Welcome back to the “Media Front.”

For much of the past decade, Hollywood’s biggest media companies were chasing versions of the same goal: Build a streaming service, add subscribers and reach enough scale to compete with Netflix.

This week’s earnings season offered perhaps the clearest evidence yet that the industry has moved on.

Streaming isn’t going away. In fact, after years of significant losses, it’s finally becoming a profitable business for some of Hollywood’s biggest players. But streaming increasingly looks less like the strategy itself and more like one piece of much broader — and very different — plans for growth.

Disney is looking to connect streaming to its broader consumer ecosystem. Warner Bros. Discovery is making a huge bet on consolidation through its proposed merger with Paramount. Fox is doubling down on sports, news and streaming through Tubi and its planned Roku acquisition. Newly independent Versant is building direct-to-consumer businesses around its strongest brands. And News Corp is looking for new ways to monetize — and protect — the value of its journalism in the AI era.

They largely agree on what’s going wrong. Linear TV continues to decline. Audiences and ad dollars are fragmenting. Consumers have more entertainment choices than ever. And streaming, despite its recent progress toward profitability, hasn’t simply replaced the economics of the cable bundle.

What the industry no longer agrees on is what comes next.

That’s a big change from the first phase of the streaming wars. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Paramount spent billions building subscription services as Netflix transformed how consumers watched television. Subscriber totals became a closely watched measure of success, and Wall Street rewarded companies that could promise enough streaming growth to offset deterioration elsewhere.

Now the strategies are starting to look a lot less alike.

Companies are building around what they believe gives them an edge, whether that’s a sprawling consumer ecosystem, greater scale, sports, established brands or valuable intellectual property.

The search isn’t limited to television. Publishers are looking outside traditional advertising and subscriptions for businesses built around the audiences they already have. AI is creating another potential market for journalism — provided publishers can convince technology companies that their content is worth paying for.

Streaming, meanwhile, isn’t disappearing from any of these strategies. It’s firmly established as a major distribution business and, increasingly, a profitable one.

It just didn’t produce a single replacement for the business model it disrupted.

The question now is which of these advantages actually translates into growth. Bigger isn’t necessarily better. Sports rights aren’t getting any cheaper. And launching a direct-to-consumer product is a lot easier than convincing consumers to pay for it.

There probably isn’t one answer. That’s what makes this next phase of the media business so different from the last one.

For years, the streaming wars pushed much of the industry toward the same destination. This week’s earnings showed companies starting to head in different directions.

Now we’ll find out which ones picked the right road. Read on for the rest of this week’s Media Front column, and to get this newsletter directly in your inbox on Sunday mornings, adjust your WrapPRO account settings here.

Scripps’ AI Revolution Comes With Fewer People

The revolution will be televised. It may just take far fewer people to produce it.

E.W. Scripps CEO Adam Symson used the word “revolution” during the company’s earnings call Friday to describe what’s happening inside the TV station group, 

Scripps says it has eliminated 432 positions and 126 open roles since the start of the year as part of a broader overhaul expected to generate $100 million in annualized savings.

The company is leaning into AI, automation, new technology and the centralization of some roles as it rethinks how its local newsrooms operate. Symson told analysts the goal is to turn Scripps into a “technology-forward, AI-powered broadcast journalism company.”

“We are not wavering on our commitment to quality journalism,” Symson said.

That’s the bet: Scripps believes it can dramatically lower the cost of producing local news without diminishing the product.

It’s a particularly important test for a local TV business already under pressure from cord-cutting, changing viewing habits and a declining linear advertising market. Scripps still sees local news as central to its future, including through a new 24-hour streaming news model. It just intends to produce that news with a very different cost structure.

AI is only part of the transformation. Scripps is also automating and centralizing some functions and changing how news is produced and distributed.

The question is whether viewers will notice.

If Scripps can maintain the quality and local connection of its newscasts while taking $100 million in costs out of the business, other station groups facing many of the same pressures will be paying attention.

That makes Scripps more than another local TV layoff story. It’s becoming a real-world test of how much technology can change the economics of local news without changing the journalism itself.

Read my full piece: E.W. Scripps to Become an ‘AI-Powered Broadcast Journalism Company’ After Sweeping Layoffs

News Corp Isn’t Fighting AI. It’s Fighting Free AI

News Corp CEO Robert Thomson delivered one of the week’s more colorful earnings call warnings when he argued that artificial intelligence risks leaving users “drowning in a slimy sea of AI slop” without high-quality journalism and other professionally produced content.

But News Corp isn’t rejecting AI.

It has content relationships with OpenAI and Meta and says it is in advanced discussions with other companies. At the same time, News Corp is pursuing legal action against companies it accuses of using its content without permission.

The dividing line isn’t necessarily AI versus journalism. It’s whether AI companies pay for the journalism their products depend on.

That distinction matters well beyond News Corp.

