today at 9:18 PM
Nilay Patel: https://www.theverge.com/podcast/1004286/senator-adam-schiff...
> One of the longest-running tropes at The Verge is that a workable antitrust policy for the United States would be simply to forbid companies from buying Time Warner because it has never worked and it may never work again, and that we should just pass one law.
Checks out:
Jan 11, 2001: AOL and Time Warner merged to create AOL Time Warner
June 14, 2018: AT&T acquired Time Warner, renamed WarnerMedia
April 8, 2022: WarnerMedia spun out of AT&T, merged with Discovery
today at 9:58 PM
Oh this is hilarious. Didn't AT&T also acquire HBO and spin them off too?
today at 10:11 PM
They did, but first they rebranded them as Max, thus destroying the incredible name value of HBO. It was renamed back to HBO as part of the spinout IIRC.
today at 10:16 PM
The "credit" for that move actually belongs to WarnerBros Discovery
today at 10:22 PM
My favorite part of that story is that McKinsey both advised WarnerBros Discovery to make that change, and then advised them to change it back, making millions each time. I wish I made that much money being bad at my job.
today at 10:18 PM
March, 1989: Time and Warner announce merger, Paramount launches hostile bid for Time. January, 1990: Time responds by buying Warner Communications for $14 billion.
...Paramount sulks, and bides its time....
today at 9:57 PM
This is more consolidation of US media under extremely pro-Israel ownership. I don't think this will work out as well as they hope (look at CBS -- Bari Weiss has driven it into the ground) but it's scary how much US media a foreign adversary now has direct editorial control over, including both "news" and "entertainment", including TikTok.
https://www.972mag.com/ellisons-paramount-tiktok-israel-medi...
today at 10:22 PM
They sure aren’t fooling you!
today at 9:59 PM
Is it possible the next administration sues to break them up? Couldn't they also just launch endless investigations of the owners until they spun it off into its own thing
today at 10:13 PM
Sadly that probably won't happen:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/paramount-merger-settlemen...
today at 10:29 PM
> I don't think this will work out as well as they hope (look at CBS -- Bari Weiss has driven it into the ground)
I think that's actually what they hope, to discredit all mainstream media.
It's the same plan as with the federal government: discredit it and make people lose faith via sabotage.
today at 10:12 PM
[flagged]
today at 10:26 PM
The shills always conveniently forget to mention AIPAC.
today at 10:29 PM
This is the worst deflection I’ve seen in this website and that’s saying a lot.
today at 10:25 PM
I was working with some interns and it's interesting to see how the youth knows not to trust Israel. You can see it with them just becoming the butt of more jokes, the shield of ww2 victimhood covering their behavior is slipping.
today at 9:20 PM
A behemoth indeed but the numbers also tell an interesting story. For TV screen share, Youtube has ~13% of total US viewing time vs ~6% for Paramount/Warner. They also go into this merger with staggering debt which does not bode well.
today at 9:39 PM
This would be the anti anti trust argument - that it's not studio vs studio, but it's type of screen-time vs other types of screen-time.
Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games? This was during the streaming wars IIRC.
Regardless of how you look at it, this is yet another confluence of IP franchises merging together, whatever juice is left in them squeezed out and reprocessed over and over over time. Kind of what Oracle is in software I guess?
Working in an adjacent entertainment IP focus business myself, my eyes are glazing over a bit at this point.
today at 9:46 PM
This is the same argument from when Sirius and XM radio merged. It didn't matter that they were monopolizing satellite radio because the real competition was terrestrial radio and internet radio.
today at 10:01 PM
From my perspective YouTube has quietly won the streaming wars. It has a vastly wider variety of content, especially for non-fiction shows. In the cases where there's more direct genre competition, I tend to prefer YouTube overall because, despite its offerings being generally lower budget, they tend to represent a wider variety of "editorial voices". There's a lot of outright slop to wade through, ofc, but there's also a lot of creative risk taking out there to discover.
