Good afternoon from Los Angeles, and a happy new year wherever you may be. I just got back from a 10-day trip to Mexico, just in time for the Golden Globes this weekend. I didn't devote a newsletter to any kind of year in review, though I did look back on 2019 (and the 2010s) with Kim Masters on KCRW and Peter Kafka onRecode Media. Shameless plugs out of the way, I would like to devote today's newsletter to a few predictions for this year. They are not radical, which increases the odds that they will be correct. It also means you can make extra fun of me if I am wrong. 1. It will be a brutal year for the film business. Disney propped up an otherwise lackluster year at the box office in 2019 with seven movies that grossed more than $1 billion. But its release schedule next year is far weaker – there's no "Star Wars," no "Frozen" and no "Lion King," to say nothing of "The Avengers." Its best hope might be "Mulan." And other studios aren't ready to pick up the slack. 2. TV networks will release a record number of shows. I'm cheating! This happens every year. But the reduction in output once predicted by FX's John Landgraf will have to wait another year. So long as there is so much technology money funding services that don't need to make money, there will be no need to slow output. 3. Apple will score its first bonafide hit. The company took a drubbing in the press in the lead up to the debut of Apple TV+. But "The Morning Show" is good, and a lot of people seem to like "Servant." One Apple show will break out much bigger in 2020. 4. Netflix will miss its subscriber forecasts at least once, and everyone will blame competition. Netflix will blame something else. With growth in the U.S. slowing to a trickle, Netflix is now wholly reliant on the rest of the world to beat its numbers. And while Europe and Latin America are growing at a healthy clip, Asia is still a question mark. 5. Media deal making will slow. In the last few years, AT&T bought Time Warner, Disney bought most of Fox, Comcast bought Sky, Discovery merged with Scripps and CBS merged with Viacom. While investors and analysts are still murmuring about MGM, Sony and Lions Gate as potential deal targets, I predict everyone waits to see some of the dust settle before making another move. A top media deal maker said as much last month.6. The NFL will sell its biggest games to TV networks, not internet companies. The league has started to talk to potential bidders for its next rights deal, and the league has told its partners it wants its games to reach as many people as possible. That bodes well for TV networks that attract 20 million people for every game. But the new deals will require networks like CBS, Fox and ESPN to have a digital strategy. A digital player could grab a second-tier package, like Sunday Ticket or the London games. 7. "Peak podcasting" will become a thing. Much as the TV industry has accelerated its output, so will podcasting. Spotify is investing millions of dollars in original podcasts, and will start releasing scores of new shows next year. iHeartMedia, SiriusXM, Amazon and others will follow suit. Apple might even join the party. Just as you feel exhausted trying to keep up with the latest TV, you will feel exhausted by the sheer volume of good new podcasts. 8. Someone other than Taylor Swift will have the highest-grossing tour of 2020. Of all the predictions, this is the one most likely to be wrong. Swift has scored the highest-grossing tour of the year her last two times out. But her competition will include a Kiss reunion, Justin Bieber's first stadium tour and the final leg of Elton John's Farewell Yellow Brick Road. 9. Someone will pay an actor $2 million per episode for a TV series, shattering the previous record. Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston got paid more than $1 million per episode to make "The Morning Show." Get ready for someone like Leonardo DiCaprio to do TV for a record sum. Two bonus predictions from my editor Rob Golum, who took a bigger risk: The stock market will close higher at the end of 2020 than 2019, and Bob Iger will extend his tenure as Chief Executive Officer of Disney because it's the best job in Hollywood. The Golden Globes are Sunday. Will Netflix break through?The Hollywood Foreign Press Association will hand out prizes for the year's best drama and comedy Sunday evening in Beverly Hills. "The Irishman" is the favorite for best drama, while "Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood" is the favorite for best comedy. Both would be significant. You may read this after the awards are unveiled, but the following remains true: A win for the "Irishman" would hand Netflix its biggest prize at a Hollywood awards show. The streaming service has earned hundreds of Emmy nominations, dozens of Oscar nods and more Globes nominations than any TV or movie studio this year. But it's never won the top prize at any of those shows. A win for "Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood" would give Quentin Tarantino his first prize for best film at the Golden Globes, and lend some support to a movie that came out over the summer. The film is seen as the biggest threat to "The Irishman," but it will need to make up for recency bias. The Globes have historically not been the best at predicting the Oscars, but three of the last four winners of Best Picture at the Oscars won either best comedy or best drama at the Globes. So a win for any other movie would boost their odds as well. I'll be in the press room, staring at a screen with hundreds of other journalists. Come say hi. The Failing 'Star Wars' franchise The No. 1 movie in the world is "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker." The ninth film in the main "Star Wars" saga has grossed more than $900 million worldwide. For all the fuss about how Disney has screwed up the "Star Wars" movies, four of the five "Star Wars" movies released this decade will end up topping $1 billion. As for Disney, there has never been a more dominant movie studio. It accounted for 33% of all domestic box office in 2019, and 38% if you include Fox. Disney's movies grossed more than Warner Bros., Universal and Paramount combined. That's insane! The No. 1 album in the U.S. is Harry Styles' "Fine Line." The former One Direction singer has topped the charts two weeks in a row. The No. 1 TV in the U.S. is the NFL. Followed by the NFL, the NFL, the NFL, the NFL and the NFL. Viewership of the league climbed 5% this season, and games account for 47 of the 50 most-watched shows on TV since the start of September. What happened over the holidays - Netflix released a list of its most popular programs released in 2019. "Murder Mystery," starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, topped the list in the U.S. while "Stranger Things" was the most-watched series.
- NBA commissioner David Stern died. Stern guided the league as basketball blossomed into the most global sport (outside of soccer). If you are hungry for more, keep reading great obits here and here.
- Two deals, long-rumored, finally happened. Tencent closed its acquisition of a 10 percent stake in Universal Music Group, owner of the world's largest record label. While Apple closed a five-year deal with Richard Plepler, formerly of HBO.
- CBS dropped out of bidding for SEC football rights. That's a BFD in TV sports land. The SEC is the most-watched college football league, and one of the big tools CBS uses to extract more money from pay-TV operators and local stations.
- Coachella released its lineup for the 2020 version of the world's top music festival. Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott and Frank Ocean will headline. Lots of hip-hop. Lots of international. No female headliners.
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