MEMO TO: REED HASTINGS, CHAIRMAN AND CO-CEO, NETFLIX CC: TED SARANDOS, CO-CEO, NETFLIX FR: STEVE LEBLANG, MEDIA CONSULTANT RE: OPERATION BANDWIDTH Dear Reed, Like many of your loyal subscribers, I was disappointed to see that you fell short of your subscriber projections in 1Q22, and anticipate even greater underages as the year goes on. According … Read more
A few weeks ago I took a flyer and invested a couple of bucks in an online boot camp that promised the magic of “actually being on TV!” to content creators looking to expand their fame. The first couple of days were lively, fun and energizing. We got separated into smaller groups where we discussed … Read more
Roomie had a birthday last night, so he was nice enough to invite me and Roomie-Son to opening night for DOCTOR STRANGE 2: THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. You know I love to see movies worth seeing in theatres, and this one definitely qualified as such. As the latest installment in the complex world of the … Read more
The first time I met Radha Subramanyam was when she was a fledgling researcher with Comedy Central decades ago at a conference much like the one upcoming in Nashville this month. It was at one of those decadent client dinners that a particularly generous vendor was throwing, and I honestly can’t remember when or where … Read more
In Mays not that many Mays ago, those of us fortunate enough to work in entertainment cleared our calendars for the first 15-20 days of the month in similar ways to how accountants do that for the first half of April. Pilot season was to media, and especially to research teams, what tax season was … Read more
I was all set to devote some space today to the rapidly dwindling concept of a traditional broadcast network pilot season. All but eliminated in 2020 by the pandemic, it has returned to some extent this year, albeit in a much smaller and frequently anticlimactic form due to the evolving nature of synergistic corporate alliances … Read more
While I’ve yet to personally meet Evan Shapiro, he should know that he’s one of my favorite media executives of all time. He’s a risk-taker, passionate, can unravel complicated concepts and ideas didactically and has the track record of personal and professional success to back it up. And best still, he respects the role of … Read more
Less than one day after Elon Musk announced his intention to take a spare $44B and acquire Twitter, attentive observers started noticing some seismic shifts in the number of followers that certain accounts had, all of which were double-digit multiples of their average daily fluctuations. As SocialBlade widely reported, everybody’s favorite gun-toting congresswoman Marjorie Taylor … Read more
I had a couple of long drives over the last 48 hours to listen to, absorb and ponder the ramifications of the tentative sale of Twitter to Elon Musk. As anyone who pays any level of attention to news, social media, politics or gossip already knows, many are already predicting either the fulfilling of Musk’s … Read more
I’ve been around media for more than four decades professionally and more than six decades personally. If you haven’t already figured it out, I live to experience the connection of content and mind and the business and psychological dynamics that go into it. I consider myself more experienced and accomplished than many, but hardly unique … Read more