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clarker99 said:
I am as pessimistic as it gets on box office :) 'The Marvels' did $6.6m in previews so... yeah. This one seems to be well rec'd so hoping for a win on the balance sheet.
Click to expand...
Compared to War, it looks to be seeing a large decline in Asia, maybe a small decline in Europe, so it needs to do well here and so far so good. Would love to see it end over $150M domestically.
 
On the competitor front - Sony, which I also own, hit an 18 month low today. They had held up very well being an arms dealer, while the streamers fought the war and got beat up, but now they a sliding too. Mostly due to the bid for Paramount I would assume....just another example of industry issues.
 
https://deadline.com/2024/05/box-office-kingdom-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-1235911118/

‘Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes’ Orbits $52M-$55M Opening – Friday PM Box Office Update
By Anthony D'Alessandro - Editorial Director/Box Office Editor
May 10, 2024 - 2:51pm PDT

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Knock on wood, but this summer release looks to be meeting its tracking projections. Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes from 20th Century Studios, the first Apes release under the Disney empire, is looking at $21M-$22M today (which includes previews) for a what is looking like a $52M-$55M opening at 4,075 theaters. Tracking saw it around $50M.

Also, the opening is in the vicinity of the first and third chapter of the previous millennium trilogy: 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes ($19.5M Friday, $54.8M 3-day) and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes ($22.1M Friday, $56.2M 3-day). RT Audience sentiment is still at 82%.

The rest of the top five is as follows:
2.) Fall Guy (Uni) 4,008 theaters, Fri $3.6M, 3-day $14.5M, -48%, Total $50.5M/Wk 2
3.) Challengers (AMZ) 2,609 theaters, Fri $1.55M, 3-day $5M, -34%, Total $38.3M/Wk 3
4.) Tarot (Sony) 3,104 theaters, Fri $1M, 3-day $3.4M, -48%, Total $12M/Wk 2
5.) Godzilla x Kong (WB/Leg) 2,531 theaters, Fri $700K, 3-day $3M, -34%, Total $192.3M/Wk 7

UPDATED, AFTER EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes filed $6.6M in previews per Disney. As we told you, $1.6M of that comes from Wednesday night fan screenings, hence Thursday’s $5M ties with the preview cash of the franchise’s previous chapter, War for the Planet of the Apes.

That preview number is above Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ($4.7M) which saw a $45M 3-day opening, and it’s under the $7.2M posted by Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which turned in a $60.4M domestic start.
The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is playing in 4,075 theaters on all premium screens including 40 Imax, 950 PLFs, 300 Dbox/4D Motion screens and 90 Screen X locations.
Rest of the week is as follows:
  1. Fall Guy (Uni) 4,002 theaters, Thu $1.5M (-8% from Wed), Total $36M/Wk 1
  2. Challengers (AMZ MGM) 3,477 theaters, Thu $897K (-5%), Wk $11.5M, Total $33.3M/Wk 2
  3. Star Wars – Phantom Menace (Dis) 2,700 theaters, Thu $347K (-19%), Wk $10.5M/Total $484.9M lifetime/Wk 1 re-release
  4. Tarot (Sony) 3,104 theaters, Thu $466K (+7%), Wk $8.5M/Wk 1
  5. Godzilla x Kong (Leg/WB) 2,884 theatres, Thu $233K (-14%), Wk $5.7M, Total $189.3M/Wk 6

EXCLUSIVE: Sources tell us that 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is off to a good start with previews around $6.5M. That’s comprised of Thursday night money which began accruing at 3PM and around $1.6M from Wednesday fan shows that began at 7PM.

We’ll know tomorrow AM if it’s the best Thursday night ever for an Apes movie besting 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes which did $5M on its preview night before a $22.1M Friday and $56.2M opening. This Wes Ball directed PG-13 sequel takes place 300 years after the events of Matt Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes.

Already, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes‘ Thursday has bested that of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ which did $4.25M before minting a $27.6M Friday and massive 3-day of $72.6M, still a record domestic debut for the Apes‘ franchise.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ is 82% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics and 82% with RT audiences.

Tonight’s results are a bit of fresh air next to the $3.15M Wednesday and Thursday previews of Universal’s Fall Guy last weekend which fizzled with a $27.7M opening. While fans always populate Thursday night shows, hopefully Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes at a 2 hours and 25 minutes running time can hold it together throughout the weekend.
Hands down tonight, it’s the best preview cash for a Ball movie, beating all of his Maze Runner titles.
 
https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...ional-amusements-sony-ellison-skydance-apollo

Behind Shari Redstone's failed comeback story for Paramount - Los Angeles Times
5/11/2024
by Meg James

It was supposed to be a blockbuster Hollywood comeback: Shari Redstone, who had long struggled to prove herself, was determined to orchestrate a dramatic turnaround of her family’s lagging entertainment company, Paramount Global.

“We are on the ascent ... reaching for new heights,” Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder and non-executive chairperson, confidently told investors in February 2022 during a virtual event from a soundstage in Queens, N.Y.

Rather than leading Paramount to reclaim its place among industry titans, Redstone’s tenure atop the company has been marred by miscalculations and setbacks. She’s trying to sell the company known for its fabled film studio, the venerable CBS broadcast network, TV stations and cable channels.

But Redstone’s willingness to hand Paramount to tech scion David Ellison in a complicated two-phase transaction has infuriated investors, caused months of tensions in the boardroom and contributed to the ouster of Chief Executive Bob Bakish, according to knowledgeable people who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Now the sale could be derailed.

“In 41 years of being in business, I’ve never seen a scenario quite like this,” said John W. Rogers Jr., founder and chairman of Ariel Investments, one of Paramount’s largest shareholders, in an interview.

How did Redstone and Paramount get into such a jam?

“It’s just been one terrible decision after another,” said corporate governance expert Nell Minow.

Years of under-investment, mismanagement, a titanic shift in audience behavior, a shotgun marriage of Viacom and CBS five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic and a costly push into streaming have diminished the standing of the once-formidable Hollywood player, according to interviews with media industry executives, company insiders and financial experts.

Paramount’s stock has plunged 60% since Redstone’s upbeat assessment in early 2022. (Shares closed at $13.05 on Friday, virtually unchanged.) Shareholders have bolted, including legendary investor Warren Buffett, who this month acknowledged that buying Paramount stock (63 million shares) was a mistake, saying: “We lost quite a bit of money.”

