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Halo Studios Reportedly Outsourced Campaign Evolved to 15 Studios, as Microsoft Weighs Involving Activision’s Sledgehammer Games in the Process
Halo Studios reportedly outsourced Campaign Evolved, as Microsoft weighs having Activision's Sledgehammer Games help build future Halo games.
‘The New Simpsons Movie’ gets a sketchy 1st look from Disney
The Mouse House showed a rough sequence from the upcoming film during the studio's D23 showcase. Watch it now.
PxlPerfect Designs Urges Home Service Businesses to Export Local Services Ads Data Before Google's Migration
Google began migrating Local Services Ads into Google Ads as a pay-per-lead Performance Max campaign type in August 2026. Historical performance...
'X-Men' cast, release date revealed at D23
Maya Boyd, Inde Navarrette, Samara Weaving, Christopher Abbott, Kit Connor, Jake Schreier, Sadie Sink and Kevin Feige, President, Marvel Studios, speak onstage at the Disney Entertainment Showcase at D23: The
D23's Disney Entertainment Showcase: Anna Hathaway Surprises Crowd, 'Incredibles 3' & 'Coco 2' Announced
A look at what the studio has to offer next.
D23’s Disney Entertainment Showcase: Anna Hathaway Surprises Crowd, Announces ‘Incredibles 3’ & ‘Coco 2’
A look at what the studio has to offer next.
Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. tease 'Avengers: Doomsday' at D23
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed that the upcoming "Avengers: Doomsday" will unite the Avengers, Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
Netflix plans to close two gaming studios, including one in Hollywood
Netflix said has closed Hollywood-based Night School and plans to close Helsinki-based Moonloot.
Halo: Campaign Evolved studio outlines five key updates that'll drop with next week's big patch
Halo Studios has outlined five key fixes that'll land in a new update next week.
“The End of Oak Street” first reviews: Anne Hathaway’s “Jurassic Park” riff hailed as ‘dumb fun done well’
While some critics flamed the sci-fi flick’s obvious Spielberg homage, others heralded it as “what the big studios should be doing right now.”
ESPN reveals College Football studio commentators for 2026
With the 2026 college football season approaching, ESPN has revealed its studio lineup for the upcoming season. For the seventh consecutive season, Kevin Negandhi and Booger McFarland will be in the lead studio for ESPN. For the first time in 2026, the duo will also be joined by Jordan Rodgers. Rodgers previously served as the…
NEO BERLIN 2087 launches in 2028
Action RPG NEO BERLIN 2087 will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam in 2028, publisher ByteRockers’ Games and developer ELysium Game Studio announced.
Entertainment headlines for Thursday, Aug. 13 with 95.7 The Jet
Mireya and Bender give the breakdown on Thursday's episode of Studio 13 Live.
Netflix Closes 'Unhinged' Video Game Studio Night School, Moonloot
Netflix is shutting down two studios, including the developer behind horror game, "Unhinged," which released less than two months ago.
Netflix is shutting down Oxenfree studio Night School, six weeks after its last game was released
It also plans to shut down Finnish studio Moonloot…
BREAKING: Netflix to shut down two more game studios
Netflix is sticking with video games but once again reducing the number of studios it owns making games. The streaming giant is closing Los Angeles-based Night School studio, which it acquired in 2021 and plans to close Helsinki-based Moonloot, which was founded in 2022. Just six weeks ago, Night School had released Unhinged, a novel 30-minute first-person horror game, streamable on TVs to Netflix users. The game was hailed by Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters in a call with investors. Six weeks later, Night School is closing. Prior to its Netflix tenure, Night School had developed the award-winning supernatural thriller Oxenfree. A second Oxenfree game followed after the purchase, as well as a mobile game designed to tie in to an episode of the Netflix show Black Mirror. Netflix attributed the studio closures to a prioritization around kids gaming, party games, story-driven fare and games with mainstream hooks, such as a recently released FIFA game. “We see an opportunity to be more focused in our execution, so we are making organizational changes to the business to match those priorities,” a Netflix spokesperson told Game File. Netflix is also cutting jobs from its internal games team. A rep declined to say how many jobs were being lost by these cutbacks. “We are incredibly grateful to the talented colleagues we’re saying goodbye to today. We thank them for all their contributions to Netflix, and wish them the best,” the rep said. Netflix started releasing video games, initially on mobile as a free bonus to subscribers, in 2021. By 2023, Mike Verdu, then the head of Netflix’s game operations, was telling me that the company was committed to growing carefully, as it offered