Oct 19, 2026 · 52 min · 12 segments
This week, there's a new order after the Warner. Bros and Paramount merger, and Hollywood is making changes. Nielsen Ratings Show Notes…
This week, the Paramount Warner Brothers merger is having seismic shockwaves throughout Hollywood.
As a small studio that once made a run for the streaming crown is now coming apart and Netflix tries to reset, where do you guys want to start?
And so as a quick recap, Candle Media is a small studio that is backed by Blackstone and is operated by Kevin Meyer and David Tomstags.
Yeah, Thomas Ostags, who previously won a bake-off at Disney to become CEO and then got fired less than a year later, went off and started his own thing, and it's just been mess after mess after mess.
We were previously high on Candle, but then they started splashing around money, and, Raul, it's just been a disaster, hasn't it?
I mean, I would be one of the first to say that it was high on them because I thought that they were doing the right things right at the beginning of what we would consider the streaming era, right around the time that we started this podcast.
Candle Media owns Moonbug, which is the studio that owns and produces Cocomelon and I believe Blippi.
But they also bought other properties, chiefly these what we would call vanity shingles.
These are small production houses that are owned and usually launched by famous people.
Chief among them we have to consider here, and this is the relevant story, is – Gee whiz.
And they gave Reese Witherspoon a bunch of Blackstone's money so that it would become part of Candle Media.
I believe Hello Sunshine is... is responsible for producing the Legally Blonde series on Prime Video.
But you wouldn't necessarily be able to look at Hello Sunshine and say, oh yeah, that's the shingle that now produces all these hits.
And this week, Reese Witherspoon using different venture money bought back hello sunshine from candle media.
This week, the Paramount Warner Brothers merger is having seismic shockwaves throughout Hollywood.
As a small studio that once made a run for the streaming crown is now coming apart and Netflix tries to reset, where do you guys want to start?
And so as a quick recap, Candle Media is a small studio that is backed by Blackstone and is operated by Kevin Meyer and David Tomstags.
Yeah, Thomas Ostags, who previously won a bake-off at Disney to become CEO and then got fired less than a year later, went off and started his own thing, and it's just been mess after mess after mess.
We were previously high on Candle, but then they started splashing around money, and, Raul, it's just been a disaster, hasn't it?
I mean, I would be one of the first to say that it was high on them because I thought that they were doing the right things right at the beginning of what we would consider the streaming era, right around the time that we started this podcast.
Candle Media owns Moonbug, which is the studio that owns and produces Cocomelon and I believe Blippi.
But they also bought other properties, chiefly these what we would call vanity shingles.
These are small production houses that are owned and usually launched by famous people.
Chief among them we have to consider here, and this is the relevant story, is – Gee whiz.
And they gave Reese Witherspoon a bunch of Blackstone's money so that it would become part of Candle Media.
I believe Hello Sunshine is... is responsible for producing the Legally Blonde series on Prime Video.
But you wouldn't necessarily be able to look at Hello Sunshine and say, oh yeah, that's the shingle that now produces all these hits.
And this week, Reese Witherspoon using different venture money bought back hello sunshine from candle media.
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