Meanwhile, yeah, Paramount, Time Warner, Disney, etc. have all become so money-minded and risk-averse that it reminds me of the twilight days of the old Hollywood studio system, where all the major production companies were locked into a heated battle to determine who could be the absolute blandest.
today at 10:23 PM
I kind of agree, and it's interesting how Nebula and Spotify (at least their video efforts) have been based on elevating and funding those ultra-budget YouTube creators. Like I watch Lindsay Ellis and Practical Engineering and SkillUp all on non-YouTube platforms now, despite YouTube being the recommendation algorithm that originally brought me there.
It's really the opposite model of the "major" streaming players who fund tentpole releases in the conventional Hollywood way, and then have a long tail of niche content (cooking reality shows and the like) that are clearly on a much tighter budget, but still basically modeled on being a cheaper version of a cable show rather than a much better funded version of a YouTube comedy troupe.
today at 9:49 PM
> Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games?
Yes. He always told us that we don't need to worry about the other streamers nearly as much as we have to worry about them turning off the TV and playing games or (gasp!) going outside. TikTok/Instagram Reels wasn't a thing yet, but if it were, I'm sure they would have been on the list too.
today at 10:26 PM
“Being an adult is staring at medium screens all day to come home and stare at a little screen while a big screen is on in the background”
https://x.com/andlikelaura/status/1392091221032460291
today at 10:07 PM
Reed Hastings may be rich, but he is a fucking moron. By his logic the greatest threat to entertainment is people who parent without screens.
today at 10:22 PM
You're misinterpreting what "threat" means. And in fact he used the word "competition."
He was talking about the "incumbent" they are trying to displace. Netflix's challenge was not getting people to switch from watching Hulu to Netflix, but to get them not to sleep in order to watch Netflix.
Evil maybe, but nothing moronic about it.
today at 9:47 PM
youtube has slowly become like 90% of my TV time over the past few years, I think it's the fact that you don't have to commit to watching 40+ minutes of something every time and there's just way too much interesting content on it
and i'm not even someone you'd class as young anymore, so I don't think this is a younger generation thing
today at 10:11 PM
I'm in the opposite camp. I find Youtube exhausting, and it keeps getting worse and worse.
Their ads are terrible. And since I watch via a device like Roku, etc, I have to put up with them. I've actively removed them from my devices. Occasionally, I feel like looking up some video. I install it, and often before I even watch the video I uninstall it because the awful UI reminds me of all the other awful stuff in it.
Curation doesn't exist. I have to work hard to find good content. Harder than any video service out there.
And shorts. Oh. Dear. God.
For some very targeted stuff (home repairs, video game walkthroughs), it's great. For the rest, it just sucks.
today at 10:29 PM
Of all of the various online services, YouTube is the one where I feel I get the most value in return for paying for premium. 90% of my video and music consumption is through YouTube, and it's all ad-free. (Well, except that so much of hobby YouTube is implicitly all ad because the video is about some piece of hobby gear, but that's sort of the nature of the beast.)
I've never watched a YouTube short.
My recommendations are all very well aligned with my interests. The trick here is to go through your watch history and delete things that are leading the recommendation algorithm astray. I am ruthless about that.
today at 10:17 PM
If you have the ads turned off, it's a lot nicer. I got that with some family bundle for more Drive space.
today at 10:25 PM
Let me put it this way.
Youtube without ads is still worse than pretty much all the major streaming services with ads.
I don't want to pay for that.
today at 10:27 PM
Or just watch Youtube on a laptop, and install an ad blocker.
today at 9:35 PM
I wonder what that % would look like for US voters over 60
today at 8:56 PM
Can this be undone in the future if folks realize it was too monopolistic and it was in fact an anti-trust violation?
I wonder if David Ellison is a fun guy IRL.
today at 9:42 PM
Should we wonder if Goebbels was a fun guy irl? I don't get it.
today at 10:28 PM
Are you seriously making that comparison?
today at 8:58 PM
He has a nice yacht, I bet it's fun on the yacht.
today at 9:19 PM
Probably not if you're an underage girl though.
today at 9:25 PM
Are you insinuating something about David Ellison here?
today at 9:26 PM
It's one big club
today at 9:41 PM
He’s only making an implication.
today at 9:37 PM
IMO, a better solution for the broadcast media part of this is to delegate content regulation to the states when the signal from a tv/radio station is entirely within one state (and some kind of join regulation when it spans >1).
