’t look like every other AI-generated restaurant sign. Or offer a shuffle button for a different style. I agree with the feedback, and we’ll take it to the team. I’m seeing ChatGPT generate little interactive interfaces within its answers. What’s the direction for Intelligent UI, and how are people using it? I am extremely excited about Intelligent UI. If you go back a couple years, these chat apps were all text, and now that’s changing. They’re going to be visuals. Intelligent UI and our first attempt at this with GPT-6 Intelligent UI is really just the beginning. As you go to the extreme, what you can imagine is, let’s say you’re using voice mode, and you just say, “Show me how offside works.” Immediately it should show you a visual diagram, and you say, “No, I don’t quite understand it.” It should just repopulate. That’s where the future of this technology goes. It’s almost like you’re talking to a canvas that will update and change. People are finding it helpful for a lot of things. My favorite one is—it’s hard to admit that I had no idea how hearts work. The last biology course I took was in high school. I just asked it, “How does the heart work?” and it instantly gave me a beautiful interactive diagram of where blood flows and how it goes through. I’m really, really bullish on this for learning in particular. You’ve described useful applications in finance, health, and learning, and ChatGPT has 1.2 billion users. If people are getting so much value, why is public polling on AI so negative? The reality with AI is it is going to change the nature of how work gets done. For a lot of people, that is something that can feel scary at times, and we’ve all felt that. But I remain confident that when people actually use the product and they use AI, it very quickly changes how they perceive it. We’re at 1.2 billion, but there are still a lot of people who haven’t used it. The more people use it, get familiar with it, how it can actually help you in your life, it’s going to feel a lot less scary. Big Technology is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thanks!! Subscribe
The Rundown: Health code violations at Chicago festivals
Plus, last-minute Election Day reminders. Here’s what you need to know today.
When does online health information become advertising? Federal Court decision has broader implications for health practices
The Federal Court’s recent decision in Secretary, Department of Health and Aged Care v CDA Clinics QLD Pty Ltd trading as CDA Express [2026] FCA 1623 (CDA Clinics) provides an important reminder for health practices using online consultation, prescribing and patient-engagement models.
Opinion: Don’t wait for political leaders to save us
Pastor Derwin L. Gray reminds Christians that Jesus Is King and no political party can claim his throne.
Matos' Swansea like Klopp's Liverpool
Blackburn Rovers boss Tony Mowbray says Swansea City's intensity under Vitor Matos reminds him of Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool.
5 Reminders to Help Protect Your Business from Holiday Fraud
Before the holiday rush, help your team spot suspicious emails, verify payment requests and keep safeguards in place.
Is there a presidential election in Arizona this year? Some think so
A county official in Arizona had to remind voters there is no presidential election in 2026 after repeated questions.
Knicks bench faces a 21-point reminder from Philadelphia
Philadelphia got 21 points from Anfernee Simons off the bench Friday. The Knicks got 19 from their entire reserve group […]
Community Halloween Safety Reminders
As neighborhoods prepare to celebrate Halloween, the Central MA Regional Health Department would like to remind residents and motorists to take simple precautions to ensure a fun, healthy, and injury-
Introducing Long Island Business Influencers: Top 100 Long Islanders 2026
Every year, this section reminds us how much talent, drive and heart it takes to move a region forward. This year is no exception.
Dentists share oral health tips ahead of Halloween as National Brush Teeth Day approaches
With Halloween just days away and many children preparing to enjoy candy, local dentists are reminding families about the importance of proper brushing and oral health during National Dental Hygiene Month.
Google Home update should make Gemini stop saying ‘Sorry, I didn’t understand’ so much
Google’s latest Gemini for Home update targets a few issues, like one where speakers randomly blurt out “I didn’t understand”...
N.Y. AG's warning about ICE at polling places sparks political disagreement
AG James issued a statement Tuesday reminding New Yorkers that armed federal agents are prohibited from policing polling places under federal law.
Kim Kardashian gets ‘irregularities’ removed from esophagus, says health scare reminds her of dad’s death
“I just don’t really want to go there.”
