So, it’s the starting day of the writers strike. The writers claiming that the studios aren’t offering the writers enough of the revenue stream from streaming.
At which point Paramount announces results:
Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) (NASDAQ:PARAA) stock has slid 22% out of Thursday’s market open after it reported a significant headline loss in first-quarter earnings and slashed its dividend, awash in streaming spending.
The stock is headed for its biggest one-day loss in more than a year.
Revenues dipped 1% to $7.27B, missing consensus expectations — and with costs and expenses swelling to $8.49B, the company swung to an operating loss of $1.23B from a year-ago gain of $775M.
Oh yes applause.
So, your move, writers.
Well, if they stopped writing woke shite that nobody watches, the studios could make some money and pay the writers more.
What goes around, comes around.
I thought they just cut’n’paste from Marvel comics. I didn’t know there were writers in Hollywood. Oh well.
So, given 30 seconds of googling whilst my fourth gets poured;
Sod all free float via the 79% interest from National Amusements (why is the thing still listed?) – whoever they are.
A huge legacy holding via CBS brands and Paramount (the movie studio,bad was) plus MTV and VH-1, plus Nickelodeon, and a whole load of stuff I have never heard of.
No wonder the stock is volatile.
Thanks, Ducks.
When there isn’t much liquidity you’d expect more volatility. And the movie business is pretty volatile anyway.
But solid stocks are also increasingly volatile. Witness BP, down 8% on the day it announced results, which were pretty good and above analysts expectation.
Shell down 6% at one point. These are supposed to be big and boring. The widows and orphans are getting more excitement than they perhaps appreciate.
All the late night television shows have gone on hiatus because of the strike. Except for Gutfeld on Fox. His show doesn’t use union writers.
Why, you might ask? They tried to hire union writers, but the union writers were afraid they would be blackballed for working for Fox.
Paramount’s streaming revenue is up 39%. A quick search seems to indicate that unlike Netflix, not a lot of those shows are woke. (I don’t watch TV when there are so many interesting books, and now so many interesting substacks as well.) Paramount’s loss on streaming services was $511m. With direct-to-customer, the big hole in ad revenue can’t be blamed. As the salary package of one showrunner exceeds everything paid to the writers of that show a few times over, operating on the daisy-cutter principle that should be one of the first places to look for savings. Some years ago I had the chance to view a BA commercial being filmed. Even with 250 extras, they were outnumbered by the production crew. My experiences with ChatGPT disappointed. It is an extremely efficient, extremely dumb information retrieval tool. If the networks treat their viewers as extremely dumb and try to pass off extremely dumb content on them, who knows, nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great mass of plain people.
All the late night television shows have gone on hiatus because of the strike. Except for Gutfeld on Fox. His show doesn’t use union writers.
Why, you might ask? They tried to hire union writers, but the union writers were afraid they would be blackballed for working for Fox.
There could be some very interesting revealed preferences going on soon.
How many of those people who wouldn’t be seen dead watching Fox will now put it on out of boredom or curiosity and remain as viewers? Obviously they won’t be admitting it but the viewing figures in a couple of months could make for some interesting analysis.
Some years ago I had the chance to view a BA commercial being filmed. Even with 250 extras, they were outnumbered by the production crew.
I was on a TV quiz a few years ago, and was amazed how many people it took to make it (quiz shows are the cheapest form of TV). Multiple cameras each with its own cameraman (all male!) and strict union demarcation: “I need to move this camera, Sparky, can you plug it in for me?”. All stuff that could easily be done by one guy in a booth with a joystick to control a few remote cameras.