Top News

Peacock cracked the code to streaming profitability. — the NBCUniversal’s streaminger service turned its first-ever quarterly profit, banking $189 million last quarterfor the three months ended in June while adding 2 million paid subscribers, bringing its total to hit 48 million total. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, NBA Playoffs, and “Love Island USA” Season 8 did the heavy lifting in helping draw newon the subscribers front. Among theIn other takeaways from Comcast’s Q2second-quarter earnings results:

• NBCUniversal’s advertising revenue rose 55% to $2.16 billion. in the second quarter of 2026 for the Comcast-owned business.
• Total domestic broadband residential customer net losses were 167,000, in line with expectations.
• Moving forward, Comcast will focus on growing its broadband and connectivity business. The company expects many free Xfinity mobile lines to upgrade to paid accounts this year.
• NBCUniversal, meanwhile, will stay focused on growing Peacock’s subscriber and advertising revenue.
• The report comes weeks after Comcast said it would spin off NBCUniversal and Sky from its cable business into a separate, publicly traded companyies. Earlier this year, Comcast spun off many of its cable assets into a new company called Versant Media.

The FIFA World Cup was a tale of two countries for TelevisaUnivision.

• The media company’s second-quarter results were largely defined by the tournament, which bolstered performance in Mexico while weighing on U.S. operations, where rival Telemundo held broadcast rights.
• Total revenue climbed 10 percent year over year to $1.3 billion, fueled by a 53 percent surge in Mexico, where 675 million viewers watched linear and streaming coverage. Mexican advertising revenue rose 23 percent to $353 million.
• In the United States, advertising revenue dropped 29% to $323.3 million, a decline Wall Street had been advised to anticipate amid competitive pressures.
• The Takeaway: The numbers highlight the growing stakes of sports streaming rights, where capturing — or ceding — a global event like the World Cup can swing quarterly financials by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Forget binge-watching — micro is the new mega. As the global vertical video economy surges, microdrama apps are expected to account for roughly $4 billion of the projected $150 billion in total revenue in 2026. And a report from Holywater Tech and Owl & Co, using in-product data from Holywater’s MyDrama and MyMuse apps as well as a user survey, found that microdrama audiences are diversifying at a striking pace.

• On My Drama, an English-language microdrama platform, the share of male monthly active users climbed from 1.1 percent to 30.3 percent over seven quarters — a 28-fold increase.
• Viewing behavior is shifting as well. According to My Drama’s data, 70 percent of users watch vertical series in bed before falling asleep, while 59 percent watch from the couch — putting the format in direct competition with linear television during prime time hours.
• Engagement among the platform’s heaviest users has also intensified, with heavy viewers now averaging 13.1 hours of watch time per week, up from 9.5 hours five months prior.
• The Takeaway: Microdrama is no longer a niche curiosity — it’s a habit. With viewing happening in bedrooms and living rooms at the exact hours TV has long owned, and with super-users clocking over 13 hours a week, platforms like My Drama aren’t just capturing attention; they’re rewiring it. 

Luna has landed — right on your couch. Amazon tucked its Luna video game service right inside Prime Video on Fire TVs. Prime members will spot a new “Games” tab where they can jump into titles using a controller or their phone.

New & Returning Shows

For sneak peeks, check out Cynopsis Trailer Park.

Apple TV+’s The Morning Show will wrap with a fifth and final season in 2027. The flagship drama, which launched the streamer in 2019, signs off with stars and executive producers Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon both calling it a career highlight.

Season 3 of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” premieres Friday, Nov. 20 on Disney+. The new installment is based on “The Titan’s Curse,” the third installment of the book series by Rick Riordan.

Love is complicated — but what if the secret to finding it is looking in the opposite direction? Apple TV ordered “The Last Person on Earth,” following New York Times bestselling author and couples therapist Esther Perel and a team of matchmakers and therapists as they pair couples who appear to be opposites. The docuseries is executive produced by Dan Gray, Lou Hutchinson and Phil Harris, with series director Josh Jacobs. 

Great American Media continues its expansion into original series with “Abilene,” following a young woman looking for a fresh start. The series will premiere on Great American Pure Flix, and air later on Great American Family and GFAM+ in early 2027.  

Today’s Premieres
HGTV: Roast My Rental at 10 p.m.
Hulu: Nirvanna the Band the Show
Tubi: Breaking Bear
Netflix: Musafir Cafe

Saturday’s Premieres
Hulu: Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity

Sunday’s Premieres
Adult Swim: President Curtis at 11:30 p.m.
AMC: The Walking Dead: Dead City at 9 p.m.
Food Network: The Great Food Truck Race at 9 p.m.

