SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " winner " 100 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Sign in to save shuffle history.
Tigers qualify for states
by: Dom Gliozzi The 3A WPIAL Consolation match was more than a third-place battle, as the winner would advance to the PIAA State Tournament next week. With such high stakes on the line, third-seeded North Allegheny defeated fourth-seeded Upper St. Clair (at Sewickley Academy) on Wednesday afternoon by a 3-2 decision. The Tigers took the… More »
2026 Patient Innovators Awards Winners Announced at Courier Health's Annual Summit
/PRNewswire/ -- Courier Health, the leading technology company for managing patient experiences, today announced the winners of the second annual Patient...
L.A.’s dynasty is (probably) done, plus the NFL’s uncomfortable moment
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Work an 11-pitch at-bat today. Coming up: 🍻 Milwaukee roars, again 🖊️ Will anyone sign Hill? 🤒 Warriors star clarifies health Yesterday, we discussed how the Dodgers’ possible demise would impact the sport’s future on a decidedly macro level. Today, after their 6-2 loss in Game 3 of the NLCS last night to the Brewers, I want to get granular: We should start with the winners, who deserve plenty of shine. Milwaukee is...
The Black British Business Awards 2026: Meet the winning leaders, innovators and changemakers shaping UK industry
Celebrating the brilliance, visibility and impact of Black British talent, this year's winners of The Black British Business Awards 2026 were chosen from Senior Leaders and Rising Stars spanning STEM, Fashion, Beauty & Consumer, Arts & Media, Entrepreneurs, Financial Services, Professional Services and Retail & Hospitality, underlining what can be achieved when organisations champion and amplify Black talent and allow it to #SHINE.
Ending Clock Changes? Health Experts Say There's a Winner Between Standard And Daylight Saving Time
Brighter mornings may protect health.
Winners and losers as Cardinals trade Marvin Harrison Jr. to Texans: ‘I was praying something happened’
New Bedford youth to choose local health grant winners
New Bedford youth will decide which organizations receive up to $355,000 in grants to improve local health.
Ob Hospitalist Group Named Newsweek AI Impact Health Award Winner for Best Health System AI Transformation
/PRNewswire/ -- Ob Hospitalist Group (OBHG), the nation's largest and only dedicated provider of OB/GYN hospitalist services and a leader in comprehensive...
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.
Nikon revokes first prize in Small World in Motion video competition over AI use
The winner of a prestigious scientific photography competition has been disqualified after organizers concluded that his use of generative AI broke the rules.
Sioux Falls pet business makes S.D. history in international ethics awards
"They have made trust and integrity a part of how they operate every day." Step inside the Sioux Falls business that just became the state's first winner of an international honor.
Live entertainment emerging as winner in streaming era
LIVE ENTERTAINMENT EMERGING AS WINNER IN STREAMING ERAIn a digital world where entertainment is just a tap away at home, do people still crave the thrill of live spectacle and value shared experiences?UBS believes they do. In a recent note, the brokerage said it remains constructive on the long-ter…
⭐ Ballon d'OF: our number six is:
The 2026 Ballon d'Or winner will be revealed on Monday, October 26. To mark the occasion, OneFootball's French editorial team cast their votes to choose their Ballon d'OF winner for the 2025-2026 seas...
Revisiting Brewers' Misiorowski's Only Career Start vs. Rays
The Milwaukee Brewers' presumptive Cy Young winner faces the Tampa Bay Rays for just the second time in his young career.
EGOT winner John Legend to meet fans at Mall of America album signing
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WQOW) — John Legend is coming to Mall of America for an exclusive album signing and photo opportunity celebrating his new album, Muse.
Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics
Jimmy Patronis fights Gulf drilling, Amendment 3 struggles and Matt Gaetz faces more accusations.
Knicks’ First Preseason Games Have 3 Clear Winners
The New York Knicks are back on the court, and with opening night less than two weeks away, the preseason is already giving fans a few reasons to feel good about what's ahead. Knicks' First Preseason Games Have 3 Clear Winners That Stand Out The Knicks are 0-2, but that isn't exactly cause for concern. …
Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI: ‘I’m not a doomer. I think there’s a 1% chance it will destroy us’
The winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics warns of Silicon Valley’s fascist drift and says that if Trump wins the midterm elections, it will be the end of American democracy
Tigers Fans Can Only Watch as Skubal Pitches in NLCS
Trading their two-time Cy Young winner for prospects haunts Detroit as the dominant southpaw debuts in the Championship Series, fueling a bitter debate over small-market baseball economics.
CBICC Awards Honor Local Businesses and Leaders. Here Are the Winners
The Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County on Wednesday honored businesses, nonprofits and individuals for their outstanding efforts and
We asked: What is one challenge facing the Greater Des Moines business community that deserves more attention?
