The AvA Connection

It’s official! You can now start pushing things to after the Holiday Break. Hope your inbox isn’t too F’ed, and you had some time away from work. I will say that what happened calorie-wise this past week can’t happen again.

Looking outside at snow in Vermont flying back to L.A. tonight & thankful for this community. Have a big event planned in January to celebrate you all.

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1) Vanity Fair highlighted Assistants (more important) & AvA (way less important) in their Hollywood Issue.

I now wanted to highlight the 11 Assistants who showed up to the Beverly Hills Erewhon at 4:45am on a Saturday with me for this photoshoot:

2) Warner Bros. Discovery has asked its 3 potential buyers to increase their bids by EOD today. The day after Thanksgiving break no less!!

Paramount is seen as the most likely buyer, with Netflix and Comcast trailing behind per Lucas Shaw at Bloomberg.
A potential under-the-radar massive winner? David Geffen, who may pocket $500M from a potential sale (also credit to Lucas Shaw)

3) Los Angeles is still the top filming location despite global production volume decreasing and the trades spewing negativity

Out of the 857 films and scripted TV series released in 2024:

18.3% were shot in LA (slightly down from 18.5% the year prior)
9.8% of productions took place In Georgia
8.8% were then filmed in the UK, which is an increase from 6.6% in 2023

4) SEVENTEEN made Tiny Desk Concert history by becoming the first K-Pop act to perform in the space.

5) ‘Stranger Things’ became the first Netflix show to chart 4 seasons in the top 10 at once.

Crazy enough that does not include the newest season which crashed Netflix’s services as it premiered. Also aren’t these kids like 20 now?

6) The 99th installment of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade brought in it’s record viewership of all time.

34.3 million views across NBC and Peacock, with 25.4 million of them tuning in for the NBC telecast, up by 8% to the year prior.

In’s:

Suno, the AI music company, acquired Songkick, the live music, concert-discovery platform from Warner Music Group as part of their settlement. This flew wayyy too under the radar in my eyes, and the deal makes Warner (not me) the first major label to officially partner with Suno.
TikTok enlists former Boeing and Ford exec as new Americas Policy Chief. Ziad Ojakli has worked around government affairs in the past, and the appointment comes as ByteDance seeks to finalize the sale of their US operations.
ASCAP hires new Chief of Staff with over 20-years of experience at Paramount Global. Marc Zelanko has held senior operational and strategic roles in the past, and now looks to bring his expertise to the field of music rights.

Out’s:

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Chief of Business Affairs steps down after a combined tenure of 40-years at the studio. Steve Spira made this decision amidst the company considering multiple different buyers, and will move on at the end of the year.
Amazon MGM Studios Unscripted TV Chief Barry Poznick is leaving his post for a 3-year executive producing deal within the studio after nearly a decade at the helm of MGM Alternative.
Red Bull Records is folding. Sad news for the label which has been around since 2007.