Monday’s college national championship game between Ohio State and Notre Dame brought in an impressive audience.

The matchup, which saw the Buckeyes take victory over the Fighting Irish, scored 22.1 million viewers on Monday night, according to Nielsen viewing figures. The game peaked with 26.1 million viewers from 8:30-8:45 p.m. ET.

The game currently ranks as the most-watched non-NFL sporting event over the past year, and drew the biggest audience of the inaugural 12-team college football playoffs.

The Ohio State-Notre Dame game followed up on the 2025 inauguration of Donald Trump, which brought in an average total viewership of 24.59 million from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET across 15 networks, including in the viewership include ABC, CBS, NBC, Merit Street Media, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation and PBS.

Monday night’s game saw a slightly bigger audience Rose Bowl game between Oregon and Ohio State, which scored 21.1 million viewers. By comparison the delayed Sugar Bowl between Notre Dame and Georgia drew a viewership of 15.8 million.

On Saturday, the game between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs became ESPN’s most-watched NFL game ever with an average viewership of 32.7 million. The matchup scored the biggest Saturday afternoon kickoff audience in ten seasons since 2016, including all 4:30 p.m. ET kickoffs across all networks.

The Ohio State-Notre Dame saw Ohio State win their 9th national title, defeating Notre Dame 34-23. The game took place in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

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The annual gathering in Park City, which kicks off Thursday, arrives when both the physical and financial landscapes have dramatically shifted, with some filmmakers, actors and executives literally displaced from their homes while the broader market continues its drift away from the streaming-fueled bidding wars of recent years.

Adding to the challenges, the impact of the Los Angeles wildfires is palpable among industry figures headed to the festival. “I think going into Sundance, that provides people there with a bit of perspective,” Julien Levesque, an agent in Gersh’s film finance group, told TheWrap. “People are going to be at Sundance with a little bit of a renewed sense of purpose, and just that community feeling that we’ve been feeling in Los Angeles I think definitely will continue.”

Picturestart’s Erik Feig, who has been displaced from his Palisades home due to the fires, sees the festival as an opportunity for renewal. “What’s so great about Sundance, what I always love about it, is it’s the community of creativity,” Feig said. “It’s by far my favorite festival, because it’s such a festival of discoveries, more than Venice or Toronto. There are so many movies that you don’t really know anything about, and so many filmmakers who are brand new.”

The market dynamics at this year’s festival reflect an industry in transition. Every industry insider who spoke to TheWrap agreed that the days of all-night bidding wars are pretty much over, making way for a more measured sale process that can extend beyond the festival’s end date. Those seeking distribution are cautiously optimistic that buyers will be spreading around the love — and their bets — instead of plopping down big money for one or two films and leaving.

“I think that we’re in a positive direction in terms of the market,” Levesque said. “For several years we had these big booms in acquisitions, which was obviously very nice, but we’re returning, and we’re evolving as an industry, towards a more strategic and thoughtful acquisition market, and I’m positive Sundance will be a great place to have a lot of these great films that we can showcase and to get picked up.”

Topic Studios’ EVP of Film and Documentary Ryan Heller, who had great success last year with “A Real Pain,” the Kieran Culkin-starring drama that was snatched up by Searchlight for $10 million and is now considered a contender in awards season, echoed Levesque’s sentiment that the sales process is now more diversified.

“There are more buyers playing more distinct games from one another,” he said, noting that there are pure streaming buyers, pure theatrical buyers and some who are a hybrid of both, each with their own windowing strategy. “What that means for us as sellers is that you can have the same movie and five buyers with varied ideas about release timing, how to reach an audience [and] who the audience is.”

Heller, who has two documentaries in the festival this year in “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” and “FOLKTALES,” described the relatively new experience as both exciting and more complicated, since it depends on what the sellers feel is the best path for the movie.

The biggest sales at last year’s festival were largely marked by either big stars or genre fare, but none of them made a huge splash at the box office: There was “A Real Pain” ($12 million gross), Magnolia snatched the June Squibb actioner “Thelma” for an undisclosed sum ($12.6 million gross) and Amazon MGM Studios picked up the Aubrey Plaza-starring coming-of-age film “My Old Ass” for $15 million ($5.7 million gross before streaming on Prime Video). Netflix also plopped down $17 million for the body-swap horror movie “It’s What’s Inside” and an undisclosed amount for the Will Ferrell documentary “Will & Harper.”

This year’s lineup is more muted, with fewer films featuring big stars and only a couple from established filmmakers. That said, two of the buzziest acquisition titles are the Jennifer Lopez-fronted “Kiss of the Spider Woman” from director Bill Condon and the Benedict Cumberbatch grief drama “The Thing With Feathers.”

What impact that dynamic will have on the market is unclear, but Republic Pictures president and chief content licensing officer Dan Cohen, who is bringing the Dylan O’Brien film “Twinless” to the festival, acknowledged this year’s lineup feels “pretty indie.”

