AMC Weighs In on the Licensing and Distribution Debate

Are we entering the era of the ‘great rebundling’? It is a question we have seen play out in several forms over the 2023 year, and it is clearly one weighing on the mind of AMC Networks’ CFO, Patrick O’Connell, too. Brandon Blake, our entertainment lawyer Los Angeles in the know from Blake & Wang P.A., looks deeper into this rising question.

Brandon Blake

Disney-Charter Deal: The Way of the Streaming Future?

2023 was certainly a year in which streaming bundling rose to prominence. Especially with the concurrent rise in ad-supported tiers across both streaming and linear paid TV ecosystems. It’s easy to see the appeal- better value for customers, and less incentive for them to ‘streamer hop’ in search of the programs they want to watch. Plus less content spending for the streamers themselves. Over the next 24 months, we will see several notable affiliate cycle renewals that will test the feasibility of that prediction.

AMC Looks to Licensing to Offset Linear Declines

AMC Networks, home of popular properties like the Anne Rice universe and Walking Dead franchise, has been struggling to gain ground with the overall decline in its linear network services. It seems they are eager to put those titles to work for them, shifting to a model where they take the first-window domestic rights and keep only some of their content exclusive to the AMC Network and AMC+, their often-overlooked streaming service. Other properties will be farmed out where they promise the most return for that investment.

As we see older linear and paid TV models enter their sunset period, licensing and smart distribution of IP titles appear to be the model of the future. This will, of course, also offset concerns around the impact streamer ‘exclusivity’ has had on the archiving and availability of older IPs for fans. As Suits proved aptly last year, there is still a major appetite for older series among the public, too. Is this the streaming model of the future shaping itself? For now, we can just wait and see what develops.

Walmart Seeks to Dethrone Roku with its Own Smart TV Range

While we have seen much jockeying for limited subscriber market share in the wider streaming space, Roku has continued to slowly build on its FAST TV presence, boosted mainly by its range of Smart TV and set-top box options. It seems there could finally be a direct challenger for its market niche, however, as a newly announced deal from Walmart positions them to sell their own in-house Smart TV range. Brandon Blake,  one of the best entertainment lawyers at Blake & Wang P.A., has the news for us.

Brandon Blake

Walmart Acquires Vizio

Last week it was announced that Walmart will take ownership of Smart-TV maker, Vizio, in a $2.3B deal that could have massive ramifications for the wider streaming advertising space. Vizio currently rivals Samsung for overall market share in North America. While the hardware business no doubt has an appeal of its own, what is most likely to have caught their attention is Vizio’s SmartCast Operating System, which currently boasts over 18M active accounts to tempt advertisers.

Not Walmart’s First Rodeo

This won’t be the first time we’ve seen Walmart attempt to acquire itself a slice of the streaming pie. They offloaded their Vudu streaming subsidiary (to NBCUniversal) in 2020, shortly before we entered the true streaming boom. However, with Amazon now making increasingly aggressive incursions into the ad-supported streaming space, especially with its somewhat unique e-commerce and streaming bundled angle, it seems Walmart is back on the attack.

Integrating Vizio into their existing retail business, given they are already one of the top Smart TV retailers on the market, should be easier than trying to build Vudu into a profitable service for them. Additionally, it is bound to eat into Roku’s hefty ⅓ market share in North America, too.

While it is never a wise idea to start counting streaming chickens before they hatch, this new development has the potential to be a major game-changer for the Smart TV space domestically. It will definitely be interesting to see how Walmart handles the rollout from here.

Berlin Film Festival Kicks Off

While the winding-down of the first uninterrupted Awards Season we’ve seen in a while may be occupying headlines, we’re also entering the full swing of the 2024 Festival Season. Perennial favorite, the Berlin International Film Festival, kicked off its 74th edition in an awkward climate, but the vibrancy is still managing to shine through.Take a closer look at Entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake, at Blake & Wang P.A., fills us in on the festival so far.

