“It’s a terrible place to make creative decisions when fear seeps into the process,” Peter Kiefer tells our hosts, as he explains what he learned from interviews with a dozen of the town’s senior executives (13:39). Some culprits? Underwater stock options, a top-down obsession with optics, the ruthless demands of Wall Street and private equity, and a relentless mining of old IP. Oh yeah, and the constant threat of layoffs. Also: our IRL Oscar week streaming summit (1:00), the new nepo-ex atop AMC Networks (4:13), Don Lemon’s bad behavior (11:06), and Richard Rushfield’s advice (34:43) for Jenna Ortega and all stars.

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