Four Paramount board members are exiting next month. And with Bakish out, three top creative executives are running Paramount in an awkward “Office of the CEO” power-sharing arrangement that is likely a stop-gap until the company is sold.

Adding to the uncertainty: the 30-day exclusive negotiating period with Ellison’s Skydance Media and its partners, Redbird Capital Partners and KKR, expired earlier this month without a deal, despite a last-minute sweetener.

Now, Paramount’s independent board members are considering a $26-billion offer — nearly half of that in cash — from rival suitors Apollo Global Management and Sony Pictures Entertainment, which would take the majority stake of the proposed venture.

The Sony-Apollo bid also is controversial. It would face regulatory hurdles, including foreign ownership rules that likely prevent Sony from owning CBS and its stations, that could drag out the process for months. Should the bid succeed, analysts anticipate the company would then be carved up.

The film studio probably would be absorbed by Sony’s Culver City operations, rolling the ending credits for the Melrose Avenue fortress famous for such iconic films as “The Godfather,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Top Gun.” Massive layoffs surely would follow. And cable TV channels such as Nickelodeon and MTV could be jettisoned.

That deal also could crumble; Sony and Apollo want to study Paramount’s financial picture before going forward.

Redstone, who declined to comment for this story, is said to be open to other combinations that would drive shareholder value.

But she has wanted Paramount to remain a stand-alone enterprise and is fighting to preserve the legacy of her family and her late father, Sumner Redstone.

It might be too late. Despite enormous sway through her family’s ownership of 77% of Paramount’s voting shares, Redstone’s hand has been weakened by events, most of which were beyond her control.

The road to the sale was paved by years of Redstone family dysfunction and an increasingly challenging landscape for traditional media companies.

Paramount, like Viacom before it, has long relied on its hugely profitable cable channels filled with inexpensive fare. Think “The Osbournes,” “Jersey Shore,” and “Tosh.0.” A decade ago, its cable channels operated with profit margins around 40%, but the shift to streaming has decimated that business, according to a knowledgeable executive not authorized to comment.

Most young adults no longer watch MTV or Comedy Central. They click on Netflix, which has transformed the business, helped in part by Viacom. A decade ago, Viacom executives eagerly licensed their shows, including Nickelodeon cartoons, which helped the streamer get established with consumers — and eventually devour their own business.

As the industry shifted, Viacom’s former chief prioritized stock buybacks instead of investing in content, longtime executives said.

Complicating matters, Sumner Redstone’s health was in a precipitous decline, and he was tussling with his daughter.

Shari Redstone was convinced that Viacom was being mismanaged. But her attempts to gain a bigger role in her father’s life or at Viacom were repeatedly rebuffed by the mercurial mogul, his live-in girlfriends and even Viacom’s top brass.

In 2014, Sumner Redstone offered his daughter $1 billion for her then-20% stake in the family’s Massachusetts-based holding company, National Amusements Inc., which holds the voting stock in the public entertainment company. But the deal hinged on her relinquishing her right to succeed him as chairman of Viacom and CBS Corp., which were then separate companies. She refused.

“Your grandfather said that I’ll be chair over his dead body,” Shari Redstone fumed in a July 2015 email to her youngest son.

The episode echoed a skirmish in 2007, when the elder Redstone faxed a letter to Forbes magazine to publicly vent his frustrations with his daughter and her ambitions: “While my daughter talks of good governance, she apparently ignores the cardinal rule of good governance that the boards of the two public companies, Viacom and CBS, should select my successor.”

He ended the letter with a humiliating barb, saying that while he gave stock to his daughter and son, “It is I, with little or no contribution on their part, who built these great media companies with the help of the boards.”


Despite the barbs, Shari Redstone worked in lockstep with her father during the 2008 financial crisis, when his investments soured, nearly imperiling National Amusements. And she came to his rescue in late 2015 after he expelled his girlfriends from his Beverly Park mansion.

Sumner Redstone’s life was in tatters; then 93, he was losing mental capacity. In court documents in 2016, he acknowledged that he had lavished homes and gifts on two female companions worth more than $150 million.

The situation was so dire that the billionaire had to borrow $100 million from National Amusements to cover tax obligations for the gifts.

He died in August 2020. In recent court filings, Shari Redstone and another co-executor of the tycoon’s trust said they were prepared to settle his personal estate, which consisted of $2.9 million in cash, his coin collection, cemetery plots near Boston and 305 shares of Hanover Insurance Group common stock.

The family’s wealth has long been tied to its Paramount shares. And huge federal tax obligations are looming.

Ownership of the Paramount shares was transferred to Shari Redstone upon her father’s death, creating tax liabilities that exceed $200 million, knowledgeable people have said. Modest payments must be made each year until the bill reportedly comes due in 2034, according to one person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Another incentive to sell Paramount: The family’s debt-laden National Amusements has been strapped for cash. National Amusements runs a regional chain in the Northeast of movie multiplexes, an expansion of the business started by Sumner Redstone’s father, Mickey, in the 1930s. Like other theater owners, it has been walloped by COVID-19 pandemic closures and a slow-to-recover studio release schedule.

Last year’s strikes by Hollywood writers and actors exacerbated delays in movie releases.

Paramount, the smallest of the major media companies, posted a $417-million loss in the first quarter and has $14 billion in debt. It also faces an upcoming deadline to renegotiate a pivotal TV channels distribution deal with Charter Communications.

Last May, Paramount slashed dividend payments to shareholders in an effort to improve cash flow and attract new investors, but the move backfired, causing the stock to crater.

The dividend cut devastated National Amusements. Under pressure to meet its debt obligations, NAI last May accepted a $125-million equity investment from Chicago banker Byron Trott of BDT Capital Partners, an affiliate of his merchant bank, BDT & MSD Partners, which works with high-net-worth families. Trott has been advising Redstone on the sale.

Some shareholders privately grumble that Redstone is selling Paramount at a low because of NAI’s financial woes. However, others argue that it’s time to exit because the business is under such strain.

Beyond industrywide challenges, Paramount’s troubles have been deepened by leadership problems, with Bakish drawing particular scrutiny, insiders say.

Bakish was Shari Redstone’s choice to run Viacom in 2016, after a calamitous period marked by lawsuits and a purge of top managers and board members aligned with her father.

