The Ankler Podcast

By TheAnkler.com

What's The Ankler Podcast about?

Listen in as The Ankler team and industry insiders break down Hollywood’s latest business headlines, power struggles and trends shaping the future of entertainment.

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The Ankler Podcast episodes:

05.03.2024
TV Deal Turmoil 2024
What to do in this moribund market? Elaine Low outlines TV writers’ post-strike challenges — including the rickety staffing ladder — while our new Dealmakers columnist Ashley Cullins dives into the deterioration of the overall deal — and her news that Amazon and Apple are presenting new terms to industry agents...
04.26.2024
How Dad TV Muscled Into Hollywood
Reacher, The Terminal List and Jack Ryan may not win Emmys, but Dad TV has become a juggernaut for a TV business desperately needing one. Entertainment Strategy Guy joins Sean McNulty to break down the truth behind Prime Video’s Dad TV crown, streaming’s corresponding Mom TV — and what the...
04.19.2024
AI and Hollywood's 'Sophie's Choice'
Though the strikes ended, the fight around AI is far from over. Following the debut of her Dealmakers newsletter, new contributor Ashley Cullins joins to reveal her conversations with powerhouse entertainment lawyers and CAA, their behind the scenes maneuvering to protect Hollywood talent, and the agonizing Sophie’s...
04.12.2024
The Paramount Soap Opera
There’s plenty of worry about AI writing scripts . . . but let’s see AI come up with a story about two billionaire families negotiating a complex sale of an iconic, troubled entertainment conglomerate — and wreaking havoc in their wake. Sean...
04.05.2024
How Ari & Iger Outfoxed Wall St.
When Endeavor went public in 2021, the agency pulled out all the stops to present itself as innovators and a disruptor — the kind of terminology Wall Street loves from tech companies. But, as it often goes with the media...
03.29.2024
UTA vs. the Talented Mr. Kassan
Hollywood is filled with, er, colorful personalities. The one of the moment: Michael Kassan, the former MediaLink connector-in-chief now in dueling lawsuits with UTA. David Lidsky joins to reveal The Ankler’s investigative reporting into Kassan’s curious legal and financial history, including a $3.3m IRS tax...
03.22.2024
Wall Street's War on Hollywood
Wall Street likes surefire bets — growth companies that deliver predictable returns for infinite quarters. But in Hollywood, “you’re in the failure game,” says Richard Rushfield. Yet when the alchemy works, hits power the industry. Still studio leaders are mired in machinations to appease investors,...
03.15.2024
Disney, WBD and Hollywood's Jobs Shift
One of the most plum jobs in entertainment historically has been that of the creative exec. But now, with data informing programming choices more than ever, and advertisers hungry for user information, Elaine Low examines how the job market is revealing those shifted priorities through...
03.08.2024
Netflix's New Sports Playbook
Richard Rushfield assessed the State of the Industry this week, and we have questions: Why is there reason for hope? Why is Netflix suddenly so into sports? What are its live TV ambitions? Is there really no superhero fatigue? Or do we just need...
03.01.2024
Film Shakeup at Netflix and Disney
This week featured two huge film jobs finding their man: Netflix and Disney. Over at Netflix, seasoned producer Dan Lin is set to replace Scott Stuber, and Disney promoted David Greenbaum from Searchlight head to Disney Studios head. Do these...
02.23.2024
Warner Bros.' Wobbly Future
As Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav pours money into reconstructing Robert Evans’ legendary estate, a far more daunting reconstruction awaits: his company. On Friday, WBD had its Q4 earnings report, and it wasn’t pretty. Zaslav’s company missed on both earnings and...
02.16.2024
Paramount's Best/Worst Week Ever
The gods of Hollywood never give with both hands. Just ask Paramount who, in one week, delivered a record-shattering Super Bowl and Jon Stewart’s triumphant return. But currently for sale, the debt-laden studio within days was laying off three percent of its workforce...
02.09.2024
Disney's Next Decade
Disney CEO Bob Iger dropped one bombshell after another this week: a new ‘sports Hulu’ with Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox, a gaming splurge, and, yes, of course, news about Taylor Swift. As the Q4 earnings call revealed, theme park revenue continues...
02.02.2024
Netflix's Search for the Most Powerful Job in Film
A film executive with a TV metabolism. Relationships with top talent. A culture fit in a challenging company. If you can manage all three, you might have a shot at the Netflix film chief role recently vacated by Scott Stuber. There’s...
01.26.2024
The Rapid-Fire News Out of Netflix
Netflix’s head of film, Scott Stuber, stepped down from his post after seven years in a perfect ankling (meaning, it was unclear who left whom and why). That shocker was followed by one bombshell after another: a massive 10-year, $5 billion deal...
01.19.2024
Ari Golds of a New Hollywood
