Showbiz Sandbox

Jun 26 2024 74 ep. 77 mins 326

Showbiz Sandbox Podcast artwork

Industry pros J. Sperling Reich and Michael Giltz provide insightful analysis, humorous viewpoints and insider opinions on the latest entertainment news headlines. The weekly podcast features panel discussions with renowned industry guests, as well as phone calls and emails from listeners who voice their own opinions on the child’s play of the entertainment business.

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Showbiz Sandbox 659: Hollywood Continues To Turn Itself Inside Out

Jun 26 2024 44 mins

In the midst of the summer entertainment news doldrums, as Hollywood laments a fading (for now) box office, along comes Pixar with “Inside Out 2.” The sequel earned nearly $300 million in its opening weekend proving, once again, that all the industry really needs for audiences to head back to movie theaters is… well, movies. Meanwhile, after nixing an acquisition at the eleve

Showbiz Sandbox 658: Searching for Winners at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

May 29 2024 93 mins

The general consensus among attendees was that, unlike last year, the 2024 Cannes Film Festival was not one of its strongest editions. Few of the selections made a huge impact and, indeed, there were a few titles that left festival goers scratching their heads. Yet, it seemed more indicative of a general malaise affecting the entire film industry rather than the Cannes itself. Inde

Showbiz Sandbox 657: New Streaming Business Models Require New Measurement Tools

May 07 2024 67 mins

Streaming services seem to have settled on engagement as the metric by which to measure the success of a series or movie or even the platform itself. However, the industry has yet to decide a method for how to measure and report such figures in a consistent way. Some services publish random viewership figures citing how many subscribers sampled specific programming without describi

Showbiz Sandbox 656: Yes, People Still Buy Books

Apr 30 2024 66 mins

Two recent opinion pieces stirred up some heated debate in the book publishing business. One insists no one buys books anymore. The other says the proliferation of book roundup lists is a bunch of nonsense. One is very wrong, even when it’s right. The other is right, but for the wrong reasons. Michael is our book guy and in fact does book roundups every week! So let’s put him o

Showbiz Sandbox 655: Netflix Stops Sweating (and Reporting) Subscriber Growth

Apr 23 2024 52 mins

Netflix first quarter earnings report showed growth in all areas from subscribers, to revenue and income. But with Netflix clearly dominating competitors and entering a mature market, the streaming giant will no longer provide subscriber figures on a regular basis. Instead, Netflix will concentrate on profit and the amount of time each of their 270 million subscribers spend viewing

Showbiz Sandbox 654: CinemaCon Promotes A Bright Future for Movie Theatres

Apr 16 2024 84 mins

CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema operators in Las Vegas, was filled with anxiety this year thanks to a lack of wide releases due to the recent labor strikes. However, most Hollywood studios showed up with a few movie stars to hawk an increasing number of big titles due later in the year and into 2025. As well, technology companies introduced some exciting new advances in p

Showbiz Sandbox 653: Godzilla and Kong, Once Again, Prove Movie Theaters Aren’t Dead

Apr 02 2024 66 mins

The monstrous global box office opening of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” may have been a surprise to film critics or anyone paying attention to industry tracking in advance of its release, but it surely proves that if you put movies in movie theaters, audiences will show up. Especially if those theaters offer premium auditoriums like IMAX. Even “Oppenheimer” opened well

Showbiz Sandbox 652: Comscore, Nielsen and the Battle Over TV Ratings

Mar 26 2024 71 mins

The way audiences watch television has changed radically over the past ten years, bet it when, where or how. Nielsen, long the king of TV ratings, is facing competition from upstarts like Comscore. With viewership on mobile and over-the-top devices not always being measured, advertisers are beginning to include social media awareness into account when determining the success of the

Showbiz Sandbox 651: The Next Hit Song May Be Written and Performed by AI

Mar 18 2024 60 mins

In what Rolling Stone magazine has dubbed ChatGPT for music, a new service called Suno is trying to democratic music by using artificial intelligence to allow anyone to create a hit song. With no need to learn how to play an instrument or sing, the latest advances in generative AI are creating tunes with a few text prompts that are indistinguishable from those created by trained mu

Showbiz Sandbox 650: “Oppenheimer” Gives Christopher Nolan His Oscar Moment

As expected, “Oppenheimer” dominated the 96th Academy Awards winning seven categories including Best Actor, Best Picture and, for Christopher Nolan, Best Director. “Barbie” only picked up a single trophy for Best Original Song. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s Editor-at-Large attended this year’s Oscar ceremony and joins us to describe what it was like to be in the room where