more games and built up internal game studios. At the time, it hadn’t made any gaming job cuts. Since then, Netflix has altered its approach. In 2024, it shut down Team Blue, a start-up studio led by ex-Call of Duty and Halo developers that was exploring making a high-end first-person game for the service. Last October, Netflix shut down another studio, Boss Fight, shortly after Peters praised the team’s Squid Game game to investors. (One of Boss Fight’s main developers now works on the Netflix FIFA game for outside studio Delphi.) And in December, Netflix sold cozy game studio Spry Fox back to its founders. Amid all of this, Netflix has shifted from emphasizing mobile games to offering games through TVs and PCs, via streamed connections, with phones used as controllers. That’s how Night School’s Unhinged worked, along with games such as Boggle and Party Crashers that have collectively helped the Netflix game controller app chart well on mobile app stores. The studio cuts leave Netflix with a central gaming team that works with external developers, and a dedicated first party studio in, Helsinki-based Next Games, which produced many of the company’s couch-centric party games. The move away from having a roster of internal game studios aligns with Netflix’s own approach to shows and movies, which are largely produced externally. The company owns few TV/film production studios of its own. The gaming industry overall is seeing large holders of multiple studios cut back, with Sony, Ubisoft, Embracer, Microsoft and other giants closing or selling off studios. Cuts in California-based studios, where costs often run relatively high, have been particularly acute. Netflix has faced skepticism about its gaming plans for years. The moves today are likely to fuel them, and the company has few upcoming projects to counter the narrative. Among the few hinted, acclaimed independent studio Don’t Nod said last year it was working on a game tied to a major Netflix franchise.
Suno is trying to look more like a real music production tool
The latest version of Suno Studio adds MIDI, a chatbot, and custom AI effects.
Entertainment venue Great Big Game Show opening at Short Pump Town Center
It's the first Richmond-area location for the Nashville-based chain of entertainment venues that offer a live game show experience with studio rooms outfitted with buzzers, a spinning prize wheel, podiums and other trappings of TV game shows.
Starbreeze Entertainment & VICE Studios Partners with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and G-Unit Film & Television for PAYDAY
Starbreeze Entertainment together with VICE Studios (Gangs of London) have partnered with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and his G-Unit Film & Television, to executive produce an adaptation of Starbreeze’s iconic, long-running video game franchise PAYDAY® for global audiences. , , , , “G-Unit Film & TV has built cinematic crime stories that connect with audiences around the world. Teaming up with Starbreeze and VICE Studios and bringing the world of PAYDAY to the screen gives us the chance to build...
Immortality Studio's Next Game Was Once An FMV Metroid Idea
It's called Precognition, it's out in 2028, but there's no Samus Aran anywhere
Neighbors complain about noise from Universal’s ‘Fast & Furious’ ride
Universal Studios Hollywood plans new sound barriers around its “Fast & Furious” coaster after neighbors complained about screaming during ride testing.
Amazon Game Studios gives Lost Ark and Throne & Liberty back to their studios to run, ending its MMO presence
Amazon is handing over each game’s operational duties to their developers…
Brands Are Devouring Hollywood. Are Studios Ready?
Studios may be strapped, but big brands are rolling in dough. How companies from Gap to General Mills are luring A-list talent and keeping an ailing industry afloat.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition now available for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, Switch, and PC
Aspyr ha announced and released The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition, a remastered version of Snowblind Studios’ 2011-released action RPG, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Se…
Supermassive Games announces layoffs, up to 75 workers may be affected
This marks the third round of job cuts at the Guildford-based studio in three years
Lionsgate: Filmed Entertainment Backlog Jumps 21% To $1.5 Billion As Library Revenue Approaches $1 Billion
Lionsgate Studios' filmed entertainment backlog increased 21% year-over-year to $1.5 billion during its fiscal first quarter of 2027, while trailing 12-month library revenue reached $987 million as the company’s existing film and television catalog becomes an increasingly important source of recurring cash flow.
Studio Maks tops science pavilion in Austria with undulating mirrored roof
Thousands of mirrors line the gently undulating ceilings of the VISTA Science Experience Centre in Austria, completed by Studio Maks.
