• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

What I’ve Heard: Five Years of Hollywood Disruption

A half decade of M&A opportunists, Peak TV casualties, industry contraction, devastating strikes, and approximately 1,500 David Zaslav mentions later, show business still can’t figure out if it’s reinventing itself or fading away. So I asked 100 industry sources what they think is going on.

Johnny Hallyday photographers
For chaos and disruption and anxiety and, at times, opportunity, I’d put the past five years up against any period in Hollywood history, Matt Belloni writes for Puck. Photo: Georges De Keerle/Getty Images
Matthew Belloni
May 22, 2026

Join Puck to listen to this article

The first issue of What I’m Hearing landed exactly five years ago yesterday in the inboxes of 300 friends and colleagues in Hollywood. I know, May 2021 seems simultaneously like five days and five hundred years ago, especially since this newsletter now reaches tens of thousands of readers all over the world. But in ways I couldn’t have anticipated, that first email send was perfectly timed.