Levesque added: “I feel that there’s not going to be huge bidding wars, but I do feel that there will be deals made and there will be opportunities for these films to be seen.” That of course includes streamers — Apple picked up “CODA” for $25 million in 2021 and won the Oscar for Best Picture, Hulu and Neon paid $17.5 million for the Andy Samberg comedy “Palm Springs” in 2020 and Netflix has been a constant presence at the festival over the last several years.

“Streamers are very well educated. They know their market, they know their audience, they know the consumer,” Feig said. “They know what works on their platform. They know what doesn’t.”

But the overall state of independent film remains complex. “I think why buyers go to Sundance is to be surprised,” Heller said, tempering expectations about big sales. “It’s less about the tempo of the market or how quickly things sell, and it’s really about the long game on every title.”

As Feig puts it, “In independent film, as in so many other areas about media and the economy at large, it’s feast or famine. You either really work or you really don’t work.”

That extends to the documentary community, which has been struggling in recent years. Amplify Pictures founder Joe Lewis and head of documentary Lauren Haber have “Pamela, A Love Story” director Ryan White’s new film “Come See Me in the Good Light,” about poet and LGBTQ activist Andrea Gibson, at this year’s festival. But as veterans of the documentary space, they acknowledged a changed environment, one in which they strive to combine passion with commercial prospects.

“We’re honest about the state of the industry,” Lewis said, noting that the current documentary market favors films about sports, music, true crime or celebrity. “How do we make something that’s elevated and smart and has great filmmaking but is also commercial?” The “Fleabag” and “Transparent” producer said they focus on serious subjects “but done in a fun way,” while noting they don’t run after every trend. “If we wanted to chase what was commercial, we’d do a lot more true crime.”

Haber, who worked on the acclaimed documentary “Sugarcane” that premiered at Sundance last year and is firmly in the Oscar race, pointed out that many documentaries shortlisted for this year’s Oscars struggled to find U.S. distribution. “I do feel like there’s a disconnect there that I hope is so obvious right now, that it’s being recognized, and that it will start to move in a different direction,” she said of critically acclaimed docs failing to find a distributor.

Of course, coming out of the dual strikes and overall contraction in Hollywood, narrative indie film is not immune to constraints either.

“I think the industry as a whole is evolving, and indie film as a whole is evolving to exist in this new marketplace. So I feel good about the state of indie film,” Levesque said. “I think that there’s inherently going to be a latent period between what the market is selling and what the producers and financiers are making.”

He added: “And we’ve had this big slowdown in acquisition. We had a big slowdown in production. A lot of producers and financiers have had to kind of structure how they build their budget in a much more thoughtful way that allows for a film to be successful.”

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Trump’s second swearing-in brought in an average total viewership of 24.59 million viewers across 15 networks from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET, according to early viewing figures from Nielsen. Networks which aired the inauguration and are included in the viewership include ABC, CBS, NBC, Merit Street Media, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation and PBS.

Viewership for the 2025 inauguration was down 27% from Biden’s 2021 inauguration, which scored an audience of 33.76 million viewers across 17 channels. The 2025 inauguration reverses the viewership growth the event had seen in 2021, which saw a 10.18% increase from the 30.64 million viewers brought in by the 2017 inauguration.

The 2025 inauguration also saw a 19.75% viewership downtick from Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, which scored 30.64 million viewers across 12 networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, Univision, Telemundo, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Galavision and HLN.

The audience for the 2025 inauguration included 1.43 million viewers ages 18-34, 4.67 million viewers ages 35-54 and 17.4 million viewers ages 55+. For comparison, the 2021 inauguration captured 2.85 million viewers ages 18-34, 8.21 million viewers ages 35-54 and 21 million viewers ages 55+.

As expected, Fox News’ coverage of the inauguration dominated amongst its counterparts, with Fox News averaging 10.3 million viewers from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET on Monday, while CNN averaged 1.7 million viewers and MSNBC reached 848,000 viewers during the same time period. Likewise, ABC averaged 4.7 million viewers during the same time period while CBS scored 4.1 million viewers and NBC reached 4.4 million viewers.

Despite a viewership decline on linear channels, inauguration-related content on YouTube drew in over 30 million people on Monday, according to the platform’s data. Of the livestreams with the highest number of peak concurrent U.S. viewers on Monday, Fox News accounted for three of the top five.

During the inauguration, which was attended by politicians and billionaires alike, Trump outlined a slew of executive orders he intended to sign on his first day of the presidency, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border with Mexico, ending the Green New Deal to “drill, baby, drill” and eradicate “government censorship.”

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Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $1.87 billion, compared to $938 million a year ago.

Earnings per share: $4.27 per share, up 102% year over year, compared to $4.19 per share expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $10.25 billion, up 16% year over year, compared to $10.12 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Subscribers: Netflix added 18.9 million subscribers in the quarter, up 15.9% to 301.63 million globally. For the full year, Netflix added a record 41 million subscribers.