Battlefield 6 Player With Over 400 Hours Gets Full Refund from Steam After Key Modes Were Removed
A Battlefield 6 player with hundreds of hours of playtime has scored a full refund of the game after Battlefield Studios removed key modes from the game's quick-play matchmaking.
Saber's newest game trailer takes a shot at Gearbox's CEO, if you look closely
The first hint that something might be up with the recent debut trailer for Saber Interactive’s Rideshare Stimulator is an unusual choice of words—aside from that second one in the game’s title. “Don’t take your passengers too seriously,” the trailer’s narrator says, as he describes this upcoming game. It a car game about the gig work of driving eccentric people to their destinations, a riff on Crazy Taxi. And then, he says: “When I think I’ve met the randiest of passengers, someone even stranger gets in.” “Randiest”? That suggests “randy,” which usually means having strong sexual desire. Yet none of the oddball backseat occupants featured in the trailer seem particularly lustful. One is an old man who considers his grandson a failure, another shares the theory that birds might control traffic lights, another says he’s banned from an aquarium. A little later, there’s a license plate, shown 63 seconds into the trailer, on the front of an SUV: USB DRV It’s a Texas plate. The symbol between those letters is a cog wheel. If you know, you know. That’s a reference to Texas-based Borderlands game development studio Gearbox Software (their logo features a cog wheel). More specifically, it’s a reference to Gearbox’s CEO Randy Pitchford, who in 2018 found himself explaining the nature of video he’d saved on a USB drive that was found at a Medieval Times restaurant before being returned to the studio: “It was ‘barely legal’ porn. This girl’s handle was ‘Only 18.’” The “girl” in the video had committed a solo sex act that Pitchford, an avid practitioner of magic, found remarkable. “I realized, this is not a sex worker…This is a fucking magician.” Back then, the USB drive was central to competing lawsuits against Gearbox by the studio’s former lawyer and by Gearbox against him. A settlement in late 2019 “exonerated” Pitchford, per the Hollywood Reporter. The USB story has resurfaced at times, now in a trailer from a company that not long ago was corporate brethren with Gearbox. Saber vs. Gearbox The head of Saber told Game File that the reference is payback. “The dig is because Randy took shots at Embracer in Borderlands 4,” Saber CEO Matt Karch told me when I asked him about the license plate. “Without Embracer, Randy is performing magic tricks at birthday parties for a living.” Having interviewed Karch during a cross-country flight in late 2024, I can confirm that Karch was unimpressed with Pitchford during their time both working in the Embracer group. I’d approached him not out of surprise that there was animosity but that it was manifesting publicly now. Gearbox was founded in 1999, worked on a port of Halo early on, and developed hit series such as the loot-based sci-fi shooter Borderlands before it was purchased by The Embracer Group in early 2021 for $363 million (with a possible earn-out of over $1 billion, if certain targets were hit by 2027). Saber was founded in 2001, worked on a remaster of Halo early on, had a big hit with zombie shooter World War Z and was purchased by Embracer in early 2020 for $150 million, with a potential earn-out of up to $375 million. For a few years, the Embracer group was a voracious acquirer of game studios. Then, as investment dried up, it choked. In March 2024, Embracer sold Saber to an investment company controlled by Saber CEO Matt Karch, and it sold Gearbox in an all-stock deal to long-time Borderlands publisher Take Two Interactive. Other studios were shut down. Hundreds of developers were laid off. Gearbox didn’t say much about their Embracer experience, nothing too direct, at least. In the summer 2024, Pitchford told reporter and occasional Game File contributor Nicole Carpenter that Borderlands 4’s story was in some way thematically connected to Gearbox’s experience at Embracer: “There’s this cultural and emotional shift in me, personally, and at the studio. What does it mean to trade some autonomy for organization?” When Borderlands 4 came out, there was something stranger: the matter of “Embracer’s Bluff,” a location in the game featuring an AI-powered toilet and a large trash dump, according to a detailed Kotaku account of the place. Gearbox never commented on it; Take Two never got back to me about it when I asked them last year. By contrast, since Saber exited Embracer, Karch has been one of Embracer’s biggest defenders, casting their management as well-meaning and supportive despite the layoffs and studio closures that resulted from their excessive expansion. Like others, Saber’s Karch saw Embracer’s as a shot. With Rideshare Stimulator’s trailer, he’s returned fire. “It’s amazing to me how fast people forget those who went above and beyond for them,” Karch told Game File. A rep for Gearbox did not comment by press time. Game File is a reader-supported publication. Your backing makes my reporting—including any coverage of trailer-based beefs—possible. Good news! I’m currently running Game File’s first big sale of 2026. You can get a one-year subscription for 23% off. Click here to take advantage of the limited-time offer. And thank you for your support! Item 2: In brief… 🚫 Wal-Mart has laid off the staff of Restart, a games media outlet launched in 2024, Aftermath reports. 