Concentrating so much power in the federal government is problematic, and unnecessary.
today at 9:00 PM
Seems to me that these companies will say pretty much whatever during the merger process, and as long as there's no concrete repercussions written down somewhere, just do whatever since it's much harder to break a company apart than it is to block a merger.
today at 9:06 PM
The pre-merger settlement approved by the current supreme court was that Skydance would: (1) Agree to production quota of 30 movies per year, (2) Domestic spending commitments, and (3) Separate cable package negotiations.
Assets: TNT, CBS, CNN, MTV, TCM, Showtime, Adult Swim, DC Studios, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, HBO/HBO Max, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network
Film Rights: Star Trek, Gremlins, Beetlejuice, DC Comics, Tom & Jerry, Harry Potter, Citizen Kane, Transformers, A Quiet Place, Looney Tunes, The Conjuring, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, Dora The Explorer, Mission Impossible, The Lord of the Rings, SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dune 3, Minecraft, MonsterVerse
Remember that Citizen Kane is the movie about a media tycoon who buys everything he can and ends up alone in a mansion full of stuff.
today at 9:54 PM
Please enjoy this SlopGen Fantasy Skydance Kingdom.
https://chatgpt.com/s/m_6ac56dbab5448191866eb7c80c31c025
today at 9:36 PM
So you’re saying this opens up the possibility of some wild crossover media stories. Star Trek exploring new worlds that also include krypton, cybertron, and the game of thrones world. Oh Dune too. And maybe do the time travel thing to see a Lord of the Rings middle earth. And have Dora graduate to captain of a star ship (or explore the sea and encounter SpongeBob and Aquaman). Batman can team up with the Mission Impossible crew to solve a mystery. Ninja turtles in a mortal kombat? Wonder Woman in Westeros with Harry Potter?
Maybe a Sora descendant will allow user-directed content to emerge.
today at 10:06 PM
> Star Trek exploring new worlds that also include krypton, cybertron, and the game of thrones world. Oh Dune too. And maybe do the time travel thing to see a Lord of the Rings middle earth.
Sadly that isn’t far removed from the novelty “Strange New Worlds” series they recently released. What a mess season 4 was. :(
today at 10:21 PM
Nothing of the sort would ever happen. They would be insane to risk the integrity of their IPs by doing something so ridiculous.
That said, as snowflakey as Star Trek fans are, I would love to see their reaction to Dora the Explorer ordering Batman to launch photon torpedos at Unicron. They'd probably complain about "yet another DEI captain."
today at 9:30 PM
Nothing on that list should have lived this long.
today at 9:34 PM
As a Trekkie, I'm offended.
today at 9:39 PM
Then you are too invested for your own good.
Do Trekkies not crave novelty?
today at 10:00 PM
You have to cling to some beacon of hope in a world that decided future is dead and proceeded to drown itself in its own dystopia fetishism.
today at 9:21 PM
> Can this be undone in the future if folks realize it was too monopolistic and it was in fact an anti-trust violation?
I predict the democrats winning, shoving it all under that table and pushing for "reconciliation" and "moving forward" while continuing the rotten status quo that got Trump elected in the first place. Maybe a few token prosecutions of low level wage workers involved.
today at 9:45 PM
[dead]
today at 9:52 PM
I learned from working with some that psychopaths are a lot of fun going for a drink after work, but at work they make your life a misery.
today at 9:19 PM
If the Trumps get their cut, you're golden.
today at 9:38 PM
serious question how could you possible argue this is monopolistic when Disney, Netflix, and Youtube exist. It doesn't pass the barest level of scrutiny.
today at 9:53 PM
Monopoly is the wrong word, but it has a close cousin, “anticompetitive”. For free market people one of the major role of the government is maintaining competition and avoiding collusion, combining to competitors is straightforward collusion.
today at 9:08 PM
not a fan of CNN, but a very right leaning person is the owner of CNN now. pre-dictatorship vibes!!
today at 9:35 PM
Where "right" means specifically "Likud"
today at 10:04 PM
Antisemitism is growing fast, and I think it's time to become aware and start pushing back!
today at 10:15 PM
The other thing that is growing is the conflation of opposition to Israel’s belligerence and human rights violations with antisemitism.
today at 10:21 PM
There are vastly more Semitic people than Zionists. In fact most Zionists aren’t Semitic whatsoever.
