Showbiz Sandbox

Showbiz Sandbox 659: Hollywood Continues To Turn Itself Inside Out

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 21:01:22 +0000

In the midst of the summer entertainment news doldrums, as Hollywood laments a fading (for now) box office, along comes Pixar with “Inside Out 2.” The sequel earned nearly $300 million in its opening weekend proving, once again, that all the industry really needs for audiences to head back to movie theaters is… well, movies. […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 658: Searching for Winners at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 29 May 2024 20:10:19 +0000

The general consensus among attendees was that, unlike last year, the 2024 Cannes Film Festival was not one of its strongest editions. Few of the selections made a huge impact and, indeed, there were a few titles that left festival goers scratching their heads. Yet, it seemed more indicative of a general malaise affecting the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 657: New Streaming Business Models Require New Measurement Tools

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 07 May 2024 20:50:50 +0000

Streaming services seem to have settled on engagement as the metric by which to measure the success of a series or movie or even the platform itself. However, the industry has yet to decide a method for how to measure and report such figures in a consistent way. Some services publish random viewership figures citing […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 656: Yes, People Still Buy Books

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 21:14:08 +0000

Two recent opinion pieces stirred up some heated debate in the book publishing business. One insists no one buys books anymore. The other says the proliferation of book roundup lists is a bunch of nonsense. One is very wrong, even when it’s right. The other is right, but for the wrong reasons. Michael is our […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 655: Netflix Stops Sweating (and Reporting) Subscriber Growth

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 19:43:30 +0000

Netflix first quarter earnings report showed growth in all areas from subscribers, to revenue and income. But with Netflix clearly dominating competitors and entering a mature market, the streaming giant will no longer provide subscriber figures on a regular basis. Instead, Netflix will concentrate on profit and the amount of time each of their 270 […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 654: CinemaCon Promotes A Bright Future for Movie Theatres

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 22:00:59 +0000

CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema operators in Las Vegas, was filled with anxiety this year thanks to a lack of wide releases due to the recent labor strikes. However, most Hollywood studios showed up with a few movie stars to hawk an increasing number of big titles due later in the year and into […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 653: Godzilla and Kong, Once Again, Prove Movie Theaters Aren’t Dead

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 19:37:39 +0000

The monstrous global box office opening of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” may have been a surprise to film critics or anyone paying attention to industry tracking in advance of its release, but it surely proves that if you put movies in movie theaters, audiences will show up. Especially if those theaters offer premium […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 652: Comscore, Nielsen and the Battle Over TV Ratings

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 19:41:36 +0000

The way audiences watch television has changed radically over the past ten years, bet it when, where or how. Nielsen, long the king of TV ratings, is facing competition from upstarts like Comscore. With viewership on mobile and over-the-top devices not always being measured, advertisers are beginning to include social media awareness into account when […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 651: The Next Hit Song May Be Written and Performed by AI

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 05:02:03 +0000

In what Rolling Stone magazine has dubbed ChatGPT for music, a new service called Suno is trying to democratic music by using artificial intelligence to allow anyone to create a hit song. With no need to learn how to play an instrument or sing, the latest advances in generative AI are creating tunes with a […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 650: “Oppenheimer” Gives Christopher Nolan His Oscar Moment

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:36:35 +0000

As expected, “Oppenheimer” dominated the 96th Academy Awards winning seven categories including Best Actor, Best Picture and, for Christopher Nolan, Best Director. “Barbie” only picked up a single trophy for Best Original Song. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s Editor-at-Large attended this year’s Oscar ceremony and joins us to describe what it was like to be in the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 649: Hollywood’s Superhero Movie Problem

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:10:51 +0000

The superhero movie is facing its biggest enemy yet – audience indifference. “Madame Web” is just the latest superhero flick to open to poor reviews and/or bad box office. Entertainment journalist Geoff Boucher, who has covered the comic book world for over two decades and is a bigwig at ComicCon, discusses the declining popularity of […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 648: Judging This Year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 23:18:34 +0000

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced their 2024 nominees, including some musical acts previously shortlisted for inclusion. Musician and music writer Sal Nunziato joins host Michael Giltz to argue over which of these acts should be included in the Hall of Fame and why. Plus they give us a rundown of their favorite […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 647: Disney Teams Up For Sports Streaming Service

