Oct 1, 2026 · 55 min
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Hollywood tests AI’s promise against its creative costs
Bloomberg Tech Screentime Special
The episode shows entertainment companies moving from AI experimentation toward systems that could reshape production, ownership, and creative control.
- 1Netflix is pairing scale, live programming, advertising, and retention with selective interest in major media acquisitions.
- 2Suno and AI-native studios argue generative tools can expand creation, but licensing, attribution, and human control remain unresolved.
- 3Deepfake protection and model-distillation disputes show that AI’s commercial growth is intensifying fights over permission, safety, and ownership.
Don't miss
Mikey Shulman explains how Suno wants AI-generated music to work alongside artists while addressing voice, likeness, licensing, and labeling.
The brief
Bloomberg ScreenTime opens with the Paramount Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery deal, framing consolidation as a test of entertainment’s next business model.
Ted Sarandos describes Netflix’s growth engine, live programming, advertising, retention, and why Warner Bros. Discovery stood out as an acquisition target.
Suno CEO Mikey Shulman presents AI music as a collaborative tool, while licensing voices, likenesses, labeling, and artist participation remain central constraints.
Promise and Luma AI make the case for hybrid, AI-native production that lowers costs without removing human artists or professional control from filmmaking.
The episode closes on the harder question: can Hollywood capture AI’s efficiency while protecting creators from deepfakes, unauthorized use, and concentrated control?
What was said on this episode
30 statements · 19 positive · 6 negative · 1 mixed · 4 neutral
Paramount Skydance will announce staffing and leadership changes frequently in coming weeks.
“I expect we'll just see news pretty much every day over the next couple of weeks.”
Listen at 3:10
Casey Bloys will lead streaming for the combined company.
“everybody believes that that means that Casey Bloys, who will be speaking at this conference later today, will be in charge of streaming.”
Listen at 3:30
Ynon Kreiz will manage daily operations and lead cost-cutting and restructuring.
“Ynon as the person who's going to come in and really run things day to day, cut a lot of cost restructure”
Listen at 3:52
Netflix’s Warner Bros. offer price could still create shareholder value.
“That was the top price point where I thought we could return value to our shareholders with that asset.”
Listen at 4:29
A higher Warner Bros. offer price would destroy shareholder value for Netflix.
“Any more than that, I thought we'd be taking into negative territory.”
Listen at 4:34
Netflix’s Warner Bros. pursuit has harmed the company.
“it has hurt them.”
Listen at 5:21
Netflix’s growth is slower than desired, and management is working to accelerate it.
“we're not growing as fast as I want us to, and we're working on making that move faster.”
Listen at 6:56
Netflix live programming effectively drives signups, retention, and advertising.
“They're really effective for signups, retention, advertising, all those things that they do.”
Listen at 7:22
NFL football generates more revenue per viewing hour than Judge Judy on Netflix.
“an hour of Judge Judy in the middle of the day does not generate as much revenue as an hour of NFL football.”
Listen at 8:22
Netflix programming monetizes better than the compared platform’s programming.
“we generate more, we monetize better, our programming monetizes better.”
Listen at 8:36
Netflix plans to pursue primarily organic growth and selective complementary acquisitions.
“our plans and how we're going to grow is primarily organic and we'll look for opportunities that complement the business as we go.”
Listen at 10:03
SpaceX may retire Crew Dragon when the ISS program ends.
“there's a lot of speculation that SpaceX is going to retire the Crew Dragon as soon as the ISS program ends.”
Listen at 15:29
Suno expects creative participation to become a dominant form of entertainment.
“we think in the future everybody will be entertained creatively.”
Listen at 18:18
Suno’s advancing technology enables more collaboration with music-industry partners.
“we are able to do so much more with our industry partners.”
Listen at 19:36
Artist-based AI remixing and co-creation constitutes an entirely new music product.
“This is an entirely new product.”
Listen at 20:45
Suno builds all of its technology internally.
“We build all of our technology in-house.”
Listen at 21:11
AI music lacks firm rules governing labeling and rights decisions.
“we don't have firm rules of the road. Just yet.”
Listen at 22:43
Suno has surpassed two million subscribers and $300 million in revenue.
“The last stats that we released released were 2 million subscribers, $300 million in revenue. We are far beyond that by now.”
Listen at 23:59
Generative AI gives creators roughly tenfold greater capabilities.
“generative AI has enabled creators to have 10x superpowers.”
Listen at 30:11
Promise can produce original films and series faster and cheaper using generative AI.
“They are leveraging all the best models to produce original films and series at a fraction of the traditional cost and timeline.”
Listen at 30:19
Hybrid filmmaking lowers visual-effects costs and expands smaller films’ scope.
“what that does is it serves to bring down the cost of visual effects and allowing smaller films to have great scope and scale.”
Listen at 32:52
Promise is seeing production-cost reductions exceeding 50% for some animated projects.
“we're seeing cost reductions in the 50% plus for certain productions.”
Listen at 33:25
Lower AI production costs will enable previously infeasible stories to be produced.
“Many stories that weren't told before are now going to be unlocked.”
Listen at 34:07
A prompt producing a complete feature-length film is not Luma AI’s current reality or goal.
“No, that is not— no, that is not the reality. And I would say like, that's not the goal.”
Listen at 40:55
No single AI model currently handles every creative task best.
“there is no model to rule them all.”
Listen at 42:01
Luma’s creative agent selects the best underlying model for each professional task.
“our creative agent is trained to give you as the creative professional access to the best model for what you are trying to solve for.”
Listen at 42:22
Hybrid filmmaking enabled hundreds of people to produce Moses on a Manhattan Beach stage.
“what John was able to do with Moses is in Manhattan Beach on a stage, hundreds of people working together to make Moses happen.”
Listen at 44:53
The number of deepfake creations has grown to approximately one trillion.
“Today there are about a trillion.”
Listen at 47:46
Familio can automatically request removal of unauthorized content at scale.
“our technology can just automatically ask for it to be removed. And so we're doing that at scale today.”
Listen at 48:47
Familio was built to manage AI permissions at large scale.
“We built this business to solve the permission at scale problem that exists”
Listen at 51:07
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.