Brandon Blake

Protests Not Detracting from the Goal

In a wider global atmosphere as strongly politicized as it currently is, the media industry inevitably faces its share of turbulence. While we’ve seen some organized protests and personal political statements made from the red carpet, they haven’t managed to distract from the broader business of film and have been mostly well-handled from the guests’ perspective. This is, after all, also one of the first film festivals since the pandemic to take place in what can be called a truly ‘normal’ business atmosphere!

Hot Package Deals

The European Film Market, which takes place side-by-side with the Berlinale, is also off to a hot start. There are plenty of buzzy projects in the air! Interestingly, we have seen something of a return to package deals, mostly driven by A-list stars themselves and with a notably commercial focus. These are, of course, the very films that haven’t made it as far as the market in turbulent recent years, so it is always good to see them rear their heads again. To date, the market’s highest budget (reportedly in the $80M range) goes to a Will Smith-driven cop thriller, Sugar Bandits. It is backed by CAA Media Finance and AGC Studios. 

Some attendees have gone as far as to call the market atmosphere this year ‘turbocharged’, with plenty of other red-hot projects set to land in the coming week. We’ll be here to keep you up-to-date with all the latest Berlin news as it unfolds, so stay tuned!

Poor Things and American Fiction Quietly Drive Specialty Box Office Sales

Sometimes, it’s less about the big noisy splashes than the quiet, steady drips. For the current slate at the specialty box office, that’s becoming very apparent. Two Oscar hopefuls, Poor Things and American Fiction, are quietly leaving their mark, even if it isn’t with much fanfare to accompany it. Brandon Blake, our industry-insider entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., has some positive news to share.

Brandon Blake

Poor Things: An Eclectic Theatrical Run

In the blockbuster landscape, a $26M run isn’t much to brag about. For a specialty release with a zany premise and only 1,950 screens to power it, down from 2,400 for one week in 4 markets, it’s looking great. That’s the current state of the box office for Oscar hopeful Poor Things, which netted 11 Oscar nominations. It seems to be doing particularly well on a weekend where there was only one wide release- and that was lackluster. While that’s poor news for the wider box office kitty, it’s always nice to see a niche release get its moment in the sun. Additionally, these low, and even no-release weekends have had some fantastic knock-on effects for the specialty box office overall. That’s worth celebrating for the indie industry, too.

American Fiction: Picking Up Speed

American Fiction also netted itself 5 Oscar nominations, a credible spread for a film that hasn’t had much wide-release prominence to date. This weekend they added a few hundred new screens to the list, as part of a carefully orchestrated platform release it has done really well from. It was tracking at $12.7M before this last weekend, so should be in a strong place.

Both titles are competing with A24’s Zone of Interest (another Oscar hopeful with 5 nominations), The Promised Land, and Skin Deep. From a credible ‘mini-wide’ release from Poor Things to the more curated arthouse experience of American Fiction, things are off to a promising start for the indie industry. Let’s hope that momentum continues throughout the year.

Hulu Joins the Disney Mothership in Password-Sharing Crackdown

The password-sharing crackdown continues! With Netflix having done a complete 180 on the subject, and Disney+ also changing its subscriber agreement to disallow sharing, its little duckling Hulu is now following suit. Our Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake, shares the full details.

Brandon Blake

No More Account Sharing…

Now Disney has more or less taken full ownership of Hulu (a few price details notwithstanding), Hulu’s subscriber agreement has also been changed to disallow the sharing of passwords or accounts outside of a single household. Subscribers were notified of the change last week, and the change will become effective as of mid-March. It’s not the only part of Hulu’s terms and conditions to be reworked to better fit the Disney+ model, either. 

…Unless You Pay, Maybe?

Unlike Netflix, which has completely shut down the shared account model, however, Disney seems prepared to cater to that audience, too. At a price, no doubt! As of last August’s earnings call, we heard the Disney CEO mention that they are ‘exploring’ ways to allow account sharing from paid subscribers. This solution, whatever it may be, was promised to roll out by mid-2024. However, little has been said about it since.

