From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.

Yes, friends, it's time for the end-of-year mega-banter.

Protracted Strikes, AI Terror, Barbenheimer, streamer struggles, whatever will we talk about.

Bantor buddies Lucas Shaw and Matt Bellany join me to figure it out.

And an update, after we recorded, Axios broke the news that Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery had a meeting to discuss a merger,

though the parties said no formal talks are underway.

I am joined by not one but two buddies and banter, Matt Bellany of Puck. Hello, Matt.

Hi.

And Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg. Hi, Lucas.

Hey, Kim.

So I think we can all agree that the strikes are the story of the year. We saw very long, months

long, I think record-setting strikes. First, the writers went out then Sag Aftera, as we all know. And it was a

grinding experience that ultimately there was a resolution when the, some people called a gang

of four, I called the Fantastic Four, although not meaning literally fantastic, but Bob Iger,

Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos, and David Zaslov went into the room,

first with the writers, got a deal, and subsequently the same thing with the actors. Now, there's

been a lot, lot, lot written about, were these good deals, were they not such good deals? I'm

going to poll you to, were they good deals or were they not good deals? Lucas,

take it away. Good deals for whom, I guess, would be my first question. It seems like the writers

in particular got a lot of what they wanted, a lot of things that at the beginning they were told

were non-starters, you know, the minimum number of writers in the room, some greater data transparency, some kind of upside when

your show does well. They got all those things, which at the beginning, if you'd asked us in

...