RWJBarnabas Health Raises Awareness of Stroke Warning Signs and Importance of Early Intervention This World Stroke Day
In recognition of World Stroke Day, RWJBarnabas Health shares the inspiring recovery story of 35-year-old stroke survivor Mat Mahoney, highlighting the importance of recognizing stroke symptoms, seeking immediate medical attention and accessing coordinated, specialized stroke care. Following a life-saving mechanical thrombectomy at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, Mat is sharing his experience to remind others that strokes can happen at any age.
Bayern Munich coach Vincent Kompany's health scare highlights the need for better support for coaches
Vincent Kompany’s health concern is a reminder that elite football's pressures affect coaches too. Better support, clearer structures and mental health safeguards are increasingly vital.
Lexington health department reminds community of free gun lock program
Lexington health department reminds community of free gun lock program
Lexington health department reminds community of free gun lock program
Lexington health department reminds community of free gun lock program
Lexington health department reminds community of free gun lock program
Lexington health department reminds community of free gun lock program
Reminder: Apple Has 8 New Products Available for Pre-Order
For those who are not paying close attention, this is your reminder that Apple at 10:10 a.m. Pacific Time today started accepting pre-orders for five new products.
Lexington health department reminds community of free gun lock program
The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department has given out more than 1,000 gun locks through its “Let’s Lock It, Lex” initiative.
Eagles Get Another Reminder About Saquon Barkley’s NFL Trade Value
A loss at home against the Dallas Cowboys gave the Philadelphia Eagles their fifth loss in a row. Now sitting at 2-5 on the season, the Eagles are getting hit with a tough dose of reality–they are becoming one of the NFL’s worst teams in 2026. As Bleacher Report recently ranked the top trade assets […] The post Eagles Get Another Reminder About Saquon Barkley’s NFL Trade Value appeared first on HEAVY.
Animals Starves while the Kardashians Miss the Charts Again
(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 going, I’d like to offer congratulations to Jonathan Funke, whose suggestion “midflicks” won the poll for what I should call straight-to-streaming films which aren’t big or cinematic enough to go to theaters but seem too expensive for a TV movie. It’s so useful a term, I just used it last week! Now I just need to add this term to my data dictionary! Okay, on to this week’s issue. We’re starting out looking at Netflix/Ben Affleck’s latest crime thriller, Animals. I’ll also look at Disclosure Day heading to Peacock (it did better than you’d remember in theaters...) and a new movie based on toys. Plus, a long-time streaming flop returns for its eighth season...will it finally chart? (No.) Will anyone at Disney care? Probably not. All that, plus another look at new shows landing on streaming on 1-Oct from Reelgood, what streamer hasn’t had a film make the Luminate charts since August, Reacher’s long run on the charts, M_onster: The Lizzie Borden Story’s_ short run, the top shows in 2026 according to Samba TV, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. And I mean that last part: putting this week’s issue together, I assembled OVER 25 images, most of which are bespoke looks I made just for this report. Really, publishing articles like this takes the work of writing two articles: one is the narrative and the other is making charts/graphs. 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 week of October 5th to October 11th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - Netflix’s Latest Star-Studded Thriller Goes For Glory The tempting angle for anyone writing about streaming film this month, like yours truly, is to ask, “Is this why Dan Lin lost his job at Netflix?” Take Animals, the Ben Affleck-starring-and-directing, Artists Equity-produced crime thriller that opened on 9-Oct. (Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson are also in it.) If it did really well, then one could argue that Lin has another success on his resume. If it underperformed, then it’s another example of a Netflix underperformance this year. So where did Animals fall? Kinda in the middle, but that means it’s more “not a hit” than “big hit”. On Nielsen, it opened to 12.0 million hours, and here’s how that stacks up for 2026 films so far this year: Obviously, that’s not great. It’s both under my 15 million opening bar for “fine” for a Netflix film and 20 million bar for “great” opening. It did a bit better on Samba TV, getting to first place. That’s very, very good, though again, looking at the Nielsen data, it probably means that it was a light week overall. Luminate’s