– Compiled by Emily Barske Wood and Kyle Heim Each year the Business Record’s readers cast votes for what Des Moines has to offer in a variety of business-related categories. We asked the winners: What is one challenge facing the Greater Des Moines business community that deserves more attention? Here’s what some of them had…
Linda Pauli named 2026 Athena Leadership Award recipient in Alliance
Alliance Area Chamber of Commerce held its annual Business Alliance Awards luncheon on Oct. 16. Here are the winners.
ROI-NJ celebrates New Jersey family businesses at inaugural Family Business of the Year Awards
ROI-NJ celebrated 16 New Jersey family businesses at its inaugural awards, naming MSI Plumbing & Remodeling and NRS Inc. the 2026 winners.
Manchester United should appoint Fabio Hurzeler if they replace Michel Carrick, says former Premier League winner Alan Shearer
Plus: Man Utd could trigger the 12-month extension clause in Lisandro Martinezs contract in order to recoup a fee for him; Man Utd fear Benjamin Sesko could be out until the new year; Vinicius Junior was serious about joining Arsenal this summer, but his heart made him stay at Real Madrid
Medicare Advantage star ratings 2027: Winners and losers
Medica and Humana saw the greatest increases in the share of enrollees with plans that earned high star ratings.
2026 Engineering, Science and Technology Emmy Awards
IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR THE TELEVISION ACADEMY - Host Kirsten Vangsness, center, poses with all 2026 Engineering, Science & Technology Award winners (from both the Television Academy and the National Academy
Korea Toray Science Foundation Names Two Science Award Winners
The Korea Toray Science Foundation has selected Professor Kim Sang-kyu of KAIST’s Departme
Tamaqua Choose Happiness competition offers $50K to new businesses
Three winners of the Tamaqua Choose Happiness Business Plan Competition will share $50,000 in startup funding for new businesses in municipalities comprising the Tamaqua Area School District.
Alexander Volkanovski suggests 'winner-take-all fight' vs Justin Gaethje
Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski proposed a “winner-take-all” superfight against lightweight champion Justin Gaethje to cap their careers.
Orbis International Named Winner of 2026 AWS Children's Health Innovation Award
/PRNewswire/ -- Global eye care nonprofit Orbis announces it has been selected as a winner of the 2026 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Imagine Grant: Children's...
Chamber offers business-focused voter guide for 2026 general election
Business owners wanting to know where candidates for Congress, the state Legislature and Richland City Council stand on economic issues can review the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce’s online voting guide.
Breakfast, Lunch, Or Dinner? Which Meal Matters Most For Brain Health?
New study shows a clear winner.
Nikon Small World 2026’s Winners Turn Science Into Abstract Art
Nikon Small World 2026 has finally unveiled its 20 stunning winners. Here's a quick look at the stories that made it possible.
GenomeWeb Best Places to Work Winner (26-50 Employees): Genomate Health
Genomate Health, a Cambridge-based computational oncology company, has won GenomeWeb's Best Places to Work award in the 26-50 employee category for the second consecutive year.
An exploding baseball and a smashed guitar. What went down at Modesto’s State Theatre
The winners of the annual MAMA Awards were announced Tuesday.
Energy Department announces 2026 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award winners
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced that Fermilab's Chris Polly was one of nine recipients of the prestigious Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for exceptional contributions to research and development supporting the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) missions in science, energy and national security.
CBS Sports predicts Falcons 'light up' Bears defense in Week 6
CBS Sports predicts winner of Sunday's Falcons-Bears matchup in Atlanta
Apple MacBook Pro 16 vs Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra: Poll shows clear winner
With the launch of the newest Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra, many people are comparing the laptop to the Apple MacBook Pro 16 with the M5 Pro. This comparison is quite apt, as both machines target the same audience. A poll run by Hardware Canucks has now revealed which laptop users prefer more.
Best of Business
TCB Event Best of Business Description Each year, TCB asks the business community to cast their votes for the top companies to do business with in Minnesota. This event will bring together companies that exemplify true excellence for a celebration and reveal the rankings of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in a wide range of categories.
Quantum Design Oxford Announces Winner of the 2026 Nicholas Kurti Science Prize
Quantum Design Oxford has awarded Chunyu Guo the 2026 Nicholas Kurti Science Prize, which includes €15,000 and support to attend a physics conference.