🟥 A GTA VI preview is on the way, at last, via an “extended look” that will premiere, unusually, on Netflix at 3pm ET on August 27, then officially go live elsewhere six hours later. Last week, Game File noted that Take Two label Rockstar Games is overdue for showing off GTA VI, based on the timing of the initial hands-off previews of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. During a call with investors, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said pre-orders for GTA VI were “unprecedented and astonishing,” but added the company can’t predict how many of those pre-orders represent bonus sales vs. sales that otherwise would have been made at launch. During the same call, Zelnick was noticeably bullish on the future of playing games over streaming cloud connections (predicting wider adoption in three or so years). He sounded unbothered by Sony’s plans to stop making discs for new games (he said the business is 90% digital already and predicted that there could still be limited edition physical editions of games “in the same way there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business.”) 👀 Take Two wrote off $43 million in their spring quarter after deciding “not to proceed with further development of an unannounced title in its pipeline from a third-party developer.” 🤔 Some rare age-demographics from a big publisher: Capcom recently told investors that “users in their 20s account for approximately half of the users of both Pragamata and Resident Evil Requiem.” Item 3: The week ahead Tuesday, August 11 Game releases: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Switch 2; already out for PC, PS5, Xbox) continues the Bethesda strategy of putting Elder Scrolls games on everything; Royalty Free-For-All is a Smash Bros.-style fighting game featuring public domain characters such as Mother Goose brawling with Oliver Twist in a stage based on the original Little Shop of Horrors movie. Wednesday, August 12 Game release: Pro Jank Footy (PC, console) is an arcade-style Australian Rules Football game with increasingly ridiculous rules, the more you play (I enjoyed the Steam demo) Thursday, August 13 Game release: Super Mario Sunshine (Switch 2, originally released in 2002 on the GameCube) is released for Switch 2’s Nintendo Switch Online service. This game is the black sheep of 3D Mario games. It’s the successor to the breakthrough Super Mario 64 and the rare Mario game built around a single (vacation resort) theme. Mario’s got a water-spraying backpack, a Yoshi pal and a lot of blue coins to collect.
Battlefield 6 Removed A Fan-Favorite Mode, As Devs Look For "Best" Way To Bring It Back
Battlefield Studios is, however, looking for the "best" ways to bring it back.
Robot24.com Launches Global Robotics News Platform With Original Reporting, Business News and Correspondents on Every Continent
Robot24.com has launched as a new global robotics news platform dedicated to covering the companies, machines, people and technologies shaping t...
"They don't understand art" - id Software lead slams Xbox, says it's "impossible" to make games like 2016's Doom now
id's lead services provider Chris Hayes spoke to the Well Played podcast about the studio, and the problems he has with the company post-layoffs.
Blizzard Reportedly Leads Xbox as 'Top-Performing' Studio Thanks to Overwatch and Diablo
Blizzard Entertainment is reportedly Microsoft's golden child after Overwatch and Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred helped it become the "top-performing" Xbox studio.
'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' keeps record pace, ‘The Odyssey’ sets new high for Nolan
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” continued its blistering pace in theaters, collecting $144.5 million domestically over its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. And Christopher...
Music Review: ‘Lost Weekend’ is Phoebe Bridgers' evocative sonic collage
On her third studio album, “Lost Weekend,” Phoebe Bridgers pairs unique sonic arrangements with her signature complex lyrical verses to create a collage of the years since we last heard
Blizzard is now the "top performing" Xbox studio, says internal emails — as the Overwatch-maker ends FY26 over-delivering on Microsoft's projections
In leaked emails verified by Windows Central, Blizzard President Johanna Faries celebrated the Xbox division's stunning growth, over-delivering on expectations.
Improv Launches Dedicated Sports and Entertainment Venues Practice for UKG Workforce Management
Improvizations, LLC (Improv), an Austin-based HCM and WFM advisory and implementation firm, has launched a dedicated Sports and Entertainment Ve...