Post truth world. Sad stuff.
today at 10:24 PM
What on earth are you talking about?!
today at 10:15 PM
No it’s not, antisemitism is not equal to criticism of Israel.
today at 10:30 PM
And it's definitely not for being critical of Israel's government's policies. You can believe that the Jewish people deserve to have a peaceful place to live, and also believe that what they are doing to Palestine is wrong.
today at 10:03 PM
He's donated to and voted for candidates of both parties, and claims to be a centrist.
today at 9:12 PM
I don’t follow the sentiment.
Right wing people have repeatedly captured and destroyed journalism outlets they deem undesirable. Not that I’m saying CNN is any good.
today at 10:15 PM
Ah yes, but Larry Ellison is Jewish.
Literally the only difference between him and the rest of the wannabe media barons, but you could fart the word “Israel” with your armpit and get upvotes these days.
today at 10:25 PM
Well no, the difference is that this merger is in favor with the current administration which has engaged in a broad and pervasive pattern of authoritarian behaviors while being in lock-step with Israel's interests.
This merger is only happening because the deal that the seller actually preferred (Netflix buying them) was unlikely to be approved by regulators. The President literally came out right after the deal was approved and said "it could be a problem" and "I would have a say" in whether it went through.
In fact the very existence of Paramount Skydance itself, as a merged entity, appears to have been contingent upon Paramount modifying its own HR policies, placing a government ombudsman at their marquee journalistic outlet (CBS), and paying $16 million to Trump's "presidential library fund."
today at 10:22 PM
More importantly he's a zionist and put bari Weiss in charge. It's pretty clear what they want to do.
today at 9:17 PM
Do you think only left leaning perspectives should be reported?
There should be a diverse leaning of news companies, otherwise you'll only get half truths. You can't expect a left leaning news org to report anything bad about the left, or right leaning news org to present anything bad about the right. The left will be motivated to find flaws in the right, and the right will be motivated to find flaws in the left. That's a good thing. I believe an adversarial system is required to find truth. A center leaning news org is nice, but they may be motivated to keep their reporting "even", to not appear biased, which isn't really possible with the tick tock of republican and democrat leadership.
A for-profit news org changing leadership/alignment, in a response to massively falling profits [1], isn't a sign of dictatorship, it's a sign of them being aligned to the reason they exist: making moneys.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cnn-net-worth-sliced-half-192...
edit: It appears the definition of left/right is not from the more average perspective of the American political overtone window, in these replies. Yes, they're all right compared to some definitions, and all left compared to others, but that's not what's being discussed.
today at 9:43 PM
I think the public should be able to view true left-of-centre perspectives from mainstream media outlets, and that is very much not happening in the US.
If - for example - you find a major news outlet that's pro-union, pro-single-payer, pro-wealth-taxes, and pro-debt-free-education, let me know.
today at 9:56 PM
> view true left-of-centre perspectives from mainstream media outlets
Do you think this is being prevented somehow? There are many left leaning news agencies [1]. Maybe the "problem" is that they're all for profit, most of which comes from ads, most of which are anti union companies.
What's the alternative? Mandated reporting?
[1] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/media-literacy/2021/sh...
today at 9:23 PM
>>Do you think only left leaning perspectives should be reported?
No! but where did you get that from?
There is Fox news, X, and Truth socia for right leaning perspectives.
today at 10:32 PM
It's the right wing perma-victim complex.
"We'll tell you the truth about the Dominion voting machines, which mainstream media WON'T tell you!" - Fox News, knowingly lying while also being literally the largest broadcast network in the country.
today at 9:24 PM
In a alternative universe, a very wealthy person starts a not for profit news agency and gives zero f's how many eyeballs it gets. Hires an army of world class journalists, investigators, and producers to churn out high quality, vetted, in depth content. Does this exist?
today at 9:45 PM
Bezos with the WaPo was this until 2024.
today at 10:13 PM
Did it improve under Bezos? I remember finding it of poor quality before him.
today at 9:50 PM
You'll still only get half-truths, but maybe (maybe) the sum of the vectors will be roughly normal
today at 10:22 PM
I'm not saying new should be entirely left and right. My point is that the adversarial system will find more flaws than a more neutral system. There's plenty of time, and all sorts of in-between agencies, to point out the neutral stuffs. My point is that the existence of even super politically aligned news agencies isn't some pure bad thing, or a sign of a dictatorship. We need both. All the news agencies being aligned one way would be a VERY BAD thing. All the news agencies being aligned to some "center" would be only slightly less bad.