Bridge winners
HUNTINGTON DUPLICATE BRIDGE ASSOCIATION: Monday, Oct. 5 — Elaine Whitt and Bob Hardin, Patricia Crews and Fuzzy Harrold. Wednesday, Oct. 7 — Bennie Shields and Bob Hardin, Elaine Whitt and
13-Year-old Raji Doshi named America's Top Young Scientist for inventing an algae-aragonite alkalinity system to reduce CO2-driven ocean acidification
3M and Discovery Education today named 8th grader Raji Doshi as the winner of the 2026 3M Young Scientist Challenge, the nation's premier middle school science competition. Raji lives in...
Enquirer announces Oct. 16 athlete of the week winners
Cincinnati Enquirer readers made their choices for the Oct. 16 Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Athletes of the Week.
Forge’s Fierce Life Sciences Announces 2026 Fierce Innovation Awards Finalists and Unveils the Fierce Vanguard Gala
The new celebration brings together the Fierce 50, Fierce 15 and Fierce Life Science and Healthcare Innovation Awards, with Innovation Awards winners to be...
Darby Ronning's Feminist Science Fiction Collection Wins Final Honey & Wax Prize
The winner of the 2026 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize is Darby Ronning for The Alldera Collection: Feminist Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century.This is the last iteration of the annual prize which was launched in 2017 for American women book collectors aged 30 and younger.
Play science games, win science prizes
The 2026 winners for the Nobel Prize in the sciences, explained
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”.
Four goal 2nd half leads Belleville boys soccer over Newark Data Science in ECIT 2nd round
Belleville (9-6-1) advanced to the quarterfinals and host the winner between 10th-seeded Shabazz at seventh-seeded Newark Tech on Thursday, Oct.22.
Rory McIlroy's newest sponsorship includes an insane travel perk
Rory McIlroy's newest sponsor is sprinkling in a mind-blowing, first-of-its-kind travel perk for the grand slam winner.
L’Oréal Names 2026 For Women in Science Award Winners
Dr. Clarissa Do Ó of Caltech receives a 2026 L’Oréal For Women in Science award for her research into detecting Earth-like exoplanets.
Who had the best plans? Meet the 2026 Business Plan Competition Winners
Fort Worth Business Plan Competition, in its 15th year, provides entrepreneurs tools and network support to advance their business ideas.
Every Will Smith movie performance, ranked from worst to best
Oscar winners, box-office bombs, and everything in between: We ranked every Will Smith movie performance from worst to best.
Business Insider: The Winners and Losers of the New H-1B Era
Partner Catherine Macris discusses how evolving H-1B policies are shaping employers’ ability to recruit foreign talent, particularly in highly specialized fields.
Ella Rumpf Joins Andrea Štaka’s ‘Ibicaba: O Paraíso Prometido’
'Raw' star Ella Rumpf, Júlio Andrade, Ana Flávia Cavalcanti to lead ‘Ibicaba: O Paraíso Prometido’ by Golden Leopard winner Andrea Štaka
The Nobel Prize is not an exact science
Winners are only human. The committee could do more to highlight that
What's the most popular pro sports team in your state? See the map
Google Trends reveals the top pro sports teams in all 50 states. Explore the winners, plus the second- and third-ranked NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL teams.
Chamber announces Four Under 40 winners
The Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce has announced this year's Four Under 40 winners.
Seattle Mariners History: Gold Glove Winners Since 1977
What to know about the two candidates in Wisconsin's 7th District
Republican Michael Alfonso and Democrat Fred Clark are squaring off in the 7th Congressional District. The winner will succeed Tom Tiffany.
ASU researchers explain 2026 Nobel Prizes in the scientific fields
ASU researchers discuss the significance of the 2026 Nobel Prize winners and their discoveries within scientific fields.
Titans vs Colts winners, losers as defense carries the day, Carnell Tate shines
Carnell Tate continues to stake the claim as the Titans' top receiver among Titans vs. Colts winners and losers.
Yankees get $120 million prediction for NPB Triple Crown winner
The Yankees are a potential landing spot for the NPB star.
TSCG promotes pair to C-suite; Colliers hire chases Philadelphia business; Foundry adds World Series winner as broker
New hires, promotions and other personnel changes
GenomeWeb Best Places to Work Winner (101-250 Employees): Health Advances
Life science consulting company Health Advances has won GenomeWeb's Best Places to Work award in the 101-250 employee category.
Kimani Vidal, Akheem Mesidor headline Week 5’s Chargers Winners/Losers
Kimani Vidal broke numerous tackles and ripped off the Chargers’ longest run of the year against the Broncos.
HP Googlebook 14 Review: Great laptop, shame about the OS
HP’s first crack at a Googlebook laptop is a winner, or at least as much of one as the platform...
Ponce Bank Small Business Sweepstakes: Meet the First Winner, Forno de Oro
Monica Makes It Happen introduces the first winner of the Ponce Bank Small Business Sweepstakes: Forno de Oro, an Italian restaurant in Chelsea serving up more than delicious pizza — it’s a story of h...