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Sports Report

With World Cup fever still running hot, ESPN is keeping soccer on America’s screens. The network has locked up exclusive U.S. English- and Spanish-language rights to six international club soccer preseason matches through a deal with TEG Sport, running July 25-Aug. 2 across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and ESPN Unlimited. Liverpool FC, Wrexham AFC, Leeds United and Sunderland AFC will face off across six major U.S. markets as they tune up for the 2026-27 season — capitalizing on what may be the most soccer-hungry American audience ever.

All Sports Group inked an international partnership with the Africa Fitness Honors & Expo (AFH) to support the organization’s 2026 event in Accra, Ghana — marking the company’s first major foray onto the continent. The deal aligns with All Sports Group’s broader push to grow its global sports footprint through strategic international collaborations

Production

PAVE Studios is doubling down on creator IP with five new signings, adding voices spanning true crime, legal commentary, and intelligence to its growing roster. The additions — true crime creator Kimbyrleigha, attorney and legal commentator Reb Masel, podcast host Emma Klipstein, The First Degree co-host Alexis Linkletter, and former CIA officer and FBI agent Tracy Walder — reflect the studio’s push to build out credentialed, expertise-driven talent as it expands across audio, video, and live experiences. Max Cutler, Founder and CEO of PAVE, talks strategy.

Cynopsis: How does PAVE structure its deals — do you take an ownership stake in a creator’s IP, act as a service partner, or something in between?

MAX CUTLER: The way I think about it, we invest in creators the way studios once invested in stars, therefore PAVE is neither of those, and that is intentional. We do not take a stake in what a creator has already built, and we are not a work-for-hire production shop. Instead, we develop and produce new intellectual property together with the creator from day one, and we structure the deal so the creator shares meaningfully in the upside of what we build together. That means putting our own capital, production resources, and distribution behind new shows and new brands, rather than taking a percentage of something that existed before we arrived. Every deal looks a little different depending on the creator and the format, but the constant is that we are building something new together and both sides are invested in its success.

What’s the difference between what PAVE offers and what a traditional talent agency or a podcast network would offer these creators?

We are a studio that develops original IP with creators, funds and produces it, and builds the audience around it across audio, video, live experiences and more. An agency represents a creator and earns a commission on deals other people make. A network typically sells advertising against a show the creator already produces. However, when a creator joins PAVE, they are not handing us an existing show to monetize. They are gaining a partner that develops new formats with them, produces at a professional level, and puts them in front of audiences they have not reached before. Our Crime House brand is a good example. We have built it as a true crime destination, and a new creator joining us benefits from an existing audience infrastructure on day one. Then, every new show strengthens the brand for everyone else involved. Agencies and networks serve real purposes, but neither one is in the business of building new IP alongside the creator, and that is the entire business we are in.

True crime and legal content are crowded spaces — what’s PAVE’s thesis on where the white space still is?

The volume in true crime is high, but most of it is the same format: two hosts retelling a case. The first part of the white space is in perspective, expertise and storytelling. Audiences are increasingly drawn to creators who bring genuine credentials to the genre, whether that is a legal background, investigative experience, or a career inside law enforcement or intelligence. That expertise changes the content from retelling to analysis, and it builds trust with an audience that has become sophisticated about the genre.

The second piece of white space is format. True crime has been dominated by weekly audio, and we see significant room in video-first storytelling, daily programming, and extensions into live events that most independent creators cannot produce on their own. And the third is brand. True crime is crowded with individual shows but has very few trusted destinations. That is what we are building with Crime House: a place where the audience knows the standard of what they will get, which makes discovery easier for listeners and growth faster for creators.

Great American Media is expanding its “Ainsley McGregor Mysteries” franchise with “Ainsley McGregor Mysteries: The Model Maker.” Candace Cameron Bure, Aaron Ashmore and Robin Dunne star in the film, set to stream and be broadcast across Great American Pure Flix, Great American Family, and GFAM+ in early 2027.

Cartoon Network picked up season three of Grizzy & the Lemmings. The comedy series is gaining momentum — France Télévisions greenlit a fifth season, with the BBC, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Super RTL secured as presale partners.

Netflix reversed course, renewing Tyler Perry’s “Beauty in Black” for Season 4. The streamer previously billed Season 3 as the drama’s last, with a premiere date still TBD. Season 2’s performance likely drove the decision — it logged six weeks on Netflix’s Global Top 10.

Friday Fun Fact

People walk about 15 percent faster today than they did in 1980.

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question

What international series is considered to be Netflix’s first foray into exclusive programming? “Lilyhammer” (2012-14).

Congrats to: Ron SImon-Paley Center/NYC; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA; Aaron Paquette-AccelerateSG/Fort Worth, TX