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 23:52:14 +0000

Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox are teaming up to deliver a new subscription streaming service that will combine all of their sports programming on a non-exclusive basis. It will have 14 channels including ESPN, ABC, FS1, Fox, TNT and TBS. The surprise announcement has generated more questions than answers, especially over whether any antitrust […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 646: A Slimmed Down Sundance Still Shines

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 23:41:09 +0000

This year’s Sundance Film Festival reflected the current state of the contracting industry itself, offering fewer films at fewer venues for fewer in-person attendees. Yet, as festivals like Sundance work toward rekindling post-pandemic financial support, this year’s official selections were just as noteworthy as those that have appeared throughout its 40 year history. We’ll give […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 645: Amazon Prime Video Set To Dominate Advertising Market

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:35:30 +0000

Unlike most major streaming services, which allow new subscribers to choose between a more expensive ad-free plan and a cheaper ad-supported tier, Amazon has taken an opt-out approach with Prime. When Prime Video begins streaming ads in late-January one of the biggest streaming services in the world with at least 150 million subscribers, will immediately […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 644: The Golden Globes Lose Their Luster

J. Sperling Reich — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 02:06:14 +0000

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association held its first Golden Globes awards ceremony under a new and supposedly improved organization under new ownership. Organizers scrambled to find both a network to broadcast this year’s show, not to mention a host. In the end, the winners weren’t surprising with “Oppenheimer” and “Succession” each taking home five, but […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 643: Linear Television Viewership Sinks to New Lows

J. Sperling Reich — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 01:51:07 +0000

Two annual ratings roundups of television viewing in the United States show that audiences for traditional broadcast and linear cable are in serious decline. The list of the 100 most watched broadcast episodes is mostly sports. And the top ranked channels reveal cable isn’t even really trying to program their networks anymore. Meanwhile, the domestic […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 642: What Netflix Subscribers Really Watch

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:54:44 +0000

Last week Netflix released a huge data dump detailing the viewership of all its programming for the first six months of 2023. The streaming giant is calling it a victory for transparency. While it’s a long way from the granular detail the industry has long sought, it does reveal that almost nobody watches 25% of […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 641: Red Sea Film Festival Highlights Emerging Film Market

J. Sperling Reich — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 02:26:12 +0000

In its third year the Red Sea International Film Festival continues to build on its reputation for programming some of the most engaging and important movies being made in the Middle East. Held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, RSIFF has gone a step further by financially backing productions from the region, which until five years ago […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 640: Hollywood Has Always Been Addicted To Sequels

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 07:15:29 +0000

If moviegoers have grown tired of endless sequels and franchise reboots, as some will have you believe, then Hollywood studios may be in big trouble. In 2024, a new sequel will be released every other week, including another Godzilla movie, Dune 2, a new Ghostbusters, a new Kung Fu Panda, another Mad Max film, Deadpool […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 639: Hollywood Deals With Post-Strike Fallout

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 05:08:16 +0000

Hollywood’s dual writers and actors strikes may finally be over, with significant gains in earnings, residuals and AI protections, but the many systemic issues that caused the labor disruption aren’t entirely history. As more of the details of the SAG-AFTRA contract become public we take a look at what they mean for actors and the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 638: What the Actors Won in Their New Contract

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 21:39:02 +0000

After 118 days the actor’s strike finally came to an end as SAG-AFTRA reached an agreement on a new three-year employment contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Entertainment attorney Jonathan Handel joins us to explain all of the major achievements in wages increases, residuals and artificial intelligence protections the union […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 637: Spotify Fighting Fraud With New Payment Plan

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:43:58 +0000

Spotify is changing how it pays out royalties in an effort to deter fraud, demonetize the flood of new music that almost no one listens to and frustrate those gaming the system. None of the changes will alter the amount of money paid out in royalties each year. But Spotify believes the move may add […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 636: Why Streaming Subscriptions Are Getting More Expensive

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 20:46:24 +0000

When Netflix announced its earnings for the third quarter of 2023 it also confirmed that it would be increasing prices for those that don’t want to view ads. Amazon recently said it would also be raising the price for the ad-free tier of Prime Video. It turns out these streaming services have discovered they make […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 635: Deciphering Hollywood Hits and Misses