Spurred by Pulitzer Prize-winner's visit, business leaders grapple with state's housing crisis
The capital of Georgia — a city of more than 500,000 people nearly 1,200 miles away, where African-Americans outnumber their white counterparts — bears a striking similarity to New Hampshire’s capital. In Atlanta, like in Concord and countless municipalities across the country, housing costs have far eclipsed what working people can afford. Brian Goldstone, journalist […]
Hilary Swank, 52, is pregnant, expecting third child
Oscar winner Hilary Swank, 52, and husband Philip Schneider are growing their family, now expecting their third child together.
Most Impressive Wins from NFL Week 5’s Sunday Slate
This article looks at the best wins of Week 5 in the NFL. As backup quarterbacks stepped up and powerhouses battled, Week 5 had lots of winners.
Every Champions League winner and final in history
The Champions League is the pinnacle of European club football, with the continent’s biggest teams competing for the most prestigious trophy in the game.First held as the European Cup in 1955/56 bef...
Nobel memorial prize in economics to be awarded in Stockholm
The Nobel memorial prize in economics is the last to be announced this year. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce the winners Monday in Stockholm. Three researchers who
First Command wins 2026 Patriots in Business Award, its second since 2024
FORT WORTH, Texas — First Command Financial Services, Inc. has been named a winner of the 2026 Patriots in Business Award. It is the second time the
UFC Edmonton results, video highlights & full list of winners
A full look at the winners from Saturday night's UFC Fight Night in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Spurred by Pulitzer Prize-Winner’s Visit, Business Leaders Grapple With State’s Housing Crisis: Business NH Magazine
Brian Goldstone, journalist and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, spoke during an Oct. 15 forum, hosted by the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce and the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness.
South Carolina Senate rivals spar over Iran war, AI and Trump in fiery debate
Darline Graham and Annie Andrews are running to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, and the winner will make history as the first female senator elected from South Carolina.
egnite's Call for Science Study on M-TEER Device Durability and Long-Term Patient Outcomes to be Featured at TCT 2026
egnite, Inc., a cardiovascular intelligence company that helps clinicians identify and manage patients with untreated heart disease, today announced that Dr. John T. Saxon, Director of the Advanced Cardiac Valve Center at University of Virginia (UVA) Health, has been selected as the winner of its inaugural Call for Science grant program. His study, Long-Term Durability After Successful M-TEER: Insights from a Large, Real-World Imaging Database, will be presented as Featured Clinical Research at
AI Agents Are a Threat to Travel Businesses. Airbnb Could Still Be a Winner.
For the lodging platform’s stock to thrive in the age of bots, it has to turn repeat customers into loyal ones.
Latest Wisconsin Nobel Prize winner shares how scientific collaboration enabled cosmic discoveries
Francis Halzen was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work pioneering neutrino astronomy.
SPECIAL REPORT: Tough Business
A string of vacant restaurant buildings shows that many restaurants in the region are struggling — and several are closing By Stefan Yablonski [caption id=attachment_11132 align=alignright width=401] Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill on Route 31 in Clay closed its doors in April. It had been in operation since at least 2008.[/caption] By their nature, most restaurants have a limited life. An astonishing 60% go out of business within three years of opening, largely due to fundamental flaws in the planning of the operation. But even restaurants that experience years of success almost always face eventual closure. The restaurant business is very hard and because of both personal factors and external factors beyond anyone’s control, restaurants don’t last forever. For many restaurants, age is a big factor, according to Kenneth Walsleben, professor of practice, entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises at Syracuse University. “The owners have been at it for 20 or 25 years, if not longer, they want some time to themselves,” he said. Such was the case for Jocko’s Famous Ritz Diner in Oswego. Jocko Reitz bought the building in the late 1970s from Robert Shapiro. However, when he stepped away from the business, it eventually closed. [caption id=attachment_11142 align=alignright width=402] For nearly 80 years, Vona’s Restaurant passed through three generations of family in Oswego. It closed its doors on Dec. 31, 2025.[/caption] For nearly 80 years, Vona’s passed through three generations of family in Oswego. Vona’s Restaurant officially closed its doors on Dec. 31, 2025, when no family member wanted to take over. It is on the market. The Ruby Tuesday in Oswego operated for about two decades before permanently closing in April 2026. The restaurant faced multiple temporary health department closures in 2024 and 2025 due to persistent fruit fly and foundation pest issues. Management posted a final closure notice on the doors in mid-April 2026 and the building was put up for sale. The same pattern has been happening in Onondaga County. The big building once used by Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill on Route 31 in Clay remains empty, more than six months after the restaurant closed its doors in April. It had been in operation since at least 2008. [caption id=attachment_11130 align=alignright width=401] Ruby Tuesday in Oswego operated for about two decades before permanently closing in April 2026.