Eleven years ago, NBC delivered one of the most memorable moments in upfront presentation history when the head of the network, Robert Greenblatt, sat behind the piano to accompany Dolly Parton‘s performance of “I Will Always Love You.” Following Parton’s death at the age of 80, the former top Showtime, NBC and WarnerMedia executive Greenblatt recalled how that stunt came about and reflected on the duo’s 23-year friendship that started when he approached her about turning her classic movie 9 to 5 into a musical. Greenblatt executive produces HBO Emmy-nominated hit The Gilded Age and just won his fourth Tony Award for Ragtime.

The loss of Dolly Parton is profound. A wound that people all over the world are feeling. It’s as if collectively we lost a guiding light in the middle of a storm, someone who could bring simple common sense to the chaos of life. She was a prolific songwriter and a galvanizing performer who somehow appealed to literally everyone, whether you liked country music or not. But to me she was a beautiful human being all about love, and just being able to call her a friend is something for which I will always be eternally grateful.

Back in 2003 when I was about to take over running Showtime, I had decided to also put my mind to producing a Broadway musical someday. I loved musicals as a teenager back home in Illinois and Broadway had always been a dream. And I thought the classic movie 9 To 5 could make a great musical. Not only is it hilarious and empowering to women, but it also has that incredible title song by Dolly herself. So to me it was inherently “musical” already.

My big idea was to somehow get Dolly to write the score for the show. But getting her on board would prove a little more difficult than I thought. After my first letter to her lawyer went unanswered, I assumed she had no interest in Broadway. But then fate — and my friend, Melissa Etheridge — stepped in. Turns out she and Dolly were about to work on a TV special together and Melissa offered to introduce me to her if I dropped into rehearsal.

“Dolly,“ Melissa said, “I want you to meet a great producer and friend of mine, Bob Greenblatt.” As Dolly shook my hand warmly, I stammered something like: “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, I’m a huge fan and I want to produce a Broadway musical based on 9 To 5 and I want you to write the score.” She looked at me for a second and then a little lightbulb went off — “Oh you’re Bob Greenblatt. My lawyer told me about you. I love this idea, and I want to do it. He’ll call you to work out all the details and I’ll see you real soon.” She went back to rehearsal and I had my composer!

In less than a year I was sitting with Dolly in Nashville along with writer Pat Resnick (who also wrote the movie), and we all got to work on crafting the show. We embarked on the joyous process alongside director Joe Mantello, my good friend from high school, who at the time was just about to open a new show on Broadway called Wicked. (We all know how that turned out!)

What fun we all had together! I fondly remember the times we would gather at my home in Los Angeles, and needless to say, Dolly was always camera-ready — wig, full makeup, and five-inch stilettos. Even for just a work session in jeans and a sweater, that sweater had more sparkle than anything you’ve ever seen. If we needed a new song, she would write it overnight and play it for us on her guitar the next day. She wrote a couple dozen songs in all, always eager to throw something out that didn’t quite work and start over if need be. No one ever worked faster — or harder — than Dolly Parton!

It eventually was time for our pre-Broadway run at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in 2008 with an incredible cast led by Allison Janney (in the Lily Tomlin role), Stephanie J. Block (Jane Fonda), and newcomer Megan Hilty (as Dolly). Dolly was crazy about all of them. But the automation for our lavish set was so complicated that it didn’t always work and rehearsals were slow. Dolly sat out in the darkened theatre and would sometimes call out a funny comment in the middle of a scene to ease the pressure. She also knew that I had a sweet tooth and would sometimes bring us homemade fudge, just one of the many kind gestures from the little country girl at heart. We all cherished our time with her.

Opening night in L.A. finally arrived and the curtain went up to monstrous applause! We got a full 15 minutes into act one before we had set troubles and had to stop the show and bring up the house lights. Mortified, I ran backstage to see how long it would take to get started again. Unfortunately it was going to be at least ten minutes, and then came the awful sound of hammers and drilling that bled through the curtain. That’s when I ran to Dolly and asked her if she would get up in front of the audience to distract everyone until we could get the show running again.

To resounding applause, she “distracted” the hell out of the audience with her inimitable charm and wit. After many people shouted out their love for her, she explained that we were still “workin’ out some of the bugs” and then she led everyone in a sing-along chorus of 9 To 5. With still more time to kill, she sang “I Will Always Love You” acapela to a crowd that was in heaven.

The rest of the show went without a hitch, but you can imagine that the buzz at the opening night party was all about Dolly, Dolly, Dolly! This kind of thing only happens in live theatre, but if your set is going to break down, there’s nothing better in the world than having a national treasure get up and take control of the room.

Next we were on to a thrilling opening night on Broadway that I’ll never forget, with Dolly accompanied by both Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. She performed on the Tony Awards that season with our whole company and I’m proud to say she was a first-time Tony nominee for her wonderful score. Every step of the way she was there with her positive disposition and that bright light, bringing everyone into her orbit of love.

A few years later, after I went to NBC, I wanted more Dolly. So we produced a television movie with her and Sam Haskell about a young girl growing up in the Tennessee mountains finding her voice as a young singer. It was inspired by her iconic song “Coat of Many Colors” and I asked her to join me on stage at the NBC upfront at Radio City Music Hall to get the advertisers excited about it. I knew they would all go wild seeing her there, but I wanted to up the ante even more and asked if she would sing something too. She agreed, on one condition — that I accompany her on the piano as I sometimes did at my house when we were working on 9 To 5. How could this kid from the cornfields of Illinois say no to that kind of pipe dream?