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 19:50:24 +0000

Hollywood studios often try to camouflage the success or failure of their movies. Sometimes they claim a film is unprofitable, yet go on to make several sequels, as Nu Image did with the “Has Fallen” franchise. Other times a studio insists a movie is a modest box office hit despite paying hundreds of millions for […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 634: Spotify Gets Book Smart

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 21:15:45 +0000

Spotify, the music streaming service, is going all in on audiobooks in hopes of attracting and maintaining subscribers. Previously, Spotify offered some audiobooks for sale. Now the company’s 220 million premium subscribers get 15 hours of free audiobook listening each month. The service is launching with 150,000 titles and will pay publishers based on consumption. […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 633: Dissecting the New Writers Guild Contract

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 23:19:44 +0000

The Writers Guild of America released details of the new contract they negotiated with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers ending their historic 148 day strike. The 94-page document is filled with big gains for writers in pay and protection from artificial intelligence. It’s also a compromise to the deal the WGA initially […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 632: Pickets Down – Hollywood Writers Strike A Tentative Deal

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 18:57:05 +0000

The Writer’s Guild of America reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) potentially ending its strike after 146 days. Entertainment attorney Jonathan Handel wrote the book on Hollywood strikes, literally, and is a contributing writer at Puck where he covers labor issues. He fills […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 631: Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals Kick Off Unusual Awards Season

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 21:20:42 +0000

Every annual awards season has its own strange rhythm and unexpected twists. But with both actors and writers on strike, unable to promote certain movies, surely this year’s awards season will be the strangest of all. At the heart of the madness is Anne Thompson, the Editor-at-Large of Indiewire. The awards season expert is back […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 630: Resurrecting Silent Films Can Be Profitable (Theoretically)

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 03:23:12 +0000

The 1923 silent film “The Spanish Dancer” starring Pola Negri is the latest restoration project being theatrically released by Milestone Film & Video, one of the key players over the past 30 years in resurrecting forgotten and neglected films. We are joined by Dennis Doros, the co-founder of Milestone, who tells us how he turned […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 629: Disney vs. Charter Feud Could Finally Unbundle Cable

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 21:59:37 +0000

Carriage disputes between cable companies and media companies are nothing new. They happen regularly around big events like the Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup or the Oscars. However this time Charter Communications, the second largest cable operator in the United States, has pulled all of Disney’s 19 networks from its service, refusing to pay the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 628: An Inside Look at Streaming’s Microscopic Residual Payments

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 23:24:27 +0000

The recent success of the television series “Suits” on Netflix has shined a spotlight on how much money writers make on a cable or broadcast hit versus one on a streaming service. Last week one of the show’s writers revealed the vast difference in residual payments he received between linear and streaming underscoring why the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 627: Linear TV Drops Below 50% In U.S. For First Time

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 06:23:54 +0000

The number of households in the United States subscribing to traditional pay television services has dropped below 50% for the first time in the two years Nielsen has been tracking such metrics. And it’s not that viewers are cutting the cable cord, they’re just watching their favorite television shows and movies on streaming services more […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 626: Will Disney’s Big Wager On Sports Betting Pay Off?

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 21:44:46 +0000

Though Disney had previously dismissed the idea of venturing into sports betting, saying it didn’t fit the company’s image, the media giant signed a billion dollar agreement this week with a little known online gambling company. The move comes as Disney’s linear television revenue is declining with no end in sight and losses for its […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 625: SAG-AFTRA Concerns Over AI Are Justified

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 20:30:30 +0000

One of the key disputes striking actors are having with the AMPTP (the studios and the streamers) is over artificial intelligence and how it will be used in movies and television shows in the future. What rights will actors have and will they get paid if their image and likeness is used through AI? We […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 624: Hollywood Is Bungling Its Barbenheimer Momentum

J. Sperling Reich — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 00:54:49 +0000

The idea of counter-programming the simultaneous global release of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” over the same summer weekend always seemed like a gamble. But somehow Greta Gerwig’s comedy about a popular toy doll and a Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the renowned nuclear physicist wound up becoming a worldwide phenomenon breaking all sorts of box office records […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 623: Actors Join Writers In Historic Dual-Strike

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 02:32:02 +0000

Film and television production ground to a halt last week in Hollywood (and elsewhere) when actors joined the already striking writers on the picket line. This marks the first time in 63 years that the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild has been on strike at the same time and it is […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 622: Actors and Writers Agree That AI Ain’t So Smart