Publishers are confronting a technology that could become a new distribution channel, a source of licensing revenue and a competitor for audiences that historically arrived at their websites through search — all at the same time.

News Corp is betting that high-quality journalism becomes more valuable, not less, as AI-generated information proliferates. AI companies, after all, still need reliable material to make their products useful and trustworthy.

Whether that turns into a durable new revenue stream remains an open question. Licensing deals are still developing, and the legal boundaries around the use of copyrighted material by AI companies are being fought out in court.

But News Corp’s position isn’t especially complicated.

It’s willing to do business with AI. It just doesn’t think AI companies should get journalism for free.

My full piece: News Corp CEO Warns of ‘Slimy Sea of AI Slop,’ Threatens More Lawsuits

Media companies looking for growth beyond traditional advertising and subscriptions are increasingly turning to a business that’s decidedly offline: live events.

Publishers and networks are expanding their events businesses, while advertisers are putting more money behind experiences that can bring brands face-to-face with highly targeted audiences.

There’s more to the strategy than filling a room. A successful event can generate sponsorship revenue, deepen relationships with audiences and create video, social and editorial content that lives well beyond the event itself.

I’ve spent the past week talking with media executives and industry experts about what’s driving the push — and whether live events can become a meaningful business rather than simply an extension of the media brands producing them.

Look for my full story Tuesday on TheWrap.

WaxWord: David Ellison Has a CNN Problem to Solve

David Ellison is finally talking publicly about the issue hanging over Paramount’s proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery: CNN.

Ellison wrote this week that the question is whether he can be trusted as a steward of the cable news network and said Paramount remains open to finding an out-of-court resolution to the legal challenge threatening the merger.

But Sharon Waxman reports that another complication remains inside Paramount: CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss.

Sources tell WaxWord that no decision has been made about whether CNN and CBS News would ultimately be combined. But if they are, the expectation is that Weiss would not lead the combined operation.

That leaves Ellison with a larger problem than simply winning regulatory approval.

If news is ultimately key to getting Paramount-WBD across the finish line, he still has to determine what a combined news operation would look like — and who could credibly run it.

Sharon Waxman’s full column: David Ellison Is Ready to Talk About CNN to Get His Deal Done — but Bari Weiss Muddies the Case

Also on TheWrap

From Lucas Manfredi: “FCC Killed the Broadcast TV Ownership Cap. Will Local Stations Get Gobbled Up?“

From Lucas Manfredi : “Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Cleared by UK Competition and Markets Authority“

From Loree Seitz: “Summer Ratings Trend: How Communal TV Watching Made a Comeback“

On my radar

“Judge signals Trump’s defamation lawsuit against Wall Street Journal may be dismissed again” (Jeremy Barr, The Guardian)

“Fox Appears to Block NFL’s Effort to Re-Do Massive Rights Deal” (Brian Steinberg, Variety)

“Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro” (Tyler Pager, Glenn Thrush and Katie Rogers, The New York Times)

IndieWire readers know the drill by now: in the dog days of August, when the full flush of movie-going summer has passed and the fall festival is still on the horizon, we dedicate a full week to a disconcertingly large pocket of film history that’s mostly untethered to news cycles or trending stories. The good, nerdy stuff.

We launched with ’90s Week in 2022, went back in time with ’80s Week in 2023, naturally did the obvious thing in 2024 by jumping forward to focus on the aughts, and then finally picked up with ‘70s Week last year.

In 2026, we’re zagging a bit. (’60s Week? We’ll think about it!) This year: Sequels Week.

So much for the “not timely” bent we’ve kept up these past few years, because goodness knows, sequels (and prequels and legacy-quels, oh my!) remain a fixture of Hollywood movie-making and beyond. But while going back to the ol’ well for yet another story doesn’t always guarantee quality, there’s no better way to foster conversation about the movies we love and what makes them so good. If that can be duplicated, replicated, and even improved upon, all the better, and all the more worth celebrating and examining.

Next year: “Sequels Week 2, The Search for More Money.” (We’re kidding. Or are we?)

Below, you’ll get a preview of all the goodies Sequels Weeks has to offer, which will update with links to our stories as they go live over the course of the week. In the spirit of the sequel, why not read each piece twice?

Monday, August 10

The 100 Greatest Sequels of All Time, by IndieWire Staff and Contributors

A Taxonomy of Movie Sequel Terms, by Kate Erbland

Do Sequels Really Drive the Box Office?, by Brian Welk

Tuesday, August 11

On “The Color of Money,” by Jim Hemphill

The History of Unofficial Sequels, by Katie Rife

On “Everybody Wants Some!!,” by Vikram Murthi

Wednesday, August 12

The Best Straight-to-Video Sequels of All Time, by Jim Hemphill

On Legacy Sequels, by Vadim Rizov

On “Oslo, August 31st,” by Sophie Monks Kaufman

On Disney Video Sequels, by Wilson Chapman

Thursday, August 13

The 10 Best Anime Movie Sequels Ever Made, by Kambole Campbell

Why “Terrifer 2” Is the Defining Horror Sequel of the Century, by Sam Bodrojan

On Prequels, by Sarah Shachat

On Wenn Daramas’ “Ang Tanging Ina”, by Lé Beltar

Friday, August 14

On “The Godfather II,” by Chris O’Falt

On “Airplane II,” by Mike Ryan

10 Sequels We’d Like to See, by David Ehrlich

SPOILER ALERT: The following reveals major plot points from the series finale of the Starz crime drama Power Book III: Raising Kanan.