Subscriber growth for the quarter was driven by broad strength across its content slate, improved product/market fit across all regions and typical seasonality, the company said in its quarterly shareholder letter. Netflix touted programming such as “Squid Game” Season 2, the action film “Carry-On” and its live events including the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight and its pair of NFL Christmas Day games.

With the impacts of COVID-19 and 2023’s Hollywood strikes behind it, Netflix anticipates approximately $18 billion in cash content spend in 2025 — up from $17 billion — as the streaming business remains competitive across traditional entertainment and big tech.

“We’re fortunate that we don’t have distractions like managing declining linear networks and, with our focus and continued investment, we have good and improving product/market fit around the world,” the streamer stated. “We have to continue to improve all aspects of Netflix — more series and films our members love, a great product experience, increased sophistication in our plans and pricing strategy (including more advertising capabilities) — and grow into new areas like live programming and games. If we do that well, we believe we’ll have an increasingly valuable company — for consumers, creators and shareholders.”

The last hurrah for quarterly subscriber disclosures

As it shifts its focus to revenue, operating margins and engagement, Netflix will stop reporting its quarterly subscriber count and average revenue-per-paid member figures beginning in the first quarter of 2025. It will continue to provide a breakout of total revenue by region, as well as the impact of foreign exchange changes, and announce major subscriber milestones as it crosses them.

Its next bi-annual engagement updates will be released in February and with its earnings results for the second quarter of 2025 in July.

Netflix added 4.82 million paid subscribers in the U.S. and Canada during the quarter for a total of 89.6 million; 5 million in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region for a total of 101.13 million; 4.15 million in Latin America for a total of 53.33 million; and 4.94 million in the Asia-Pacific region for a total of 57.54 million.

Average revenue per paid member grew 4% in the U.S. and Canada to $17.26, or total revenue of $4.5 billion, while ARM in the EMEA region grew 3% to 11.11, or $3.29 billion in total revenue. Meanwhile, ARM growth was flat in the APAC region at $7.34, or $1.2 billion in total revenue, and LATAM fell 7% to $8, or $1.23 billion in total revenue.

Netflix’s reported a 52% year over year increase in operating income to $2.27 billion and an operating margin of 22.2% during the quarter. It also generated $1.38 billion in free cash flow during the quarter and had $1.54 billion in net cash from operating activities.

As it looks to the first quarter of 2025, Netflix is forecasting 11.2% year over year revenue growth to $10.42 billion, which is modestly below its full-year guidance due to the timing of price changes and seasonality in its ads business. It also expects net income of $2.44 billion, earnings per share of $5.58, operating income of $2.94 billion and an operating margin of 28.2%.

For full year 2025, Netflix expects revenue growth of 12% to 14% to somewhere between $43.5 billion to $44.5 billion, up $500 million from the prior forecast. As a result, it’s targeting a 29% operating margin for 2025, up from previous guidance of 28%.

Netflix hikes prices as ad tier on track for ‘sufficient scale’ in 2025

In addition to its quarterly results, Netflix revealed that it would increase the price of most of its plans in the U.S., Canada, Portugal and Argentina, including the first for its ad tier.

Under the new pricing in the U.S., Netflix’s ad-supported tier will increase by $1 to $7.99 per month, while the Premium tier will increase $2 to $24.99 per month. Additionally, the ad-free Standard plan will increase from $15.49 a month to $17.99 a month. The cost of adding an extra member to a plan has also increased by $1, to $8.99 in the U.S. However, the cost of adding an extra member to a plan with ads still remains $6.99 a month.

In November, Netflix revealed that its ad tier has grown to 70 million monthly active users globally. The offering now accounts for over 55% of new sign-ups in the 12 countries where it is available, and its membership base grew nearly 30% quarter over quarter. Without disclosing specifics, the company said it has doubled its ad revenue in 2024 and expects to do the same in 2025.

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said 2025 would be the year the ad tier transitions from the crawl to walking stage, noting the offering is on track to reach “sufficient scale” in all of the markets where it’s available.

The company will introduce an Extra Member with Ads feature in 10 of its ad-tier markets to give subscribers additional choice and flexibility. It also plans to roll out its in-house advertising technology globally through 2025, with Canada already operating solely on the new platform and the U.S. slated to begin in April.

Netflix’s live events remain focused on ‘big, memorable moments’

As Netflix continues to ramp up its live events programming to bolster its revenue growth going forward, the company said it would focus on delivering “big, memorable moments” rather than on the more expensive proposition of acquiring rights to large regular-season sports packages.

“Although our live programming will likely be a small percentage of our total view hours and content expense, we think the eventized nature will result in outsized value to both our members and our business,” the company said.

Looking ahead, the company’s live programming will include weekly WWE matches, the SAG awards, John Mulaney’s new variety talk show and the return of the NFL on Christmas Day. Netflix has also secured the U.S. rights for FIFA’s Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031.

The post Netflix Tops 300 Million Subscribers Globally, Adds Record-Breaking 19 Million in Q4 appeared first on TheWrap.

“Back in Action” scored the biggest Netflix weekend debut an English language movie has seen since 2022.

The Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz-led action movie brought in 46.8 million views on Netflix during its opening weekend, marking the most views in a premiere weekend for an English-language movie since 2022’s “The Adam Project.”

“Back in Action,” which reached No. 1 in 85 countries, was the most-watched English language movie for the week of Jan. 13, outpacing viewership for “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” which took the No. 2 spot with 8.9 million views, and “The Secret Life of Pets,” which was third on the list with 5.2 million views. “Knight and Day” took fourth place with 5.2 million views, holiday thriller “Carry-On” took fifth place with 3.6 million views and “Despicable Me 3” took sixth place with 3.4 million views.

On the TV side, “American Primeval” jumped to become the No. 1 most-watched English series of the week with 14.3 views, growing from its debut viewership of 10.4 million during the week of Jan. 6, when the limited series came in second place on the list behind Harlan Coben’s “Missing You.”

“American Primeval” outpaced the Season 2 debut of “XO, Kitty,” which brought in 14.2 million views in its first week on the streamer. Both “American Primeval” and “XO, Kitty” bumped “Missing You” down to third place on the TV list with 5.6 million views in its third week on Netflix.

Netflix’s Jan. 13 edition of WWE Monday Night Raw brought in 3.7 million views, making it the No. 4 most-watched TV show, and was followed by “Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action,” which scored 3.5 million views. The new season of “XO, Kitty” and upcoming new installment of “The Night Agent,” which premieres its second season in Jan. 23, also boosted the shows’ previous seasons onto the most-watched TV list, with “XO, Kitty” Season 1 coming in sixth place with 3.1 million views and “The Night Agent” Season 1 taking the No. 7 spot with 2.4 million views.

“Squid Game” Season 2 continued to dominate the non-English TV list, tallying up 13.2 million views in its fourth week on Netflix, still ranking as the most-watched non-English TV show of the week. Season 2 currently ranks as Netflix’s No. 2 most-watched non-English show ever with 165.7 million views to date, behind “Squid Game” Season 1, which still stands as Netflix’s most-watched non-English show ever with 265.2 million views to date since its 2021 release.

The post ‘Back in Action’ Scores Biggest Netflix Film Debut Since 2022 With 46.8 Million Views appeared first on TheWrap.

Prominently seated behind President Trump at the U.S. Capitol were: X and Tesla boss Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Google chief Sundar Pichai. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew — whose app thanked Trump after it was revived following a brief shutdown on Sunday — and OpenAI chief Sam Altman were also spotted.

Their smiling faces as the president took the oath of office signaled how monumentally the tech zeitgeist has shifted in the four years since Trump was last in the White House. A once-combative relationship between Big Tech and Trump’s Make America Great Again movement has apparently blossomed into a love affair, or at least a transactional crush.

But outside at the frigid U.S. Capitol, where giddy-but-shivering Trump supporters celebrated his return to the White House, skeptics of the budding tech-MAGA alliance were easy to find. Only Musk — who backed Trump with more than $277 million in the 2024 presidential campaign and publicly campaigned for him in key swing states — was given a widespread pass from the attendees.

“I think they should’ve supported him sooner, because it seems a little bit disingenuous now,” Matthew Palmer, a Gen Z Trump supporter from Ohio who was donning a black MAGA cap, told TheWrap. “Not Elon, though. Maybe Zuckerberg.”

That sentiment was the norm, not the exception on Monday.

“I can’t speak to Musk, but I think Zuckerberg, Tim Cook — I think it’s all just to kiss Trump’s ring,” Lou Johnston, who traveled from Hawaii for the inauguration, said near The National Archives. “I don’t think they’re in his corner, for sure — and he should be careful with who he aligns himself with.”

The optimism Trump’s supporters felt on Monday was matched by the tech execs in attendance. Musk, notably, took the stage at Capital One Arena following Trump’s inauguration and told the 20,000 attendees he was “fired up for the future.”

“Thank you for making it happen,” Musk said about Trump’s White House comeback. “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.”

He then pounded his heart and gave what appeared to be a Nazi salute, which led to a wave of shock and criticism online. (Musk has denounced claims he’s an anti-Semite previously, telling CNBC in 2023, “I’m a pro-Semite, if anything.”)

Of course, the day was also filled with its fair share of bizarre tech storylines. Zuckerberg, who runs Instagram and Facebook as part of his Meta empire, was the subject of many punchlines on X, after he was seemingly caught on camera looking at the cleavage of Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez. (In fairness, she was criticized for wearing a plunging neckline and peekaboo lingerie underneath.)

From a macro standpoint, the pro-Trump optics and gestures from the major tech execs stands in stark contrast to the climate that existed when he left office in 2021.

Following the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, Trump was removed from every major social platform in the U.S., including Twitter, which permanently banned his account. (Trump’s account was later reinstated after Musk bought the platform in 2022.) Zuckerberg did something similar by “indefinitely” banning Trump from Facebook and Instagram, saying at the time “the risks” of keeping him on the platforms were “simply too great.”

Now, many of those same CEOs who once criticized Trump are cozying up to him.

