Entertainment
Where the Media Business Is Going Next: AI, Streaming and Mobile
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)
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Before we get to the “review” part of this review we have to address the elephant in the room: “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” is a film made for young children, and any adult who says it’s not “good” will inevitably be accused of missing the point. To some, the question isn’t whether an adult critic likes it. The question is, “Who cares what an adult thinks about a movie made for kids in the first place?”
It sounds like a real gotcha, but it misses the point. “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” was made for children and yet, like almost all the art we show our kids, it was made by adults. If you disregard criticism about kids movies you’re not saying it doesn’t matter what adults think, you’re saying it only matters what some adults think, and the adults who make billions of dollars selling toys to your children should be allowed to influence your kids as much as they want — and never, ever be scrutinized or (god forbid) face a little criticism once in a while.
So while a film like “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” wasn’t made for refined artistic sensibilities, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. Films for little kids teach lessons about life, relationships and what we value as a culture. Sometimes these lessons are respectable and sometimes they’re insidious. Either way, it behooves us to at least take stock of these messages and consider what they have to say.
The most obvious takeaways from “The Dino Movie” are that puppies are cute, dinosaurs are fun and we should never stop trying our best. But subliminally, the latest “Paw Patrol” is also built on more specific ideologies. If you accept this film at face value, you must also accept its primary theses, i.e. civil services should all be privatized, the wealthy are inherently altruistic, prisoner reform is impossible and only good people can change for the better.
Yes, there may be things to like about “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” but it’s hard to shake the idea that we’re watching the type of kids movie Omni Consumer Products would produce for the dystopian TV channels in Paul Verhoeven’s “RoboCop.”
“Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” tells the story of Ryder (Henry Bolan), an independently wealthy child with zero parental supervision. He trains puppies to perform dangerous search and rescue operations using high-tech equipment. There don’t seem to be older dogs in Ryder’s employ, at least as far as the movie is concerned, which suggests either Ryder is extremely generous with his early retirement packages or, more likely — since nobody ever mentions that any of the puppies are being paid — that there’s a high mortality rate for naive young dogs who leap into raging infernos and climb exploding volcanos.
At the beginning of “The Dino Movie,” Ryder and his team save a family from a maritime disaster, and then their boat runs aground on an uncharted isle. The Paw Patrol goes exploring, so Ryder provides brand-new — and presumably consumer-friendly — gear to his Dalmatian firefighter Marshall (Carter Young), his German Shepherd police officer Chase (Rain Janjua), his Cockapoo aviator Skye (Mckenna Grace), his English Bulldog construction worker Rubble (Lucien Duncan-Reid), his mixed-breed recycling expert Rocky (William Desrosiers) and his Labrador aquatic rescue expert Zuma (Nylan Parthipan).
They quickly discover they’re on an island full of dinosaurs, but not the scary kind. There are Tyrannosaurus Rexes but — as Rubble says at the end of the movie — all of the dinosaurs seem to be herbivores, even the ones with sharp, pointy teeth. They also don’t have any feathers, so if you think this kids movie might be educational in some way, think again. We’re here to have fun with dinosaurs, not to have fun learning about them.
The Paw Patrol also finds another dog on the island. Rex is a disabled Bernese Mountain Dog with a wheeled dog walker. He’s voiced by Hayden Chamberlain, and he spent several years making the island accessible and developing a healthy equilibrium with the local flora and fauna.
Say what you will about the rest of “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie,” but the filmmakers wrote a heroic disabled character into their story and cast an actual wheelchair user in the role. They never shy away from Rex’s disability and it’s not the character’s only defining trait. If we’re going to criticize this movie for its questionable messaging, we also have to acknowledge there are a lot of prominent, award-winning films about disability that don’t handle their representation as well as “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie.” You have to give credit where credit is due.
Alas, you can’t have a “Paw Patrol” movie without their archenemy Humdinger (Ron Pardo). He gets out of prison at the beginning of the film, determined to never make the same mistakes again. Nobody believes him, and they were right to be cynical because he returns to a life of crime as soon as he finds out the dinosaur island is full of diamonds. Criminals are just inherently bad people, apparently. So are the cats in this universe. They’re portrayed as inherently untrustworthy and/or incompetent. Even the otherwise heroic Paw Patrol resorts to casual bigotry whenever felines are involved, and their suspicions are always proven accurate, because that’s how things work here.
“Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” is a colorful enterprise, full of friendly imagery and somewhat engaging set pieces. (There’s a particularly nifty action sequence involving a ravine filled with lava, a rope tied between two rescue vehicles and two helpless scientists trapped in the middle.) And while the characterizations are thin, the dialogue is eye-rolling and the plot is simplistic, that’s where “it’s for kids” can be treated as an acceptable excuse. Movies for young kids aren’t only teaching them about the world, they’re also teaching kids how to watch movies. The rudimentary storytelling in “The Dino Movie” can be viewed as a primer for understanding how other, more challenging movies will work in the future. After all, the alphabet may be child’s play, but you can’t read James Joyce’s “Ulysses” without it.
The questionable ideologies of “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie” may concern some parents. Others may find the film’s iffier themes completely acceptable. Either way, it’s worth keeping in mind that this is what’s loose in the atmosphere of our popular culture, and it’s probably worth remembering that most kids won’t care about any of that. At least, not until they become discerning adults and look back on “Paw Patrol” with the same critical eye we now reserve for the rah-rah militarism of “G.I. Joe” or the annoying naïveté of the “Care Bears.” But even then they’ll be able to say “The Dino Movie” was bright and spirited, and the filmmakers cared enough about kids with disabilities to treat them with respect and represent them in a responsible manner — while, admittedly, also trying to sell toys.
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EXCLUSIVE: Israeli drama Fauda will return to Netflix on September 8, and we’ve got first-look images here.
Season 5 of the show, which comes from lead star Lior Raz and writer Avi Issacharoff, is set two years after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Haunted by the trauma of the events, Daron Kavillio (Raz) and the other fighters embark on a deadly race to stop a catastrophic attack on Israel, forcing them to confront the true cost of warn after war.
Melanie Laurent and Hakim Djaziri are joining the cast alongside Ram, with Yaakov Zada Daniel and Doron Ben-David returning. The show debuts on Netflix globally following its run on Israeli network Yes, which is the commissioning broadcaster.
Omri Givon is the director and writes alongside Omri Shenhar, Issacharoff, Raz, Sari Azoulay Turgeman, Yona Rozenkier and Nir Berger. Raz and Issacharoff scrapped their first scripts for Season 5 following the October 7 attack and reformulated with that shocking event at the center of the story.
Liat Benasuly is the producer, with Nitay Netzer the DoP, Rachel Ben Dahan the costume designer and Sari Azoulay Turgeman the editor.
Yes TV and L. Benasuly Productions are the co-producers with Yes Studios on international distribution. The eleven-episode season filmed across Israel and Hungary.
“This is a TV show, not reality. But we thought that there is still a story here to be told,” said Issacharoff, co-creator and exec producer. “We wanted to ask very tough questions to people all over the world, not only in Israel. Is the revenge worth it? Is continuing this very endless cycle of bloodshed worth it? Where is it taking you? I think these are the questions that are at the heart of this season.”
Fauda has often been lauded for portraying the incredibly complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a relatable way, while opening a window into the situation in the present-day Middle East. Netflix has acquired all seasons to date.
Below is a selection of pictures from the new season.
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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
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