Inside the gleaming towers of marble and modern art containing Hollywood’s storied agencies lays the beehive of Hollywood: 10 percenters rolling calls and doing deals (that close slowly), and fresh faces filing the mailroom. But agencies aren’t immune to industry upheaval. Consolidation is...
01.12.2024
Pain in the New Year: Amazon Layoffs, Paramount Peril
Toast the New Year with RC Cola? It’s the kind of subpar beverage apropos to the first days of 2024, where a dreary Golden Globes (the RC Cola of Awards Shows) was celebrated for not being the lowest-rated in history; one of the most...
01.05.2024
'It's Like California in the 1920s'
Five years ago, Hollywood rose up in protest over Saudi Arabian dissident Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, which U.S. intelligence found was approved by the country’s leader, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. Now, with Hollywood in lean times and in need of new markets, the Kingdom...
12.22.2023
The Most Blunder-ful Time of the Year!
From mass layoffs to major strikes to multiplex disasters, the entertainment industry isn’t likely to forget 2023. Richard Rushfield runs through his annual Ankler 100, Hollywood’s most miserable moments of the year, as 2024 looms with even more possible disruption as a Warner Bros....
12.15.2023
A Peek Under Netflix's Secretive Hood
Hollywood officially entered the upside-down this week: streamers flexed like it was 2019 again with a flurry of new deals; Disney about-faced by licensing shows to one-time nemesis Netflix; and then Netflix, in the never-say-never category, dumped 10,000 pages of viewership...
12.08.2023
What the Heck is 'Undeniable' TV?
The passing of Norman Lear coincides with a new TV era where, quite likely, not a single one of the legendary producer’s famous sitcoms would pass muster in a pitch meeting of today. While Elaine Low talks specifics about what’s selling and who’s buying in...
12.01.2023
What Movie Audiences Want for the Holidays
As Hollywood reels from a string of high-budget box office flops, Kevin Goetz, says, sure, contraction is coming. But, “every movie — if made and marketed for the right price — should make money,” says the CEO of Screen Engine/ASI, long considered a top expert...
11.25.2023
In Conversation: Judy Blume & Kelly Fremon Craig
‘Oh Judy, baby.’ That’s Judy Blume impersonating the many male producers who had approached her decades ago to bring her legendary book about a girl traversing puberty, family and friends to the big screen. She wasn’t having it and followed...
11.17.2023
72 Hours with Netflix in Vegas
Back from the golf-F1 mashup Netflix Cup, Richard Rushfield joins Sean McNulty and Elaine Low to reveal that what happened in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas as the team talks Ted-spotting, celebrity entourages, and what it all has to do...
11.16.2023
Actors and Their Digital Replicas: Hollywood’s New Reality
Hollywood’s dystopian-sounding future is here, with AI the overriding issue for actors as they negotiated their new deal with the studios. Today, two actors on that SAG negotiating committee, Picard’s Michelle Hurd and actor Kevin E. West, walk host Elaine Low through new guardrails around...
11.11.2023
Fran Drescher Q&A: How AI Brought Hollywood CEOs to the Brink
“None of the workers in this industry are going to let themselves be dictated to anymore by big companies,” says SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, who sat down, along with chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, with Elaine Low on Nov. 10, in the wake of a new...
11.10.2023
Joy, Worry and 'Very Tired Tears'
The longest actors strike in history is over, but a scarred landscape of reduced spending, fewer shows and a shrinking job market now awaits. Sean McNulty, Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield reveal what executives are privately saying, and how to interpret those messages coming from Disney’s Bob...
11.03.2023
Alex Cooper and the Bold Future of ‘Call Her Daddy’
Swifties follow their favorite pop star from stadiums to theaters, even to NFL games. Now, Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper — founder of new multimedia company, Trending, with producer-fiancé Matthew Kaplan — hopes her fan army (known as the “Daddy Gang”) does the...
10.27.2023
Israel, Gaza and the Maha Brouhaha
The dramatic story of how high-flying CAA agent-to-the-stars Maha Dakhil ended up grounded as who-said-what about conflict in the Middle East inflames Hollywood. Also; real-life Hollywood horror stories, Peacock’s losses peak, and Ralph Nader’s apocalyptic AI warning to Hollywood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
10.20.2023
Streaming's Next 'Tooth and Nail' Fight
The pivot into advertising is off to a rough start: Journalist Sahil Patel on the shuffle inside Netflix as it misses first-year ad goals by half. For more entertainment industry news, subscribe to The Ankler at theankler.com/subscribe. This is...
10.13.2023
'A Culture of Dystopia and Nihilism'