data is a bit closer to Samba TV’s, tied for 17th all time for single weeks since May of 2024: To top it off, no one seemed to like it. It has a 33 on Metacritic and only a 5.7 on IMDb. Both of these numbers could have been impacted by the stories about Affleck’s comments about using AI to make the film. Given the controversy, the film might not have been as bad as the ratings suggest, but it’s also not a bullish sign. All to say…yeah, on net this film isn’t a point in Dan Lin’s favor. At this point, Netflix’s slide has been long enough—going on since February—that I’m almost tempted to lower the bar for what a “hit” is on streaming. Post-February of 2026 or so, it seems like straight-to-streaming films just haven’t hit the same heights as they did from 2022 to 2025. Before we head onto the “Quick Hits” for film, I want to shout out a fellow newsletter whose articles I’ve been loving this year, LA Material, a new LA-based news outlet. For just a highlight of my favorite articles since July... I loved this article on Ghost Town, a group on Venice that clears homeless encampments. As a Los Angeleno, obviously I adore their articles on LA parking issues. Their article on illegal parking tickets got the City Council to address the issue! Also check out their article on people parking in medians. Check out their deep dive on what went wrong with the LA Jazz Festival and how it fell apart, or what’s wrong with USC’s finances. Finally, they wrote up a voter guide on voter guides for the LA General Election. So meta! In search of a city? L.A. Material is an independent news outlet covering the people, politics, culture and glorious chaos shaping Los Angeles. L.A. Material brings you intel on the city you can’t get anywhere else. From exploring how Reddit short stories became Hollywood’s hottest commodity to reporting on the survival jobs keeping entertainment workers afloat. And answering, once and for all, why the AMC Burbank escalator is always broken. Through their newsletters, podcast, videos, events, and member community, L.A. Material is designed to help Angelenos connect to Los Angeles and each other. Sign up now for the free weekday newsletter. Quick Notes on Film Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day, came to Peacock on 9-Oct, and I’ll admit that, after pulling its stats, I did a pinch of a double take. As I wrote throughout my deep, deep, deep dive on summer box office/Obsession/Backrooms/IP/superheroes, oftentimes the film media discusses films as “flops” or “misses” or “hits” without clarifying what they specifically mean. Since Disclosure Day didn’t make $250 million in the US or $500 million globally, it was definitely a disappointment by Spielbergian standards, who is the highest-grossing director of all time, and arguably even more ahead in adjusted grosses. But it did make $245 million globally on a $115 million budget, so it isn’t as big of a miss as I remember. That’s still probably not enough to break even in the theatrical window, when you factor in marketing costs…but it’s close. And it grossed a lot more even in the US than some titles with about ten times more coverage. Anyways, lots of preamble to say this one only did 4.5 million hours according to Nielsen, so it did make the charts, but on the low end. Here’s how it stacks up to other Peacock titles: Apple TV (née +) followed up their “success for them” Mayday with Matchbox The Movie. This one doesn’t look like a success even for them, but at least it’s not a miss. Apple/Skydance clearly tried to take advantage of the success of Barbie at the box office—let’s greenlight all the toy properties!!!—but of course, this didn’t make it to theaters. And it stars John Cena, who, as I argued earlier this summer, NEEDS to get his movies back in theaters. Anyways, this one has mixed-to-bad numbers. It missed the Samba TV and Nielsen charts in its first week, but did make Luminate with 7.1 million hours. That’s just enough to not be an outright miss, and about half what Mayday did earlier this summer. Speaking of Apple Studio’s Mayday, it ended up lasting five weeks on Luminate, which isn’t bad for Apple TV. On Nielsen, it had a three-week run, racking up 13.5 million hours total. Again, like Matchbox, the issue is the budget; I doubt that this viewership earned enough to justify that budget. Also, to be clear, neither of these films are “midflicks”; both should have gone to theaters. Toy Story 5 is not hanging around on the streaming charts on Disney+, so it’s not as leggy as either Zootopia 2 or Moana 2, and definitely not in the same class as Encanto. (It did make all the money at the box office, so Disney is going to be fine…) The Breadwinner on Netflix (from Sony) is down to 3.9 million hours in its third week. It only lasted for one week on the Samba TV charts. Netflix’s Doing Life had a smaller-than-normal binge release curve bounce, only going to 7.1 million