Ankler Agenda

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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