The world has no shortage of villains, and according to Jonathan Taplin, author of The End of Reality, Hollywood is currently up against four: Silicon Valley billionaires Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk. “We have right now...
10.06.2023
Hollywood Greenlights Get Harder
Post-strike, writers have returned to a vastly changed industry. “A big theme I’m hearing from a lot of studio people is that the bar for a greenlight has just gotten much, much higher in the last few months,” says Richard...
09.29.2023
An Agency's Golden Handcuff Quandary
For years, CAA agents were promised a pot of gold. Now as the behemoth sells, the 10 percent crew cries foul over its own 10 percent. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or...
09.27.2023
Five Days in September
What went on during those last five crucial days of negotiations between the WGA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers? Showrunner and WGA negotiating committee member Adam Conover (Adam Ruins Everything) takes us behind-the-scenes of the talks. This is...
09.22.2023
A Town Holds its Breath
Looking for signals and signs that the end is near for the WGA strike. Plus, Peter Kiefer talks about one of the other casualties of the shutdown — Democratic political fundraising — as President Joe Biden faces the fight of...
09.15.2023
Lies, Whispers, Rumors: a Strike Struck
Since the last round of talks between the WGA and AMPTP on Aug. 22, the deafening silence that fell over Hollywood kicked the rumor mill into overdrive. “This is a function of this stage of the strike where there's a...
09.15.2023
Inside the Era of Bob Iger 2.0
CNBC's Alex Sherman goes behind the scenes of Disney's succession plan disaster and the 'disintegration' of his inner circle. To subscribe to The Ankler and The Wakeup newsletters, please go to theankler.com/subscribe. This is a public episode. If you’d like to...
09.08.2023
Nightmare Scenario of January 2024
Why a next-year end to the strike looks possible, what the Charter-Disney debacle has to do with it, and Richard Rushfield's TIFF report. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access...
09.07.2023
The Ankler x Wakeup Summer Box Office Finale
After making bold summer box office predictions at Memorial Day, Sean McNulty, Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield return to talk about the titles that took in $4 billion stateside, and crown one winning workhorse studio with the highest return on...
09.06.2023
Myth of the Hollywood Dream Job
Labor contagion keeps spreading as union actions across the country catch fire. That's no coincidence, says labor journalist and Work Won’t Love You Back author Sarah Jaffe, who joins Elaine Low to discuss what disparate industries, from teaching to health...
09.01.2023
How to Quit Hollywood
Former hotshot TV writer Patty Lin, who quit Hollywood in 2009 when industry toxicity overwhelmed her, discusses her dishy new memoir, 'End Credits'. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access...
08.25.2023
'My Year is Gone Career-Wise'
Before the strike, actress Addie Weyrich had an FX pilot. Today, she is waiting tables. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe Learn more about your...
08.18.2023
Leaks, Meetings & Calls. Oh My!
After months of silence, studio heads seem newly committed to reaching an agreement with the WGA. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe Learn more about...
08.16.2023
Lina Khan Q&A: Hollywood 'Red Flags', 'Doom Loop' & the Future of M&A
FTC Chair Lina Khan on the agency’s views on the various crises roiling entertainment. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe Learn more about your...
08.11.2023
'It Will Surprise Us How Fast it Can Disappear'
Dickinson creator Alena Smith joins to discuss the destructive effects of streaming and the corporatization of entertainment. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe Learn more about your...
08.04.2023
WBD and the Struggle of Legacy Studios
Three earnings calls on the same day reveal how entertainment companies are no longer playing the same game. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe Learn...
07.28.2023
Studios, Strikers and a Tense Game of Chicken
The WGA accuses the studios of being in a ‘mutual suicide pact.’ This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices....
07.22.2023
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland: 'It Takes Two to Tango...the Companies Aren't Stepping Up'
As Week 1 of the actors strike draws to a close, an interview with SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland on Wall Street’s impact on the impasse, the stickiest issues on the table and more. This is a public episode. If...
07.21.2023
The Raw Deal Point Roiling Hollywood
Entertainment Strategy Guy joins to discuss perhaps the most existential of issues at the heart of the current SAG-studio impasse: profit sharing. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access...
07.14.2023
Iger, Ire, Actors: Apocalypse Now
For the first time in over 60 years, Hollywood is in the throes of a double strike. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe Learn more...