CNN nudging more towards the right doesn't somehow influence the overall left leaning spread [1], or is in any way indicative of a rising dictatorship.
[1] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/media-literacy/2021/sh...
today at 9:22 PM
Do you have an example of left-leaning reporting that is mass media in the US?
today at 10:34 PM
I think it is amusing that people try to peg each news outlet as "left" or "right" as if they are an 18-year-old who votes whilst standing on a seesaw.
First, political views are not one-dimensional and so the "left"/"right" and far-extreme-ultra game is just "are they on my side or are they considered bonkers by my brethren?" games.
I believe that it's far better to consider news outlets as a product of their sponsors vs. their intended audience. By and large, they are all corporations trying to maximize revenue by attracting and maintaining a large audience for their materials, thereby paying their sponsors and advertisers the revenue they need.
So, they will produce stories that engage the audience. Whether that is enraging us, stoking controversy, appealing to us with smooth words: doesn't matter. There's no such thing as bad engagement. The corollary is that they don't want to lose audience members so any slide into supporting unpopular causes or candidates or ideologies is nipped in the bud.
Folks also can't seem to accept that editorial opinions or ideologies can shift, especially for example, if a news outlet supports "whoever/whatever is currently in power this year" or as a contrarian, opposes them, and riles up the opposition parties.
Wikipedia's relentless blacklisting and deprecation of "unreliable sources" is a great public experiment in this regard. If you really want a nice left-leaning anodyne view of the world, go with Wikipedia and "blacklist" or stop paying attention to any source they don't like.
today at 9:25 PM
WaPo, NYT, The Atlantic, NPR, and many others.
today at 9:57 PM
Only people on the right think NPR is on the left. NPR is the most middle of the road you can get. Just because they report facts that contradict the administration doesn't make them left leaning.
today at 10:15 PM
I know hard core leftists love to bash NPR/PBS, but as a non-leftist, non-centrist, non-right wing person, I definitely find NPR to have a left wing bias. Not as left wing as Democracy Now, etc - but definitely left leaning.
today at 10:09 PM
I used to be an avid NPR listener, but after George Floyd it's astoundingly woke when I try listening. That's not very often anymore, to be fair.
today at 10:19 PM
I’m curious about how you would objectively define “woke”. I’d also be curious about how NPR scores on those measures relative to other comparable media.
today at 10:32 PM
Why do people still trot out this tired argument?
https://web.archive.org/web/20230404013504/https://freddiede...
today at 10:15 PM
The NPR front page right now has a clip from a profanity-filled interview with a drag queen.
Famously fair and balanced, I know.
today at 10:35 PM
Huh?
Here are all the headlines currently above the fold on the homepage. Don't see anything about a drag queen below the fold either.
Maybe something autocorrected in your address bar when you tried to navigate to NPR?
* What happened during Christa Pike's failed execution
* Christa Pike conscious and able to speak after failed execution
* As Trump focuses the FBI on immigration, counterintelligence is falling behind
* Democrats' advantage is clear with less than a month to go in the midterm elections
* What voters in 6 key states could tell us about the 2026 midterms
* People are asking ChatGPT to help them decide how to vote in the midterms
* Alaska's US Senate race collides with the pollock industry in a fight over fish
* Poll: Residents are losing faith in Vermont as a good place to start life
* In race for Tennessee governor, Blackburn refuses to debate Democrat Green
* Disney, ABC battle Trump's FCC in court over free speech protections
* New Hollywood era begins with an epic mega merger between Paramount and Warner Bros.
