Artists Equity | Lawrence van Rijn

That is the setting I had last night. I saw the ‘news’ from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwgled9jxwo) where we see that ‘Warner Bros $111bn sale to Paramount approved by US justice department’ and as we see “The pending sale has been filled with contention, from Paramount’s battle with Netflix over the company to scrutiny over industry consolidation and worries about politics. David Ellison, the leader of Paramount, is the son of Larry Ellison, a major donor to President Donald Trump. But it’s not a done deal yet, as states like California are reviewing the sale and could sue to block it. In a statement on its decision, the justice department said it had conducted a “rigorous” investigation of the proposed deal and found it was “not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers.”” You see, it doesn’t matter whether X donates to Y and is the child of Z, it does not matter that there is no ‘harm’ to the competition. As I see it, the wrong questions are asked here. As I see it, the issue is consolidation. When company A is taking over company B, the result is a larger A. This reflects on the products that they have been putting out. So, consider the new company, lets call it AA, now it has two products namely products 1 And 2, but that company can take the setting of these 2 titles and in some cases there is enough traction to let both go through, but what when that is not the case?

What happens if we have 4 cooking shows first in two companies, now all part of the same company, as such the lowest scoring two (optionally 3) can now be scrapped. That is what I expect to see, because Hollywood needs to consolidate and they need to stretch whatever ver they have and Paramount could ‘state’ that they now have 111,000,000,000 reasons to consolidate whatever they can. Scripts, writers, directors, figs crew, studio places and a whole lot more. All up for consolidation and I wonder if anyone had taken the settings of a place like Mountain (MNTN) who has been working numbers of all kind and optionally Warner Brothers and Paramount too. They live by the ‘rule’ “Performance TV, Perfected by MNTN”, so did anyone look into that batch of data? Because quality consolidation requires data, verifiable and validated data. Not the ‘sense’ of some blogger (me) or any critic that claims to know the data (media) but actually data, because when you play around with $111 billion, which is more than the GDP of Oman (and several other countries) you need the data to make sense of it all and consolidate what you can.

Like an accountant squeezing a ten dollar bill, until it gives 11 single dollar coins, preferable you want to hire the accountant that can get 1-2 additional dollars out of that bill, but that is up to Paramount (if they had not already done that), but to get all that requires data and it needs to be clear metrics, because there is a lot riding on that. And the story off MNTN is “MNTN is the Hardest Working Software in Television™, bringing unrivaled performance and simplicity to Connected TV advertising. Our self-serve technology makes running TV ads as easy as search and social and helps brands drive measurable conversions, revenue, site visits, and more. MNTN was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and Next Big Things in Tech and was recently featured on the cover of INC’s Best in Business Issue.” I only know of MNTN, so there are likely a few others in that field, but if you need unbiased, you get the player that is not connected to WB of Paramount for that matter and you do it behind walls. I can only imagine that this was done, but then, I am an incurable optimist. Still we are ‘given’ “Paramount acquired Warner Bros. Discovery to create a consolidated entertainment powerhouse capable of competing with tech-backed streaming giants like Apple, Amazon, and Netflix.” Which I personally believe is only part of the truth, not the whole truth. I could say that there are 110 billion reasons, but that is merely the directive. If Paramount want to survive it needs to distinguish from the other three and consolidation of what there is now is profoundly needed to rack up credit points to look after the waves that are now in the hands of Apple, Amazon and Netflix. They need to ‘attack’ the setting that Apple has with Severance, Pluribus, Slow Horses and Silo. The stage that Amazon has Fleabag, The mighty nein, The legend of Vox Machina and Bosch: Legacy and Netflix with their The chestnut man, Dark winds, Arcane: league of legends and Blood Of Zeus. That is not directly done, not until you free up cash and they just handed 111 billion to the outside of their treasure chest. So they can get creative, and they have to free up what is bound into lesser settings and that is the stage they are in now and it requires data to get that sorted. They still need massive creativity though, but they know what they need. I’ll hand them some ideas at the end of the story.