What's The Ankler Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Ankler Podcast episodes:

TV Deal Turmoil 2024

How Dad TV Muscled Into Hollywood

AI and Hollywood's 'Sophie's Choice'

The Paramount Soap Opera

How Ari & Iger Outfoxed Wall St.

UTA vs. the Talented Mr. Kassan

Wall Street's War on Hollywood

Disney, WBD and Hollywood's Jobs Shift

Netflix's New Sports Playbook

Film Shakeup at Netflix and Disney

Warner Bros.' Wobbly Future

Paramount's Best/Worst Week Ever

Disney's Next Decade

Netflix's Search for the Most Powerful Job in Film

The Rapid-Fire News Out of Netflix

Ari Golds of a New Hollywood

Pain in the New Year: Amazon Layoffs, Paramount Peril

'It's Like California in the 1920s'

The Most Blunder-ful Time of the Year!

A Peek Under Netflix's Secretive Hood

What the Heck is 'Undeniable' TV?

What Movie Audiences Want for the Holidays

In Conversation: Judy Blume & Kelly Fremon Craig

72 Hours with Netflix in Vegas

Actors and Their Digital Replicas: Hollywood’s New Reality

Fran Drescher Q&A: How AI Brought Hollywood CEOs to the Brink

Joy, Worry and 'Very Tired Tears'

Alex Cooper and the Bold Future of ‘Call Her Daddy’

Israel, Gaza and the Maha Brouhaha

Streaming's Next 'Tooth and Nail' Fight

'A Culture of Dystopia and Nihilism'

Hollywood Greenlights Get Harder

An Agency's Golden Handcuff Quandary

Five Days in September

A Town Holds its Breath

Lies, Whispers, Rumors: a Strike Struck

Inside the Era of Bob Iger 2.0

Nightmare Scenario of January 2024

The Ankler x Wakeup Summer Box Office Finale

Myth of the Hollywood Dream Job

How to Quit Hollywood

'My Year is Gone Career-Wise'

Leaks, Meetings & Calls. Oh My!

Lina Khan Q&A: Hollywood 'Red Flags', 'Doom Loop' & the Future of M&A

'It Will Surprise Us How Fast it Can Disappear'

WBD and the Struggle of Legacy Studios

Studios, Strikers and a Tense Game of Chicken

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland: 'It Takes Two to Tango...the Companies Aren't Stepping Up'

The Raw Deal Point Roiling Hollywood

Iger, Ire, Actors: Apocalypse Now