Books run on word-of-mouth. So what are the people who shape what gets made, watched, read and bought reading? Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty dig into The Ankler’s inaugural summer reading list, where 100 notables — including Sony Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sherry Lansing, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Netflix film chief Dan Lin, Gillian Anderson and Janelle James — shared the books they’re packing, recommending and obsessing over now. Plus, with every major buyer adapting a glut of novels for the screena — see Elaine’s Series Business sellers’ guide — the team unpacks why book-based IP is hotter than ever and which major titles are in development. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another Monday, another huge deal in Hollywood. Two weeks ago, Fox Corp. announced its intentions to acquire Roku for $22 billion. Now, it’s Comcast’s turn — in reverse. Today, the company revealed it will exit Hollywood completely, spinning off another division, consisting of NBCUniversal and Sky Media, as a publicly traded company, and joining Versant outside the Comcast gates. Comcast hopes to have all this done by summer 2027 – just like Fox and Roku. On Monday’s special extra-bonus edition of Ankler Agenda, Sean McNulty and Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz dive into the strategy afoot here, how Wall Street is driving the split, and the challenges and opportunities for both companies going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oprah flew in to close deals, FOX Entertainment CEO Rob Wade came to talk up his investment in creator-led programming and even the Teletubbies arrived, ready to party. Last week, a cross-section of dealmakers, executives and stars flooded the Croisette for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where the battle between YouTube and Netflix was hotter than France’s record-setting heatwave — and “creator” was the buzzword for the second year in a row. Ankler Media CEO Janice Min and Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey break down who broke through in a week where, as Janice noted, subtlety was not the name of the game. Then, listen to Janice’s full conversation with YouTube chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe and Royal Court host Brittany Broski, where Coe came to the Croisette ready to hit back at Netflix’s podcast poaching with a few choice words, including “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” It’s on! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leave it to the U.S. sports-TV machine to turn three-minute hydration breaks at the FIFA World Cup — a new feature to prevent players from collapsing in the heat — into a multimillion-dollar ad opportunity for Fox. With 48 nations competing for global football domination on U.S. soil, the World Cup is a cultural and ratings bonanza, delivering NFL-sized audiences for marquee U.S. matches and proving once again why global soccer is the one sports property that can make even the Super Bowl look local. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Reel AI columnist Erik Barmack break down Fox’s incredible broadcast bargain, Telemundo’s crossover to English-language viewers and whether Netflix could get the rights to the 2030 World Cup. Plus, Natalie Jarvey pops by from the South of France to talk Cannes Lions — the canapés, conversations and the buzz on the ground about the Fox-Roku deal and how fandoms are driving entertainment’s future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Cannes Lions, the exec tells Ankler CEO Janice Min how the hardware behemoth became a streaming empire — 'We really do have almost Super Bowl-size audiences every day' — and makes his first public comments on the Fox acquisition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Los Angeles mayoral candidate and Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman is acutely aware of what’s at stake as local Hollywood production craters — 42,000 jobs lost over two years between 2022 and 2024, shoot days down 50 percent below the five-year average. Many of her constituents in District 4, which stretches from the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains, work in the industry — and her husband, Vali Chandrasekaran, is a longtime writer and producer, with credits on television comedies like Modern Family, 30 Rock and Netflix’s The Four Seasons. Last week, Raman came by the Ankler offices for a conversation with Richard Rushfield about her plan to save the industry, as well as her thoughts about how we got here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Would you rather spend $18 billion a year on content like Netflix does, or $22 billion once to buy the remote? That’s the bet Fox Corp. is making with its blockbuster acquisition of hardware and distribution behemoth Roku, a deal that suddenly turns the home of Fox News, Fox Sports, Tubi, cable channels and a broadcast network into one of the most unconventional combatants in the Streaming Wars. While Netflix continues to flex its massive annual content budget, Fox initially sat out the arms race, buying Tubi in 2020, investing in creators, AI-fueled microdrama company Holywater and podcast company Red Seat Ventures. Now, as a combined Tubi-Roku puts Fox behind only YouTube and Netflix in TV viewing share, Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey declare the winners and losers — including what the executive shakeout might look like inside — why Wall Street isn’t fully sold and how this repositions Fox in the entertainment landscape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nothing like a $22 billion deal to start a week, as Fox was revealed as the mystery buyer for the Roku business — furthering Lachlan Murdoch’s company’s diversification from being heavily based in the linear TV ecosystem, to extending strong tentacles in the digital and streaming space. In this bonus episode of Ankler Agenda, Business Insider columnist and Channels podcast host Peter Kafka joins The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty to dive into the strategy, what this means for Hollywood streamers and more as consolidation continues to ripple across the ecosystem. Plus, Christopher Rosen joins Sean for a Monday Box Office conversation about the … mixed opening for Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day and what lies ahead, as well as the big drops from opening weekend for Masters of the Universe and Scary Movie — two pictures with vastly different fates at the box office. And, why Universal will still likely win the summer despite the cloudy outlook for Disclosure Day, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a deal that would have been unimaginable a decade ago — maybe even two years ago. But last month, motivational speaker and On Purpose host Jay Shetty signed a reported $100 million agreement to move his video podcast exclusively to Netflix and Spotify. In the era of Alex Cooper, Joe Rogan and the Kelce brothers, streamers are battling for podcast talent as the once audio-only medium morphs into the next Hollywood battleground — with Netflix, naturally, upping the ante. Elaine Low, Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty dive into the rise of podcasting post-Covid and post-strikes, Netflix and Spotify’s pod strategy as a bulwark against YouTube and why streamers are betting that video podcasts are really just the next generation of low-cost talk shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“I would not be feeling good right now if I was sitting in my corner office over at Disney after this weekend,” one source tells Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey about the box office success of Backrooms and Obsession — two movies from popular YouTube creators-turned-filmmakers Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, respectively. Both low-budget breakouts leapfrogged over Star Wars’ The Mandalorian and Grogu last weekend, raising questions about what this unprecedented success says about moviegoing’s future and Gen Z taste. Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie dive into the YouTube revolution, then examine the growing disconnect between what Hollywood is saying about AI in public vs. how it’s using it — and how even cinema giants like Martin Scorsese are coming around. (For an inside look at the next gen of horror, listen toNatalie’s conversation at NAB Show with Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear, Mark Fischbach aka Markiplier, and M3GAN writer Akela Cooper.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices