The agency formerly known as Wasserman — made infamous in recent months by founder Casey Wasserman’s flirtatious emails with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell — is up for sale. So who wants it? Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Ashley Cullins break down the bidders, the stakes for the representation business and what the multibillion-dollar price tag reveals about the industry — and who has the juice. Plus, Kimmelgate 2.0: The FCC goes after Disney, and Paramount discloses just how foreign-funded a combined Paramount-WBD could be. (Hint: a lot!)

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The entertainment industry’s economic and existential tailspin is playing out on the political stage, as Los Angeles’ mayoral candidates curry favor with the Hollywood set before the June 2 primary. Incumbent Karen Bass, city council member Nithya Raman and former The Hills star Spencer Pratt aren’t wooing the A-list, but the rank-and-file of an industry being squeezed by runaway production. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Ashley Cullins break down the crisis and — finally! — the growing bidding war between California, New York, New Jersey and beyond as states fight to keep film and TV projects in the U.S. Plus, Natalie Jarvey gives us the NAB Show recap, and the crew contemplates what comes next for WarnerMount.

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Everyone talks about taking big swings again, but few Hollywood execs feel like they’re actually in a position to do it — without fearing for their jobs. But former Showtime head Jana Winograde and ex-Warner Bros. Television pres Susan Rovner are greenlighting shows from the backseats of cars and searching for new talent right out of film school, after making the leap from legacy TV to microdramas with aTwist (nee MicroCo), a vertical series app backed by Chris McGurk-led Cineverse and former WME chair Lloyd Braun. 

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During Warner Bros.’ supersized CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas, the studio’s sale to Paramount went unmentioned — even as it touted a theatrical slate stretching into 2028. But the contentious merger was impossible to ignore, dominating chatter across the convention floor and even inadvertently pulling The Ankler into the mix thanks to what’s now being dubbed “pin-gate.” Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the drama, along with the biggest takeaways from this year’s theatrical showcase.

Plus, the trio is joined by special guest John August — Big Fish and Corpse Bride screenwriter and co-chair of the WGA West negotiating committee — to go inside the guild’s surprisingly swift deal with the studios. He unpacks the WGA’s divisive bargaining agreement now up for a vote, including major changes to the healthcare plan, and addresses the criticism head-on.

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The tentative deal between the Writers Guild and Hollywood’s major studios has quelled fears of another strike — all while shaking up the major guilds’ contract cycle. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey break down the key terms, including a $321 million infusion into the WGA health plan (alongside higher deductibles and premiums) and a shift to a four-year bargaining agreement rather than the usual three. The deal — and its limited movement on AI — will shape not just the upcoming SAG and DGA negotiations, but the industry’s broader trajectory. Plus, the trio looks at a rare bright spot: box office ticket sales are up 23 percent year over year, fueled by hits like Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Project Hail Mary and other family-friendly fare.

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Sean Penn, puffing away inside the Beverly Hilton at the Golden Globes. Kylie Jenner, with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, on the cover of Vanity Fair. Nurse Dana, taking a drag on The Pitt. Smoking is back — both IRL and on screen — just as Hollywood’s shrinking career ladder leaves many millennials feeling stuck and a stressed-out Gen Z, inheriting the collapse, searches for connection and release. Editor, writer and former pack-a-day smoker Degen Pener joins Elaine Low and Sean McNulty to explain what’s driving young Hollywood workers to light up after talking to young industry workers outside clubs across Los Angeles — and what Gen Xers like him and Sean make of it. Plus, Elaine and Sean debate which generation really has it worse in today’s business — and whether boomers are to blame.

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Silicon Valley was supposed to be satire. In 2026, it plays more like a warning. In a look back on the iconic 2010s HBO comedy, co-creator Mike Judge and exec producer Alec Berg reflect on how “incredibly intentional” they were in making tech startup life feel plausible. But what’s wilder is how close to reality some of their storylines actually got, from AI to the ruthless capitalism of the real-world Silicon Valley. Judge and Berg recall the real-life tech titans who informed the show, the Stanford math professor who helped them construct academically sound dick jokes, and the making of the series' mockumentary-style finale. As Berg puts it: “It’s beyond satire.”

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Casting Taylor Frankie Paul on The Bachelorette was supposed to revive the wilting franchise. Instead, a 2023 video of Paul attacking her ex-boyfriend triggered the meltdown of not one, but two of Disney’s biggest reality shows. Paul’s season of The Bachelorette is now sitting on a shelf, and production on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives — where Paul is a central character — is paused indefinitely. The Ringer’s Juliet Litman, host of the popular Bachelor Party pod, joins Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty to break down how the Paul catastrophe is reshaping the franchise, its fandom and the show’s future prospects. Plus, Lesley Goldberg stops by to unpack Netflix’s new bigger buying spree — and why sources say the streamer may be experiencing a case of “prestige envy.”

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Here’s the irony: Even in the age of streaming, about 85 percent of profits from a merged Paramount Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery still would come from linear TV, as Sean McNulty points out.

So what do you do with more than two dozen aging cable networks? Spin them off, reinvent them as digital brands or send them to TV’s great dead-brand graveyard in the sky — all while Wall Street watches with a serious stink eye?

Enter March Sadness. Sean, Elaine Low and Natalie Jarvey build a bracket to crown the most valuable Warnermount cable asset, with CNN, HGTV, Nickelodeon, BET and more going head-to-head. Which properties are the No. 1 seeds, and which networks are… MTV2? The answers (and the ratings) might surprise you.

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“It’s a crazy irony that your reward for incredible artistic success in modern Hollywood is that you then get to lay off a bunch of your employees,” Prestige Junkie host Katey Rich tells Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey in the run-up to Sunday’s Oscars, where two Warner Bros. films — Sinners and One Battle After Another — are going head-to-head for best picture right as Paramount Skydance is about to swallow the studio whole. “It really couldn’t be a more perfect metaphor for how backward so many of the industry’s priorities are.”

Speaking of which, The Business of Television author and former head of business affairs at Paramount TV and Amazon Studios, Ken Basin, stops by to chat about the current state of dealmaking in television, how much the Paramount-Warner merger is going to weigh on day-to-day business (“Warners is effectively frozen”), and what Netflix should do with its $2.8 billion breakup fee.

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Talk about whiplash: A week ago, a Netflix–Warner Bros. deal looked likely. Turns out, the winning combo may be… Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery. (Rolls right off the tongue.) That is — if it survives regulatory scrutiny, with California Attorney General Rob Bonta warning that the merger is “not a done deal.” Still, a swirl of questions remains — all driven by a strategy executives aren’t quite saying out loud: cut billions in costs, merge the streaming platforms (creating clear winners and losers), squeeze what’s left of the cable business for cash and use the scale of a combined studio to survive a rapidly shrinking TV ecosystem. And all that Middle East money? Sure, nothing to see here. Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey, Sean McNulty and Lesley Goldberg break it all down.

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