Trump’s supporters saw through the pivot. They are “sucking up” to Trump, said a an attendee named Steven from Utah who declined to give his last name. “They didn’t think he’d be back in office. Now that he is, they have to play nice.”

MNSBC’s Rachel Maddow, meanwhile, was alarmed by the sight of the tech elite literally backing up Trump on Monday.

“How is this happening? Why are people with tons of money up on the dais with cabinet nominees and family members?” she asked during the network’s inaugural coverage.

It’s one of the few topics on which Maddow could find common ground with members of the MAGA crowd. And their cynicism is not unfounded; each of the major tech executives in Washington on Monday stands to gain from maintaining a good relationship with the president.

Meta — which recently drew the ire of many left-leaning pundits for the decision to end its third-party fact checking system — will face an antitrust lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission in April. And the U.S. Justice Department is currently pushing for a breakup of Google, after a federal judge ruled last summer the company held an illegal monopoly in the online search market.

Still, not every MAGA fan at the Capitol looked at Big Tech’s sudden change of heart towards Trump with a jaundiced eye.

“I think it’s important that the tech companies and Trump work together moving forward,” Derek Stuart, who traveled to Washington with his wife and daughter from Delaware, told TheWrap.

TikTok in the Spotlight

The other major tech storyline on Monday was the future of TikTok.

By day’s end on Monday, Trump had signed an executive order to block the implementation of a law banning the social media app.

Owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok was set to be banned from the U.S. starting on Sunday. Last April, President Biden signed a law banning new downloads of the app and prohibiting it from being carried by Apple and Google’s app stores, unless ByteDance sold its American business.

The main concern U.S. lawmakers had with TikTok is that it could easily double as a spyware app for the Chinese Communist Party. ByteDance, if asked by the CCP, is compelled by Chinese law to share user data, including what users type on their phones and their location.

Reagan Smelkinson, a 24-year-old Virginia native who dressed up as a Revolutionary War-era founder on Monday told TheWrap that possibility does not concern him.

“I’m not worried about the Chinese. Not at all,” Smelkinson said, while waiting to see the presidential motorcade drive past the crowd lining Constitution Ave. “The people who pose more of a threat to us are the United States government and Israel.”

He added that he was happy Trump was going to sign an executive order granting TikTok an extension to make a deal. TikTok would ideally enter a “joint venture” in which the U.S. owns a 50% stake in the company, Trump said on Sunday.

That plan was met with overwhelming support from Trumpers, both on Sunday night at a TikTok-sponsored party in Washingon, D.C. and on Monday at the Capitol.

“I’m definitely glad that Trump’s saving it,” 18-year-old MaKinley Stuart said. “I like that he’s trying to put our national security ahead and he’s going to try and fix that with his 90-day extension.”

Stuart, who was sporting a pink “Trump 2024” hat, added that Trump’s about-face on TikTok — he initially supported banning the app during his first term, before saying last year he wants to “save” it — helped him win over a large swath of young voters. A Tufts University exit poll found Trump won 46% of voters 18-29 in the 2024 election, compared to 36% from that same cohort in 2020.

“He got on the platform last summer and gained a bigger, younger audience there,” Stuart said.

Others, like a 35-year-old man from upstate New York who only identified as Mike, said they supported keeping TikTok around on First Amendment grounds.

“I’m very happy to hear Trump is working to keep TikTok around,” he told TheWrap. “There are some national security concerns. However, it is very important that we still exercise our right to free speech… I believe that President Trump will make things right.”

That was the same argument TikTok’s lawyers made before the U.S. Supreme Court — an argument that was unanimously shot down last Friday.

But when it comes to tech, the MAGA faithful on Monday said they trust that Trump will make sharp decisions during his second term. In their eyes, though, whether he should trust Big Tech is broadly seen as another matter — even with the top CEOs behind him.

The post Big Tech Goes to Washington to ‘Kiss Trump’s Ring’ — But MAGA Fans Remain Skeptical appeared first on TheWrap.

Dressed like northerners bundled for a harsh winter storm, Trump supporters watched the inauguration ceremony on their cellphones as they stood on the far side of the Reflecting Pool along 3rd St., the closest they could get to the Capitol, which was under tight security. There were no large-screen TVs on the Mall broadcasting the event and not much to see ahead but the stately Capitol building adorned with five hanging flags from its windows.

None of that made a difference to Jason Doran, who came to Washington from Alabama for the ceremony. Doran said he believes that Trump will fix some of the major issues facing the country, including immigration and inflation, as well as what he sees as the wrongs done at the Jan. 6 insurrection to some of the people whom he believes did not deserve the punishment they received.

“It’s liberation day,” he told TheWrap, repeating a phrase that Trump had said moments earlier during his inaugural address. It was a phrase that others in the crowd would frequently repeat afterward.

Doran, like others interviewed, said they were unfazed by the presidential campaign endorsements made by Hollywood stars — either for or against Trump — in the months leading up to the election. Several had harsh words, saying that the stars are out-of-touch with most Americans.

