We’ve reached a somewhat sad milestone in entertainment history. As of the end of 2023, cable subscribers will be outnumbered by those who no longer pay for any traditional TV service offering. While the decline in cable subscribers is hardly news at this point, we’ve seen an acceleration in its decline throughout 2023. Entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake, of Blake & Wang P.A, shares his insight on the matter.

Brandon Blake

Breaking Down the Figures

The number of people with no traditional TV service- be it because they’ve exited that model, or those who never joined to start with- has now reached just over 144M, a 12.5% increase over 2022 numbers. Traditional pay-TV members have dropped by 10.2%, to 121.1M- and that includes those receiving their package through telecom providers, cable, or satellite. We’ve seen this decline since 2014, also widely seen as the year streaming first had a noticeable market presence.

Why? In the end, however mercenary it seems, people no longer want to spend upwards of $100 a month on one fixed bundle, even live TV. They want the wealth of choice, lower cost-of-entry, and easier exit of the current streaming subscription model.

Disney vs Charter: A Symptom

We pretty much saw this shift play out in real-time with this year’s thorny Disney vs Charter TV deal. Comcast no longer wanted to pay for cable channels that its subscribers aren’t engaging with; now most of Disney’s premium (and attractive) offerings are funnelled to Disney+ instead- another issue accelerating cable’s decline in people’s perceptions.

It’s expected that we will see a similar scenario play out a lot in the coming years. The economics of streaming are, of course, hardly a simple and easy money-maker now the pandemic-generated boom has lost its shine. So there’s still a lot of evolution in the entertainment space to come. But if current trends stay consistent, one thing is for sure- the future is not with cable.

While we’ve finally seen a substantial number of films manage to secure a Chinese release date this year, that doesn’t mean everything is back to the old normal. While a Chinese Box Office release was once something of a cheat code for international success, the market’s tastes have shifted a lot in the wake of the pandemic. Brandon Blake, our entertainment lawyer from Blake & Wang P.A., looks closer.

Brandon Blake

Cool Start for Key Films

One thing is for sure- China will not be the salvation of Disney’s ill-fated The Marvels. The movie has slipped to sixth place in only its second week after release, and even the best projections for the movie are a mere $15M- an all-time low for the MCU in this market.

Nor is it the only Hollywood franchise release struggling to win back Chinese audiences. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes opened at third place this last weekend, beneath two local (and holdover) films- and earned just $4.6M. Nor is this likely to improve by much, with the film earning low rating scores from local audiences. It’s currently projected to close at only $7M earned there.

Changed Tastes

With both the MCU and the Hunger Games franchises having had pre-pandemic Chinese releases, it’s hard not to draw comparisons. Earlier Hunger Games installments took between $21M and $36.5M in the market. While superhero-style pictures have been the most notorious underperformers in recent years, we’re seeing a general shift away from Hollywood franchise releases overall.

Some of this can, of course, be laid at the door of the shift in Chinese sentiment to more nationalist fare in the COVID era. However, some of it comes from a market that’s now far richer in attention-grabbing local movies, often with more complex plots and greater local relevance.

All in all, it is unlikely we will see this market return to its previous prominence in the international release schedules, though the fact any movie at all is at least getting some release prominence there is still to be celebrated.

There’s one thing you can say for the entertainment industry- it’s never static. This week we saw the news that CAA will be adding another arm to its entertainment-focused empire with CAA Evolution, an advisory firm and investment bank looking to work in the media, entertainment, and sport space. Blake & Wang P.A.’s Brandon Blake, our local entertainment lawyers in USA, unpacks this new development.


Brandon Blake

More M&A Action

The new entity sees the combination of the CAA’s existing merchant bank, Evolution Media Capital, with their recently-acquired boutique strategic advisory firm, M. Klein & Company. With almost 60 employees, it will be based out of London, LA, and New York.

This new creation will greatly expand the CAA’s existing footprint in both capital raises and media rights deals. They will be focusing on fund/capital formation services and IPOs while offering access to institutional capital sources. Additionally, with M. Klein & Company in their stable, they will be offering advisory services for talent sourcing, PR/IR management, and board dispute resolution. Add the nebulous ‘evaluating unsolicited offers’ to that, too.

