Entertainment Lawyers

    While we’ve seen plenty of consolidatory action from larger studios in the post-pandemic period, we’ve seen considerably less movement on the indie front. However, with Shout! acquiring fellow indie distributor, Gravitas Ventures, there’s now an incredibly impressive indie film library for them to draw on. To tell us more, we have Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A.                                                                            Brandon Blake Continuing as Independent Brands Despite the consolidation, however, both Gravitas Ventures and Shout! will be continuing to acquire content separately. However, the increase in scale will no doubt bring to life better monetization opportunities for their content across both streaming and linear. Gravi...

  LA’s production-related woes are hardly news at present. With a dire need to encourage more TV series and films to choose LA as their filming destination, hoping to offset the 30% plunge in production we’ve seen over the last 5 years, there could well be reason to believe mid-budget movies will be returning to the LA area. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A., shares the news.                                                                          Brandon Blake   New Plans   We’ve already seen some major proposed overhauls to the city’s tax incentive plans, which would bring LA back into line with some of the more compelling local and international location destinations. However, a small local group, including some LA City Councilmembers, ar...

  The quiet and often under-considered success of the Roku Channel may be leaving its own mark on the entertainment landscape. Last week, NBCUniversal announced a partnership with LG Smart TVs that will see 40 new FAST channels launch. Our entertainment lawyer in the know, Brandon Blake of Blake & Wang P.A., unpacks this exciting new development for us.                                                                            Brandon Blake   New FAST Offerings   These new FAST channels will cover a broad range of subjects, from “standard” entertainment to sports, news, true crime, and even a dedicated Spanish channel. The deal includes key live event shows like Dateline 24/7, NBC News, and Today All Day alongside their extensive TV show library and films from the Univer...

  Despite the hype and action of the Super Bowl, traditional linear TV services continued to lose ground against streaming services in February. Brandon Blake, our expert entertainment lawyer Los Angeles from Blake & Wang P.A., takes a closer look at the figures.                                                                         Brandon Blake   Below 50% of the Market   In February, cable and broadcast services accounted for just 44% of all TV usage, a further slip from its January totals. This was despite their being record-making audiences for the Super Bowl, one of the highlights of the live sports calendar and traditionally a big moment for linear services.   Ironically, the Super Bowl this year drove one of Nielsen’s biggest single days in the history of their...

  As the post-pandemic box office recovery accelerated over the past 2 years, we’ve seen over and over again how a smart theatrical release can drive extra value and marketing for streaming releases. After one of the longest theatrical windows of the modern entertainment era, A24’s Babygirl is finally shifting over to streaming on Max. To tell us more, we have Brandon Blake, best entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A.                                                                               Brandon Blake   121-Day Window   Although there is, strictly speaking, no set modern theatrical window as we once saw, with 90 days being the then-standard, we have seen the post-pandemic period slowly default to either 45-day runs or 31-day runs in genera...

 Max has made no secret that it’s pushing to grow its streaming arm’s relevance and subscription numbers with an ambitious new rollout. While the focus to date has mostly been on Southeast Asian markets, they’ve now got their eye on a 77th new territory. To tell us more, we have Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A.                                                                            Brandon Blake Turkey Marks the Next Big Expansion Warner Bros. Discovery has taken a slightly different approach to its next expansion. In late 2023, they bought out local Turkish streamer BluTV. Now, they will be shuttering that service in favor of an “evolution” to Max’s global streaming platform. It appears they will be keeping much of BluTV’s locally-focused co...

   We now have another streamer officially in the black for an entire year— and surprisingly, it’s Warner Bros. Discovery, which likely wasn’t on many people’s bingo cards. We have Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A., to share the happy news.                                                                             Brandon Blake   A Strong Year End   Warner Bros Discovery onboarded enough new streamers last year to grow their overall subscriptions to 116.9M, with an ambitious target of 150M by the end of 2026. This is on top of an announced $677M in DTC profit for the whole year. In 2023, that was just $103M, with a $55M loss in the Q4 period of that year.   This streaming subscriber growth was seen over both global and ...