Tax return past years

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said execs at the company and parent Comcast are “more confident” than they were a year or two ago that investments in streaming service Peacock will soon yield profits. How soon remains a bit unclear, however. “We’ve been clear from the start that we’re going to see a return on that investment — I think we feel better about that now based on where we are,” Shell said during Comcast’s fourth-quarter earnings call. The company said Peacock had passed 20 million subscribers by the end of 2022, more than double its size at the start of the year. It added 5 million subscribers in the quarter thanks to Spanish-language World Cup coverage as well as original programming, other live sports and the addition of first-window movie titles and NBC and Bravo series that used to go to Hulu. Over the rest of the year, CEO Brian Roberts said, “subscriber cadence will follow content launches, which will fall more heavily in the second half of 2023” than … [Read more...] about NBCUniversal And Comcast Execs “More Confident” Than They Were A Year Ago In Peacock Profit Outlook, Jeff Shell Says

Kevin Fortson, the Executive Vice President of Production & Administration for Warner Bros . Unscripted Television, will retire this summer after three decades with the studio. “For the past 30 years, Kevin has been an indelible part of Warner Bros,” said Mike Darnell , President, Warner Bros. Unscripted Television. “His name has literally become synonymous with the company and the lot itself. Personally, I will miss him for his counsel, his friendship and his endless string of dad jokes. He truly is one in a million … although he would probably try to cut that budget down! He is as important to the studio as any movie or television show ever produced here, and if I had the power to do it, there would be a stage with his name on it, right next to Friends and The Big Bang Theory. He is known as the unofficial Mayor of the lot, and his constituents will miss him dearly… and no one will ever be re-elected to that position.” Fortson has been leading all aspects of … [Read more...] about Unscripted TV Exec Kevin Fortson To Retire After 30 Years With Warner Bros.

Executives at NBCUniversal and Comcast took the stage at Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center on Thursday and offered their first financial projections for streaming service Peacock during an investor presentation. Four years after it launches, first to some Comcast subscribers in April and then nationally by July, the service will be bringing in $2.5 billion in revenue and breaking even. There will be 30 million to 35 million “active users” by that point, the company said. “We are creating the equivalent of a 21 st century broadcast business, delivered on the internet,” NBCU chairman Steve Burke said. While cord-cutting is a reality, counting on-demand and digital viewing, he continued, “More people are watching more video today than ever.” Peacock Investors Day: Deadline’s Complete Coverage While subscriptions ranging from $5 a month to $10 a month will be sold to non-Comcast subscribers, the company is counting on advertising revenue being a mainstay … [Read more...] about NBCUniversal Expects $2.5B In Peacock Revenue, Break-Even By 2024

Noah Cowan , former co-director of the Toronto Film Festival and executive director of SFFILM in San Francisco, died Wednesday of cancer in Los Angeles, Deadline has confirmed. He was 55. Cowan died of glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive form of brain cancer he was diagnosed with in December 2021. Born on July 22, 1967, in Hamilton, Ontario, he joined TIFF in 1984 as a box office staffer after volunteering with the fest in summer 1981. He later ran its print traffic department before becoming one of the programmers of TIFF’s Midnight Madness program in 1989. He was promoted to Program Administrator in 1992, and co-ran Midnight Madness with Colin Geddes in 1997. Cowan served as TIFF’s international programmer from 1997-2001, during which time he was promoted to associate director of programming and then associate director. He left the festival in 2001 but returned three years later as co-director, serving in the role until 2008. From 2008-14, he was artistic … [Read more...] about Noah Cowan Dies: Former Toronto Film Festival Co-Director, Indie Distributor & SFFILM Exec Was 55

French gender equality and diversity group Le Collectif 50/50 has hit out at the lack of female representation at the upcoming César awards, France’s equivalent to the Oscars. The protest comes after not a single woman made it into the Best Director category in nominations announced Wednesday. The awards ceremony is February 24 in Paris. Just one feature by a female director — Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s controversy-hit Forever Young — was nominated for Best Film. This outcome raised surprise in some quarters as there was a raft of strong features by female directors on release in France this year including Alice Winocour’s Paris Memories , Rebecca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children , Léa Mysius’ The Five Devils and 2023 French Oscar submission Saint Omer by Alice Diop. “Le Collectif 50/50 deplores the total absence of women in the Best Director category and their lack of representation in the Best Film category,” the body wrote in a statement … [Read more...] about French Gender Equality Group Launches #CesarSoMale Campaign After Female Directors Shut Out Of Awards