But that is where they are and when they are done ‘convincing’ the current audience and they have set their pawns in place the striking of the lesser series can begin and that will be a harsh setting because if they do not have the data in order, they will be brought to any altar to be slaughtered. I have sen this happen in the past and they better get their goats in order, knowing that David Ellison is involved, the chance of their data being top notch is a decently given one. He learned the basics fro his daddy (who optionally taught him how to sail too).

So whilst we are also given, some will recognise that the larger setting is not covered but we are given “By taking over Warner Bros, Paramount will become one of the most powerful forces in Hollywood, adding news network CNN, TV networks HBO, TBS, TNT, TCM, as well as studios DC Studios and New Line Cinema to its current stable of assets. Those include Paramount Pictures, CBS, Showtime and Nickelodeon. Paramount’s control of CBS News and its 60 Minutes programme has come under intense scrutiny for programming decisions that critics say favour of the Trump administration, including new leadership firing long-time staff and well-known journalists. Warner Bros put itself up for sale last year and came to an initial deal with Netflix to buy some of its assets, in a deal worth roughly $82bn (£61bn) including debt.” It seems that the BBC is focussing on the political stage, whilst that is the one that has the least impact, but I leave that up to you to judge.

So whilst we see that certain settings there were two ideas that floated in my mind. You see, instead of focussing on what some call Reality TV, why not make it a certainty. Matt Damon (you know the illegal immigrant on Mars) has something called Artists Equity (together with Ben Affleck) based on a business model where instead of taking massive upfront paychecks, the studio incentivizes cast and crew by offering them participation in the film’s profits. And setting this now TV, the setting becomes a visible setting to televise it all and get paid from that too. It also gives these people a decent first introduction to the global audience and it gives scriptwriters an additional foothold in the industry, all being it through Paramount, there is a decent setting to give all this a stage to screen and the stories that are evolving would enable Paramount to select the group that makes the most visibility and leave the other to fend with other TV houses. A sort of Reese Witherspoon approach to quality scripts.

The second Idea came to me in a weirder way (leaving that to the left for now). You see, I have been a fan of walkthrough videos (YouTube) and it started during the first COVID lockdown. But what happens when you get 2 hours a week (on the slower timeframes) to show these YouTubers and their videos visibility. Hand selected videos from these people on places like Monaco, Toronto, New York, Amsterdam, Stockholm. You name it, it will be there and it should be relatively easy to select a pick. For these YouTubers it is a way to gain traction via other means and it might create a wave of YouTubers. It still requires selecting so that you don’t get conspiracy theorists and wacko’s give their version of the truth. And I believe that walkthroughs are a great way to see places like Harrods, or Hollywood boulevard or even the Coolsingel in Rotterdam, Gamlastan in Stockholm or wherever you want to be and it might be the next stage of visibility for YouTubers to gain traction in different ways. All stages that could be evolving in the new Paramount.

So get ready to show your places and let Paramount do the dialing to a new audience. Have a great day today.

Yes, that is at times a simple setting, and sometimes it is more like watching for clarity in a bowl of pea soup. Something that simply isn’t ever happening. As such I tend to stay away from these things. Here I took a dabble for the reason that this most certainly will impact Hogwarts Legacy 2 and that is a troublesome setting. There was a second setting that AOL (via the LA Times) alerted me to. It is ‘Paramount outlines plans for Warner Bros. Cuts’ which we see (at https://www.aol.com/articles/paramount-outlines-plans-warner-bros-172016776.html) I have seen several cut articles pas by my eyes and as such we are given “Many in Hollywood fear Warner Bros. Discovery’s sale will trigger steep job losses — at a time when the industry already has been ravaged by dramatic downsizing and the flight of productions from Los Angeles.” I feel I disagree, but it is a disagreement done via a lack of American business sense and the ‘insight’ that there are too many captains and too many ships. It is like the length of a project has 5 stages, each stage with its own captain, quartermaster and boatswain, whilst these ships require to be moored 5 times which comes with additional costs. It is the perception I see and perhaps I am wrong, but that is the setting that is almost never seen in Canada, the UAE, Saudi Arabia. Not sure about Australia and the United Kingdom, as such the others get a much larger slice of their revenue, hence they can focus on quality, not quantity.