* She died covering war for Fox News. Her parents blame the network — and a star reporter
* Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey's new Pentagon roles raise ethics worries
* Jim Bakker, who built 'PTL Club' televangelism empire, has died at 86
* Cornell names former acting U.S. attorney general to review rape case
* Cornell students protest the university's handling of 2024 rape allegations
* Francis Halzen wins Nobel Prize in physics for work on high-energy neutrinos from space
today at 9:39 PM
NPR takes "both sides" reporting to an absurd extreme
today at 9:28 PM
Have you read the WaPo and NYT lately?
today at 9:41 PM
WaPo? definitely not. going through independence crisis.
NYT - i think so.
NPR - funding crisis.
The Atlantic - i don't read this - is this the one who's journalist was added in the top secret signal chat?
today at 9:45 PM
It's not a clear divide between right and left, and NYT, the Atlantic, and NPR stans right wing voices constantly, have constantly used their editorialization to promote right wing ideals, and have gone out of their way to center right wing voices to give the appearance of being centrist to the right, which has had a direct impact in their perception as not really left wing by any of the left.
Now the center right is supporting concentration camps like "alligator alcatraz" so the overton window has shifted a lot in the last ten years.
today at 9:57 PM
WaPo definitely is not with Bezos at the helm and preventing them from endorsing Harris
today at 10:08 PM
To the left of outright fascist propaganda? I'll give you that.
today at 9:27 PM
Yes, all of them, minus the ones you can count on one hand that's missing a few fingers from a fireworks mishap.
today at 9:50 PM
This is probably my leftist bias, but ever consider that "leftists" are more interested in laws and decency whereas "rightists" are more interested in protecting their tribe/movement? But you think both sides play like "the right" (each only interested in exposing flaws of the other side) because you're seeing from your right-leaning perspective...
Democrat Al Franken got kicked out of Senate when it was found he inapproprately kissed a woman. I can name a long list of creeps in the GOP side who received protection from their side. Matt Gaetz, Roy Moore, Sexual Harassment Hegseth, Epstein-Friend in Chief. The GOP doesn't seem to have any principles about which sexual deviant they have, they just care about having the majority (in congress) or the power. Oh yeah, speaking of that, sexual assaulter Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh...
I'd trust left-leaning media to report wrongdoing whoever does it, whereas right-leaning media will gloss or bare-face lie about wrongdoing done by the right, and exaggerate about wrongdoings by the left...
today at 10:22 PM
It sure feels like there are people who care about formulating and holding principles (e.g. "adultery is bad") that ought to apply to everyone, and then there are people who claim to believe the same but really they're playing some kind of game in service of their ultimate virtue of loyalty/obedience, to some hierarchy they consider existentially important.
The first group will define good/bad acts and then judge people by what acts they commit, the second defines good/bad people and then judges acts by which person is doing them.
On a similar note, I highly recommend a playlist of long-form videos from ~2016, titled (in the sense of an expose) "The Alt-Right Playbook". In particular, the video "Always a Bigger Fish" [0] tries to make sense of some persistent "how can they possibly believe X but not Y" disagreements when it comes to democracy and egalitarianism.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs&list=PLJA_jUddXv...
today at 10:08 PM
It's never been a better time to start consuming less. Let's drive that demand way, way down.
today at 8:58 PM
First it was Time in 1990, then AOL then AT&T then Discovery and now this. That's 5 owners since 90 for Warner Brothers and none of those really worked out well. I don't know enough to know if this stands a better chance, but if I was going to bet, I'd bet Warner has a new owner before 2030.
today at 9:58 PM
This is the first time they are being bought by another company that makes content. Every other purchase was to add content creation to an existing company. So maybe there is chance.
But probably not with Ellison in charge. He'll probably just drive both companies into the ground.
today at 10:24 PM
So what does this mean? Superman vs. the Transformers?
I'm not sure I was interested in either company by themselves—less likely to be interested in the merged one.
today at 8:43 PM
Yes! What the consumer needs! Less competition! Hurrah!
Sorry for the sarcasm.
today at 8:57 PM
Less regulation means more innovation!
today at 9:09 PM
I will believe this internet comment. Thanks!
today at 9:11 PM
It is in your best interest. All this innovation is sure to mean better quality of life for the average person, and not at all a widening of the income gap.
today at 9:58 PM
Fun fact: Skydance was originally started as a vehicle to buy David Ellison an acting career [1], which spent $60M on Fly Boys. It grossed $17M. There's a very real "failed in Hollywood to alt-right" pipeline, actually.