Blinded by science: The Thomas Dolby interview
“To get out and play a show like this, in the summer, is really an antidote to academia.”…
Lettuce brings the heat to the Englert
Lettuce continuously hones its improvisational skills, drawing inspiration from legends like the Grateful Dead and Miles Davis to authentically capture spontaneous musical moments live and in the studio.
Future of Marketing Briefing: Creator agencies are becoming entertainment studios — brands are footing the bill
Creator agencies are either rebuilding themselves as entertainment companies or launching as one from day one.
Adventure Science Center in Nashville to host Phoebe Bridgers album listening party
Adventure Science Center will be holding a listening party for Phoebe Bridgers anticipated 3rd studio album, Lost Weekend.
Measles exposure warning issued at Universal Studios Hollywood after confirmed case in visitor
Public health officials said there was a confirmed case of measles in a person who was infectious while they visited the theme park on July 26.
Quake remaster ‘Dawn of the Machine’ update now available
Publisher Bethseda Softworks and developers id Software and Nightdive Studios have released a free update for the 2021-released first-person shooter remaster Quake, adding the new expansion “…
Measles exposure reported at Universal Studios Hollywood
Health officials in Los Angeles County said a person infected with measles visited Universal Studios Hollywood and potentially exposed others to the virus.
Halo Studios hit by layoffs after release of Halo: Campaign Evolved
An unconfirmed number of developers have been let go from Halo Studios just over a week since Campaign Evolved's release.
Ample Entertainment Launches New Documentary YouTube Destination
Ample Entertainment, a nonfiction studio based in New York, on Aug. 6 announced the launch of Ample Originals, a new YouTube destination for original documentaries, series, creator collaborations and companion content. The channel gives audiences an early look at its inaugural slate with exclusive previews available now, ahead of the Aug. 7 premiere of “Ample … Continue reading "Ample Entertainment Launches New Documentary YouTube Destination"
Halo Studios is the latest Xbox Games Studio to be hit by layoffs just days after Campaign Evolved launch, as reports reveal "troubled" development
A number of developers previously employed at Halo Studios have posted on LinkedIn confirming layoffs at the studio.
Celebrating Small Business: Harvard Place Shopping Center
For most of her life, Jessi Midstokke hated gyms. She wasn’t athletic, and most fitness studios made her feel like she didn’t belong.
Aware Recovery Care Caught in Multiple Financial, Operational Crises
Aware Recovery Care, a Connecticut-based addiction treatment provider with locations in 11 states, is embroiled in a tangle of legal issues and lost
Rihanna Is ‘in the Studio Right Now’ & She’s ‘Cooking,’ Teases A$AP Rocky
"I'ma get in trouble for this," the rapper playfully admitted.
Atlanta’s entertainment scene gives rise to lawyer John Rose
Atlanta-based entertainment attorney John Rose helps recording artists land deals, film studios relocate productions and creatives understand their value.
Disney Consumer Products Division Moves Under Company's Studios Umbrella
Disney is moving its powerhouse Consumer Products division from the Experiences division to Disney Entertainment, specifically under the company's Studios umbrella.
Disney Moves Consumer Products to Studios
Disney is restructuring its Consumer Products division, moving operations from Experiences to Entertainment Studios in October.
New DC Studios Show 'Lanterns' Is Out This August on HBO Max, Plus New 'Hard Knocks,' Conan and More
These shows and tons of great new movies arrive to HBO Max this month.
MrBeast Sales Slow, Angel Stock Falls, MUBI and Neon Look for Hits, and Will an NBA Franchise Set a Sales Record?