“They’re just actors,” Doran said. “What’s their average experience [going] to a job and coming home and trying to buy groceries?” he said. “They don’t have any concept of [the way] an average American lives.”

Kerry, who drove down from New Jersey and did not want to give his full name, echoed that sentiment. He said the last time he was in Washington was for the Jan. 6 insurrection but that he did not enter the Capitol and was not prosecuted.

“I felt kind of hunted down the last four years,” he said. His vote for Trump “was more a vote for the Constitution of the United States,” especially for First Amendment rights, which he said he believes Biden had trampled on.

When it comes to Hollywood endorsements for one party or the other, he said he does not give any weight to anything celebrities have to say. “They’re all a bunch of bird brains who pretend for a living,” he said.

Leonardo Balcita, a Trump supporter from Minnesota who came to Washington with a friend to see some of the city and witness a bit of history, said it’s strange that celebrities “will turn off a whole side of their fan base” to make political statements. He particularly objected to what he described as the comparisons of Trump to Hitler.

“Trump didn’t kill people like Hitler did,” he said. “Does he say everything perfect? No, but that’s what I kind of like about him, because he’s like a normal person instead of like politicians who tell you what you want to hear but don’t follow through.”

Monday evening, Trump confidante Elon Musk drew scrutiny for giving what appeared to be a Nazi salute from the stage of a post-inauguration event.

James Ferguson, from Minneapolis, said that celebrities on both sides of the political aisle think too much of themselves. He also said it was wonderful to see people on the Mall “supporting their country no matter what side they’re for,” referring to the few anti-Trump protesters in the crowd.

One of those was Derek Hulahan, an international affairs student at George Washington University, who held a sign in Latin reading “Sic semper tyrannis,” meaning “thus always to tyrants,” a line often attributed to Brutus, Julius Caesar’s assassination conspirator. Hulahan said he came to the Mall to make sure that the Trump supporters attending know that there is another side.

“I’m strongly concerned that [Trump] is going to make a power grab, and I’m going to be ending up living in something like Viktor Orban’s Hungary, which is a one-party state by the end of the decade,” Hulahan said.

Another protester, Jon Bjornstad from California, remained in one of the main Metro transfer hubs for the day to keep warm.

“I was very disappointed in the election,” he said. “He’s an insurrectionist. He’s a liar. He’s a rapist. He’s a fraudster,” he said.

Bjornstad said he also participated in the People’s March on Jan. 18 to protest Trump. That protest was one of several events over the weekend across Washington, which included the DC Peace Walk and Parade to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy. This year the inauguration and the MLK Jr. federal holiday fell on the same day.

The post Trump’s Inauguration Supporters Elated but Feel the Chill as Events Move Indoors appeared first on TheWrap.

The presence of megarich CEOs Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook, coupled with the ongoing drama surrounding the fate and future of TikTok, kept the focus on that sector through much of the inaugural weekend. Still, the build-up to Trump taking the oath of office — in an event moved indoors supposedly due to the frigid weather in Washington, D.C. — featured several moments indicating that Hollywood is also seeking to adapt to again dealing with a Trump administration, and how to publicly navigate those sure-to-be-perilous waters.

Plenty of Hollywood and music-industry A-listers campaigned for Kamala Harris during the presidential election, and there’s little doubt that the town’s political leanings heavily favor Democrats.

Despite being outnumbered, Trump has always had outspoken supporters among high-profile talent, including actors like James Woods and Jon Voight, and musical figures such as Kid Rock and Ted Nugent. On Jan. 16, Trump designated Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, describing the honorary role as a form of outreach to the entertainment community.

Trump couldn’t resist delivering the news with a jab, referring to Hollywood as “a great but very troubled place.” (Gibson, once a near-pariah in Hollywood, indicated he learned of the “appointment” at the same time everyone else did, via a Truth Social post, but said he was happy to serve.)

How well those emissaries will be received could be another matter, with Hollywood conservatives long arguing that they have paid a professional price for not aligning with the prevailing politics of their community. After publicly endorsing Trump in September, “Shazam!” and “Chuck” star Zachary Levi suggested that he could be committing “career suicide,” given the preponderance of those holding “very liberal” views in Hollywood.

After the election, Levi walked those comments back, telling Bill Maher on the comic’s podcast that he had plenty of work lined up and didn’t anticipate being “canceled,” as Maher put it, adding, “If it happens, it happens.”

Still, there’s a sense in some quarters that those who feel they have been shunned for their views could be more open about them in the future. Actor Kevin Sorbo, an outspoken Trump supporter and cultural warrior who starred as Hercules in the syndicated TV show from the 1990s, responded to the announcement of the ambassadors by wryly posting on X that it might be time for him to return to Hollywood.

Trump’s electoral victory has already prompted major tech CEOs to make pilgrimages to visit him at Mar-a-Lago — on a transactional basis, many have concluded, hoping to protect their business interests — raising the possibility that some of their Hollywood counterparts might follow suit. (Bezos and Cook both have direct hands in Hollywood through their respective streaming services, Amazon’s Prime Video and Apple TV+, and Amazon has already made a deal for a docuseries featuring First Lady Melania Trump.)