[/caption] Just down the road from Smokey Bones, the popular Outback Steakhouse closed in August 2024. Another restaurant took its place, La Cocina Mexican Restaurant, but it closed shortly after. The building sits empty. Other very popular restaurants in the northern suburbs of Syracuse have recently closed. Among them, Fireside by the River in Baldwinsville and Primo Nestico’s Bistro Bar in North Syracuse. “I haven’t really paid attention to the Syracuse area. There has always been some turnover, but there probably has never been a tougher time to be a restauranter than now. It’s just brutal,” Walsleben said. In the first year, roughly 20% to 25% of restaurants close or change hands, according to the National Restaurant Association. [caption id=attachment_11122 align=alignright width=401] Outback Steakhouse closed in August 2024. Another restaurant took its place, La Cocina Mexican Restaurant, but it closed shortly after. The building sits empty.[/caption] “Depending on what statistics you look at, you’ll find that any business has a high mortality rate in the first year. That is just the nature of entrepreneurship,” Walsleben said. “There are certain ones that are getting hit hard while others are more fruitful. “And when you look at the restaurant industry you have to factor in labor which is a large part — typically a third of your expenses — and those costs are going up. And there is always turnover which means investing money to train people. Then you’ve got food costs, which is also a third of the typical restaurant budget. Since the pandemic labor has gone up 41%, food costs have gone up 35%. That’s a big tight squeeze righty there. That’s two-thirds of your budget that has gone up 35% to 40% in the last few years. And then the only way you can make that work is to raise the prices.” The National Restaurant Association reports menu prices are up 36% since February of 2020. In a survey released by the association, more than eight in 10 restaurant owners reported that their food, beverage and labor costs are now higher than before the pandemic. You have to deal with the reality of are the customers willing to pay for that? Walsleben added. Restaurants historically have very thin margins; their profit margin is about 5%. “You have a third that goes into food, a third that goes into labor and about 28%, 29% that goes into everything else — overhead, insurance etc. So that brings you down to your 5% leftover,” he said. “Everything is going up. Customer expectations are going up and people aren’t going to spend that much more. So, you have a tight squeeze here,” Walsleben continued. “Restaurants who use delivery apps, they pay a fee to those guys. Those guys don’t work for free. So, you can kind of see where the squeeze comes from.” Stuck in the middle There are pockets of opportunity; the two extremes of the market can make a profit. But the middle gets squeezed out. “If you are a low-end fast-food kind of place, there is room for that. People have changed their budgets. They are still going out, but they are not spending more,” according to Walsleben. “The high end remains positive. If you have a restaurant that brings a specific experience … a great food product or you are catering to high end customers who aren’t so budget conscious, those patrons are going to expect a high-end experience. They expect excellent food every time. They are expecting excellent service. If you can meet those expectations there is room for you at the top. It’s just the guys in the middle are getting the squeeze from both ends. Tough competition, customer expectations, costs are up. Menu items, you can’t raise the prices as much as you need to. That is why you are seeing a lot of restaurants baling out.” The ones that can adapt quickly are the ones who are doing OK. “Success is heavily dependent on the strength of a restaurant’s concept development and the planning of its execution. Eventually things aren’t always new. Things change. So, if you are in the restaurant business you have got to change your menu — keep things new, fresh and update your meals. It is very fickle industry. One year carbs are out, the next year berries are out. Everybody’s diet changes — constantly chasing the latest phase. You have got to adjust your menu and move with those modifications. If you have a static menu that you have used the last couple years that hasn’t changed except for the pricing, you’ve got a problem,” he said. A lot of times these buildings are singular purpose, he added. “You have a commercially viable kitchen and you got a seating area. There is not a lot of other businesses that cater to that type of a layout. So, it’s pretty common to see another restaurant slide in,” he said. One of the things a banker learns early on is you don’t lend money to restaurants … because they fail so quickly. It is very hard to predict who the winners will be. So, if you are a restaurant in addition to all the other challenges, it is very difficult to get loans, according to Walsleben. “You might work really well in the kitchen. But that doesn’t mean you are a great businessperson,” he said. “Restaurants can fail because the owner didn’t know how to manage things properly. There are a lot of challenges. “There is opportunity at the high end and the low end. But in the middle, that’s the death valley. There are just so many things working against you. You really need to have something that will pull people in and continue to pull people in because you to