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) You probably remember egg prices spiking a few years ago. This led to a lot of debate between the pro-market/pro-competition/antitrust/Neo-Brandesian crowd and the center/center-right/center-left/abundance/libertarian crowd over the cause, whether it was the avian flu outbreak or whether industry consolidation led to price fixing, using avian flu as a convenient cover. Basel Musharbash wrote a whole investigation at BIG looking at it. Well, two years later, we have our answer: it was price fixing. The Justice Department found proof, via emails, of price fixing. Indeed, just the threat of an investigation brought prices down two years ago: I bring this up because at least half a dozen of my favorite political writers and pundits, who were skeptical about price fixing at the time, haven’t written any mea culpas on this issue. It’s really dispiriting and makes it much, much harder to trust their work on other issues. If you take a hard stand on an issue, then you get it wrong, you need to explain how and why you got it wrong. Or update your priors. This is how epistemological bubbles are formed! All of which is to say, it’s time for another installment of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. Last issue, I mostly focused on the “wrong” side of the equation, so today’s is a bit more balanced, but with one big mea culpa (though I still stand by my original concerns). Let’s dive right in! Subscribe CORRECTION: UFC Didn’t Release Subscriber Data (But Seems to Have Bragged About It Internally) In my analysis of the viewership of UFC Freedom 250, I wrote... “Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers.” Well, that datecdote did not come from a PR rep, but from great reporting from James Faris at Business Insider. The actual quote was this: “Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.“ This wasn’t the biggest goof in the world; even Faris emphasized to me that this is more a “clarification” than a correction. Still, it sounds like, internally, the folks at Paramount were very happy about this result—and I’m guessing they were happy with this news getting out—even though the gains didn’t last through the quarter, dropping to 700K adds. RIGHT: MrBeast’s Struggles Continue... I’m very skeptical about MrBeast’s burgeoning media “empire” and, in particular, its $5 billion valuation, as I wrote earlier this year and last year. Sure enough, according to Business Insider, regarding its “booming” consumer products division_:_ “US sales volume grew 13% year-over-year in 2025, following a 33% leap the previous year, according to a presentation deck dated May 2026....A February 2025 investor deck viewed by Business Insider showed Feastables’ net revenue more than doubled in 2024 from 2023, to $215 million, and was forecast to grow 74% in 2025, to $375 million.” [Emphasis mine.] If you told investors that you projected 74% growth but delivered 13%,1 that’s not ideal. But it’s not just MrBeast. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime had sales drop in half for their energy drinks. It’s one thing to build a successful entertainment company and an entirely different thing to succeed in the heavily-consolidated-but-also-very-competitive consumer packaged goods space! CPGs are dominated by a few firms with very wide moats compared to YouTube, which has few barriers to entry. These businesses require different skill sets and have completely different business environments. WRONG: Does the NBA Have an $8 Billion Bidder? Almost as soon as I published my article about the NBA’s finances, casting skepticism on NBA expansion, I saw this Front Office Sports headline: One group “claims to have already raised $8 billion” for the Vegas expansion team. I mean, wow. That’s just $2 billion less than what the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at when they were sold just last year. And they’re arguably the most popular team in the NBA. (Side note: the new owner is now under an investigation for fraud in how he went about financing the Lakers and the Dodgers purchases.) So much for the “dried up” language I used in that article. (This is why I usually stick to my “Entertainment Nuance Guy” tone in articles...) I went off old information—from April, when I read/heard about the NBA downplaying expansion efforts—instead of doing a quick double-check for new news. That said...if you read the article, the market for Seattle is “slow”, with just one reported bidder. So I wasn’t entirely off. This goof has annoyed me since I first published it, mainly because it undercut that article’s real point, which I stand by: NBA franchises are really overvalued right now. Now, I get why NBA teams are overvalued. When it comes to owning sports teams, it’s basically never wrong to assume that some rich person somewhere will care more about owning a team (or just being part of a group since they’re so expensive) than the actual financials. There are only so many teams to own, and opportunities to buy in preferred markets don’t come along very often. This explains why the teams sell for such high multiples (usually above a 10 to 12.5 revenue multiple, which is very high). You only need one person to overpay! Beyond the ultra-wealthy luxury good explanation, I worry NBA teams are becoming speculative assets. More and more private equity investors are buying into NBA teams. But the value, in owning a team, comes from selling it later, not any meaningful relationship to revenue or profit growth. In other words, the newer NBA owners are increasingly expecting someone later to buy their inflated asset. That’s not sound economics; that’s the “greater fool” theory at work.2 At some point, actually making money has to matter. Especially since revenue growth is now below the growth of the stock market. (And this matters because the NBA doesn’t have easy levers to pull to drastically lower their costs—half of their revenue has to go to players and then you actually have to run a team, including coaching, training, travel, media expenses, and more—or raise revenues aside from one-off expansions in America and overseas.) I just don’t see how investors make their money back buying NBA teams, except for selling at a higher