Stuck In Development

This week, Eitan & Carl look at the NBA's options for the next decade of basketball streaming rights. No episode next week – the boys will be too busy playing LinkedIn games!

Buying Paramount's a lot trickier than you'd expect. Carl & Eitan detail the potential paths for Skydance, Apollo and/or Sony to acquire the Redstone's National Amusements holding company and/or Paramount outright. The boys also discuss Netflix's latest investor obfuscation tactic and Alex Garland's brilliant Civil War.

We start the episode with Eitan recounting an unconventional book presentation experience, and then launching into a conversation on some of the nuances in book distribution and overall business tactics in the current literary world. The boys then dive into spoiler-free analyses of their recent silver screen experiences. Hear Eitan's thoughts on 'Monkey Man', Dev Patel’s intriguing dir...

On the boys' first-ever Friday episode, Carl & Eitan loopily discuss Cinemacon announcements & early reviews of the Humane Ai Pin.

A 20-rundown of the latest big media and entertainment business news? You got it! Carl and Eitan start by exploring the news and impact of Endeavour, Ari Emmanuel's modern media conglomerate, being taken private by Silver Lake for $13B. After that, they check in on the latest of Disney's corporate drama and their proxy fight with activist investors. Finally, they close out with more though...

This week, Carl & Eitan look into rumors surrounding a potential exit for Alamo Drafthouse from its private equity overlords. They also catch up on Shogun and 3 Body Problem in a quick WAW segment.

Paramount Mountain is starting to look like a hill. In this week's episode Carl and Eitan analyze the bid to acquire Paramount's studios business by private equity giant Apollo. After that, they preview a potential DOJ suit against Apple. Join us!

Resident Oscars correspondent Kevin Sachs joins Carl & Eitan to discuss the 2024 Oscars ceremony. Beyond the ceremony itself, the boys name the most deserving snubs that should have been in the conversation. Carl also crowns the 2024 Goldfinch Award winner. Despite Oppenheimer 's strong performance at the Oscars, Eitan & Carl refuse to concede the Awards Draft to Kevin until the WGA Aw...

(Oscar recap episode coming later this week!) In this week's episode, the boys talk about Dune's sandstorm taking over the box office, including Eitan's spoiler-free review. After that, they go Apple's decision to cancel their car project and explore what might have driven them to do so. Come for the in-depth business analysis, stay for the Meme 101 class.

Eitan is worried; is AMC dead?

Spulu? Sony? Sawesome! In this episode, Carl and Eitan explore the latest in the Spulu saga (Sports + Hulu, very creative media Twitter) before exploring why no one has thought about Sony's media assets as an M&A opportunity, especially considering their we-don't-have-a-streaming-channel-and-license-to-everyone strategy. After that, Carl shares his long-awaited thoughts on the Apple Vi...

After briefly touching on it last week, Carl and Eitan dedicate most of this episode to a deep dive into Disney, Fox, and WBD's new sports venture. They explore potential repercussions, how rights licensing might work, and even brainstorm some potential (bad) names. In the movie front they catch up on American Fiction and The Taste of Things.

1 hour. 6 bold predictions. 2 corrections from the future. 1 new Stuck in Development award: Best Something Of How Things Operate in a Take.

Every year Carl and Eitan make hot takes about what they think will happen over the next 12 months. That's the fun part. A year later, its time to check the receipts. In this episode, Eitan and Carl go through their 2023 predictions and explore what they got right and what they got wrong, paying special attention to the causes of each action. Join us for this review episode to get ready for ne...

The SID Awards draft heats up (for Carl & Kevin, at least) as Carl & Eitan review the Oscar nominations. The two also try to make sense of Netflix's WWE deal.

After a hectic first three weeks of 2024, Eitan and Carl are finally back! In this episode, they catch up on two movies that overperformed a bit in Oscar nominations (even though this episode was recorded before they came out): Maestro and The Zone of Interest. They also check in on Apple's rocky start of the year ahead of what seems to be a critical 2024 for the Cupertino company. Happy new y...

For their last episode of 2023, Carl and Eitan received an incredible gift: actual viewership data from Netflix! The two dig into the (very limited, almost useless) dataset to try and draw insights around content shelf-life and Netflix's "auteur" projects. In other news, the two briefly discuss the outcome of the Epic v. Google trial as well as new releases Godzilla Minus One and The Hunger Games:...

Carl and Eitan are back in the swing of things after a small break for Eitan's wedding (!!). The main topics in this episode are Carl's love for the latest installment of the Hunger Games universe, and trying to figure out what Bob Iger means when he says some Disney movies are not performing well because they didn't have "enough on-set supervision". They also talk Eileen, Go...

SID has become unstuck in time. In this episode from 2.5 weeks ago, Carl and Eitan discuss whether Warner Bros' Coyoto vs. Acme could ever be a wise (or moral) decision; quickly discuss the now-very-wrapped-up SAG-AFTRA strike's implications on streaming numbers; and catch up on The Killer and The Holdovers.

Have you ever wished there was a contest where 3 media strategy nerds drafted movies and tracked how many nominations and wins each one gets across 10+ different awards shows to ultimately crown the 2023 Movie Award Champion? You have? Well, do we have a treat for you! In this episode, Carl and Eitan are joined by award and game master Kevin to draft the slate of movies more likely to reap the hig...

Carl and Eitan jam-packed this week's episode with a few pet topics. At the Box Office, they dissect the appeal of Five Nights at Freddy's and discuss Eitan's experience with Killers of the Flower Moon. They then attempt to read between the strategy lines of Disney's (full) Hulu acquisition and Apple's primetime "Scary Fast" event. The two spend the most time reveling...

The remaining movie schedule for 2023 looks good. The streaming price increases look bad (but make sense). In this episode, Carl and Eitan take stock of what's left of 2023. Join us!

Carl & Eitan discuss The Creator and Satya Nadella's testimony against Google in the U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Google LLC  antitrust case.

A single canary in a coal mine is usually a signal of change to come. But multiple canaries? In multiple coal mines? A wave of changes is coming. In this episode Eitan and Carl go through many different cracks the media market is showing, what they mean, and how they might play out. They include content licensing, targetting, acquisition valuations, new weird streaming ad-tiers, and many more! Joi...

Eitan provides Carl with a free therapy session on – what else – the state of streaming media. Also covered are Charter's updated contract with Disney as well as Disney's non-announcements about the future of Animal Kingdom.