The 20-year Viacom veteran had been running its international TV business, selling its programming, including “SpongeBob SquarePants,” overseas. Redstone touted Bakish’s people skills and his business acumen.

Then, Redstone’s goal was to quickly merge Viacom with CBS, but she faced resistance from CBS’ then-chief Leslie Moonves, who felt the merger would be a disaster that saddled the stronger CBS with Viacom’s weaker assets. It wasn’t until a year after Moonves departed amid resurfaced allegations of sexual misconduct that Redstone achieved her goal of uniting the two halves of her father’s empire.

Three months later, the pandemic hit.

Viewers’ migration to streaming accelerated, prompting Paramount and other media companies to double down on building their own streaming platforms. Former Paramount executives questioned the logic, noting that Viacom’s TV arsenal was largely made up of inexpensive reality fare, kids shows and topical programming such as Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” — not the type of prestige dramas that cost $15 million an episode.

Paramount had a surprise hit in Taylor Sheridan’s western drama “Yellowstone” for cable’s Paramount Network, so it spent wildly to churn out pricy prequels in the Sheridan universe. And “Yellowstone” streams on NBCUniversal’s Peacock.

Paramount has lost more than $3 billion on its push into streaming since early 2022, filings show.

Last year, Comcast Corp. executives had conversations with Bakish about joining forces in streaming, three people close to the situation said. They discussed uniting their two streaming services, Peacock and Paramount+, to better compete against Disney+ and Netflix. But Comcast wanted controlling interest and the talks stalled.

Shari Redstone was focused on Ellison, excited by his vision and the prospect of a younger mogul taking over.

Redstone, 70, also has told friends and colleagues she wants to devote more time to personal causes, including fighting antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants on Israel.

But Paramount’s shareholders were furious.

“The Ellison deal feels like this ham-fisted merger,” said shareholder Tim Johnston of Pasadena. “Ellison would take control of National Amusements from Shari, and she gets paid this whopping premium and gets to walk off into the sunset.”

The rub for many shareholders, including Johnston, was the deal’s second phase. The plan was for Paramount to issue new shares to absorb Ellison’s Skydance, a small company valued at $5 billion, into Paramount. That would have diluted the stakes of other investors.

“It felt like they were in such a rush to do the deal with Skydance that it was like a panic situation,” said Rogers, the Ariel Investments chairman. “And it came at a time when the business was finally starting to recover.”

Investors, including Rogers, have been disappointed with Paramount’s management over the past year. Standard & Poor’s downgraded Paramount’s credit to “junk” status in March. Opportunities to sell key assets, including the BET cable channel and the premium Showtime cable network came and went without a deal, weakening Bakish’s position.

His willingness to entertain offers other than Skydance’s was the final straw, knowledgeable people said.

“But the independent committee of trustees is doing what’s right for all shareholders and living up to their fiduciary responsibility in a conscientious way,” Rogers said. “I’m optimistic. I think logic and common sense will prevail.”

The Sony-Apollo deal could gain momentum before the company’s annual shareholders meeting in early June. Redstone also could wind down her family’s holdings by selling a big stake, or all of National Amusements.

“What Shari should do is take her money and go start something new herself. She should not keep trying to re-create the deal she thought she should have gotten from her father,” Minow, the governance expert, said. “She’s still trying to prove herself to her dad.”
 
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/...d-business-it-hasnt-9fa2d855?mod=hp_lead_pos5

Streaming Was Supposed to Rescue the Ailing TV Ad Business. It Hasn’t.
Brands turn to retailers, Google, Meta and TikTok for additional reach

By Suzanne Vranica
May 12, 2024 - 5:30 am EDT

When Mondelez sought to promote a limited edition of its Oreo cookie earlier this year, it did something that would have been unthinkable not that long ago: It didn’t spend a dime advertising on TV.

The snack company had a simple reason for that decision. The people it was looking to reach—Gen Z members, multicultural audiences and households with children—aren’t watching enough television.

“You have no single shows pulling together a big enough audience like ‘Friends’ or ‘Seinfeld’ used to do,” Jonathan Halvorson, Mondelez’s global senior vice president of consumer experience, said of the current state of TV. And streamers such as Netflix aren’t a perfect alternative: Their nascent advertising platforms charge too much and don’t yet reach enough people, he said.

The maker of Ritz crackers and Sour Patch Kids candy is spending about 15% of its U.S. ad budget on TV this year, down from 42% three years ago. Halvorson said an additional 9% is going to streaming, meaning that more than three-quarters of its ad spending will go elsewhere.

To promote its new Oreo Space Dunk, Mondelez turned to social-media sites such as Instagram and TikTok, Halvorson said. It also relied heavily on ads that appear where people already are in a shopping mood: the websites of large retailers, including Amazon and Walmart.

The move marks an important inflection point. TV commercials have long stood as the cornerstone of modern advertising. This dominance was owed, in part, to TV’s capacity to reach vast and diverse audiences through ads that leverage sound, sight and motion to evoke emotional responses.

These vast audiences aren’t tuning in anymore.

“There is no longer that single lever you can pull,” said Vinny Rinaldi, Hershey’s U.S. head of media and analytics, referring to the role that television once played in advertising. The chocolate giant said the share of advertising dollars it spends on TV fell to about 30% from roughly 80% in five years.

Brands have been preparing for the inevitable decline of television for years, but many had held out hope that the rise of ad-supported streaming TV would plug the gap. So far, that isn’t happening.

“A lot of people think streaming might be a salvation,” said ad analyst Brian Wieser. “But no, all of TV is in secular decline.” Excluding political advertising, marketers are expected to spend over $60 billion, combined on traditional and digital television in the U.S. this year, down from more than $64 billion five years earlier, according to Madison and Wall, Wieser’s firm.

Despite the sharp drop in TV ad spending, Mondelez and Hershey remain far-bigger believers in TV advertising than the industry as a whole. The share of their ad budgets that the candy makers will spend on TV and streaming this year trumps the 17% that all marketers are expected to spend in the U.S. this year, according to GroupM data.

Today, companies “have to build reach across multiple platforms,” said Rinaldi, who cited YouTube and Meta—the parent of Facebook and Instagram—as the next best ways to reach large audiences.

