{"id":559938,"date":"2026-08-05T16:54:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559938\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T16:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:54:31","slug":"%e2%98%80%ef%b8%8f-how-pars-finding-more-tv-film-%f0%9f%92%b0when-revenues-flat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559938\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2600\ufe0f How PAR’s Finding More TV, Film \ud83d\udcb0When Revenue’s Flat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like<\/a> or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com<\/a>), and here\u2019s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Wednesday, August 5, 2026.<\/p>\n

Where I gotta say it was very considerate of the WARNAMOUNT judge to put the trial right in the quiet zone of the Q1 sports season between the NFL season and March Madness! <\/p>\n

Be there March 2 through March 19 for the antitrust trial to remember<\/a> (merch pending) \u2014 although March 8 and 15 will be off because the judge knows how much PSKY loves Monday mornings for making news announcements.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\t\tOne of his most unheralded roles \u2026 Via Giphy<\/p>\n

Thus, WBD shareholders can certainly expect a nice $1.3B check from the Ellison family (sent with regards), and we\u2019ll see how long a ruling takes in Q2 to augment that payment.<\/p>\n

It also gives any new members of Congress entering in late January a nice window after being sworn in to make some public statements on the matter, should they so choose.<\/p>\n

KEEP IN MIND: This is the fast way to trial. If PSKY had rolled the dice on the preliminary injunction and lost, this trial could have been set for a year from now, or more \u2014 this is the calculus PSKY likely used in making its decision last month.<\/p>\n

Remember, NEXSTAR\/TEGNA is going to antitrust trial about 14 months after the preliminary injunction was issued in that state AG lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Other options besides the trial in the meantime:<\/p>\n

An agreement in compromise is reached before March \u2014 Ellison said PSKY is \u201cabsolutely open to finding a solution outside of court\u201d on the Q2 earnings call yesterday. The state AGs . . . likely not so much, unless Gavin Newsom has some unusually persuasive conversations over the next 7 months with Rob Bonta.<\/p>\n

PSKY decides to say screw it \u2014 here\u2019s a check for $9.8B from the Ellison family (sent with regards), and we\u2019re gonna now go see about some JV\u2019s with soon-to-be-spun NBCU. Good luck, Zaz!<\/p>\n

The Ellison fortune suffers a huge AI market collapse-induced hit via ORACLE over the next 9 months or so (which we all wrapped our heads around a bit more last weekend thanks to the NY Times<\/a>), and causes them to reconsider their Hollywood investments.<\/p>\n

BTW: That David Ellison \u201cThis is all about CNN!\u201d NYT op-ed<\/a> yesterday was spearheaded by Blair Effron, the co-founder of CENTERVIEW PARTNERS, one of the lead financial advisors for PSKY in the WARNAMOUNT deal (and noted Democratic Party fundraiser). Breaker has more details here<\/a> on how it came about.<\/p>\n

OH: TIFF set its docs lineup here,<\/a> and yes, the Elon doc from Alex Gibney will be there. <\/p>\n

PLUS: Here is your NYFF main slate<\/a> for next month. <\/p>\n

OTHERWISE: Busy day today, so let\u2019s get to it.<\/p>\n

REMINDER<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a free subscriber to The Ankler, there is a standalone subscription option for The Wakeup on The Ankler Subscribe page<\/a> (just scroll down to the bottom), <\/a>which gives you access to this column every day and the archives, including all of the previous Earnings Season breakdowns for all of the entertainment business\u2019 finest companies (NETFLIX, COMCAST, TKO, SPOTIFY, CHARTER etc).<\/p>\n

Now, onto PARAMOUNT and DISNEY.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcc9 Earnings Season<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a>Via Giphy<\/p>\n

PARAMOUNT\u2019s curious way to growth when revenue isn\u2019t growing<\/p>\n

So, the 2 big, topline numbers at PARAMOUNT are rather stagnant in Q2:<\/p>\n

Revenue: $6.91B, +1% YoY<\/p>\n

Net Profit: $41M, down from $57M last Q2<\/p>\n

This is the nature of a business where the 2 main drivers are working against each other: a melting linear TV business and a growing streaming business.<\/p>\n

As much as streaming grows \u2014 linear TV is melting a bit more . . . so total revenue kinda equals out. Then add on a theatrical movie business that will always fluctuate a bit from quarter to quarter (and is far smaller in revenue), and a TV studio in PAR TV STUDIOS that is really just getting its feet under itself as a seller to 3rd parties again.<\/p>\n

However, the more you go inside the PSKY balance sheet . . . the more you see what levers David Ellison and co. have been pulling over the past year to free up more cash for 15 movies annually and all of those new PAR+ TV shows \u2014 and yes, cuts are involved.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s what the PAR C-suite is up to now, 1 year into having the keys to the lot on Melrose.<\/p>\n

But first, a curious note about how Ellison is getting to that \u201c15 Movie Guarantee\u201d in 2026, which . . . well, I\u2019m gonna guess is probably not what you\u2019re assuming it means.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t stop here<\/p>\n

Get the rest of this story \u2014\u00a0and the scoops and intelligence Hollywood reads first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2398,156,1094,111,139,69,421,437,275575],"class_list":["post-559938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-netflix","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paramount","tag-tv","tag-weekly-netflix-chart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}