Expansion and Focus

The latter is most definitely an expansion on the 35-year strong footprint M. Klein & Company has already been offering. They will additionally continue to operate as a stand-alone business across other (non-entertainment) industrial sectors. We’ve already seen Evolution Media Capital active in the sports media space, too, primarily focusing on the development of streaming and digital strategies for this expanding entertainment space.

The core CAA business has also seen some transformation this year, with a majority stake selling at a cool $7B to luxury goods billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault. With plenty of experience from both sides, and an expanded stable to focus on, there’s plenty to look forward to from CAA Evolution, and we expect to see them rise as a major player (or rather, more major) over the next few years. 

Is the era of the Chinese release date back again? With both Wonka and Migration set to release on the same day and a raft of other release dates confirmed for what was once one of Hollywood’s most critical overseas markets, it seems so. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment Lawyers in USA, Brandon Blake, has the news.

Brandon Blake

Early Release

Both Wonka and Migration have been granted a release date of December 8 for the Chinese market. This would be a week ahead of the domestic release of Wonka, which is seeing a generally advanced overseas rollout.

Disney, which has had difficulties with Chinese releases in recent years, has scored a Chinese opening for The Marvels, which may go a way to offset its generally soft domestic release. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, from Lionsgate, will premiere on November 17 for the Chinese market, followed the next week by Disney’s Wish. Interestingly, DC and Warner Bros Discovery have secured approval for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but still have not received a confirmed date.

Actors Back To Promotion

With the SAG-AFTRA strike finally resolved, we will no doubt see a return of lead actors for these films to the red carpet promotion circuit. Wonka is currently predicted for a $20M opening, but that was without this consideration. In addition to China, the film will roll out to 36 other overseas markets starting from Dec 6th. It will be released for the domestic market on Dec 15. Migration is similarly released for Illumination overseas before its domestic date, with further staggered releases through December-February and Japan in March 2024.

The Chinese market, amid shifting post-pandemic tastes, has been softer than it once was for Hollywood releases. However, this is one of the largest spates of Hollywood releases we’ve seen for the market in recent years, even offset as it is by an equally bulky local slate for the year-end season. Whether this trend will continue or not is the real question.

In the year since Netflix launched its ad-supported tier, the ranks of monthly active users has swelled to 15 million. This is a fantastic improvement on May’s 5 million. With their global rollout still in progress, what does this mean for Netflix and the wider entertainment industry? Our expert entertainment lawyer in USA, Brandon Blake (from Blake & Wang P.A.) dives deeper into the news.

Brandon Blake

Most Growth in the Third Quarter

According to Netflix themselves, Q3 saw a massive 70% uptick in growth for their ad-supported tier (‘Basic with Ads’). However, we still lack clarity on how many of Netflix’s 247 million global subscribers are using the tier, which is now the cheapest they have on offer.

The move to advertising-supported tiers has been something of a trend this year. For Netflix itself, it also was something of a corporate reversal- there was a time when they promised there would ‘never’ be ads on the service. However, their partnership with Microsoft (for the data side of selling ad inventory) came after a series of poor quarterly performances and a massive hit to its market value.

A Booming Trend

Hot on their heels, we saw Disney+ buy into the ad-supported model, and many others have followed since. The streaming industry has been on the lookout for the ‘magic’ economic model to help make the streaming industry as lucrative as its initial COVID-fueled boom promised. It seems to have decided advertising money is the way of the future- ironically returning us to a streaming experience more closely modeled on older broadcast models.

Netflix paired the launch of the ad-supported model with a rollback on open password sharing, a dual-pronged approach that seems to have driven much of the shift to its cheaper tier for users. Subscriber growth, increased cash flow, and a return to profitability have followed.

While offering ad-supported tiers is unlikely to be the end of streaming’s need to adapt to current economic trends and viewer tastes, it’s certainly proven to be a lucrative model, and one that will shape the future of streaming for decades to come.

Endeavor, the owner of not just WME but also IMG, and a majority stakeholder for the TKO Group (the new home of the UFC), is reportedly considering leaving the public trading space. Entertainment attorney Brandon Blake, from Blake & Wang P.A, shares the news.