Although it has come time to say goodbye to Power Book III: Raising Kanan, things are only beginning to shape up for the titular character, who is coming back with a vengeance in the upcoming follow-up series Power: Origins. Sascha Penn, the creator of both Raising Kanan and Origins, is taking a moment to take it all in.

It’s a difficult task to conclude a series and hit all the right notes, but Penn wrapped up Raising Kanan with a lot of love and care. And while many may not understand the reasons why we had to have our hearts broken with the loss of Lou (Malcolm Mays), Marvin (London Brown), and then Raq (Patina Miller), we should trust the process and watch how the rest of the story unfolds on Power: Origins.

Penn spoke to Deadline about the events of the finale, that epic post-credits scene, and what’s coming soon from his new prequel series that will finally bring together the powerful trio of Ghost (Spence Moore), Tommy (Charlie Mann), and Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis).

DEADLINE: So many fans are sad because we said goodbye to our favorites. But, as Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson says in the final beats of the finale, this is not an ending, but a beginning for Kanan. What say you?

SASCHA PENN: The show was always called Raising Kanan, and it has always been that. We are a product of our families and our environment and our experiences. By the end of this series, you do have a good sense of how Kanan became Kanan. You may not love that journey, and you may be really upset about that journey, but it is a journey that I do believe explains how he became the character that we get to know in Power. We’ll know even better in Origins. I feel good about the story we told, and I do feel like it has a real ending.

DEADLINE: You surprised viewers with the young Tommy and Ghost, who are so young that Kanan won’t even mess with them. [Laughs] Why was it important to include them?

PENN: The one question I’ve been asked the most of any question over the past six years: when are we going to see Ghost and Tommy? In our timeline, they’re way too young to be super involved. But I always knew, even from the pitch, that at one point we would glimpse at them just enough for people to feel like, ‘Oh wow, there they are.’ And by the way, we put them into the show before we even knew Origins was happening.

DEADLINE: We need to discuss the post-credits scene. It’s Kanan’s birthday and the family, almost all of whom are now gone, are there for new mom Raquel. There’s an episode of Good Times on [Season 2, Episode 24 titled “The Lunch Money Ripoff.“]. Why did you pick that show?

PENN: In terms of going with Good Times, that show is on my Mount Rushmore of television series as a kid. I’ve watched every single episode of Good Times, and, like everybody else, I wish I was part of the Evans family. That family felt like this idealized family to me, right? So it was really important to include it. And this notion of this idealized family juxtaposed with this other family [on Raising Kanan]… I can’t unpack all of what it meant to me, but there was something about it that felt really appropriate.

DEADLINE: It fully makes sense, for anyone that knows that episode. Here’s a “bad” kid with an absent father bullying other kids in school, including the Evans family’s youngest Michael (Ralph Carter). He wasn’t a “bad” anything, more so a victim of his circumstances, like Kanan. What say you?

PENN: There was another episode which we considered. In the episode [Season 2, Episodes 9 & 10, The Gang, Parts 1 and 2], JJ (Jimmie Walker) was shot by a gang member [named Mad Dog].

DEADLINE: That would’ve worked out well as well, but I think you picked the right episode.

PENN: Yeah. I felt like we have this moment, we have Good Times, then we see Raq as a new mother, and what that responsibility feels like. Raq didn’t set out to raise this kid who ultimately wants to kill her. No, she’s like every other parent. She has this tiny baby that’s defenseless in her arms, and she’s like, ‘I’m gonna protect you. It’s you and me. I got you,’ which is heartbreaking in a completely different way. I think most parents really set out to do the right thing by their kids, but it’s hard. Life intervenes in all sorts of unexpected ways. But I felt like it was meaningful to have the last image of this series be a mother loving her son.

DEADLINE: What can you tease about Origins?

PENN: It takes place in like 2002, 2003. Tonally, it is different than Raising Kanan and Ghost; there’s a little more levity. It’s a little bit more like 48 Hours or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That’s sort of what we were aiming for. So it’s fun. Not to say that there isn’t dark stuff in it, and Kanan is there and it’s a pretty grim version of him. It’s super fast-paced. The actors that are playing Tommy and Ghost are amazing. They’ve done the right thing, which is that they give you enough of the original Tommy and Ghost while at the same time making the characters entirely their own. We just wrapped last week on 18 episodes. I think people are gonna love it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.