We continue to believe the Supreme Court will grant an administrative stay (or possibly an injunction) to prevent PAFACA from taking effect on January 19th. However, even if we are wrong and the Supreme Court upholds PAFACA, it feels increasingly likely that President Biden will exercise his ability (written into PAFACA) to delay the law…
Everyone is asking us what happens to TikTok. Here is a summary and analysis of the possibilities as we approach January 19th. We have also pulled out some interesting quotes from the Supreme Court oral arguments. 1) Biden: The last thing the Democratic Party needs right now, after being left in shambles by the recent…
Welcome to the Fourteenth Edition of the LightShed Earnings Scorecard, our analysis of the quality of earnings calls. This quarter, we tracked 75 companies, one fewer than last quarter, adding AppLovin and removing Frontier and MSG Sports. The Impact Of AI Artificial Intelligence remains a dominant topic, with mentions in nearly two-thirds of the calls…
On Monday, Fubo reached an agreement to merge with Disney-controlled Hulu Live, with Disney owning 70% of the merged company and existing Fubo shareholders 30% (note: we wonder how the never-ending Disney buyout of Comcast’s Hulu stake is impacted by this transaction as it impacts the value of Hulu). As part of the Fubo/Hulu Live…
Happy New Year! As always, we are publishing our predictions for the year ahead. This year we are breaking a tradition. In the past, we have added one extra prediction each year to match the number of predictions to the year. This year we are going backwards as we seek greater accuracy and save you…
MSG Networks has now been dark on Optimum for 36 hours. We do not expect a resolution anytime soon, if at all. This could set off a bankruptcy for MSG Networks, which would have impact on SPHR, MSG Sports and the wider sports media ecosystem. Altice’s decision to drop MSG Networks is not surprising. RSNs…
As usual, our most read post of the year was the first post of the year: the LightShed Team’s predictions for the year ahead. Topics that drove the most interest largely revolved around legacy media companies attempting to reposition secularly declining businesses for the future, including through M&A and strategic alternatives (Paramount’s sale process and…
The lines between professional/premium video content and user-generated content (UGC) will blur rapidly starting in 2025. GenAI video creation tools will enable consumers all around the world to create far higher quality content than ever before, without the need for any video creation skills beyond their imagination. While there has been an incredible amount of…
WBD shares fell below $7 in August 2024, down nearly 70% from the initial $24 stock price when the WarnerMedia/Discovery transaction closed in April 2022. Following the loss of Turner’s NBA rights (starting with the 2025-2026 season) a month earlier, WBD investors feared Turner affiliate fees would be decimated by Comcast and other MVPD/vMPVDs. Given…
On April 24, 2024, President Biden signed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) into law after being passed with bipartisan support in Congress (as part of a larger spending bill, not a standalone bill). On May 7, 2024, TikTok sued the US Government, stating PAFACA was unconstitutional (a copy of their…
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