The scale of television’s reach remains a major selling point for entertainment titans as they present their programming plans for the coming TV season to advertisers—a process known as the “upfronts,” which begins in earnest on Monday in New York City.

Network owners will host star-studded presentations that tout their new TV shows and streaming offerings, while Billie Eilish is expected to star in YouTube’s pitch to brands. Netflix will let advertisers participate in an interactive experience at New York’s Chelsea Piers, and upfront newcomer Amazon.com will entertain brands at Pier 36.

One of the few things that still brings large numbers of viewers in front of their TV is live sports, which accounted for 96 of the 100 most-watched broadcasts last year, according to Nielsen.

That, in turn, has made advertising during live sporting events more expensive. And a larger amount of sports content is being watched on streaming platforms instead of TV every year, as tech giants such as Amazon and Apple nab exclusive rights to more games. Traditional TV conglomerates are preparing to launch a joint streaming platform dedicated nearly entirely to sports.

“It is now clear that outside of sports advertising, there should no longer be expectations of a recovery for linear TV advertising,” analyst Michael Nathanson wrote in a recent note to investors.

Brewer Molson Coors said it went from spending about half of its TV advertising money on sports programming five years ago to roughly 80% this year, even if these ads are more expensive.

“Sports seems to be holding its own, and audience ratings in some cases are going up,” said Brad Feinberg, Molson’s North America vice president of media and consumer engagement.

The brewer said it spent about 40% of its U.S. ad budget on traditional TV in 2023, compared with 50% five years ago and about 85% in 2013. Although streaming services such as Paramount+, Peacock, Netflix and Hulu have picked up some of these TV-ad dollars, Molson Coors shifted a larger portion of that money to digital channels such as Instagram and Snap, Feinberg said.

The streaming landscape remains “too fragmented,” Feinberg said. Another problem: Streaming audiences won’t tolerate as many ads as they do on traditional television.

Seemingly every major streaming service launched an ads-supported tier over the past year and a half, vastly expanding the inventory of commercials that can run on these platforms. But many of them have promised to limit the commercial interruptions on their services. Wieser estimated that commercials take up about four minutes per hour on some premium streaming platforms, compared with about 14 minutes for some TV networks.

“No matter how much streaming grows, it can never make up for the lost linear ad inventory so long as ad loads remain light and consumers exhibit preferences for ad-free options,” Wieser said.

In the U.S., only 7.5 million Netflix subscribers—or 10% of its U.S. customer base—paid for the ad-supported version of the platform in the first quarter, according to a joint analysis by Antenna and Wieser. The streaming platform with the biggest advertising reach currently is Amazon’s Prime Video, which recently defaulted its entire user base to the ad-supported version.

Many brands have also been turned off by the high ad prices that many of the premium streaming services charge. Streaming ads often are three times as expensive and up to twice as expensive as ads running during entertainment programming on cable and broadcast TV, respectively, according to ad buyers and advertisers. The streaming prices are declining amid growing competition between ad-supported services, they said.

Complicating matters further for marketers: Some streaming platforms measure viewership and ad performance differently. What’s more, advertisers often can’t find out where their commercials ran, a risky proposition for brands that typically want to stay away from content they deem unsuitable.

Digital players including YouTube, Meta and TikTok and retail juggernauts such as Amazon and Walmart have emerged as the main beneficiaries of streamers’ failure to grab all the ad dollars that left traditional TV.

Fast-food giant Taco Bell has been shifting more of its TV-ad dollars toward social-media advertising, predominantly TikTok, because users on the platform engage with ads and content online.

The one-way communication of TV, where brands talk to consumers about something, doesn’t work as well anymore, said Taco Bell Chief Marketing Officer Taylor Montgomery.

Taco Bell wants its ads to generate a two-way dialogue, with consumers going to social media to post and comment on videos about products they like or join in on the discussion.

Mondelez’s Halvorson said the company will spend roughly 20% of its U.S. ad budget this year on “retail media,” a category that includes the ad platforms of retailers. Their growing popularity is fueled by the troves of data that retailers have about their customers’ shopping habits and their ability to easily measure when an ad has led to a sale.

Ad spending in the U.S. retail media sector is expected to overtake traditional TV ad spending next year, according to GroupM.

Microsoft significantly pulled back from traditional TV advertising last year, partly because the tech giant was seeking to save money to fund its expansion into generative artificial intelligence and decided to lean more heavily on digital ads that offer better ad measurement, according to people familiar with the matter. Microsoft declined to comment.

Halvorson said the decline in TV ad spending would happen even faster if longtime advertisers weren’t getting significant discounts for their TV ads, the result of grandfathered agreements reached decades ago that give them an incentive to keep buying TV commercials.

If Mondelez was forced to buy ad time in the U.S. at current pricing levels, Halvorson said: “We’d be out.”

Write to Suzanne Vranica at Suzanne.Vranica@wsj.com
 
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...lanet-the-apes-box-office-opening-1235896572/

Box Office: ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ Climbs Higher to $58.5M U.S. Opening, $131.2M Globally

The second event pic of summer 2024 came in ahead of expectations — along with scoring the second-best domestic debut of the series — as 'The Fall Guy' continued to struggle.

by Pamela McClintock
May 13, 2024 - 7:35am PDT

Wes Ball‘s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes brought some much-needed heat to the early summer box office with a domestic debut of $58.5 million and $72.7 million overseas for a global start of $131.2 million. That’s ahead of Sunday’s estimates of $56.5 million in North America to make the movie the third-best opening of the year to date domestically, as well as the second-best launch of the series.

The 20th Century and Disney event pic came in ahead of expectations domestically after Universal’s The Fall Guy — the first film of summer 2024 at the box office — left nerves frayed across Hollywood after opening to a disappointing $27.7 million over the May 3-5 frame. Tracking had suggested the action comedy, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, would at least start off in the $32 million to $35 million range, which was already a subdued number.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes‘ performance is being fueled by a strong turnout by both younger and older males, as well as an ethnically diverse audience. One surprise: It received a B CinemaScore from audiences despite plenty of glowing reviews by critics. Studio insiders aren’t overly concerned about the CinemaScore, noting that 85 percent of moviegoers gave it an A or a B. This suggests that a vocal minority dragged down the overall score by giving it a C or lower. And exit polling by PostTrak shows both general audiences and kids and parents giving the fourquel four out of five stars. Good word-of-mouth helps to explain why Sunday traffic was so much stronger than expected.

