Luke Grimes in the Marshals season 2 premiere.
Photo by Gilles Mingasson/CBS
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My dream would to be able to make this my primary gig; that’s still a ways off, but the way this thing has grown in the past month or so gives me more hope that it’s possible. So sincerely and humbly, thank you all.
The big news this week, of course, is that the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger (under the corporate name Skydance) has officially closed. The merger will make the Ellison family and some other already extremely wealthy people more wealthy, and Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz sounded upbeat in a town hall on the Warner Bros. lot Tuesday. But of course they’re going to send that message on day one.
New Skydance is also carrying a massive $80 billion debt load used to finance the takeover, and there will be heavy rounds of layoffs in the weeks to come. The job losses will be in the thousands across the company.
The recent history of companies merging with or buying Warner Bros. is fraught, to say the least. In this century, it’s been the “never start a land war in Asia” of corporate maneuvers, yet people keep trying it. For the sake of crew members, writers, actors and other people whose livelihoods depend on steady work in the industry, I hope this one turns out differently. History tells us it’s not gonna be easy.
For this week’s on-air charts, I’m starting something new: After the primetime top 10 and the all-day top 20, you’ll see the top shows that aren’t sports or news programming (broadcast or cable, regardless of time of day). As I mentioned in Monday’s calendar post, all but a handful of network shows will be up and running by the end of this week, but because of the prevalence of sports this time of year, only a few entertainment shows make the top 10 in any given week.
I want to give you a better idea of what’s working outside of sports and news, so the non-sports-and-news rankings will probably be the regular third chart going forward, at least during the fall-to-spring season. I’m starting with the top 10, and once most everything is airing, I might expand it to 15 or 20 shows.
All those are below. Let’s get to it.