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 04:58:31 +0000

The Writers Guild of America members have been on strike for over two months now and might soon be joined by the Screen Actors Guild. When it comes to artificial intelligence however both guilds agree; when their members’ work is used to train AI, actors and writers should be paid. Some writers are now taking […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 621: Summer Box Office Is Much Cooler Than Expected

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 22:50:54 +0000

In a year which boasted a bevy of summer blockbusters, moviegoers haven’t been turning up at theaters for some of the more highly anticipated releases. Instead, big budget titles such as “The Little Mermaid,” “Elemental,” “The Flash,” and even “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” among others have all had underwhelming opening weekends. Is […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 620: This Year’s Tony Awards Were Unscripted, Yet Predictable

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 23:36:34 +0000

This 76th annual Tony Awards ceremony was held last weekend honoring the best and brightest Broadway productions from the past year. Although there was no script for host Ariana DeBose to work due to the writer’s strike. But while the telecast may have been refreshingly unscripted, the winners were fairly predictable with “Kimberly Akimbo” winning […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 619: Directors Strike Deal for New Contract With Producers

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 20:35:50 +0000

The Directors Guild of America reached a deal with studios, networks and streamers on a new three-year contract avoiding what some believed would be the first true strike in its 87 year history. Entertainment and technology attorney Jonathan Handel joins us to explain the proposed agreement the directors negotiated with producers. He wrote the book […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 618: The 2023 Cannes Film Festival Lives Up to the Hype

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 31 May 2023 00:02:55 +0000

The 76th annual Cannes Film Festival wrapped up over the weekend handing out prizes to some of the 21 official selections appearing in competition this year. Justine Triet’s film “Anatomy of a Fall” took home the Palme d’Or though that was one of many deserving titles programmed at what many festival goers felt was one […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 617: Why the Writers Strike Will Last for Months, Not Weeks

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 09 May 2023 19:45:00 +0000

There are few people that know more about labor issues in the entertainment business than attorney and journalist Jonathan Handel. So when members of the Writers Guild of America went on strike last week, grinding most television production to a halt, we asked him to join us to discuss all the nuanced details. Handel not […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 616: Movie Theaters Celebrate Recovery at CinemaCon

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 03 May 2023 06:08:39 +0000

Movie theater operators from around the world gathered in Las Vegas last week for CinemaCon. Though the last two pandemic suppressed editions of the conference were filled with artificial optimism about the business, this year’s event showcased an industry that had survived and is indeed thriving thanks to a robust release schedule with plenty of […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 615: Warner Bros. Takes Streaming to the Max

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 21:40:35 +0000

Warner Bros. Discovery had long promised to merge its two major streaming services HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single, combined offering. This past week the media giant unveiled the name of the new service to the public; Max. Despite having decades of positive brand recognition, HBO will be dropped from the name. The company […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 614: Streaming Fraud Is Costing Musicians Billions

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 02:48:41 +0000

When the recording industry first moved online in the early 2000’s piracy was driven by fans illegally downloading music through services like Napster. These days piracy is being committed by the music industry itself through streaming fraud. Artists and/or record labels are generating millions of fake automated streams to pump up playback numbers with the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 613: Author James Patterson Questions New York Times Best Seller List

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 20:24:13 +0000

James Patterson has been a perennial presence on the New York Times best seller list after his most recent book failed to make the list, he accused the newspaper of “cooking the books” in the way it compiles its lists. According to BookScan, which uses actual sales figures, Patterson’s latest book should have made the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 612: No Easy Cure for Concert Ticket Troubles

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 21:36:35 +0000

Everyone from fans of popular music groups to Broadway regulars are still facing angst and high prices when buying tickets. When the English rock band The Cure decided to forego dynamic pricing and charge only $20 to verified fans for tickets to their upcoming tour, the service fees and facility charges added up to more […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 611: This Year’s Oscars Were Everything Everyone Could Have Asked For

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 07:52:38 +0000

As everyone expected, the big winner at this year’s Oscars was “Everyone Everywhere All At Once,” taking home seven of the 11 awards it was nominated for. Anne Thompson of Indiewire was at the ceremony and joins us to give us the scoop on what happened behind the scenes at this year’s Academy Awards, including […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 610: Hollywood Writers Prep For A Contentious Strike