The pic is the fourth title in the rebooted series that began with the James Franco and Andy Serkis starrer Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011 and cost a net $160 million to make before marketing, which is notably less than the cost of the last two titles.

Overseas, where the series has always been a big draw, Kingdom took in a solid $72.7 million overall. It did big business across Latin America but struggled in some European countries (sunny skies kept moviegoers in the U.K. outside). And China was a mixed blessing. While coming in No. 1 with $11.4 million, the movie’s potential was impacted by competition from a trio of local titles. Excluding China, Ball’s movie boasts the second-highest opening of the series behind the 2017 threequel.

Franchise fatigue is always a concern, but Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was able to come in ahead of the $56.3 million domestic opening of the last installment, 2017’s War of the Planet of the Apes, no small feat, not adjusted for inflation. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, released in 2014, opened to a franchise-record $72.6 million. In 2014, Rise debuted to $54.3 million domestically.

Kingdom did huge business in Imax and other premium formats, which collectively accounted for 41 percent of the opening gross.

Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand and William H. Macy lead the latest installment. Set 300 years after the events in 2017’s War of the Planet of the Apes, Ball’s movie follows a group of young apes who question the authoritarian rule of the ape who has taken the place of Caesar. Along their journey, the apes bond with a young human.

The Fall Guy placed second domestically with an estimated $13.7 after tumbling 51 percent for a 10-day total of $49.7 million. Universal had hoped for a decline of 50 percent or less (as with Apes, those numbers could shift when Monday actuals are released).

More women did turn out to see Fall Guy in its sophomore outing and made up 53 percent of Friday’s audience in a win for Universal’s post-release marketing push focusing on the film’s rom-com action storyline. However, hopes are ebbing that the movie will grow its audience to the needed levels.

Overseas, The Fall Guy earned $9.4 million from 80 markets for a tepid foreign tally of $54 million and $103.7 million globally.

Zendaya-starrer Challengers, from Amazon MGM Studios, is holding at No. 3 in its third weekend. It’s dipped a narrow 38 percent to an estimated $4.7 million for a domestic total of $38.4 million through Sunday. It also continues to serve up solid numbers at the foreign box office, where it grossed $4.2 million from 63 markets for a cume of $30.6 million and $68.7 million globally. Warner Bros. International is handling the movie offshore per its ongoing deal with MGM.

Screen Gems and Sony’s Tarot placed No. 4 with an estimated second-weekend gross of $3.4 million for a tepid 10-day domestic tally of $12 million after falling 47 percent. Its global total stands at $20.2 million against a net reported budget of $8 million before marketing after earning another $3 million overseas for a foreign total of $8.2 million.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire rounded out the top five all the way in its seventh frame with $2.6 million, enough to push it past the $190 million mark domestically for Legendary and Warner Bros. Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 also cleared the $190 mark as both hope to reach the $200 million milestone.

The weekend’s other new nationwide offering, Not Another Church Movie, wasn’t even able to crack the top 10. The movie, from Briarcliff, opened to a mere $335,000 from 1,108 theaters. That’s among the worst starts ever for a movie going out in more than 1,000 cinemas.

The summer box office brings the release of John Krasinski’s IF next weekend. The Paramount family film, starring Ryan Reynolds, opened early in France and Belgium this weekend, grossing a promising $3.6 million.

Alcon and Sony’s Memorial Day event pic The Garfield Movie is also opening early offshore, albeit on a much larger scale. It grossed $11.8 million from 22 markets this weekend for an early foreign total of $36 million. Alcon produced and funded the family film.
 
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sony-pictures-nearly-doubles-income-072205094.html

Sony Pictures Nearly Doubles Income in Q4 to $196 Million Driven by More Theatrical Releases
by Alexei Barrionuevo
Tue, May 14, 2024, 2:22 AM CDT

Sony Pictures Entertainment, a division of Sony Group, reported a near doubling of profit in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2023, on sales that increased 13.5% to $2.6 billion in dollar terms.

Here is a snapshot:
Operating Income: $196 million in Q4, up 98% from $99 million in the prior-year period.
Sales: $2.6 billion in Q4, up 13.5% from $2.29 billion

FY 2023 Sales: $9.46 billion, about flat from $9.54 billion in FY 2022 due in part to a weakening yen

The company said that Sony Pictures’ fiscal year 2023 sales, on a Japanese yen basis, grew 9% due to more theatrical releases and the impact of foreign exchange rates. The result was offset in part by a decline in the number of TV program deliveries.

Operating income for 2023, on a yen basis, was essentially flat compared to fiscal year 2022, Sony said, due to an increase in marketing costs from releasing more films, which was offset somewhat by the increase in the number of sales.

The Hollywood strikes had a negative impact on profitability totaling an estimated 18 billion yen ($115 million) caused by changes in film release schedules and delays in the delivery of TV programs. “We believe the negative impact of the strikes on profitability will peak in FY2024.”

For the full fiscal year 2024 the company said it had incorporated 34 billion yen ($217 million) of strike impact into its forecast.

Sony noted plans to release tentpole films in 2024 including the “Bad Boys” sequel, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “Kraven the Hunter.”
Sony and Apollo Global Management have made a joint bid of $26 billion to acquire Paramount Global. The Paramount board of directors ended exclusive talks with Skydance Media for the production company founded by CEO David Ellison to acquire Paramount.

The board’s special committee, charged with exploring strategic alternatives for Paramount, has since opened talks with Sony and Apollo about their offer.

In after-hours trading shares of Sony Group were essentially flat.

The post Sony Pictures Nearly Doubles Income in Q4 to $196 Million Driven by More Theatrical Releases appeared first on TheWrap.
 
RivShore said:
You would think data like this might move the stock...
Across all their properties, Disney has a decent lead on all others, on TV Usage:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/05/14/nielsen-ceo-karthik-rao-on-viewing-trends.html

View attachment 859366
Click to expand...
The answer likely has to do with profitability. The bar has been set by Netflix. They reported 25% margins last quarter and a 4 quarter avg margin of 18%. No one else is in the same league right now.