hours from 6.0 to start, but it made Samba TV at fifth place in its second week. The Netflix documentary, The Widower: Til’ Death Do Us Part, also had a small binge release curve bounce to 6.5 million hours, but did make a second week on Samba TV. Meanwhile, Netflix’s Unabomber fell off after two weeks on Nielsen—which is not great at all—and Demon Slayer fell off after just one week. Over on Luminate, the two smaller titles The Swan: Behind the Mirror and Kill. Bury. Print both fell out of the Luminate top ten charts. The story of library film at the first of the month is the arrival of the Ice Age films on Netflix. Now, here’s a small example of optimizing your library that even Netflix could do better. Say you want to rent/license a new film series from Disney**.** A streamer could pay a big paycheck and then drop each Ice Age film on the exact same day of the month, the fourth of October. That’s one choice. In contrast, the streamer could have released each film one week apart, and make each one a mini-event for folks watching Ice Age films. Or even roll them out monthly. Netflix opted for the former strategy, and as a result, only three of the films made the Nielsen charts this week. The “Miss of the Week” goes to Tubi’s YA-ish horror film_, R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead 2_, which didn’t even make the Luminate charts like Tubi films usually do, or, should I say, “used to”? Tubi films, most of which are straight-to-streaming, used to reliably make the Luminate film charts (which only covers straight-to-streaming films), but a Tubi film hasn’t made it since August. The first Pumpkinhead got 1.4 million hours last year according to Luminate. As I wrote about this film before, it seems to be a bit muddled in terms of age: too scary for young kids but probably not scary enough for older kids. Speaking of Luminate, Netflix’s latest doc about a comic (expect more docs about comedians all month), Who Is Martin Mull?, flopped, getting just 200K and 700K hours according to Luminate. Three other film/special misses belonged to Hulu, including a standup special, Jamie Foxx: Take Care of Yourself, Neon’s latest horror film, Hokum, which made $17 million in the US, and a Family Guy Halloween special. (That last one was only 22 minutes, so it’s not a surprise it missed.) Finally, another Netflix standup special missed the charts, Mojo Brookzz: I Know You Lying missed too. I can confirm last week’s misses, most notably Paramount+’s Jackass: Best and Last, MUBI’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and HBO Max’s Evil Dead Burn. Television - I Can’t Visualize Nothing: The Kardashians Story Normally, in the mini-dive essays that open the Streaming Ratings Report, I focus on shows that do well or, at the very least, make the charts. Why? Because as I’ve said time and again, I can’t visualize nothing like, say, the Kardashians’ TV shows. Here’s the TV debuts chart for this week with a missing spot for The Kardashians, whose eighth season just landed on Hulu:
Chautauqua County Reminds Families How to Keep Babies Safe While Sleeping
MAYVILLE, N.Y. – October is Safe Sleep and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month.
South Dakota health department reminds hunters of gun safety rules
The South Dakota Department of Health urges hunters to follow firearm safety rules after state gun deaths rose 38% from 2016 to 2025, with many injuries accidental.
Cook County Public Health Reminds Families to Get Their Children Tested for Lead - Cook County Department of Public Health
In recognition of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, Oct. 25-31, Cook County Department of Public Health is bringing increased attention to Illinois’ new universal childhood blood lead testing law and lead dangers. The new state lead testing requirements, which took effect July 1, 2026, require all children to receive blood lead tests at ages 12 months and 24 months, regardless of where they live. Also, children 6 years old and younger must receive a lead exposure risk assessment through a questionnaire administered by a healthcare provider.
Elvis has entered the courtroom
The owners of Elvis Presley’s music are suing Anthropic, alleging it helped itself to the King’s songs to train its AI — and sending a $41 million reminder, according to the New York Times.
Cracking a smile regularly may be good not just for your mood but for your health
Reminding yourself to smile often can not only help you form more friendships but also make you feel better.
Cracking a smile regularly may be good not just for your mood but for your health
Reminding yourself to smile often can not only make more friendships but it can also make you feel better.
Cracking a smile regularly may be good not just for your mood but for your health
Reminding yourself to smile more often can make you more friends, boost your mood and make you feel better, research says.