On the day of the upfront she appeared wearing a bedazzled, form-fitting dress in “peacock” colors and we bantered about the movie. Then I asked her if she would sing for us before departing and, on cue, a 9-foot Steinway grand appeared. With me (nervously) at the piano, she proceeded to deliver a beautiful rendition of her signature song, “I Will Always Love You,” and the audience was putty in her hands. By the end, she had the whole room singing along with her. It’s a moment I’ll never forget. She was the pied piper in rhinestones who had cast a spell over everyone. What joy it was to be under that spell.

I had many wonderful times with this great lady over the years, and I cherish each one. Now, more than ever I suppose. She was such a radiant life force that fans of every kind adored her — young, old, male, female, gay, straight, democrat, republican, you name it. I think she was the great equalizer because she simply treated everyone equally. She was plain-talking, truthful, inclusive, spiritual, hilarious, and fundamentally just a believer in the power of human goodness.

There was never anyone like Dolly Parton before she came along, and I don’t think we’ll ever see the likes of her again. As they say, God broke the mold after creating her. Over the last two days countless people have said she was simply an angel on Earth. I don’t think truer words were ever spoken.

Rest in Peace, Dear Dolly. We will always love you.

After several years in limbo, Coyote vs. Acme finally got its moment in the sun on Wednesday at its L.A. premiere.

It was a night that for a long time did not seem possible, after Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the film in November 2023 in favor of a tax write-off. Fans rallied around the project, though, refusing to let it die — until in March 2025, Ketchup Entertainment saved the film and set it up for a summer 2026 theatrical release.

Star Will Forte looks back at that period as “an emotional roller coaster,” admitting that despite how vocal people were being online to revive the film, “I didn’t think it would do anything.”

“I was just like, ‘They’re not hearing you, it’s not going to make a difference.’ And then they just kept going and it’s because of them the movie’s out,” Forte told The Hollywood Reporter on the carpet. “I had given up on it and I can’t thank these people enough. I always thought this movie was super special and the support from the community has meant so much. It’s made me feel sane; I felt gaslit for a while and their support, now the positive reviews coming out — [they] just make it feel like you’re not crazy.”

Coyote vs. Acme is a hybrid live-action and animation movie set in the Looney Tunes universe. It sees Wile E. Coyote deciding to sue the Acme Corporation after their products fail him one too many times in his relentless pursuit of the Roadrunner, with Forte as his inexperienced lawyer and John Cena as Acme’s attorney. And as Forte mentioned, the film is being released amid glowing reviews and very positive audience buzz.

“It’s so validating. I’ve been a part of a lot of projects that haven’t gotten great reviews that I have loved — MacGruber. I love it. People may hate it, but I love it, I’m so proud of it,” the actor said, noting that reviews are not everything but “in this case, I am accepting positive reviews and saying they do mean something, I’m doing a flip around.”

He continued that much like Wile E. Coyote going up against a big corporation, the film itself is an underdog, “so we need all the help we can get, and it feels like all these voices, the voices that helped us get the movie into the theaters, are helping spread the word about it being in the theaters. Hopefully people will listen to them and see these positive views and go like, ‘This movie deserves to be seen.’”

Cena echoed, “We’re here, we’re coming out in theaters, I just hope that everyone who used their voice shows up to see this thing.”

The BBC‘s Director General, Matt Brittin, has said the British broadcaster’s streaming service could benefit from a “public service algorithm” that allows it to function more like YouTube.

The striking plans, which Brittin warned was not “policy” at this stage, would see the BBC iPlayer opened up to creators and make the service more like YouTube, the platform that the exec oversaw in EMEA before joining the BBC.

In his first address to the industry today at the Edinburgh TV Festival, the former Google exec once again warned the BBC iPlayer had “fallen behind” rivals due a focus on content spend over technology in recent years. He first made similar noise in a town hall speech to staff in May soon after he became DG.

Brittion was careful to say this was “no fault of the team” at the BBC and that the content spend meant he “inherited incredible audience reach,” but leaves a puzzle over the iPlayer’s future and an immediate challenge in improving the iPlayer recommendations functionality.

His blue-sky solution was for the iPlayer to function more like YouTube by hosting creators from around the UK – “providing they stick to the guidelines we choose to set.”

He didn’t detail how this would be achieved, what the remuneration offer would be or why creators would choose to opt for BBC digital services over YouTube or other social media platforms, but it is still one of the more tantalizing ideas to be floated by a director general of the BBC for some time.

Brittin also called for the BBC to be “a more open platform” and that there was a need to “create sovereign media public space,” while adding the UK could build something “unadulterated by commercial interests, by algorithms that have other interests at heart.”

The service, which he dubbed ‘iPlayer 2.0″, would be based around “educating, informing and entertaining the public here and ideally around the world,” he said, adding it should be created “it in a way that’s not biased towards the incentives of a U.S. tech company or commercial interests. It should be biased towards what we want public service to be all about.”

It is likely the BBC, which is in the midst of cutting 2,000 roles to save around £500M ($679M), will have to cut programs to pay for improvements to the iPlayer. He noted that the BBC had shed £1.3B over the past decade and services and programs would inevitably come under pressure.

Brittin has spent his first 100 days at the BBC travelling to different parts of the mammoth organization to identify where to prioritize his efforts and how to wrestle with the type of existential crisis that outgoing BBC presenter Amol Rajan described earlier today.

Brittin admitted he had not “understood quite the severity” of the financial pressure heaped on the BBC. “Obviously, to get to that scale of savings, there’s uncertainty hanging over a lot more colleagues than those who will eventually leave the organization,” he added. “That’s really hard to deal with. But 90% of the people in the BBC will remain.”