Disney has good subscriber and viewing numbers but ARPU lags behind Netflix, by a lot. Disney have chosen to not rip-off the band-aid to extract proper value out of their catalog. Seems they have chosen incremental price increases every year for the foreseeable future instead of a 1-time large increase. Keeping churn low is the priority (or so it seems).
 
https://deadline.com/2024/05/greys-...-final-budget-cut-scheduling-move-1235915536/

ABC Boss On ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Future Amid Budget Trim & Scheduling Move
By Nellie Andreeva - Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV @DeadlineNellie May 14, 2024 - 9:52am PDT

Grey’s Anatomy already has cemented its place in the TV history books. Now it’s just about enhancing its legacy. But like every long-running series on broadcast, the hit medical drama also has to abide by the budget constraints imposed by parent media companies, which have been reigning in costs. As Deadline reported exclusively yesterday, Grey’s Anatomy has been asked to trim its budget for its upcoming 21st season, which will impact the cast.

Additionally, ABC this morning unveiled its fall schedule where Grey’s is shifting from 9 PM to 10 PM on Thursdays. Deadline asked Disney TV Group President Craig Erwich whether the moves signal a potential end game for the show.

“We just celebrated the 20th season of Grey’s, which makes it the longest running medical drama on television, and I think the show is creatively firing on all cylinders and continues to be extraordinarily popular — if not the most popular show in terms of past seasons,” he said. “We see new generations coming into the show on a monthly basis, so the show’s in great shape.”

On Grey‘s new time slot, Erwich noted that of the drama’s “very loyal audience,” “well over 80% watches the show on multiple platforms, not specifically live, so we think the move is going to be minimal, as well as it will provide an incredible lead into our local news at 11.”

But could the Thursday shift, along with the budget cut, indicate that Grey’s may be on its last legs, with Season 21 possibly being its final chapter?

“Not at all,” Erwich said, calling the scheduling move “a great opportunity for ABC to launch a new show, as well as to keep Grey’s on a night where it’s been extraordinarily successful for many years.”

As Deadline reported yesterday, Jake Borelli will be departing Grey’s Anatomy after seven years next season. Additionally, veteran cast members are expected to see a reduction of their episodic guarantees, which means that they may be in fewer Season 21 episodes.
 
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/streaming-platforms-broadcast-tricks-ads-more-episodes-1236001241/

May 14, 2024 - 8:00am PDT

The Re-Reinvention of Television: Streamers Dust Off Some of the Old Broadcast Playbook for a New Era
By Michael Schneider

There’s a reason the most successful night of primetime used to be branded “Must See TV.” In the late 1990s, NBC’s “ER” would attract more than 30 million viewers a week in its Thursday 10 p.m. time slot. At its peak, the medical drama came close to commanding a 40 share — meaning that 40% of people watching TV in that hour were tuned in to the Warner Bros. Television series.

Today, such an accomplishment is beyond the reach of any TV program short of the Super Bowl. Viewers now watch TV in very different ways than they did 25 years ago, on their own timetables. Spending big to establish their businesses, streamers ushered in an era of series that came with shorter episode orders, high-wattage A-list talent and pricey production values. For nearly a decade, the traditions of old-fashioned linear TV have paled by comparison to the big-budget, commercial-free fare offered by Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and others.

The recent “peak TV” era generated some of the best TV in history. Audiences, critics, awards shows and the rest of the industry shifted a lot of their attention to prestige streamer fare, while the linear worlds of broadcast and cable weren’t seen as sexy. Streamers’ steady output of new six- and eight-episode series orders were meant to draw viewers away from the old guard and get people to sign up for the new — and it worked.

“Must See” turned into “I Binged it in a Weekend, But Now I Won’t See It Again For A Year or Two.” But, as the streaming business has matured, concern over consumer “churn” has grown — and those short orders make it easier for audiences to cancel their subscriptions.

As advertisers, network executives and talent head to New York’s annual network upfronts presentations this week, they’re encountering something unexpected: The streamers that had been quick to destroy the old network TV formula are now looking to emulate it.

That includes embracing TV commercials, which is why outlets like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video will be present at upfronts week, a four-day marathon in which the largest networks make glitzy presentations to advertisers at venues like Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. Streamers have joined the fray, doing exactly what the Big 4 networks have done for decades: touting their wares to the advertising buyers who spend billions of dollars in TV spots every year. (CBS gave up its traditional upfronts presentation last year, so they’ll be missing out.)

That’s not the only playbook from the previous TV era that the streamers are dusting off and reinventing for this new age. While it’s not the same as the old cable bundle — a dual revenue stream that the congloms feasted on for decades — the recent news that Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery would bundle Disney+, Hulu and Max together at least felt like a throwback to those days. (And breaking on Tuesday, Comcast revealed that it would also launch a streaming bundle with Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ at a deep discount.)

But also at the upfronts, one might notice that some of the new programming the streamers will be showcasing looks a lot like the fare that have fueled the broadcast lineups since the dawn of TV . Live events? Netflix is getting into it in a big way with specials like “The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady.” Mega sports deals? Amazon has Thursday Night Football, and is reportedly making a big play for the NBA.
And in series, the industry’s aggressive cost cutting over the past 24 months has inspired the streamers to take another look at the program formats that were once seen as vestiges of the pre-streaming era.

At least one network executive — who would rather chuckle anonymously — is amused by it all. “It’s unfortunate that we’ve had tech companies come in, create so much disruption and basically learn the lesson that television learned over the last 50 years, that there was somewhat of a method to the madness,” he says. “Obviously broadcast is dying. But it’s still a good laboratory, you can still get great shows that will become the next library show. There’s been a lot of disruption to basically come back around to reinventing television.”

It might not be 1997 anymore, but some of what fueled the business back then is still relevant. Think long-running medical, police and legal dramas, multicamera sitcoms filmed inexpensively like stage plays, tons of game shows and consistent timetables for season premieres and finales. Turns out, plenty of viewers crave familiarity when surfing for viewing options.

Netflix’s Peter Friedlander, head of U.S. and Canada scripted series, argues that these types of shows have been on the streamers from the start — critics and media writers have just been more focused on the streamers’ prestige entries. “There’s been a really exciting expansion of what you can do on television, and I do think that’s the result of the streaming era,” he says. “I think we will still always have traditional television storytelling, but it’s been expanded. I know that people are watching medical shows and multi cams as well as other types of content… Balance is important.”