Los Angeles health authorities report 2nd second rabies-positive raccoon
In a follow-up on the report a rabies-positive raccoon found in Los Angeles County, the first in more than 5 decades, the LA County Department of Public Health is investigating a second rabies-positive raccoon found in the Westlake Village area of Los Angeles County. Public Health has confirmed that the first raccoon was positive for a variant of rabies typically found in bats. Strain testing for the second raccoon is currently pending. The second rabid raccoon was found in a backyard in the vicinity of where the first raccoon was reported and appeared sick and aggressive. No residents or pets were exposed to the raccoon. Two people at a worksite may have been exposed to the raccoon and are receiving recommended follow-up for rabies post-exposure prophylaxis. The World’s Deadliest Viruses Prior to these detections, the last confirmed rabid raccoon in Los Angeles County was detected in 1973, when the skunk variant (strain) of rabies was still present in the County. That strain has not been detected in Los Angeles County since 1979. In 2014, a skunk infected with the bat variant of rabies was detected in Long Beach. “The detection of rabies in another raccoon is an important reminder to never touch, handle, or feed any wild animals, even when they appear healthy,” said Muntu Davis, MD, MPH, Los Angeles County Health Officer. “Always keep a safe distance from wildlife and contact your local animal control if you encounter an animal that appears to be sick, injured, or behaving unusually. It is also critical to ensure your pets are up to date on rabies vaccination so they are protected before any potential exposure. Keeping your pets vaccinated is one of the most important steps you can take to protect your entire family.” Outbreak News Today is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Cracking a smile regularly may be good not just for your mood but for your health
Reminding yourself to smile often can not only make more friendships but it can also make you feel better. And rather than wait for a reason to smile, just maki
Cracking a Smile Regularly May Be Good Not Just for Your Mood but for Your Health
Reminding yourself to smile often can not only make more friendships but it can also make you feel better. And rather than wait for a reason to smile, just making the physical change of literally turning that frown upside down could impact emotions, according to experts. Research backs up the fact ...
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Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner Vie to Become the Second Biggest Film This Year...
(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.) Often, people blame “data” for ruining Hollywood, when I’d argue that hype (which can often be debunked by data) is often worse, as you can see in these two headlines. To use a common meme, here’s how it started: and how it’s going: Earlier this year, I read countless (and I mean countless) articles (in almost every mainstream media outlet) about how Heated Rivalry was a huge hit and that it “heated” interest in hockey. But Heated Rivalry wasn’t a huge viewership hit compared to the hype: [ ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) [ You Can’t Eat Buzz…Did Heated Rivalry’s Buzz Translate into Actual Viewership? ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) Entertainment Strategy Guy · Jan 22 [ Read full story ](https://entertainment.substack.com/p/you-cant-eat-buzzdid-heated-rivalrys) In this case, the hype (Heated Rivalry is really popular) belied the data (It didn’t make the top ten charts, meaning it wasn’t a huge hit.1) Even worse, every time I write about this, I get a lot of negative feedback, hence why I only sparingly mention the show these days or add lots of caveats when I write about it, but this just further cements the hype. But companies, and the executives leading them, have to determine strategy based on reality, not media coverage. The NHL committed real marketing dollars to a campaign that didn’t work. Sure enough, the latest NHL season opened to under a million viewers. At some point, you have to focus on what the data says, because real dollars are at stake. And that’s why we have the Streaming Ratings Report! To provide and analyze cold, hard data. Luckily, this week, I can be positive and take a look at a huge opening on streaming, along with a very buzzy horror film that customers kind of like, but don’t really love. And a comedy that tried to rebound on streaming. Today, I’m covering two weeks—21-Sep and 28-Sep—so we have a lot to discuss (nearly 5,000 words worth), including a series of film misses for