An interesting and analytical piece from Variety on the potential implications and risks of Saudi Sovereign funds financing $24 B out of the total $ 110 B purchase price of WBDiscovery.

There are a lot of angles to look at this from, especially with the current attacks/conflict/war in the region.

Here’s just one:

“Big sovereign investors negotiate the level of visibility they want into strategy and major decisions,” said New York-based lawyer and analyst Irina Tsukerman. “They automatically get ongoing access to leadership and leverage tied to future financing, even without publicly acknowledged voting rights,” she pointed out.

This casting announcement passed me last week — Paul Wesley will be in the recently greenlit third season of The Buccaneers, AppleTV’s historical romance drama loosely based on the popular novel by Edith Wharton.

It’s a bit of a milestone in SNW cast making new commitments in the absence of any confirmation of a sequel series.

Crossposting here to quark’s…

Well known comic publisher IDW, is getting into official/licensed TTRPG’s with a forthcoming Godzilla TTRPG funded by a Kickstarter campaign that’s already well surpassed its pledge objective.

From what I can see, IDW’s games line has only done tabletop board games up to now, and has relied on Kickstarter to create momentum as well as raise funds.

Star Trek Adventures, and other franchise TTRPGs, are published by UK-based Modiphius Entertainment. It sounds like IDW is trying to establish itself as a competitor.

Having posted Flix Patrol’s show specific ranking charts, I thought to look to see if Parrot Analytics has anything of interest available for public view.

What I found is their 2025 analysis of trends is now publicly accessible.

It tells a story of how the United States entertainment media production no longer dominates globally the way it did not long ago. Streamers that assume they can just make things to target the US market, and then free ride with revenues globally, don’t seem to be the ones to succeed in future. (Looking at you former Paramount owners and senior executives.)

The report’s top bullets:

Across TV, movie, and talent, 2025 reinforced several strategic realities:

• Audience demand is a leading indicator of value, not a retrospective metric.
• Global travelability increasingly determines upside, even for regionally rooted IP.
• Sustained engagement matters more than launch spikes for long-term economics.
• Fandom behavior has become a structural driver of performance, not a side effect.

Parrot Analytics is incorporated in the UK, and relies on diverse metrics beyond viewer minutes to construct estimates for the demand for a show or movie. They argue that this is a more effective tool for planning and marketing screen content than just past viewership but they certainly incorporate actual viewership numbers and demographics in their analysis.

So, it will be Larry Ellison, not the Saudis, who will be putting up the additional $40 billion to win the hostile takeover of WBDiscovery over Netflix.

And he’s going to allow investors some greater visibility into the Ellison family trust.

As someone who respected the way Americans once took antitrust mechanisms and actions deeply seriously, this doesn’t give much comfort.

This was the February earnings call event with CEO David Ellison and Paramount Presidenf Jeff She’ll speaking to investors.

A few things stood out:

• Paramount+ wasn’t mentioned in the article nor were the legacy IP franchises that the previous owners and management almost always stressed

• The underperforming film side of the conglomerate was called out

• Pluto is viewed as having been underdeveloped despite being an early free ad-supported streaming television leader and will be a priority

• investors are concerned about upcoming major pro sport licence renewals

• Despite being under investigation for allegations of providing insider trading information, Shell is still firmly in place as president of Paramount.

So this is something in the Paramount/Skydance acquisition sagas…

And it seems that the Ellison’s took on a President who was someone already under suspicion for misconduct at his last CEO position.

In 2023, Shell was terminated from his previous top job as NBC Universal’s CEO over allegations of inappropriate conduct involving a CNBC correspondent. Yet he found resurrection in Paramount owner David Ellison, who elevated Shell to his current post from an interim perch with private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, which helped Ellison’s Skydance Media acquire the studio.

🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿

The admins of StarTrek.website have graciously responded to my request to host a Monsterverse community on Lemmy.

The great Toho franchise now has a home on the fediverse where we can share news and views.

Whether you’re a longtime fan, a newcomer or just Monsterverse-curious, please feel welcome to join in.

Find us at: https://startrek.website/c/monsterverse or https://startrek.website/c/monsterverse@startrek.website

The television expansion of the Monsterverse rolls on with the imminent launch of *Monarch: Legacy of Monsters* 2nd season — three weeks from now on February 27th!

I’m hopeful to persuade some folks here on Lemmy to embrace the Monsterverse and discuss the new season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters here. I’m open to modding a new community here on StarTrek.website as there has been for Dr. Who, and have been enquiring with the mods. Any interest here?

Apple released new key art as well as a Titan focused 2 1/2 minute full trailer this week.

Kurt and Wyatt Russell return in the principal role across time periods, Anna Sawai anchors the young generation.

And a prequel spinoff helmed by Wyatt Russell is already announced.

The Hollywood Reporter has the details and links.

with its subtitle of “The Weaponization of Entertainment for Partisan Propaganda,” the report is tailored for the MAGA base. Full of talking points and and mentions of Stranger Things, the Lena Dunham produced Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste, the controversial Cuties docu from 2020, and the Obamas produced American Factory, the 47-page report takes repeated swipes at any expansion of the streamer and its library of “leftwing and progressive” content. The report continues, “the consistency of this programming suggests there may be intentional coordination with activist organizations and alignment with progressive political objectives.”

“Unlike the first term, conservative think tanks are quick to provide the administration with the ammunition they need to execute policy,” the GOP insider states. “That, Fox, and social media amplifies it and then the administration reacts. It’s a reflexive loop.”

Ok, I appreciate that Bill Shatner has seemingly no personal shame when it comes to blatant vulgarity in salesmanship.

It also seems clear that Paramount’s new owners seem to have no bounds on the pop culture limits they will assail go get higher profile.

But nothing prepared me for the new *”Will Shat here”* Super Bowl ad campaigns for *Raisin Bran* ! 🥹

And certain crusty and reactionary Star Trek fans are worried about Starfleet Academy damaging the professionalism and dignity of the franchise. !🤦🏼‍♀️🤣

Hey. I just wanted to say I've been and will continue to be taking a break from this instance and Lemmy for a while.

While I've had some fun in my almost two years here, lately, I've had a bit of an addictive, unhealthy relationship with it and want to reclaim my time, and I was really getting too emotional over things that don't matter, to the point it negatively affected my wellbeing. Thus, I've changed my password to a random one and saved it in a GPG-encrypted file for when I'm ready to come back.

Thanks to all the people that have made my time on here a good one, especially server admins and many of the frequent posters. I could be back in a few weeks, in a few months, or as Benjamin Sisko said, yesterday.

~~We're tweaking some settings on our new host to address the stability issues we've seen since transferring to the new hosting provider last week. StarTrek.website users might see above-average load times today and a few brief periods (1-2 minutes) of downtime.~~

This is completed. Please let us know if you experience any issues!