The big ticket, Emmy-baiting, high-end shows aren’t going away, of course. But in streaming, they’re now being balanced with original (and not just acquired) procedurals and sitcoms that wouldn’t look out of place on a broadcaster and can stick around a lot longer than three seasons consisting of eight episodes apiece.

“I think that’s a healthy shift,” says Warner Bros. TV Group chairman Channing Dungey. “What’s exciting right now is that there’s a little bit of room for everything. There’s definitely an appetite for some of the slightly more traditional storytelling. People are looking at procedurals in the streaming space in ways that they weren’t before.”

If you need a reminder that viewers still love the kind of “appointment TV” that they devoured on linear decades ago, take a look at the list of most-watched shows on streaming. Many of them come directly from broadcast: “NCIS,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Friends,” “The Office” and most recently, “The Resident.” (Yes, a lesser-known medical drama that ran for six seasons on Fox was earlier this month Netflix’s No. 1 show.) Then there’s the 12-year-old basic cable show that destroyed everything in its wake last year, “Suits.”

Those are TV shows — not six-episode dramas with pricey movie icons and budget-busting effects. These are the kind of shows that drove this business since its infancy: Hit programs with staying power, with enough episodes to build a library of 100+ episodes that generations of viewers can continue to enjoy.

And TV’s old guard has continued to churn out the kind of series that viewers in the U.S. really like to watch on the old guard networks. Newcomer “Tracker” is a bona fide hit for CBS, while the “NCIS,” “FBI,” “One Chicago,” “9-1-1” and “Law & Order” franchises remain vibrant. During this week’s upfronts, even the broadcast networks are leaning into more of those kinds of shows, like Fox’s lifeguard actioner “Rescue HI-Surf” and NBC’s multi-cam Reba McEntire sitcom “Happy’s Place.” Plus, here’s the most back-to-basics example: After multi-cam “The Big Bang Theory” spawned the single-cam “Young Sheldon,” that show’s spin-off (“Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage”) is back to the world of multi.

“Broadcast shows, whether they be procedurals or family-friendly comedies, have never gone out of vogue,” says Craig Erwich, the president of Disney Television Group, which includes ABC Entertainment and Hulu Originals. “And now, these deep libraries, which broadcast shows have a unique ability to become over the long run, are fueling the streaming platforms. Hulu, in particular, you look at the performance we see on ‘The Rookie’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ where there are new generations of fans coming in and consuming massive amounts of of the shows and enjoying them because they are timeless. It’s a format that continues to be relevant and enjoyable.”

From a business perspective, streamers have also realized that while long-running procedurals that they’ve acquired from broadcast and cable can keep some of their subscribers happy, it would be smart to make a few of their own as a good way to stop the subscriber churn. And those heftier orders don’t need to break the bank.

“We’ve had people call us about family dramas and some of the other things that used to be the staple of broadcast,” Dungey says. “There’s some interest from the streamers on the comedy side for things that are ‘hard funny’; not that the more dramedy-ish comedies are going away. But streamers are realizing that they want to have a more varied portfolio.”

“ER” creator John Wells is just the producer to bring the procedural drama format into a new era. He and fellow “ER” vet R. Scott Gemmill are taking what they did 30 years ago for broadcast and updating it for the streaming age with their upcoming Max series “The Pitt.” Produced through Warner Bros. TV, “The Pitt” is a medical procedural, starring “ER” alum Noah Wyle, and has been picked up for 15 episodes by Max. The show has been built to make financial sense, with no box office titan demanding millions an episode and no outlandish price tag. The show’s budget clocks in at around $5 million an episode — a steal by the standard of recent years.

“It’s an experiment, to some extent,” says Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content. “But if anybody knows how to construct a fairly priced drama that’s well done and gripping, it’s John Wells. The thought was, let’s try 15 episodes and see. Does that keep people engaged for 15 weeks? If you do, that’s a big win.”

Bloys makes no effort to hide the obvious — Wells’ proven track record of delivering high-end drama on a budget was a selling point for “The Pitt.”

“It’s not $20 million an episode with huge special effects or anything like that,” Bloys says. “There are ways to produce a show for a budget that are still compelling and interesting and fun. And particularly the way that John and Scott will do it; those skills were born out of the days of network television, when you’re doing 20 to 24 episodes a year.”

And there’s more of these linear-like shows in the works. Warner Bros. TV is also behind a multi-camera sitcom from Chuck Lorre, starring stand-up comedian Leanne Morgan, which has been picked up for 16 episodes at Netflix (which had previously made a big sitcom pickup with late 2010s series “The Ranch”). Netflix also just ordered its first-ever medical drama procedural, “Pulse.”

“I think what’s happening is a realization that to keep people signed up and to reduce churn, you need shows that audiences get connected to, that show up in a timely fashion or are on long enough the consumer feels that they need to continue to subscribe,” Wells says.

As a storyteller, Wells relishes the larger canvas to tell longer stories about characters’ lives. “I do think there’s a real appetite for that,” he says. “Audiences would like to see those shows, at the quality levels that they expect from a streaming service. And doing that for more episodes certainly is part of the financial arithmetic that makes it valuable for everybody.”

Bloys stresses that just like “ER” back in the day, “The Pitt” is not a medical soap. That’s part of what drew Wells to develop “The Pitt” — that he could take advantage of the freer content restrictions in streaming and lean into the very hard realities of life in an emergency room.

“You don’t have the same kind of broadcast standards that you have to meet,” he says. “One of the things that we got excited about with ‘The Pitt’ is we could go back into telling medical stories that look like what really happens in the hospital and the way in which people interact with the health care system.”

And the longer seasons allow a producer like Wells to amortize the cost of production, lowering episodic costs.

“If you’re trying to be fiscally responsible, the more episodes you have, the better off you are,” notes Dungey. “But it’s more than that: It’s building a library and building that relationship that the audience wants to have with those characters. Our hope here is that over the course of 15 episodes — which is double the amount of most streaming shows these days — by the time you get to the end of that season, the audience feels connected to and familiar with these characters, and anxious for the second season to come.”
 
wabbott said:
https://deadline.com/2024/05/greys-...-final-budget-cut-scheduling-move-1235915536/

ABC Boss On ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Future Amid Budget Trim & Scheduling Move
By Nellie Andreeva - Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV @DeadlineNellie May 14, 2024 - 9:52am PDT

Grey’s Anatomy already has cemented its place in the TV history books. Now it’s just about enhancing its legacy. But like every long-running series on broadcast, the hit medical drama also has to abide by the budget constraints imposed by parent media companies, which have been reigning in costs. As Deadline reported exclusively yesterday, Grey’s Anatomy has been asked to trim its budget for its upcoming 21st season, which will impact the cast.