Netflix, another argument for weekly-released TV shows on streaming, another sitcom tries to avoid the comedy curse, Netflix has two new game shows (one powered by AI), Reacher falling off the charts after a huge run, Prime Video tries its hands at the romcom game**,** a look at the WNBA’s big season, a big night for the VMAs on CBS and MTV, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. (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 October 4th, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Film - Two Hits and a Miss Come to Streaming… Three very interesting films came to streaming in one week, and I like comparing them since they show the range of theatrical films. One was a huge blockbuster, one was popular, and one was neither. One is a horror film, a buzzy genre; one is a comedy, a struggling genre; and one is an animated family film, the king of the box office. One went to a tiny streamer (HBO Max), one went to a second-tier streamer (Disney+), and one went to the biggest (Netflix). So… If you just went by box office, you’d expect Backrooms—the $197 million grosser, and partner of Obsession for “YouTube Horror Summer”—to dominate on streaming. If you read this report, though, you know that horror films don’t do great on streaming, and that’s the case again. Backrooms opened at 3.8 million hours according to Nielsen, and had 3.9 million hours in its second week. Here’s how that stacks up to other HBO Max films: 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… ...why I don’t buy Backrooms budget… …two new games shows arrive on streaming… …another sitcom struggles… ...another argument for putting out shows weekly on Netflix... ...and a whole lot more, nearly 5,000 words 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, I’ll be taking a look at the eighth season of Hulu’s The Kardashians, answering the question: will this show ever make the charts? If Mormon wives can make it, surely one of social media’s most popular families can as well. Also, Prime Video has a new horror show based on popular IP, Carrie, Netflix has a horror show starring Josh Hartnett, Below, and Apple TV has a UK import, Small Prophets. Plus a bunch of movies like Disclosure Day heading to Peacock, The Housemaid coming to HBO Max, Ben Affleck’s latest on Apple TV, Animals, and Matchbox the Movie on Apple TV, a John Cena action comedy inspired by Hasbro’s toy cars. The week after is even busier! I’ll look at another IP-based horror show, Crystal Lake, a new MCU show on Disney+, VisionQuest, season two of The Lowdown on FX/Hulu, the fourth seasons of The Diplomat on Netflix and Tulsa King on Paramount+, another season of Love is Blind, and four straight-to-streaming films: Netflix’s Sacrifice (starring Chris Evens, Anya-Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, John Malkovich, Salma Hayek. Charlie XCX), Apple TV’s Tenzing (starring Tom Hiddleston and Willem Defoe), Prime Video’s Love of Your Life (Margaret Qualley) and Masterplan (Stanley Tucci) and a whole lot more, somehow. Long term, here’s some huge IP news: a Game of Thrones movie is coming to theaters, Game of Thrones: Aegon’s Conquest in 2029, while Jon Watts (who helmed three of the most recent Spider-Man movies) is directing the next Star Wars trilogy, to be written by Simon Kinberg. I’m cautiously optimistic for both. It feels obvious to say that making good movies matters, but for bets this big (Star Wars is on a swoon, Game of Thrones hasn’t been to theaters yet), the quality has to be there.
Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.
'Haven't Played Your Console in a While?' Trade It in, Xbox Tells Customers Amid Stock Shortages
Xbox is sending emails to customers reminding them that they can trade in their Series X and S consoles if they’ve been collecting dust.
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.
Commentary: Mental health equity
Every year on Oct. 10, World Mental Health Day serves as a reminder that mental health is fundamental to our well-being. It shapes how we think, feel, connect with others, and navigate life’s...
Lizzo Says She Was Healthy Before Losing Weight
After critics claimed getting smaller hurt her image, Lizzo fired back with a powerful reminder: Her brand was never her body - it was joy.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Prioritize your health, schedule your mammogram
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a reminder for women to make their health a priority and stay up to date on recommended screenings.
Miley Cyrus cries sharing 'gold' memory of Dolly Parton at comeback show
She may have sworn off touring long ago, but when Miley steps on stage, she reminds everyone she still has it.
