Participant Media founder Jeff Skoll is shutting down operations of the 20-year-old production company behind An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck, and Green Book. What prompted his decision to end the industry-beloved company?
Also: Two Congress members aren’t happy with Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s plans to form the joint sports streamer nicknamed “Spulu.” What fueled their decision to write a letter addressed to respective studio bosses Iger, Murdoch, and Zaslav? Kim Masters and Matt Belloni dive in.
Participant no more? Founder Jeff Skoll plans to dissolve a majority of the studio’s 100-person staff in the midst of uncertain times in Hollywood. “Participant was the ideal company for creative talent, because it had this dual mandate,” Belloni explains. “They were saying explicitly, ‘Yes, we would like to make money on our projects and be a going concern,’ but they also had this other mandate of social change and good and influencing the culture.”
Technical foul? Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Joaquin Castro’s (D-Tx) decision to probe the joint streaming venture leaves more questions than answers. “They're essentially saying they want more information about this joint venture because they fear it could be bad for competition, it could be a mechanism to raise prices,” Belloni says. “This is kind of bizarre, because the whole point of this is to offer a sports-centric, skinny bundle of channels that would allow people to pay less for a package if all they do is watch sports. But they're trying at least to make noise about potentially raising antitrust issues.”
A whole lotta nothing? With a modestly-projected audience size, the proposed streamer might not make as large of an impact as the Congress members fear. “The funny thing is that people in the TV business have called this a ‘nothing burger.’Even Lachlan Murdoch has said on an earnings call that he sees the potential audience for this as being about 5 million subscribers over like five years. So it's not like this is going to reinvent the cable bundle. They just see it as an alternative and it's something that could get a few sports fans to be interested in,” Belloni speculates.