price later on down the line. But if revenue/profit growth continues to slow, at some point, someone will be left holding the bag. RIGHT: Baseball and Basketball are about equally popular. Related to the above, I wanted to cite two quick pieces of evidence for one of my other theories: that the NBA and MLB are about as popular as each other, but the NBA gets much, much better media coverage. One YouGov survey has that fans prefer basketball to baseball by 52% to 48%, which I’m guessing is within the margin of error for that poll. That’s virtually even, meaning they’re about the same popularity. Over on NBC, a recent Red Sox-Yankees game averaged 4 million viewers, higher than Sunday Night Basketball’s average of 3.4 million on the same network. A Yankees-Dodgers game averaged 3.9 million two weeks ago. Not every game averages this much, but it shows you that baseball isn’t far off from basketball, depending on the matchup. Altogether, the NBA is just slightly more popular than baseball, but NBC is paying MLB a fraction of what they pay the NBA, a point I’ve made before. RIGHT: Angel, MUBI and Neon Updates... I’ve long been skeptical about many of Hollywood’s buzziest startups/smaller indie studios. It’s not that they don’t make great movies—films like Anora and Everything Everywhere All at Once are amazing—or that they’re not (rightfully) pushing the majors to make better films, but...they get a ton of hype, and that hype often doesn’t live up to the reality or difficulty in scaling up. Starting with MUBI, well, The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on MUBI’s struggles last April, best summarized by the subheader “After Sequoia valued Mubi at $1 billion, a left-wing revolt sent the indie film company into a tailspin”. MUBI lost $7.3 million on $200 million in revenue in Q4 2025, but reportedly hit a record 1.7 million subscribers at the end of Q1. As for Neon, Department M purchased a “significant stake” in the company earlier this year. How much is that “stake” worth? According to Deadline, “No financial figures for the Neon-Department M deal were disclosed.” So...that’s not great! If it was a big valuation, we’d hear about. Also, I found this curious: “Both Neon and Department M already have separate partnerships with Qatar. The Qatar Film Committee has a slate deal in place with the former, and a biopic production pact with the latter.” Color me skeptical about much Middle Eastern investment dollars. See: LIV Golf. Finally, as for Angel (formerly Angel Studios), their stock very, very slightly popped last month after Young Washington ($20 million budget) which made $45 million in the US, but their stock is still way down from its opening. Smaller Updates RIGHT: The WGA should focus on antitrust concerns! I’ve been on this for years. Post-WGA/AMTPT deal in 2023, I wrote an article for the Ankler calling on the WGA to focus and organize against industry consolidation. Sure enough, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Paramount-WBD merger, and people are organizing around this issue now. I wish this energy had coalesced earlier (specifically to lobby Washington much earlier), but better late than never! WRONG: Actually, the chip shortage might be due to market manipulation. In my last “Long Reads for the Long Summer” article, I shared an article about how LLMs are causing memory chip prices to spike, which will make all electronics more expensive. Well, turns out, three RAM manufacturers control 90% of the market, and now a private lawsuit accuses them of price-fixing. So yeah. WRONG/UPDATE: The Odyssey will hold! Two weeks ago, I wrote, “As of this moment, we haven’t had a super-blockbuster, though The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday could all cross the $500 million mark. (At this point, The Odyssey would need a very strong hold to get there.)” Well, it’s safe to say it’s going to have that hold! It only dropped 30% in weekend two and IMAX screenings are sold out all month. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also off to a great start. RIGHT: People are rushing to get shows out yearly. I’ve long been bullish on yearly, weekly-released shows, and Leslie Goldberg at The Ankler wrote about how many people in town are now listening. WRONG: Mark Carney reverses Canada’s stance on homegrown production. After writing about Canada installing domestic production quotas, Canada has backed off. WRONG: I don’t trust Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s online “views”. When I originally wrote about the latest Spider-Man film’s record-breaking trailer, I thought this was just YouTube views, but after watching this Corridor Crew video and doing more research, well, it’s all social views of the trailer globally. Really? That stat includes TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts views. Basically, I don’t trust it anymore. (This film will probably set record, but I trust the pre-sales data more.) RIGHT: Celebrity Production companies are still struggling. I’ve written about this for years, but the company that I didn’t track was Kevin Hart’s HartBeat, which was valued at $650 million but is struggling now and might just end soon, especially after Kevin Hart pulled his endorsement deals. And Bad Robot is moving to NYC. CORRECTION: SpongeBob is a “second run” title. In my 2025 recap article, I had _SpongeBob SquarePants_labelled as a “library” title, when it is still a “second run” show, with new episodes still coming out on Nickelodeon. CORRECTION: In my last “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong” update, I offered a correction from Doug Creutz and misspelled TD Cowen. Thanks, Grammarly! 1 Though he could have increased prices to make up for the gap, he couldn’t have increased them that much. 2 There’s a theory, which I think that Daryl Morey created and Bill Simmons popularized, that, to be successful building your team, you only need a handful of bad GMs in the league to take advantage of. To be clear, Daryl Morey’s theory was also for signing bad contracts, that you could always get out of bad contracts. Basically, there’s always someone who will make a bad trade. It’s not the same exact thing, but similar enough to the Greater Fool Theory that I really like it.