County Health Releases Immunization Recommendation
(SANTA BARBARA, CA.) – This fall season, the County of Santa Barbara Health Department (County Health) is reminding community members to protect
Registration is open for high school winter sports
Registration is now officially open for high school winter sports for the City School District of Albany! Any student in grades 9-12 who is interested in trying out for boys' basketball, girls' basketball, bowling, cheerleading, boys' indoor track, girls' indoor track, spirit team, boys' swimming and diving, boys' wrestling and girls' wrestling is invited to register via Final Forms. Important: please note that registration for winter sports ends on Friday, Nov. 13. Practices and tryouts for winter sports begin on Monday, Nov. 16. FINAL FORMS Each season, the following must be done prior to the first day of tryouts and practices: A parent or guardian must initiate the registration process for their student-athlete in Final Forms, filling out the required forms such as Interval Sports Health History and the Athletic Consent Form. The student-athlete must sign and complete their required forms. A reminder that all students who would like to play an interscholastic sport need to have a current physical conducted within a year on file. PHYSICALS A physical conducted within the last 12 months is mandatory for any student interested in trying out for an athletic team and must be uploaded into the Final Forms platform. Families are encouraged to get a completed physical from their child's physician. If you are unable to get a physical from your child's physician, you can schedule a free physical with Whitney Young's school-based health center by calling (518) 573-2556. Additionally, the district physician will also be available to facilitate sports physicals at Albany High in room 4253 on the following dates: Thursday, Nov. 12 from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13 from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Sports physicals on Nov. 12 and 13 are free and no appointment is necessary. ACADEMIC ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS Please note that students must have a good attendance record and be in good standing academically to be eligible to participate in an athletic team. Eligibility is determined based on quarterly grades, and interim progress reports will serve as an important academic checkpoint for all student‑athletes. For additional details about academic eligibility, please see our Athletic Code of Conduct. For our winter teams, academic eligibility to start the season will be based on final first-quarter grades. The first marking period ends Nov. 13. Albany High offers free tutoring facilitated by Albany High teachers Monday-Thursday from 3:30-5 p.m. for students who need extra help with their academics. See this flyer for additional details. IMPORTANT DATES Seniors, please mark your calendars for Senior Media Day for winter sports, which will take place on Monday, Nov. 30. All student-athletes playing winter sports will also participate in our winter sports picture days, which will take place Tuesday, Dec. 15–Thursday, Dec. 18. Specific dates and times for each team will be shared once rosters are finalized. OPEN GYM SESSIONS Student-athletes are encouraged to check out our open gym sessions as they prepare for upcoming sports seasons. We’re looking forward to a rewarding winter sports season this year! If you have any questions, please contact the Athletic Department at (518) 475-6310. Go Falcons!
Cook County Public Health encourages vaccinations as respiratory illness season approaches
As temperatures drop and residents spend more time indoors, Cook County Public Health and Human Services is reminding residents to get vaccinated against influenza and COVID-19. Respiratory illnesses become more common during the colder months as people gather indoors, increasing opportunities for viruses to spread. “From a public health perspective, this is a good time to...
Google reminds Android users of an overlooked scam detection tool
Circle to Search can help identify scam texts using AI Overviews, while Google Lens brings the same protection to more phones.
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”.
Reminder: Registration for JV and Varsity Winter Sports Begins this Saturday - Pine Bush Central School District
Reminder: Registration for varsity and JV winter sports will start on Saturday, October 17. The deadline is Saturday, October 31. Click here to register: Arbiter Please note that in order to participate in sports tryouts, athletes must have a completed online registration, current physical exam on file and clearance from the school nurse. Be sure to … Continue reading "Reminder: Registration for JV and Varsity Winter Sports Begins this Saturday"
California students post gains in math, science and English in 2025-26
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California students made gains across key academic and success measures during the 2025-26 school year, with test scores rising in English, math and science while the statewide graduation rate reached a record high of 87.9 percent. For the first time, the state released assessment results and California School Dashboard data together to give families and educators a more complete picture of student performance.English language arts scores increased 0.5 percentage points to 49.3 percent of students scoring proficient or advanced, while math scores rose 1.1 percentage points to 38.4 percent. Science showed the strongest improvement, jumping 3.3 percentage points to 36 percent of students scoring proficient or advanced.The statewide chronic absenteeism rate dropped 1.1 percentage points to 18.3 percent. The suspension rate declined to 2.8 percent, marking the third consecutive year of improvement."At a time when California continues to focus on accelerating learning and closing opportunity gaps, these results provide important evidence that our sustained investments are making a difference," Gov. Gavin Newsom said. "The continued progress we are seeing is a testament to the hard work of students, families and educators across the state—and we will continue working to build on these gains."The percentage of students prepared for college and career increased to 55.2 percent, up 2 percentage points from the previous year. More than 54 percent of graduates completed coursework required for admission to University of California and California State University systems, an increase of 0.9 percentage points."California