Additionally, ABC this morning unveiled its fall schedule where Grey’s is shifting from 9 PM to 10 PM on Thursdays. Deadline asked Disney TV Group President Craig Erwich whether the moves signal a potential end game for the show.

“We just celebrated the 20th season of Grey’s, which makes it the longest running medical drama on television, and I think the show is creatively firing on all cylinders and continues to be extraordinarily popular — if not the most popular show in terms of past seasons,” he said. “We see new generations coming into the show on a monthly basis, so the show’s in great shape.”

On Grey‘s new time slot, Erwich noted that of the drama’s “very loyal audience,” “well over 80% watches the show on multiple platforms, not specifically live, so we think the move is going to be minimal, as well as it will provide an incredible lead into our local news at 11.”

But could the Thursday shift, along with the budget cut, indicate that Grey’s may be on its last legs, with Season 21 possibly being its final chapter?

“Not at all,” Erwich said, calling the scheduling move “a great opportunity for ABC to launch a new show, as well as to keep Grey’s on a night where it’s been extraordinarily successful for many years.”

As Deadline reported yesterday, Jake Borelli will be departing Grey’s Anatomy after seven years next season. Additionally, veteran cast members are expected to see a reduction of their episodic guarantees, which means that they may be in fewer Season 21 episodes.
Click to expand...

I still watch out of habit but not same day or next day a lot of the time. It's far past time to cancel it. It's just not as good as it was and with cuts they won't get back to what it was.
 
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/14/comcast-bundle-for-subscribers-peacock-netflix-and-apple-tv.html

Comcast offers subscribers Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ bundle

Published Tue, May 14 20249:14 AM EDT - Updated 3 Hours Ago
by Sara Salinas

Key Points
  • Comcast said Tuesday it will introduce a streaming bundle for its cable, broadband and mobile subscribers, tying together Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ at a discounted rate.
  • The announcement comes as major media players increasingly join forces to drive value for users and subscriptions for streaming services.
  • Comcast did not disclose the price of the bundle.
Comcast said Tuesday it will introduce a streaming bundle for its cable, broadband and mobile subscribers, tying together Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ at a discounted rate.

The announcement, made Tuesday at the MoffettNathanson media conference in New York, comes as major media players increasingly join forces to drive value for users and subscriptions for streaming services.

On May 8, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a bundle of its streaming services — Disney+, Hulu and Max.

Comcast’s offer follows a model similar to several bundles from Verizon: Its streaming bundle will be offered to existing Comcast subscribers, which could help prop up its pay-TV subscribers.

The company lost 487,000 cable TV customers during the first quarter, Comcast reported during earnings on April 25. The company’s wireless business, however, saw a 21% jump in customers to 6.9 million total lines.

Comcast did not disclose the price of the upcoming bundle. Peacock subscription plans start at $5.99 per month, though that’s increasing to $7.99 per month this summer. Comcast broadband customers typically receive a discount on the company’s streaming service.

Netflix plans start at $6.99 per month, and Apple TV+ costs $9.99 per month.

“We’ve been bundling video successfully and creatively for 60 years,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said Tuesday. “And so this is the latest iteration of that. And I think this will be a pretty compelling package.”

— CNBC’s Kerry Caufield, Lillian Rizzo and Alex Sherman contributed to this report.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
 
Do we need to bury every comment and/or conversation in this thread under copy/pasted articles? For an article, can we just post a headline, a short excerpt and a link? Just my 2 cents.
 
RivShore said:
You would think data like this might move the stock...
Across all their properties, Disney has a decent lead on all others, on TV Usage:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/05/14/nielsen-ceo-karthik-rao-on-viewing-trends.html

View attachment 859366
Click to expand...
https://deadline.com/2024/05/disney-leads-tv-fallout-amazon-viewership-nielsen-april-1235915892/

Disney Leads TV Viewing In April; ‘Fallout’ Boosts Amazon Streaming Share With Record Viewership, Nielsen Says
By Katie Campione
May 14, 2024 - 11:01am PDT

April was a pretty steady month for TV viewership — and Disney was leading the charge.

Along with its monthly The Gauge report, Nielsen debuted a Media Distribution report on Tuesday that assesses cross-platform TV consumption by media company. The Walt Disney Company took the top spot, accounting for 11.5% of total TV viewing. About 42% of that share was attributable to Disney+ and Hulu, Nielsen reported.

YouTube came in second place with a 9.6% share of TV in April. It’s worth nothing that, naturally, all of YouTube’s viewing comes from streaming. The platform is consistently the highest ranked in terms of streaming share each month, and April was no different. It came in far above Netflix’s 7.6% share, which put that streamer in second place for streaming.

But, as Nielsen is pointing out with its latest report, streaming still doesn’t tell the entire story. Netflix came in sixth place when accounting for cross-platform viewing, beat out by NBCUniversal at 8.9%, Paramount at 8.8%, and Warner Bros. Discovery at 8.1%.

Even though Prime Video was in eighth place with a 3.2% share of TV viewing (also completely from streaming), it still managed to have a breakout month thanks to the release of Fallout, which was Amazon’s most successful program to date and topped all other streaming titles in the month of April.

The show helped boost the streamer to the largest increase among streaming services this month with a 12% monthly increase for 3.2% of TV.

However, streaming was down overall from March to April, accounting for 38.4% of television viewing, according to Nielsen. Even YouTube saw a 3% monthly decline.

Broadcast was also down by 3% in April. It accounted for a 22.2% share of TV viewing, and women’s sports were the highlight of this category. The top broadcast telecast in April by a wide margin was the NCAA women’s basketball championship with more than 17M viewers.

The drama genre accounted for 29% of broadcast viewing, driven by Tracker, NCIS and Young Sheldon on CBS, and Chicago Fire and Chicago Med on NBC.

As for cable, that was the only category to grow month-over-month. It was up to 29.1% of TV viewing, aided by a large increase in sports viewing from the NCAA basketball tournament coverage, NBA playoffs and the NFL draft.
 
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