Brandon Blake

Strategic Review Underway

Reportedly, this formal review is under consideration due to an inherent discrepancy between the intrinsic value of its assets and their public market value. Endeavor’s major stakeholder (at 71%) is the private equity company Silver Lake, and they are reportedly the key drivers behind the proposed move.

They likely have a point on the market undervaluation. CAA’s majority stake recently sold at a $7B evaluation, for example, or 15 times their revenue on the agency business side. IMG Academy and Endeavor Content also fetched very enticing market prices. Yet Endeavor itself is currently tracking around 1.5 times its revenue value. While it is unlikely any publicly listed company would receive the private equity value CAA did, that’s still a puzzlingly large discrepancy.

A Whole or Pieces?

It also seems that Endeavor may be interested in selling off pieces of the business rather than a whole, in a bid to maximize shareholder value. We could have already seen the start of this with the merger of the UFC and WWE into the TKO Group, although that’s not currently up for sale. In fact, the same argument about public market value and intrinsic value reared its head at the time there, too.

If the move to return to private equity vs the market does go ahead, it will create a very intriguing rollback of the M&A flurry we saw in 2021 and 2022 from a key player on the entertainment scene. Could we potentially see more, similar moves? In the ever-shifting entertainment space, nothing is ever fixed, after all.

From the strikes and general economic environment to Netflix’s subscriber slide in Q1, it’s been an interesting- and formative- year for the entertainment industry. Despite the difficulties, however, we’ve also seen an interesting year in which the domestic and global entertainment scenes have become more unified, and there’s plenty of positivity to find. Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment lawyer in the USA, Brandon Blake, explores some of these ripples.

Brandon Blake

Change and Consolidation

It has been a tough year to navigate, but that was inevitable given the massive shifts in the entertainment industry and the rise of the streaming boom. Once-in-a-generation shifts are rarely subtle, after all. But among the many strategic shifts that we’ve seen this year, a greater impact on producing locally for global eyes is sure to be a net positive. The digital age has broken through borders in how we work and play- and entertainment evolving to support that can only be a good thing.

Harder to adjust to has been Wall Street pressures and lost confidence in streaming. While this has axed the ‘blank check’ mindset that did bring to life some immensely worthy projects and has somewhat discouraged risk-taking, it could also lead to wiser investment in worthier projects instead of just throwing money at projects and hoping it sticks.

The Rise of Hero Titles

So-called ‘hero titles’, or big bets on massive high-end productions like Amazon’s Lord of the Rings, have been an interesting streaming-age phenomenon, too. Big risk? Yes, but big reward too if it pays off. This has helped to elevate the streaming original genre considerably and take it away from its previous low-budget perception.

This would also be the first time we’ve seen US-centric strikes take on a global impact, leading to some complicated dances around licensing and distribution as well as international crew shutdowns. But it has also fostered a returned interest in making local-for-local instead of always hoping to sell on to US markets. Additionally, we’ve seen a positive rise in co-productions that will benefit the industry overall.

While what some have called the ‘bursting bubble’ in the entertainment industry may be painful to weather in the short term, there are also the roots of some positive developments for the industry as a whole. We may leave the difficult 2023 year with the groundwork for a stronger, better entertainment industry after all.                                          

We rarely get comprehensive data from Netflix about its subscriber numbers and revenue, so it’s always worth paying attention when they do crack the data vault. With the UK currently serving as their most important production hub after the US itself, seeing strong figures here is always of interest. Our entertainment lawyer Los Angeles on the ground, Brandon Blake of Blake & Wang P.A. breaks it all down for us.

Brandon Blake

Revenue and Subscriber Growth

Netflix UK posted £1.54 billion ($1.9 billion) in sales for the 12 months ending December 2022, marking a 12% growth from the previous year’s revenue of £1.4 billion. Pre-tax profits also saw a 22% increase, reaching £34.1 million for the year.

Although the exact number of UK subscribers remains undisclosed, data from the audience research body BARB indicates that 17.2 million British households had access to Netflix by the end of 2022, representing a 3% year-on-year increase. The earnings report from Netflix Services UK also highlighted a 4% growth in the average number of paid memberships and a 14% rise in the average revenue generated per subscriber.