has made important strides in expanding student supports and opportunities, but the pace of academic improvement reminds us that our work is far from finished," State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said.Eighth grade students posted the strongest score trends in both English language arts and math. Science performance improved across all tested grades, with the strongest gains at the high school level.African American students demonstrated larger-than-average improvements across English, math and science. Hispanic or Latino students showed larger-than-average improvements in English and math, with positive math score trends across all grades.Students who were socioeconomically disadvantaged made gains across all 3 subjects, including larger-than-average improvements in English and math. Students who were homeless continued to demonstrate gains across grades, with particularly strong improvements in math."We are encouraged to see students making gains across all 3 major assessments and are especially encouraged by the progress of African American students, Hispanic or Latino students, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and homeless youth," said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the California State Board of Education.The progress comes as California's public school system undergoes significant demographic change. Statewide school enrollment declined to approximately 5.73 million students in 2025-26, nearly 500-thousand fewer students over the past decade.The number of students with disabilities increased approximately 25 percent over the same period, from about 680-thousand to more than 850-thousand students. Graduation rates increased across nearly all student groups, including notable increases for American Indian or Alaskan Native students at 4.3 percentage points and students with disabilities at 3.7 percentage points.In Downey Unified School District, the rate of students demonstrating proficient or advanced grade-level knowledge increased by 2.1 percentage points in English, 2.8 percentage points in math and 4.7 percentage points in science. The district aligned graduation requirements with college admission expectations and invested in inclusive special education practices, expanded career technical education and expanded learning opportunities."The gains Downey Unified is seeing in student assessment results and on the Dashboard are the result of years of focused, consistent work across the district," Superintendent Roger Brossmer said.In Exeter Unified School District, proficiency rates increased by 4.6 percentage points in English, 2.3 percentage points in math and 3.6 percentage points in science. The district placed a strong focus on phonics and the science of reading, particularly in kindergarten through second grade."The gains Exeter Unified is seeing in student assessment results and on the Dashboard are the result of having great people who are focused on the right work, and great students who want to do well," Superintendent Melanie Dorough said.Union Elementary School District saw proficiency rates increase by 1.5 percentage points in English, 2 percentage points in math and 4 percentage points in science. Teachers regularly analyze state and local assessment data to guide instruction, supported by strong core instruction and early literacy strategies."Union Elementary School District's achievement gains reflect a focused, data-driven approach to meeting the needs of every student while fostering a strong sense of belonging, safety and connection," Superintendent Carrie Andrews said.The California Department of Education is examining local results to better understand strategies and conditions associated with stronger student outcomes. The state has made significant investments in recent years, including literacy and math coaching, tutoring, expanded learning opportunities, community schools and universal transitional kindergarten.
US bishops' president urges Catholics 'to put their faith before politics' in November elections
Ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement Oct. 14 reminding the faithful that
'Grey's Anatomy' started with a one-night stand. 22 seasons later, how much do you remember?
From McDreamy's exit to Meredith's multiple near-death experiences, remind yourself of the key moments from the series so far in minutes.
Watch out for deer during mating season
PROVIDENCE – It’s deer mating season, and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management reminds drivers to keep an eye out for deer crossing roadways, particularly at dawn and dusk.
Healthwatch: Global Handwashing Day highlights simple health habit
Today is Global Handwashing Day (10/15), a reminder that one simple habit can go a long way toward helping you stay healthy.
After Guilfoyle dismissal, Rubio reminds diplomats to ‘avoid conflicts of interest’
The former U.S. ambassador to Greece was accused of a variety of ethical violations, including asking a political donor for $100,000 to pay her personal American Express bill.
Essentia Health highlights importance of knowing care options
As respiratory virus season approaches, Essentia Health is reminding patients to know their options for receiving care and avoiding unnecessary — and often more expensive — trips to the emergency room.
Dept. of Health confirms travel-related dengue virus case on Oahu
Health officials say this case is a reminder to reduce standing water, wherever possible, especially after a week of rainy weather.
Political campaign & advertising signs not allowed on public highway rights of way, MnDOT says
With election season in full swing, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) is reminding campaigners that state law prohibits the placement of political signs, or any advertising on highway right-of-way.
Australia veterans shine against South Africa
The fearsome pace quartet and Steve Smith's brilliance serves as a reminder of Australia's quality as the tourists take charge against South Africa.
Disappointing LSU Loss to Kentucky Reiterates Points of Emphasis
The Tigers entered Lexington in prime position for the SEC race, but the LSU loss to Kentucky was a sobering reminder of what it takes to win on the road in the SEC. Both sides of the ball for LSU appeared to be among the nation’s top tier of teams going into the game. But …
Cancer fund reminds everyone to care for their health
The Lake Almanor Cancer Fund reminds everyone to make time for themselves. "Taking care of yourself is one of the most important things you can do — for