I’ll admit it is a non-professional view as I am not in that business, me writing a few scripts don’t make me in any way a professional view here. So as we are given and we see “David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is seeking to allay some of those concerns by detailing its plans to save $6 billion, including job cuts, should Paramount succeed in its bid to buy the larger Warner Bros. Discovery.” Will it work? I honestly don’t know, but this setting is weirding me out especially as we see “Paramount previously disclosed that it would target $6 billion in synergies. And it has stressed the proposed merger would make Hollywood stronger — not weaker. The firm, however, recently acknowledged that it would shave about 10% from program spending should it succeed in combining Paramount and Warner Bros.” We see ‘cutting’, ‘a merger’, ‘shaving’ and that makes Hollywood stronger? I don’t know, but I feel a string sense of doubt. Not merely because of that, but the UK, UAE and Saudi Arabia are fine tuning their own streaming services, their production facilities and distribution channels and I haven’t even considered India in all this. The time for people who want to succeed in Hollywood is over. Hollywood has to content for resources with the UK, Canada, UAE and Saudi Arabia and several of these channels have resources, as such the pond where Hollywood is fishing is a lot smaller and whilst people are ‘cut’ from the business they had, they will look towards the other ponds to see if they can make a living there. The shine of Hollywood stopped shining about 10 years ago and people aren’t catching on. And whilst we see “Paramount said that it would become Hollywood’s biggest spender — shelling out about $30 billion a year on programming.” This setting comes with a counter setting. You see if they don’t make at least $100,000,000,000 from that, the money spenders walk away and that is where the cogs start to hamper work. And at present Paramount had 2 movies in the top 10. Primate which made $23,890,679 and the SpongeBob movie which made $23,410,013. You think this is good? It is an actual question because these two movies made 0.47% of the required revenue. Still think this is a healthy setting? I know there is a lot more, TV series and all kinds of streaming solutions and they do bring in the cash but will it be enough? There is now a lot more than Hollywood and those players are also vying for the same revenue and the people have less to spend. For me it is simple I was only able to afford 4 cinema movies and for now my 2026 budget is limited to The Odyssey and the third dune move at present. And I am not in as bad a setting as many others are and I don’t think that Hollywood is realising this (or they are hiding that ignorance), but the Analysts have another view “Some analysts have wondered whether Paramount would sell one of its most valuable assets — the historic Melrose Avenue movie lot — to raise money to pay down debt that a Warner acquisition would bring.” I have no idea, the moment I hear Melrose, my mind changes settings to Melrose place and that sitcom with Heather Locklear (I was young once) and I have no idea about Hollywood, but the idea that this is an option and still they believe that Hollywood would not become stronger, merely more diverse and that does not translate to strength, it translates to revenue moving into more and smaller buckets. I remain driven into offering my scrips to Dubai except for the NSA heart attack script, I am now working on, which is meant for Canada and optionally Matt Damon’s Artists Equity. Still working on this, but I will finish it within the next few months (two months ahead of schedule, because a rewrite will become essential).

So whilst I am in no way savvy in the workings of Hollywood, I am well versed in Business Intelligence and the settings I am seeing do not add up (to me at least). It is not entirely without doubt that this might be a setting that these studios are setting themselves up for a non-administration time and therefor much more abled to be hiding certain matters. Because stronger and the diminishing parts we see don’t add up. It only makes sense if certain players aren’t making the numbers they are supposed to be making. But perhaps I am the eternal sarcasm driven entity in this.

And beyond what we see now with “Paramount also has filed proxy materials to ask Warner shareholders to reject the Netflix deal at an upcoming stockholder meeting. Earlier this month, Netflix amended its bid, converting its $27.75-a-share offer to all-cash to defuse some of Paramount’s arguments that it had a stronger bid. Should Paramount win Warner Bros., it would need to line up $94.65 billion in debt and equity.” The numbers might be adding up, but I have some doubts here, but it is Hollywood, who do I know about that place (answer: zilch)

Have a great day you all, its almost Thursday now, merely 300 seconds remaining.

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