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 22:36:18 +0000

The current Writers Guild of America contract with signatories ends on May 1st of this year. Television networks and studios are bracing for what feels like an inevitable writers strike. The guild, which represents TV and movie writers, recently settled on a list of demands it is seeking during upcoming contract negotiations. Meanwhile AMC is […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 609: Consumers Are Spending A Fortune on Home Entertainment

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:50:47 +0000

According to Digital Entertainment Group, consumers in North America spent $37 billion on home entertainment in 2022. That includes not only spending on streaming services, but also DVD, Blu-ray and digital sales. Not to mention physical and digital rentals. And none of these figures includes spending on cable television. Meanwhile, awards season is in full […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 608: The Television Landscape Is Changing FAST

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 21:56:25 +0000

Major television networks, cable channels and even streamers are all reeling from all of the changes the industry has been undergoing recently. New shows are being canceled before they air. Others disappear after only a single season with all their episodes yanked from streaming libraries. Ratings for linear and cable are way down causing every […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 607: AMC Sets Sights On Upending Movie Ticket Prices

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 01:08:30 +0000

AMC Theatres, the world’s largest cinema chain, announced plans to start charging moviegoers based on where they sit in an auditorium. Preferred seats will cost a few dollars more than standard seats and those in the first two rows will cost less. At a time when movie theaters are having trouble attracting patrons back into […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 606: Beyoncé Makes Grammy History As Harry Styles Wins Album of the Year

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 22:52:13 +0000

Though Beyoncé led the 2023 Grammy Award nominations with nine nods, in the end she did not win the top prize for Album of the Year for “Renaissance.” Much to the dismay of some, that honor went to Harry Styles for “Harry’s House,” though Beyoncé did break the record for the most Grammy wins ever. […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 605: The Future For This Year’s Sundance Movies

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 20:35:22 +0000

This year’s Sundance Film Festival came to a close over the weekend marking the first time the event has been held in-person since 2020 due to the pandemic. This year’s Sundance was considered light on acquisitions, raising the perennial debate over the viability of the festival’s official selection whether it be theatrically or on streaming. […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 604: Which Awards Actually Matter?

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 21:43:02 +0000

As we get deeper into this year’s awards season we’re finally hearing from groups whose opinions mean something. For instance, the guilds for directors, producers and cinematographers have all nominated their top picks from last year’s movies. In other instances however, awards are handed out in so many different categories, it seems like every film […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 603: Sports Programming Rules The Ratings In 2022

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 23:24:44 +0000

With 2022 now officially over, Nielsen announced the 100 highest rated primetime broadcasts of the year and sports programming dominated the list. Football was a big winner taking the top nine spots. The Oscars telecast was the only non-sports broadcast in the top 31 programs. “60 Minutes,” “NCIS,” “NCIS Hawaii,” “FBI” and other similar fare […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 602: Avatar Sequel Makes A Splash at the Box Office

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 22:53:55 +0000

Filmmaker James Cameron delivered his long-awaited sequel to “Avatar,” the highest grossing movie of all-time and it delivered the blue Christmas movie theaters were hoping for. “Avatar: The Way of Water” is getting mostly glowing reviews for its visuals, less so for its story, and opened to huge admissions figures around the world. Whether it […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 601: Middle East Film Industry On Display at Red Sea Film Festival

J. Sperling Reich — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 02:14:53 +0000

The second Red Sea International Film Festival just came to a close in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a country which didn’t even have movie theaters until four years ago. In fact, several Saudi films premiered at the event which put an emerging Middle East film industry on full display. Meanwhile there is no debating that we […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 600: The Return of Bob Iger at Disney

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 18:17:52 +0000

We were just as surprised as everyone else to hear that The Walt Disney Company was firing their CEO Bob Chapek and replacing him with their longtime former head, Bob Iger. Iger is returning to a markedly different media company than the one he left less than a year ago and his second stint as […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 599: The Grammy Awards Have A Timing Problem

J. Sperling Reich — Sat, 19 Nov 2022 01:42:29 +0000

The nominees for the 65th Annual Grammy Awards were announced this week and as expected Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Adele and Harry Styles will all be competing for top awards. Yet some of the year’s biggest albums weren’t even eligible to be nominated because they were released after September. This is a continuous problem for the […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 598: Streaming Growth Goes International