The truth is that Hollywood was already dying and it had been systematically dismantled by short-term profit seeking. It dismantled the system that created hugely valuable properties like Friends, Cheers, ER, Seinfeld, etc where 22 episodes were created every year to a system where streamers could cut out having to pay for syndication by creating 8 episodes every 3-4 years.
You see a lot of stars of shows having podcasts now from shows that ended years or even decades ago (The Office, The Sopranos). In a healthy ecosystem, successful actors would be working actors.
You see productions chase tax rebates all across North America such as Georgia and Canada where once productions were typically based in LA and that had a ton of ecosystem benefits. As soon as the tax rebates go, so do the productions.
Gavin Newsom clearly isn't serious about becoming president because approving this merger is going to lead to even more layoffs and fewer productions. It's going to be deeply unpopular in California. For good reason.
So what's core to all this (IMHO) is... housing. Housing is an input cost to everything in that locations. LA used to be relatively cheap. It had a mix of housing types from single family homes to mansions to budget apartments so Ho actors, writers, etc could reasonably start out.
And then with declining demand as productions spread out and less pilots and shows were being made overall, the industry has become dominated by nepo babies.
I actually think that in future centuries when history is written about the turning point for American empire, it'll be the downfall of Hollywood. You cannot overstate the value the US had to export culture to the entire world with Hollywood.
[1]: https://brobible.com/culture/article/david-ellison-tried-to-...
today at 10:31 PM
>Fun fact: Skydance was originally started as a vehicle to buy David Ellison an acting career
Damn, I wish my daddy was a multi-billionaire and fund my nepo-baby hobbies with 8 figures.
>So what's core to all this (IMHO) is... housing.
The Backrooms and Obsession were made by youtubers with shoestring budgets.
The core is Hollywood hasn't made any new innovative and memorable IPs to convince people to spend money watching them in over a decade. People aren't gonna go to the cinema to watch a crappy new sequel/reboot of the Terminator or the Matrix when they can watch the better originals they already have at home.
today at 9:03 PM
Seems fine. There are more options for entertainment than ever. Often these mergers don't work out anyway.
today at 9:15 PM
how exactly do they "not work out"? its two behemoths merging for the sake of more money
today at 9:15 PM
[dead]
today at 8:53 PM
So when do they raise prices and start laying folks off?
today at 8:55 PM
They already acknowledged layoffs so likely within 30 days the cull list will be presented to senior leadership.
today at 9:01 PM
Its so weird how these layoffs somehow targeted every left wing news organization or show. We just cant be certain how that happened. oh well
today at 8:57 PM
Do we really need two Ellisons?
today at 9:08 PM
Do we even need one?
today at 8:57 PM
Their debt load is enormous due to how quickly debt costs have risen from M&A talks to issuing the debt.
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/skydance-credit-rating-down...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-01/paramount... | https://archive.today/SEtX9
today at 9:29 PM
I'm sure they'll figure that out.
today at 9:02 PM
You have to admit that David Ellison is extremely talented at being born to one of the wealthiest people in human history.
today at 9:27 PM
I've seen plenty of negative (and legitimate) sentiment around this merger but I'm cautiously optimistic that David Ellison, being half the age of anyone else with greenlight authority, will do something different/better.
today at 9:46 PM
As long as you are hoping he has a really, really, really positive view of Israel you're going to be happy!
today at 9:37 PM
His running of Skydance says otherwise. The most formulaic and bland film studio there is.
today at 9:58 PM
Skydance/Paramount has had plenty of success attracting young audiences via UFC & gaming partnerships, so I'm not sure that's a counterpoint. Re forumulaic/bland that's a personal taste thing and not worth arguing.
The key contributor to Hollywood's waning influence is the generation gap; it's a cultural institution that is supposed to be culturally salient. Take the Mandalorian movie as an example; the biggest studio using the biggest IP to spend $300M on a movie... which lost $100M. That movie was competing at the box office at the same time with Obsession, which was made for $750k by a young Youtuber has made over half a billion worldwide.
