Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Tuesday, June 9, 2026.
Where Hollywood was all over the NBA Finals at MSG last night — both in the commercial breaks and IRL — like it really does for no other sport.
While I wasn’t officially counting all of the ad buys last night . . . it certainly felt like an even bigger set than Game 1 (which was already robust), including some product tie-ins (Supergirl/KFC).
DISNEY once again used its time well with Toy Story, HULU /The Bear and The Dog Stars (Moana, as far as I saw, is still on the bench despite being only a month from release, but maybe I missed a spot).But, uh, can we at least get a 15-second spot for Super Troopers 3 this week? 🙏 Just seems like a good demo match.
However, observationally it seemed that UNIVERSAL once again spent the most 💰 to promote its entire summer lineup (Disclosure Day, Minions, Odyssey, One Night Only).
Via Giphy
But inside of MSG, it was “pick your favorite courtside celebrity pairing” night.
Trump thankfully was put up far away from courtside with several cabinet members (Sean Duffy, Lee Zeldin, Doug Burgum), although notably his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was a #HardPass on that and went courtside, ahem (you know he can’t miss an opportunity to be seated across the aisle from Fat Joe and DJ Khaled).
Trump and his Cabinet were in the box seats next to KNICKS owner James Dolan (and Trump’s granddaughter, Kai), and were subsequently heavily booed when shown on the Jumbotron during the national anthem.
Thanks for coming, Don, and bringing your losing mojo to the KNICKS last night to end a 13-game winning streak.
But, ya know, I’m sure fans would say these security lines to get into a basketball game were totally worth it.
Slow-moving lines stretched far outside Madison Square Garden on Monday night as Knicks fans patiently waited to get inside the arena for the highly-anticipated Game 3 of the NBA Finals. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/1v7NUOrJDJ
— New York Post (@nypost) June 8, 2026
But in far more exciting boldface news, the award for fan interaction goes to KNICKS guard Jose Alvarado crashing into former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg in the 4th quarter (Mike was just fine).
Elsewhere, Jay-Z was next to Steve Soute (Jay is doing a concert at SOFI in L.A. on Oct. 23, btw), with Jon Batiste and Colin Jost behind them.
Over in the 9-figures-only row, Rahm Emanuel (Rahm got a pardon on the 9-figures part) was next to Mark Shapiro, who was cheering on while wearing Jalen Brunson’s high school number.
He was next to Larry David and Zaz (clearly trading WBD stock-option jokes), and they were next to PATRIOTS owner Robert Kraft and Ari (surely comparing NFL owner luxury-box perks) — what do you mean you don’t have a separate chilled wine fridge for the reds?
But nothing is gonna top this die-hard 30 Rock fan’s heart like Tina Fey and TracyJordan Morgan sitting side by side — but alas, meme culture was thwarted this time out, as **Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller**were between Tina and Chalamet, which would have made for a totally killer new trio meme with Timmy next to Marty Supreme director Josh Safdie.
tracy morgan bought tina fey a Knicks jersey that says Fey on the back and 18 for her birthday 😭🧡💙 liz and trae 4everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr pic.twitter.com/WsiBr9tj0s
— c ☆ (@tintafey) June 9, 2026
BUT: Good news for OG WARNER BROS. execs — you can once again invest in AOL! Its new Italian parent company BENDING SPOONS has filed to go public at about a $20B valuation (it has also picked up other OG digital brands like VIMEO and EVENTBRITE).
OH: You can now vote forOPEN AI’sTBPN show in the Outstanding Variety Series category instead of the Emerging Media category. 🤞
AND: Turns out KALSHI’s move to pay X influencers to promote its markets in the political sphere didn’t go so great when they started posting about the L.A. mayoral election, essentially, being rigged. KALSHI asked them to remove the posts on X, according to Semafor.
Yes, POLYMARKET is doing this too, sending $2.5M to about 800 influencers over 14 months to talk up the platform . . . some of whom did not disclose they were being paid to do so.
YAH: FOX’s latest uh, “good fortune” with the NFL — a deal to carry a wide swath of NFL games in Mexico, including TNF, Thanksgiving games, Sunday games, NFC playoffs and the Super Bowl. It also includes streaming rights for FOX ONE and TUBI.
OH: Just a reco if you haven’t watched it yet — but Spielberg on The Rewatchables, talking 2001 and telling Kubrick stories, was pretty awesome (or watch on NETFLIX).
PLUS: YOUTUBE’s new weekly late-night show (that it isn’t paying for) Outside Tonight with Julian Shapiro-Barnum will launch June 17. Here’s the pitch 👇.
FINALLY:
Since my breakdown on the newly emerging potential 🚨s around the latest AI marketplace developments on Thursday presaged a big sell-off in the market on Friday 👀 — count this FT report yesterday on OPENAI plotting a new future as another big shift in the AI business narrative.
To quote an OPENAI employee in the piece — “Chat is dead,” essentially, with the FT coming away with the assessment that OPENAI sees AI’s future “not in chatbots that answer questions but in agents that perform tasks for users.”