J. Sperling Reich — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:22:49 +0000

It’s no secret that streaming services have been affecting every part of the entertainment business in one way or another, from movies and television to music sales and book publishing. After the latest round of earnings announcements from major media conglomerates a few realities become clear; producing original content for direct-to-consumer streaming offerings is costing […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 597: Audiobooks Are Changing Our Reading Habits

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 19:34:43 +0000

Audiobooks have slowly gained enough market share in the publishing industry that the medium now rivals print and ebooks in terms of sales and consumption. How audiobooks are changing the way we read is a question Karl Berglund of Uppsala University in Sweden set out to answer through a study analyzing a large amount of […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 596: The Compact Disc Turns 40 Years Old

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 18:27:22 +0000

It’s hard to believe that the compact disc format was first launched forty years ago this week. Billboard has a great oral history about the launch of the CD format and how it initially faced stiff resistance from record labels before kicking off a boom in music sales that lasted until digital MP3s took over […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 595: Vinyl Sales and Payola on the Rise in Music Industry

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 22:52:48 +0000

With mid-year music revenue figures finally tallied it appears the growth of streaming music has begun to slow as vinyl sales has increase. Also on the rise are reports of payola as indie music artists can’t seem to get played on the radio without paying promoters for the privilege of being put in rotation. These […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 594: Fall Film Festivals Set The Stage For Awards Season

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 20:58:47 +0000

The annual film festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto overlap not only in their timing but often in their official selections and this year was no exception. As usual, titles that begin their festival tour as anticipated awards season contenders sometimes wind up as afterthoughts while unexpected discoveries gain wide recognition. The movie that took […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 593: This Year’s Emmy Awards Turns Into A Rerun

J. Sperling Reich — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 19:45:43 +0000

The 74th Annual Prime Time Emmy Awards were held this week and they managed to honor most of the winners from last year’s ceremony. The same shows, and at times the same actors, continue to top most of the big categories. This begs the perennial question, what is the actual purpose of the Emmy Awards? […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 592: Why Is HBO Max Dumping Content?

J. Sperling Reich — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 01:34:04 +0000

At a time when streaming services are hoarding content in an attempt to attract subscribers and capture market share, Warner Bros. Discovery has taken the opposite approach with HBO Max; they are removing shows from their platform. Now comes reports that pulling shows from its library can save the company around $100 million annually. We […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 591: Live Sports Becomes the Costliest Battle of the Streaming Wars

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 22:34:22 +0000

There is no better evidence that the streaming wars are still in full swing than the news that streaming services are accounting for more viewing than cable television for the first time in history. As streaming media companies fight for market share, they have turned to live sports as a means of driving subscriber growth. […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 590: New Warner Bros. Discovery Strategy Is A Little Batty

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 04:07:09 +0000

The newly merged Warner Bros. Discovery held its first earnings call last week making so many headlines it was all anyone in the entertainment industry could talk about. The company has a ton of debt, but a plan to get into better financial shape; stop producing expensive scripted shows, shelve pricey projects and layoff thousands […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 589: Should Music Be Produced and Sold Like Fine Art?

J. Sperling Reich — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 22:32:56 +0000

In an effort to make music valuable again, producer T Bone Burnett is getting behind a technology that allowed him and Bob Dylan to create a one-off re-recording of “Blowin’ In The Wind” and then auction it off for $1.8 million. But can recordings be treated the same way as paintings are in the art […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 588: Keeping Track of Ever-Shifting Streaming Strategies

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 20:09:03 +0000

Though the entertainment industry may be infatuated infatuated with streaming, the legacy media companies behind all the new subscription services haven’t quite found the right way to profit from them. NBC/Universal earned nearly a billion dollars in committed ad revenue with Peacock this year, causing them to take a hard look at all of their […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 587: How To Succeed on Broadway After a Global Pandemic

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 22:36:52 +0000

With this year’s Tony Awards having been doled out, the 29 shows currently running on Broadway are taking stock of what’s working, which ones should stick around and which should stop raising their curtains. At least 14 have announced closing dates or are expected to soon, including some big musical productions. Others are recasting their […]

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Showbiz Sandbox 586: Tony Awards Help Broadway Get Its Groove Back

J. Sperling Reich — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:31:48 +0000

After all of the obstacles the pandemic forced plays and musicals to deal with, this year’s Tony Awards looked to raise the curtain on a revived Broadway. The ceremony managed to honor some of the best productions and performances from last season while celebrating the efforts the Broadway community made just to stay in business. […]

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