constantly have to change. Think about a theme and a product that is unique to the area people don’t travel that far these days you have to be able to deliver it in an innovative fashion and keep updating to keep people coming in the door.” Out of Business? How Fast? Do nine out of 10 restaurants fail in their first year, as commonly claimed? No. Survival analysis of 1.9 million longitudinal microdata for 81,000 full-service restaurants in a 20-year U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics non public census of business establishments in the western US shows that only 17% of independently owned full-service restaurant startups failed in their first year, compared with 19% for all other service-providing startups, according to ResearchGate. The median lifespan of restaurants is about 4.5 years, slightly longer than that of other service businesses (4.25 years). However, the median lifespan of a restaurant startup with 5 or fewer employees is 3.75 years, slightly shorter than that of other service businesses of the same startup size (4.0 years). What Makes a Restaurant Successful? Opening and maintaining a successful restaurant is not as easy as creating a great menu and serving excellent food. It takes more than that, according to local restaurant owners who have been in business for decades in the region. They all agree that there are some guidelines to running a successful restaurant. • Quality food: Successful restaurants know exactly what they serve and who they serve it to. Delivering the same great taste every single time builds loyal customers. • Smooth operations: Friendly greetings and attentive staff make guests feel welcome from the moment they walk in. Hiring staff for personality and training for skill ensures reliable, caring service. • Smart marketing: Exceptional food and experiences naturally get people talking and sharing online. Word of mouth can help entice customers. Consistent social media and targeted advertising brings in new and repeat guests also. The menu is what keeps patrons coming back to Mimi’s Diner in Fulton, located at 201 N. Second St. “We locally source our produce and our meats. Our chicken and biscuits is a popular, popular special,” said Richard Tagliareni, the third-generation owner and general manager. “It’s all homemade. We have consistently served quality food.” His grandfather started the business more than 55 years ago. Mimi’s is engrained in the community. They cater to the community and are very involved in everything from the schools to local events. The first Mimi’s Drive-In opened in Mexico. Then a second in Oswego and then Fulton. Fulton’s Mimi’s is the only one left. “The last couple of weeks have been kind of slower than normal. October is usually a busier month for us People will start coming back around again. Also, the price of gas is affecting some things,” Tagliareni added. “We try to keep our prices in line. You go out to eat, you’re going to spend about a hundred bucks or so for two people for dinner. You come here to Mimi’s you are probably for two people for dinner it’s between $50 and $60. We are trying to keep our prices in line. We did have to increase our prices a little bit but things are looking OK.” For the Press Box, 29 E. First St., Oswego, it’s also about great food and a family atmosphere. “Our sports bar and restaurant was established in 1984,” said Alison Canale Scanlon, manager. “I think putting the time into everything makes a big difference and treating people like family when they walk into your restaurant. That’s how we have always operated since 1984.” “It’s the family oriented aspect,” she added. “Consistency, quality and presentation of our food — that’s the secret to a successful restaurant. We try to be very consistent with it. We treat people like family when they come in; because we know how we want to be treated when we go to a restaurant. We treat people the same or better.”
Iowa City Book Festival: Pulitzer winners, poets and more
Iowa City's 18th annual Book Festival runs Oct. 18-25, showcasing Pulitzer winners Yiyun Li, Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof. Most events are free, including a Robinson-Kristof public conversation.
Nicolas Cage reveals lingering regret over Sean Connery friendship
The Oscar winner admitted he still kicks himself over something he said to his late co-star.
Correction: ENT-Books-Kirkus Prize story
In a story published Oct. 7, 2026, about the Kirkus Prizes, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the first name of the nonfiction winner. Her name is Pamela Colloff, not
Nikon’s Small World photomicrography competition winners
The 52nd annual Nikon Small World competition honours the world’s most remarkable images captured through a microscope
Betterworks Named an Inc. Power Partner for Second Consecutive Year
Betterworks, a leading enterprise performance management platform, has been named a 2026 Inc. Power Partner Awards winner, recognizing the company among the ...
Li & Baby LLC wins first ever Bismarck Business Pitch Challenge
A mom is the winner of a $15,000 forgivable loan to boost her small business that creates practical and science-driven baby products.
‘Halloween Baking Championship’ winners: Where are they now?
They came, they baked, they conquered. Catch up with all 11 past winners of Food Network’s ‘Halloween Baking Championship’ and see where their sweet victories have taken them.
Vote now for Thibodaux Regional Health System Athlete of the Week (Oct. 5-11)
It's time to vote for the Houma Today/Daily Comet Athlete of the Week sponsored by Thibodaux Regional Health System. Vote for the winner of Oct. 5-11.
How well have past GOTY winners sold?