The cinematic adaptation of The 1619 Project , the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times essay series that accelerated the vociferous debate over Critical Race Theory, makes its debut on Hulu tonight . If history is a guide – and that’s what the whole series is about – the documentary series will prove as polarizing as the original version. Nikole Hannah-Jones , the architect of the Times ’ project, serves as the guiding presence in the series, which aims at nothing less than reframing “the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative,” as the newspaper put it when The 1619 Project reached readers in August 2019. The journalist and now university professor’s opening essay for the Times’ initiative became the basis for episode 1 of the six-part series. “We wanted from the very beginning to subvert this idea about American democracy and the way … [Read more...] about ‘The 1619 Project’ Debuts On Hulu Tonight, Promising To Reignite Debate Over Critical Race Theory And America’s Undeniable History

Streaming service Peacock closed 2022 with more than 20 million paid subscribers, helping Comcast slip past Wall Street estimates during a challenging fourth quarter in the media business. Total revenue came in at $30.55 billion in the period, less than 1% ahead of the prior-year quarter but just above analysts’ consensus. Earnings per share of 70 cents fell short of estimates, but exceeded them on a non-GAAP basis. Along with Peacock, a strong return for theme parks helped NBCUniversal post solid numbers on the top line, with revenue up 6% to $9.9 billion. Advertising revenue increased 4%, which the company credited to Spanish-language coverage of the World Cup by Telemundo and rising Peacock ad revenue. The profit story was less encouraging, with adjusted EBITDA falling 36% to $817 Theatrical revenue at the film studio soared 47% over the prior year, with Ticket to Paradise , Puss , Violent Night and Halloween Ends closing the year on a high note. … [Read more...] about Peacock Clears 20M Subscribers, Helping Comcast Nip Wall Street Q4 Estimates

EXCLUSIVE : Larry Wilmore is tapping into his experiences in late-night for a primetime comedy in development at ABC . Wilmore is writing, executive producing and is set to star in Lately , described as a behind-the-scenes look at the upstairs-downstairs dynamics of the people who work at a late-night talk show, sources tell Deadline. Tamara Gregory, Head of Television at Wilmore’s Wilmore Films, also executive produces. The project comes from Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, where Wilmore is under an overall deal . Wilmore was host of his own late-night talk show, Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore , which ran for nearly two years . He also appeared as “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and more recently hosted and executive produced Wilmore, a limited weekly special talk series for Peacock. This marks Wilmore’s return to ABC, where he helped to launch Black-ish as an executive … [Read more...] about Larry Wilmore To Headline Late Night-Themed Comedy ‘Lately’ In Works At ABC

Well, the mostly predictable Oscar nominations arrived Tuesday morning with no disasters or truly egregious missteps. Even the snubs were fairly routine: no female directors, though women won the directing award in the past two years ; James Cameron and Joseph Kosinski, both with Best Picture nominees , were left out too. Such normalcy is too bad. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. It’s a weird but undeniable fact of Hollywood life that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and its pet awards ceremony feed on their own mistakes. Let things go well or follow an expected path, and the Oscars turn into a yawn. But screw something up, and suddenly it’s the Greatest Show on Earth all over again — back on the pedestal, just waiting to be knocked off by the howling crowd. Errors are an asset. Gaffes are gold. The Academy is never so interesting as when it is just, plain, obviously wrong. This is not a casual mechanism. By and large, average … [Read more...] about The Film Academy And Its Oscars Manage To Feed On Their Own Mistakes

Stubborn and iconoclastic as always, Jean-Luc Godard has passed to another realm –and by his own choice–at age 91. Ever impudent and exasperating, forever pushing boundaries but remaining elusive, and an artist in every fiber of his being, Godard always did exactly what he wanted to do; for a few years many followed him ardently, and for lots of us in the 1960s he led the way into a vastly exciting and personal form of cinema. Thereafter he went entirely his own way, losing most of his audience but remaining at the forefront of exploring what cinema is, could be, and, sometimes, what it absolutely shouldn’t be. The official obituaries and tributes will certainly convey Godard’s importance and influence through the 1960s, the way he helped liberate cinema from its literary and orderly appearance to something far more energized, unexpected, jarring and often exhilarating. Although Godard consumed and brilliantly wrote about the existing cinema as a young critic, he … [Read more...] about Godard Is Gone: A Remembrance Of The Stubborn & Iconoclastic Film Director