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The Streaming Bubble Keeps Popping
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) One of my rules is “never bet against PE [private equity]”. This isn’t to say that I agree with their methods or tactics or strategies or financial innovations (aka shenanigans). Just that in the long arc of financial history, they’ve tended to return very good returns to their shareholders. That said, their forays into entertainment have left me...skeptical. I’ve written before about PE’s production company/celebrity production company roll ups, and those haven’t really worked out. Some PE groups tried to “roll up” an industry that isn’t “roll-up-able” for lack of a better term—since the barrier to entry for starting a production company is very low—often paying top dollar for celebrity production companies at the height of streaming valuations. So yeah maybe we can bet against PE when they venture into filmed entertainment. I’ve also noted that studio lots seemed to be a bubble back in 2022. Sure enough… Yikes! That sure sounds like some private equity guys lost some money. The only caveat being that holding a lot of land in Los Angeles is always valuable. But that wasn’t the pitch and likely real estate investment companies overpaid for said land. I mean, Goldman Sachs had to repossess it after all. (Technically, I’m not sure these buyers were traditional private equity, but PE was buying LA studio lots earlier this decade.) All to say: I call out bubbles when I see them, and they often pop. Anywho, my most famous bubble call was the “streaming bubble”, specifically that the major streamers were making too many shows and films. And that it could all come crashing down. Notably, I made this call before the strikes of 2023, but those strikes potentially accelerated the popping. And now it has indeed popped. One of my most popular articles of last year made that exact case. A year later, it’s time to update that analysis. The bottom line is that the streaming contraction continues. Credit where credit is due, Luminate—an analytics company whose data I use weekly in my streaming ratings report—called this out in a recent report I saw highlighted in both Bloomberg and The Hollywood Reporter. But I’m adding my data to their look, including streaming films and kids TV shows. I’ll also provide some other data that all tells the same picture. Let’s dive in! Subscribe The Number of Streaming TV Shows, Films and Specials Is Declining AGAIN in 2026 Let’s get right to the data, starting with my dataset. Specifically, each week I track every “notable” title to come out on streaming. I try to grab every title on every major streamer, meaning if it’s a first run or original or exclusive, I track it. This helps me call out the “dogs not barking” and the misses/flops each week. So that will be our first series of charts, my weekly collection data. Let’s start with the raw TV show, film and special data, by week. Note: As the years have gone by, I have actually added more sources (going from just one source to five sources) to find new titles, meaning that this data collection is, likely, more accurate now than in the past. Which means my team and I are more likely to have undercounted titles in the past rather than today. I like to cut the data several different ways. Here’s that same look, by quarter, to more sharply show the trends: And here’s the data just looking at the first half of each year. That’s the same data, just cut three different ways with three different time periods. Note that films, TV shows, and specials are all down by 25%, 42% and 17%, respectively, from 2022. The good news is that the number of films and specials actually increased year-over-year from 2025 to 2026, but not enough to offset the 25% decline in TV shows. Now, I also look at kids shows, and here they are pulled out on their own: And here’s that by quarter: This really seems to be a notable area of pullback by the streamers. Kids shows are down 80% from 2022. This reflects some formerly Disney+ shows going to cable TV first, but also pullbacks from HBO Max, Prime Video and Netflix. I also categorize the TV shows by English language and non-English language, and that also reveals a lot of where the drop comes from: And here is by the half-year: In this look, the good news is the drop for English language shows seems to have stabilized in the last year. But the bad news is the long term decline from the 2022 peak. Other Data So I wasn’t the only person to notice this decline in the number of shows. I have a few other data sources for this, though most only go through the end of 2025. As I said, Luminate beat me to the punch, so let’s look at their data. 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… What TV loss streaming didn’t make up for... How Netflix has changed their programming slate over time… Ten more images charting the decline of production... What type of films aren’t being made anymore... The good news (for movie theaters)… And more... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
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