We’re less than two months away from 2026’s The Game Awards, and what a year it’s been for fantastic games, including Resident Evil Requiem, Forza Horizon 6, Slay the Spire II, the Blood of Dawnwalker, and Control Resonant – just to name a few. So as we approach the end of the year, we thought we’d look back on our estimates for the GOTY winners of the past four years. In terms of revenue, Elden Ring (2022 winner), Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), Astro Bot (2024), and Expedition 33 (2025) have generated a combined $3.8B via 73M copies sold: Let’s have a look, then. Elden Ring has generated $2B in revenue Elden Ring is a phenomenon in every sense. It’s sold a whopping 36.4M copies across Steam (50%), PS5 (35%), and Xbox (15% across console and PC). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring also just passed an astronomical milestone: $2B in revenue. While PlayStation and Xbox account for half of Elden Ring’s copies sold across these three platforms, they account for 57.5% of revenue. This – as ever – is due to regional pricing and the higher relative share of PC gamers in lower-priced markets. For example, around 17.4% of Elden Ring’s Steam copies sold were in China, where the game costs about 26% less than the price in the States. There’s an … interesting narrative going around these days that console gamers are only interested in ball-and-gun games and have the patience for little else. Well, Elden Ring’s impressive sales prove that is simply not true, and across all platforms. What’s more, over 9.8M people have played Elden Ring for over 100 hours, with nearly 3.5M people getting all of the achievements and trophies. For reference, 10.9% of Elden Ring’s PlayStation players have the platinum trophy, while 10.5% of players on Steam and 3.9% of Xbox players unlocked all the achievements. Git gud, Xbox players! Of the 1.5M people who played Elden Ring on PlayStation last month, 4% also played Dark Souls 3 last month, 4% played Bloodborne, and 3% played Sekiro. There’s those Soulsborne diehards for you. By many accounts, including my own, Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time. It’s an evergreen seller that will continue to be a cash cow for Bandai and FromSoftware for years to come. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring has sold another 2M copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox this year, generating almost $110M. This means it’s outperforming many of this year’s high-profile releases. Even Elden Ring’s standalone run-based PvE spinoff, 2025’s Nightreign, has sold 7.8M copies and generated $282M in revenue. Baldur’s Gate 3 is another billion-dollar-plus banger Another cross-platform phenomenon is Baldur’s Gate 3, which has sold 23.2M copies and generated over $1.2B in revenue. About 18.7M of these copies (80.6%) are via Steam, 2.9M via PS5 (12.7%), and 1.6M (6.8%) via Xbox. Around 1.3M folks on Steam bought BG3 before it hit 1.0. The PlayStation version launched about a month after the PC 1.0 release, while the Xbox version came four months later due to technical issues around developing local co-op on the Series S. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Across platforms, Baldur’s Gate 3’s monthly active users have never dropped below 2M, including 2.2M MAUs last month (68.5% on Steam, 21.9% on PS5, and 9.6% on Xbox). And it still regularly brings in 280K to 400K players every day: About 1% of BG3’s Steam player base has played for over 500 hours! That’s a little under 200K people. Astro Bot is also an evergreen seller, albeit a more niche, family one Astro Bot, 2024’s winner, has now sold 4.7M copies and generated $291M in revenue. The budget, including marketing, is almost certainly under $100M, given the small Japan-based core team and three-year dev timeline. You can really see why the tides are changing toward less expensive hubs. Astro Bot is the only first-party winner on this list, but follows other first-party winners of The Last of Us Part II (2020’s winner), God of War (2018), and Breath of the Wild (2017). Around 46.6% of Astro Bot’s copies sold have been physical, which is far higher than the typical game. This makes sense for a couple of reasons: There’s a large family audience for this one, and physical boxes are an item to wrap when giving Astro as a gift. Astro has collector value for the PlayStation core (this is nostalgia-fueled platformer celebrating PlayStation’s history) Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Astro is another one of those games that continues selling over time, regularly selling more than 100K a month. It’s sold around 1M more copies this year ($60M in revenue) and is a popular title with families. We can see this using the Alinea platform’s MAU crossover tool: Astro Bot’s top #2, #3, and #4 games by crossover in any given month this year are Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox – without fail. The #1 title every month, though, is Astro’s Playroom, a pack-in with all PS5 consoles. For every month this year, between 20% and 30% of Astro Bot players also played Astro’s Playroom that month. So the free pack-in is a noice funnel for converting players to a full paid product. Expedition 33 sells 8.7M despite Game Pass cannibalisation Finally, we have last year’s winner – Expedition 33. The turn-based-RPG banger has generated $366M via 8.7M copies sold, with 58.8% on Steam, 35.7% on PS5, and 5.5% on Xbox. Xbox’s share of copies sold is this low due to Expedition 33 launching on Game Pass, where 4.3M people across console and PC accessed the game. A little under 700K Xbox players used their subscription to play Expedition 33 this year. That said, the game’s 1.5-year Game Pass deal ended last week on October 16, and we’re already beginning to see a positive trend on Expedition 33’s copies sold via Xbox (but the jury’s still out!). There’s understandably a lot of French pride behind this one, as France is the game’s #3 market on both Steam and PlayStation. Vive la France! One thing that stood out to me is that the GOTY winners aren’t $300M Hollywood productions made in the US. They’re mostly mid-budget studios outside the traditional AAA cost centres. Lots to think about there. Also, good games sell well; who’d have thunk it!? And there’s a whole load of them this year, with GTA 6 still to come, too. GTA just made the cutoff point for the VGAs this year. What a coincidence! Loading... Cool links and other stuff Our physical games newsletter from Tuesday was picked up by GameSpot, Eurogamer, TweakTown, and a bunch of others. We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up. Next week, we’ve got some exciting news regarding the future of our newsletter, so stay tuned! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. Want to see why these companies (and many others) are subscribed to Alinea? Get a free platform trial! [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
6 winners and losers from Patriots’ loss to the Bears
Drake Maye, Hunter Henry, and other noteworthy players from Week 7.