Ever since the now-notorious Netflix crackdown and its changed fortunes as 22 million new subscribers have been onboarded, we’ve seen an increased focus on similar strategies from competitors. Especially now most platforms are running a cheaper, ad-subsidized tier they can be encouraged toward. 

So there’s little surprise that Disney would want to align Hulu with their wider brand strategy. What could be interesting, however, is if that promise to offer some means of account sharing comes to fruition later this year. This would be a reasonably unique offering in the streaming space, and could well cause some upset to those shiny new subscribers, too.

Comcast Beats Q4 Expectations

The last quarter of 2023 was a good one for Comcast, according to their Q4 earnings report. With an unexpected boost to revenue leading to a revised dividend offering for the quarter, we even saw some positive movement for their struggling streaming platform, Peacock, too. Brandon Blake, our local entertainment lawyer from Blake & Wang P.A., breaks the results down.

Brandon Blake

Subscriber Shift and Positive Results

In hard figures, Comcast saw a net income of almost $3.3B (a 7.8% gain on the prior year), with $31B (a 2.3% boost) in revenue. Free cash flow was pegged at $1.7B, up from $1.3B last year. This gave Comcast stock a pleasant 2.4% boost in pre-market trading. They also announced a $15B stock repurchase program which will be launched shortly. While the company had losses among its broadband and video customers, it added to its wireless customers.

Some Good News for Peacock

There were also significant subscriber gains for Peacock, the Comcast streaming platform. To the tune of 3 million new quarterly subscribers. This leaves the platform with 31M subs in total. A 50% gain on last year, if you are taking notes. Streaming revenue was up 57%, to finally close over $1B. However, the platform still declared an overall loss of $825M, at least down from last year's $978M. As with many streaming platforms last year, some of their investment into live sports streaming proved to be the record-breaking crowd pullers.

This is also the quarter where the $8.6B check from Disney for its last third stake in Hulu reflects. We could see the deal finally close for a little more, as the final valuation for the company is still underway.

All in all, some very positive news for the company indeed. With Comcast at the center of some rising M&A speculation this year, it will be interesting to see how these positive results impact the talk.

The Boy and the Heron Makes Milestone Magic

Sometimes smaller really is better. Fresh off a festive season run that was nothing short of spectacular for its size, Studio Ghibli’s GKids studio title, The Boy and the Heron, continues to knock through records for the anime and animation market in Europe, North America, and Asia alike. Blake & Wang P.A’s Brandon Blake, our local entertainment attorney and industry expert, shares a few of the records this charming title has toppled.

Brandon Blake

Golden Globes Win and More

The Boy and the Heron took home the Best Animated Feature Film title from the Golden Globes, the first win for a non-English animated movie. That’s far from the only milestone this ‘little film that could’ has smashed through, however.

With a comfortable £3.9M in the kitty, it is Hayao Miyazaki’s top grosser for the UK and Irish markets, knocking Spirited Away off of its £1.1m title position with ease. This also makes it the second-highest gross for an anime in that box office market, behind Pokemon: The First Movie’s dazzling £11.7M. As that film was released in 2000, it’s also the biggest anime release there in over 2 decades.

A Global Pattern

This pattern has been repeated- well, almost everywhere! In Italy, it has surpassed other Japanese anime releases 5-fold. In Germany, it takes the third-highest opening weekend for an anime ever. That’s without considering how well the title performed in festivals throughout 2023, too.

As international content with local appeal becomes the name of the game in the industry, anime has had a massive boost across the board. Returning to the UK, the anime box office more than doubled vs. previous years. As it had the same record in 2022 as well, we can’t blame that on the pandemic, either. Alongside Godzilla Minus One, we’ve seen a very positive reception for Japanese titles domestically this year, too. Predicting trends is always a bit of a gamble, but for producers in the animated space, this is one to watch!