Thanks to his career before entering politics, which included “The Celebrity Apprentice,” Trump has plenty of ties within the entertainment industry. He has nevertheless frequently chafed at criticism from outspoken stars who support progressive causes and candidates. The result has been a series of social media skirmishes dating back to Trump calling Meryl Streep “overrated” the day after she derided the then-president-elect during the 2017 Golden Globes.

The hostility toward celebrity involvement in the campaign also lingers in conservative circles. During a pre-inaugural rally, Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News commentator who publicly supported Trump, mocked stars who had spoken out on Harris’ behalf, from Jennifer Lopez to Oprah Winfrey to Streep.

“Hollywood celebrities who get up there and try to tell us how to vote. Really?” Kelly told the crowd, adding that such stars “know nothing about anything.” She also referenced a Streep quote about producer Harvey Weinstein’s power in Hollywood — one made long before he faced prosecution for sexual assault — before adding, “Maybe we shouldn’t go to her for our political advice.”

Granted, the same event featured appearances by Voight and Kid Rock, reflecting one of the dichotomies of conservatives when it comes to Hollywood — deriding the industry broadly while enthusiastically celebrating those who have joined in the MAGA cause.

At the same time, performers again experienced over the weekend the stark polarization of the current political climate, and the risk of facing blowback from appearing to tacitly bless the Trump administration in any way. That was evident in the social media ire directed at rappers Snoop Dogg and Nelly for performing at pre-inaugural events, and advance criticism of Carrie Underwood when she agreed to sing at the inauguration. (Underwood’s rendition of “America the Beautiful” was briefly delayed by technical difficulties before she ultimately sang a cappella Monday.)

Ultimately, though, the presence of the tech CEOs and billionaires prominently featured at the swearing-in ceremony drew some of the most pointed commentary on progressive network MSNBC, which saw a message in their presence and took note of it throughout the morning.

“How is this happening?” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked, citing the positioning of Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk and Cook within camera view. “Why are people with tons of money up on the dais with cabinet nominees and family members?”

Moved indoors because of the weather, Trump’s inaugural address was delivered in more cramped surroundings than the image-conscious president likely wanted, and ran only 30 minutes, relatively short compared to his famously lengthy rally speeches. He did speak more expansively with followers after the formal address.

“The Golden Age of America begins right now,” Trump said, mixing a few conciliatory notes with plenty of more provocative ones aimed at his political base. He expressed the goal, for example, to be “a unifier and a peacemaker,” while laying out a number of less-than-unifying policies.

Trump also pledged to “stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America,” said it would be official government policy to recognize only two genders and cited the goal of reaching Mars, prompting an exuberant reaction, caught by the cameras, from Musk. The wealthy Trump supporter and SpaceX mastermind has regularly spoken of traveling to Mars as one of his major objectives.

The post Still Outnumbered, Hollywood Conservatives Wave Their Flags a Little Higher as Trump 2.0 Begins | Analysis appeared first on TheWrap.

“I am ecstatic President Trump is saving TikTok,” Abigail Clark, a 21-year-old University of Alabama student who attended the party, told TheWrap.

The vast majority of attendees shared that feeling — even those who held concerns the app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, is a stealth spyware app for China’s communist government.

“I think it’s absolutely a Chinese spyware app. I don’t agree with the equivalency [argument] that every app is taking our data,” Kendall Pennington, a 27-year-old marketing director, told TheWrap. “With that said — I’m still at the party.”

Just hours earlier, TikTok had resumed working for American users — 14 hours after it had shut down in the U.S. on Saturday night. TikTok’s brief dark period coincided with a law signed by President Joe Biden last year banning new downloads of the app and prohibiting it from Apple and Google’s app stores unless it found a buyer for its American business. No deal was made.

Still, TikTok returned following a Sunday morning Truth Social post from Donald Trump saying “Save TikTok!” He then said he would issue an executive order on Monday, granting TikTok more time to make a deal — ideally one in which the U.S. has “a 50% ownership position in a joint venture” with ByteDance or a new owner.

That was enough for TikTok to flip the switch back on, and the app thanked Trump personally in a message that greeted users when they came back online.

The Trump-TikTok alliance was met with cheers from most of those who attended the “Power 30” party, which was sponsored by TikTok, as well as the American Conservation Coalition and Kalshi.

The black-tie-optional event was co-hosted by Raquel Debono, who organizes “Make America Hot Again” dating events for conservative singles, and CJ Pearson, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council, and held at Sax Restaurant & Lounge. On the way in, attendees snapped pictures with cardboard cutouts of Trump, JD Vance, and Elon Musk, who were all dressed as Old West gunslingers, and posed in front of a #SaveTikTok banner.

Young conservatives packed the venue’s downstairs dance floor, and an upstairs bar area doubled as a DJ booth; at midnight, Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame performed a medley of hits, before telling the crowd that Trump was going to “go hard in da paint on the Deep State.”