Thus, according to the FT, the new OPENAI north star is to turn CHATGPT into a “superapp” for coding bots and tailored AI bots for various industries/sectors.
To read between the lines here:
Becoming the mass market GOOGLE of AI bots is out.i.e., free (or low-pay) general-audience users sucking up pricey NVIDIA chip usage just to talk to CHATGPT all day (as a romantic interest or just platonically) or using it as a GOOGLE replacement to find baller lemon garlic butter pasta dinner date recipes and other such usages isn’t going to give us anywhere near enough revenue to support our skyrocketing valuation.
Basically, the same reason SORA is dead — high processing costs for little to no revenue (tacked on to significantly declining usage augmented by copyright restrictions).
Remember, GOOGLE is free because it’s subsidized by a metric ton of ad money.
CHATGPT has no such benefactor, and introducing ads into the AI mass-market equation is a long way away (and far trickier).
I’ll also note this quote from Axios leader (and AI evangelist) Jim VandeHei today about his learnings from using AI up to 2 hours a day (hope your sleep improves soon, Jim):“It takes real work. You can’t wing it. You need to work at it daily, so AI learns you — and you learn AI. That’s when the magic happens.”
Does that sound like something the average American consumer would be interested in doing to get the most out of CHATGPT?
SO: OPENAI is signaling it’s now going to basically copy what ANTHROPIC is doing (i.e., the company that has now beaten it in valuation) and focus on coding bots and agent bots — aka Corporate American subsidization — since there’s real revenue there.
#NetNet: Trying to become the “GOOGLE of AI” brand is overrated — especially since GOOGLE has its own AI increasingly integrated into search, too.
#SideNote: As for META’s approach here to find profit from its billions in AI spending . . . well, I’ll just say I’d love to see the business plan for its general user AI revenues.
APPLE also made its latest “revamped” SIRI pitch yesterday, which resulted in a slight dip in the stock (not being available in the EU didn’t go over well either), so take that as ya like.
NOW: OPENAI indicated today that it’s officially joining ANTHROPIC in registering for an IPO, likely to take place later this year (and yes, count GROK’s inclusion as part of the SPACEX IPO as ya like in this contingent).
ALTHOUGH: It’s important to note that the 2 companies are rather far apart in their business evolutions as they prepare to pitch their stories to Wall Street investors.
One is on a 6-month heater in both revenue and corporate use adoption (and doomsday fear-mongering #Mythos), and the other is OPENAI — a company that’s seemingly trying to shift its overall business model approach just as it’s hitting the public markets.
May the best bot win.
LOOKING AHEAD: Keep an eye on whether OPENAI’s advertising messaging shifts in H2 of this year and beyond — note that it went with this coding emphasis-heavy ad last night for its buys in the NBA Finals, and not the “Use CHATGPT to improve your workouts!” spot.
💼 GET A JOB
Tuesday is new job day at The Wakeup, so if you’re looking to hire someone — drop me a note to be included here at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com or connect with me on LINKEDIN here.
NBC —Writers Program, applications open
TRIBECA ENTERPRISES —GM/Head of Live Events ($250k to $300k)
RUN-A-MUCK —Head of Social Media (no salary listed)
A24 —Film Production Finance Exec ($146k to $150k)
FOCUS FEATURES — Director, Publicity ($120k to $150k)
CNN —Director, VOD & Streaming ($121k to $225k)
POCKET FM —Head Writer, Romantacy ($5,500 / month)
AMAZON PV — Marketing Manager($78k to $137k)
MLB — Manager, Culture Marketing($80k to $110k)
THE FREE PRESS —Senior Producer, Video ($170k to $200k)
UFC — Manager, Partnerships Marketing (no salary listed)
MLB —Manager, Culture Marketing ($80k to $110k)
STARZ — Manager, Originals Marketing ($85k to $95k)
ARTISTS EQUITY —Project Manager, Brand Studio ($120k to $145k)
ANTHROPIC —Events Lead, Brand ($320k to $400k)
WWE —Director, Production Operations (no salary listed)
Mark & Kelly —Social Media Producer ($75k to $101k)
PAR TV — Assistant, Development ($52k to $60k)
CAA —Assistant, MP Talent ($20 to $22/hr)
CLYDE STAFFING GIGS — email clyde@clydestaffing.com, mention you saw it in The Wakeup.
NYC Model Personal Assistant
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🎥 THE MEDIA BIZ
PSKY is nothing if not known for “doing the work”. Via Giphy
So, which step is “concessions” in the dealmaking process? Is it right after denial, or before?
Couple of notable developments and deadlines on the PSKY regulatory front both domestically and abroad, including a new update from the U.K.
Plus, the S&P laid out its thinking on PSKY debt, where it sees the “efficiencies” coming from and it’s important to keep in mind some considerations regarding layoffs in the context of what’s being put forth here.
And just a note for free Ankler subscribers — you can now just subscribe to The Wakeup if you like; just scroll down to the bottom of the subscribe page: https://theankler.com/subscribe
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