As of today Ellison has an extraordinary amount of greenlight authority in an industry whose decision-makers are overwhelmingly a generation older. He can shake things up if he wants to, and I hope he does.
today at 10:07 PM
Being formulaic and bland is an important aspect of expecting someone to “do something different” or “shake things up”. If the owner of a film studio has so much green light power but the studio has primarily produced film following a single formula, which the audiences have grown bored with (hence bland), then how can there be an expectation of that owner suddenly doing something different simply because they bought another studio?
today at 10:14 PM
[flagged]
today at 10:00 PM
> As of today Ellison has an extraordinary amount of greenlight authority in an industry whose decision-makers are overwhelmingly a generation older.
Who do you think he has more in common with? An average consumer his own age, or adult members of any age from the elite class that hes likely spent most of his time around?
today at 10:31 PM
False dichotomy. He obviously has materially different generational priors.
today at 10:13 PM
Who else is mourning the end of Star Trek?
today at 8:38 PM
so does this mean i get paramount plus for free with my hbo?
today at 8:42 PM
It means they are going to raise prices for both platforms because they can.
today at 8:48 PM
And then everything else will follow suit. Not that they haven't already been doing just that.
today at 9:45 PM
Plus ads. And biographies of Trump's kids.
today at 9:17 PM
Everybody just stop subscribing and do something else and pirate the shit out of their content.
today at 8:44 PM
Free? I don’t think a monopoly knows the meaning of that word
today at 9:02 PM
It means that Paramount Plus is saddled with debt, and HBO is saddled with debt. And that someone needs to pay off that debt.
today at 8:43 PM
If it makes them more money
today at 8:58 PM
So they’ve committed to for example releasing 30-32 movies a year for the next five years [1] but after that, no promises. Good thing mergers are famously temporary and we never need to worry about the next 10 years! Oh wait…
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/09/25/paramount-hollywood-prom...
today at 10:35 PM
Apparently the Force Majeure section of the deal is very weak, so if there's the slightest upset, they get out of that.
today at 9:49 PM
T-Mobile raised a lot of plan prices exactly 5 years after their merger with Sprint.
today at 8:56 PM
When do we get Bugs Bunny on the Enterprise ?
today at 9:26 PM
I'm not even mad. Let's do it. With Marvin the Martian.
They had a Lower Decks cartoon crossover already, so they can't even deny the possibility now.
today at 9:57 PM
So all TV is going to be republican propaganda now. Cool from some perspectives, horrible from the other 9 out of 10 situations.
today at 10:00 PM
In 1 or 2 years AI movies will be better in everything. From acting , to camera work to environments to story telling. Check out the quality of some of work already out there. There is a massive shift going on. China is going full speed mode. The film industry will be reshaped. Warner Bros should have used those billions to purchase products like seadance. Otherwise they are out
today at 10:10 PM
Some of you are outright hostile towards art and it's gross.
today at 9:38 PM
Let's hope that the fears of new owners being rightwing are correct so we can finally see The Censored Eleven in their full glory.
today at 8:51 PM
Another nail in Americas coffin.
today at 9:01 PM
It's yet another oligarchy centralization play. I assume more to come.
today at 8:48 PM
How much did the Gulf states pledge towards this?
today at 9:52 PM
today at 8:48 PM
From what I see on r/stablediffusion, Hollywood has maybe 2 years left, in the optimistic case.
today at 8:51 PM
Even if it gets good enough, you're forgetting about everything else that goes into movie making and distribution. Hollywood will keep their hold on media, they just might use AI to increase profits even higher.
today at 10:02 PM
But why Hollywood?
today at 8:54 PM
i am extremely wary of making any predictions about ai, given what's happened in the last year, but i would put good money on hollywood being around in 2 years. there's much more to the movie industry than slapping some video together.
r/stablediffusion seems to be a bit disconnected from reality, to put it nicely.
today at 9:11 PM
The vibe I get is like when the Meta VR app store product launched, and there was huge promises and optimism about all the amazing apps and experiences, but when you bought it and actually tried, it was a few juiced up flagship things and a bunch of shovelware.
today at 8:56 PM
ehhhh i dunno about that. the stuff i've seen from people, and watched looks much better than most crap hollywood puts out anymore
today at 8:57 PM
to reiterate: there is more to the movie industry than putting a video together
today at 10:12 PM
Please post a link to some of this "stuff". I'm begging you.