The Hollywood Reporter May 25, 2022

Kendrick Lamar The artist’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers hits No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 343 million streams of the album’s 18 songs, per Luminate data. Elon Musk As the Tesla mogul slow-walks his Twitter takeover, the automaker’s stock price dives 37 percent over the past month, imperiling his financing to buy the social platform. Stephen Lighthill The incumbent president of the American Society of Cinematographers gets a vote of confidence from members and is reelected for a third consecutive one-year term. Sean Spicer The former Trump White House press rep turned Newsmax host loses his nightly show as the cabler hires Greta Van Susteren for the time slot. Showbiz Stocks $133.77 (+5.4%) ELECTRONIC ARTS (EA) Reports that EA has been exploring options after the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft caused share prices to pop…

Top Gun: Maverick, set to open May 27, sits at a sky-high 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. After seemingly endless pandemic miseries, it feels like there are whole audience quadrants hungry for an old-school, PG-13 popcorn movie, a throwback for parents who can revel in nostalgia while their kids enjoy the action. But Top Gun also cooks up a pretty complicated stew of feelings for some — feelings about politics, about the fate of the business and, for me unexpectedly, emotion that had nothing to do with the action onscreen. (Truth: I had never even seen the original film until I watched it on Netflix the night before I went to the sequel’s May 4 premiere in San Diego.) While most critics obviously liked the movie, the politics of the film created…

It may be a midterm election year, but it’s looking like 2020 all over again — at least when it comes to political campaign cash. And local TV stations, some national cable channels and streaming firms with exposure to local advertising are the big beneficiaries. Midterm elections have always been good for the advertising business, particularly for local TV, where stations can fill nearly every hour with ads from multiple campaigns and PACs. This year, however, things don’t look good for business. They look great. Hotly contested races in states like Pennsylvania (where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman prevailed in the Democratic Senate race), Ohio (where Trump-endorsed Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance won in the GOP Senate primary) and North Carolina (which saw the state’s chief justice, Cheri Beasley, win in the Democratic…

You may have heard that Netflix is getting into the advertising business. In the unlikely event you didn’t, the TV upfront presentations made absolutely sure the industry was up to speed. And ad sales executives were happy to gloat. “Some companies just haven’t been able to keep up with your needs,” quipped Linda Yaccarino, chair of global advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, which kicked off upfront week May 16 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. “At those companies, advertising could seem like an afterthought, or even worse, a new idea for a revenue stream.” Yaccarino’s barbs were just the beginning, with a number of networks touting their long support for advertising. “Recently there have been headlines saying ‘Advertising is Back.’ I didn’t know it had left,” Fox Entertainment chief Charlie Collier…

Amazon Music is getting into wellness. Working with Salt, the audio firm behind Dave Chappelle’s Midnight Miracle and led by CEO Nick Panama, the series, Become, will also include Alexa integrations. Reply All, once the jewel of Gimlet Media, is coming to an end June 23 as co-hosts Alex Goldman and Emmanuel Dzotsi exit — leaving the show without a clear path forward to continue. Spotify is facing tough competition for U.S. listeners as YouTube Music makes gains. Both services have roughly 36 percent of U.S. adults tuning in regularly, a rise for YouTube, per an Attest survey.…

Old TV Awards Season Conventional Wisdom: The three-month onslaught of campaigning and promotion between the close of the Emmy eligibility window on May 31 and the actual awards in September can make it very difficult for even the best summer premieres to find traction nearly a year later. Won’t somebody please take pity on The White Lotus and Reservation Dogs! New TV Awards Season Conventional Wisdom: The race to sneak last-minute premieres in by the May 31 eligibility deadline can make it very difficult for shows that premiered two weeks ago to find traction. Won’t somebody please take pity on … ummm … that prestige streaming literary adaptation or … ummm … that movie star’s desperate-looking attempt to check off another EGOT box! Since pundits have been calling TV the new movies…