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.
Tom Skerritt dead: 'Alien,' 'Top Gun' actor and Emmy winner was 93
Emmy-winning actor Tom Skerritt, whose decades-long career includes roles in 'Alien,' 'Top Gun' and TV series 'Picket Fences,' died Wednesday. He was 93
New England Biolabs honors 11 scientists at Passion in Science Awards
New England Biolabs hosted the winners of its fifth Passion in Science Awards at its Ipswich headquarters last week, during a two-day event. The company announced the 11 honorees Sept. 10 in a news release. The awards recognize scientists whose work enriches the arts, humanitarian service, environmental stewardship and science mentorship, according to the release. […]
Elevance Health Foundation launched a prize program for patient safety initiatives. Here's why
The Elevance Health Foundation has launched a new prize program aimed at supporting solutions aimed at improving patient safety, with the first crop of winners targeting challenges like health lite | The Elevance Health Foundation has launched a new prize program aimed at supporting solutions aimed at improving patient safety, with the first crop of winners targeting challenges like health literacy, fall prevention and medication errors.
The One Chart That Explains Why Netflix Cleaned House
(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.) Yeah, I’ll be honest: I went with a clickbait-y headline today. One chart? That explains everything? That’s as clickbait-y as it gets. But let’s be real. I’m analyzing a dataset that I’ve built over six years, and c’mon, I never write articles which feature just one chart! If you think this article—which includes a level of data detail unheard of in journalism twenty years ago—is clickbait, fine by me. Really, what I’m doing is using data to explain Netflix’s recent strategy changes, since the story of the month is the turbulence at Netflix. First, head of content Bela Bajaria was fired. Then head of film Dan Lin followed her to the unemployment ranks. (Along with, sadly, 1,000 other Netflix workers.) And then Netflix delivered a “sub-optimal” earnings report, which continued their year-long stock price slide. Then came a flood of articles explaining why all this is happening. (Mine’s coming shortly, rest assured.) I realized I had the perfect chart to explain Netflix’s woes. Specifically, Nielsen’s weekly top ten charts. Usually I focus on one or two weeks in my Streaming Ratings Reports, but sometimes it’s worth stepping back to look at the larger story. And hoo boy, what a story. This article is my annual (plus three months) follow-up to one of my most popular articles of last year. (And a topic I’ve been visualizing for the last half decade.) Subscribe Netflix’s Share of The Nielsen Charts Continues to Decline
UNA again named among Billboard’s top music business schools
UNA’s music business program returns to Billboard’s 2026 top schools list, with hands-on training and faculty including Grammy winner John
Top Science Photography Award Winner Stripped For AI Use
Following the incident, Nikon said in a statement that it plans to 'revisit rules and evaluation procedures for future competition entries.'
SnakePit Post-season GDT, #17
Two ways tonight can go. We either see a Rays victory, and they move on to the World Series, starting on Friday in Milwaukee. We spend the next three days staring out the window, twiddling our thumbs and waiting for that to start. Or the Guardians prevail, and we look forward to a winner-take-all battle […]
Video. Reaching for the Starmus: Science and music festival back in Tenerife
Video. Mixing Nobel prize-winners, astronauts and artists, the Starmus Festival has been uniting key figures over the past decade at one event to spark creativity, curiosity and a greater understanding of the universe. Its co-founder, Garik Israelian says its all about inspiring the next generation.