Hollywood Q1 Report: Disneyland in Abu Dhabi, a Warner Bros. Spinoff, and Streaming is … Stable?

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 847 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to discuss announcements and narratives that emerged from the latest Q1 earnings reports, including Disney’s new theme park in Abu Dhabi, a Bob Iger succession check-in, a potential Warner Bros. Discovery split, Paramount in trouble, and other takeaways following streaming's continued path towards profitability (2:20). Matt finishes the show with a prediction surrounding the latest news of 'Reacher' star Alan Ritchson’s fight with manager Dan Spilo (26:13). Email [email protected] to inquire about Puck’s Stories of the Season event. For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing…’ click here. Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Lucas Shaw Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone. Instead of my usual Monday plug for Puck, I've got a special announcement for listeners of the town that are members of Hollywood Gilds or the TV Academy.
0:09.5	I'm doing a special event for the Emmy season called Stories of the Season. It's me and some of my Puck colleagues in special conversations with some of the biggest stars and creators of this TV season, including a live recording of
0:21.1	the town with John Mullaney. Should be really fun. Panels, drinks, food, and you can hang with me
0:26.4	and Craig. It's May 20th in the evening in Hollywood, so if you're a TV academy member or awards
0:31.8	voter and you want to come, just email Fritz at puck.news to score your seat at Stories of the Season.
0:38.9	Fritz at puck.
0:40.1	com.
0:40.9	Also, the email will be in the description of this episode.
0:43.7	Okay, on to the show.
0:46.8	It is Monday, May 12th.
0:49.1	We're pretty much at the end of the quarterly earnings season for the big media and entertainment companies.
0:53.8	Disney, Netflix, Warner Discovery, all the majors have reported their first quarter numbers.
0:58.5	And there were some big announcements, some big narratives that have emerged.
1:01.5	TV business continues to collapse and brought down Paramount, among others.
1:05.2	They're really treading water, opening the sale to Skydance eventually closes.
1:09.4	But streaming is a much better narrative for the industry.
1:12.3	These six big streamers combined profit doubled from $2.6 billion last year in the first quarter.
1:18.4	That was basically all Netflix to about $5 billion this year, according to Aowell and Company, the research analysts.
1:24.6	That doesn't include Prime Video or Apple TV Plus.
1:27.0	They don't break out numbers.
1:28.4	Peacock and Paramount Plus, still not profitable, but those losses are narrowing and subscribers
1:32.6	continue to grow. Disney had a pretty strong quarter. Revenue and profit were both up.
	...

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