Knock-On Effects

Of course, with greater transparency, mostly foisted onto Netflix by changed local regulations, comes greater governmental interest. Netflix has faced a great deal of criticism for low tax payments in the UK space for a while now. On the heels of this revenue reporting, we see a boost to £6.4 million in income tax paid for the year, compared to £5.3 million in 2021. Netflix itself attributes the majority of this increase to its increased commitment to making series and films in the UK. Interestingly, they have also taken on almost a third more employees in the UK despite the rocky economic climate, bringing the total to 202. They were quite keen to brag about this increased job creation in the same report, too.

Overall, it seems this arm of the global streaming giant is managing to turn in a stellar performance in an economic climate that has been more bust than boom. It will be interesting to see if we get similar figures for their US operations as Q3 closes.

As we gracefully slide into October, it’s no surprise that horror films are the name of the game at the box office. After a stunning performance from The Nun II, all eyes are now turned to another popular horror franchise entry with The Exorcist: Believer. Will it deliver? Blake & Wang P.A. ‘s Entertainment Lawyer Los Angeles Brandon Blake, our industry-insider entertainment lawyer, takes a look at its potential.



                                Brandon Blake

$30-36M Start

This R-rated fusion of reboot and sequel is currently trending very closely to The Nun II, which opened at $32.6M domestically with most of its audience coming from the 18-34 demographic. Surprisingly, it also performed well among older men, Latino, and Hispanic viewers. It will be rolling out on 3,600 screens, including both IMAX and PLF. 

With production costs (before P&A) of $30M, a strong opening could be all the magic it needs to boost itself directly into profitability, too. Even if it misses the mark, provided it gets into the $20M range, it will still be one of the strongest openings for the franchise. The Exorcist III currently holds the top title, at a $9.3M opening and $26M total.

Strange Opposition

Unlike many other genres at the moment, horror is not particularly bothered by the lack of talent promotion as the SAG-AFTRA strike continues. Saw X, which is now in its second week, has managed a solid $18.3M start. Small in the wider scheme of things, but enough to save it from the dismal low of the previous installment ($8.75M). 

In contrast to the first two entrants in this year’s horror season, however, The Exorcist: Believer has an interesting hurdle to overcome- the deluge of ‘Swifties’ due to hit theaters for the theatrical release of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour from mid-October. Its release was actually pulled forward a week to try and combat this. Will it be enough to keep box office numbers high? Let’s see if The Exorcist: Believer has enough belief in itself to rise to expectations.

It’s been an interesting week across the board for shares in entertainment. With Big Media taking a hit, streamers seeing some upward progress, and a climate of optimism keeping theatrical stocks buoyant, it’s a difficult-to-read climate. Luckily we have Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney from Blake & Wang P.A., to help make sense of the shifts.

                                                               Brandon Blake

Big Media Dull

Wall Street has been mixed regarding larger media groups as the dual-strike actions sent many productions into hibernation. While this has generated plenty of free cash and a temporary lowering in costs for these companies, no one can ignore the overall negative impact of reduced production, either. With the welcome news that the WGA, at least, will be returning to work this week, we would have expected to see a rise in stocks. However, the market remains jittery about other economic aspects, including a weaker advertising market and new checks and balances in the industry. Additionally, worries remain over the degree of disruption the strikes will have on this year’s balance sheets, even if SAG-AFTRA manages to hammer out a deal this week and scripted productions resume this month.

Boost to Theater Chains

Interestingly, however, the climate around the exhibition industry is still reasonably buoyant. AMC Entertainment saw a significant 9% rise in stock price last week, likely fortified by its announced launch of an ad-supported tier for its flagship streamer, AMC+. Cinemark and Marcus saw more modest gains (3.5% and 2.8% respectively), but a gain is a gain at this point. Additionally, Netflix saw a modest 1% gain in the markets, slightly protected from the concerns around profitability other key streamers face as they have long been operating fully in the black.

It’s certainly intriguing to see the market’s different reactions across the entertainment industry this week, even if it is unclear exactly why the potential knock-on effects on the production pipeline have not yet reared their head for exhibitors.