Beyond the aforementioned earmuffs, TikTok-branded drinking glasses, TikTok-branded beanies, and beer koozies — complete with a silhouette of Trump doing his trademark fist-pump dance — were offered as free swag to attendees. The crowd was populated by a mix of creators, including Bryce Hall, a TikTok star with 23.7 million followers, as well as social media influencers and young MAGA-leaning politicos and media figures.

Ami Kozak, a comedian and impressionist with 285,000 TikTok followers, said Trump’s desire to save TikTok was a shrewd move that would win him brownie points with the app’s 170 million U.S. users — despite the fact that Trump originally backed the TikTok ban.

“Not only has he found a way to turn the tide from an electoral perspective — making a total 180-degree political comeback — but also an incredible cultural comeback,” Kozak said.

At the same time, Kozak said he understands “both sides of the argument” when it comes to TikTok, including those who want to see it banned because it answers to a foreign adversary. TikTok, according to Chinese law, is required to hand over user data, if the CCP compels it to. This was a chief concern among lawmakers who passed the ban, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, which voted 9-0 last week to uphold the law requiring ByteDance to divest if TikTok were to continue in the U.S.

Some at the party agreed.

“I’m not happy about [Trump’s plan for an] executive order,” said Mark Moran, a creator who dubs himself the “cavalier philosopher” on X and Instagram, where he has a combined 60,000 followers. “I wish that TikTok would stay banned. I think that it is purposefully ruining our younger generation.”

In particular, Moran said China’s version of TikTok, Douyin, offers kids math and science problems, while in the U.S. users are hit with more mindless content. “I worry that as attention spans shorten and shorten, this is something that will have such a big impact that we can’t measure on future societies.”

The other side of that, Kozak said, is that banning TikTok would hurt users who are simply using the app for entertainment purposes — or to advance their careers.

“There’s a lot of people who are building real communities on TikTok; I’m biased, because I built a whole community on the platform,” Kozak said.

O’Rian Hairston, while donning a green “Make America Beautiful Again” hat, told TheWrap something similar. “It’s very good” Trump is going to extend TikTok a lifeline, he said, “because I’ve seen it be a great avenue for people to connect — or start businesses.”

Tara Suess, who handles media for the New York Young Republican Club, said she is thrilled Trump will likely issue an executive order to overturn the TikTok ban. (A move one legal expert told TheWrap would, at a minimum, grant TikTok “more leeway” to find a buyer.) She said TikTok’s existence is “ultimately a free speech issue” — which is what TikTok argued before the Supreme Court. The court disagreed. But most of the Trump-loving crowd at “Power 30” embraced Trump’s plan to “save” TikTok, for one reason or another.

And for the record, the DJ did play “YMCA” — the “Power 30” crowd just had to wait until 12:48 a.m. on Monday to hear it.

The post What Ban? TikTok Creators and Users Party in DC as Trump Looks to ‘Save’ App appeared first on TheWrap.

According to data from Parrot Analytics’ Content Panorama, the release of Spanish and Portuguese streaming originals has surged by 266% between 2020 and 2024 — outpacing the 178% growth seen in other languages. Netflix initially dominated this space but was overtaken by Amazon Prime Video in 2024, reflecting the competitive dynamics shaping LatAm’s content landscape. LatAm represents the smallest region in quarterly net additions over the last five quarters for Netflix.

Disney+ and Max have also been investing in creating a presence in local LatAm languages over the last years. Disney+ started releasing content in these languages in 2021 and has drawn on its global storytelling expertise to produce content catering to local young audiences. Most Disney+ originals in the region come from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. Some examples are the Argentinian thriller “The Absent Voice (La Voz Ausente)” and the Brazillian romantic comedy “Bia And Victor: Love Of My Life (Amor da Minha Vida)”.

Max, on the other hand, has leveraged its robust regional partnerships and production capabilities to roll out different titles focusing on diverse local LatAm from reality shows — such as the Mexican version of “My 600-lb Life,” locally known as “Kilos Mortales México” — to sports documentaries about Brazilian soccer players and skateboarders. 

While local-language content remains essential for engaging LatAm audiences, its share of the regional streaming market has faced growing competition from the rising popularity of Korean and Japanese content. Across Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, and Disney+, Spanish and Portuguese content accounted for nearly 25% of the revenue generated by non-English content in LatAm in Q1 2023, according to Parrot Analytics Streaming Economics. By Q3 2024, this share had dropped to 21.7%, driven by the surge in supply and demand for Korean dramas and Japanese anime in the region.

Rather than signaling a decline in the importance of local content, this trend highlights the growing sophistication of LatAm’s streaming market and the expanding cultural preferences of its audiences. For streaming platforms, the challenge moving forward will be to strike a balance between developing authentic, locally resonant stories and adapting to the evolving tastes of a dynamic and diverse viewer base.

The post Latin American Streaming Originals Surge on Netflix and Prime Video | Charts appeared first on TheWrap.