The Mail Cart: Wednesday, October 7th

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The Emmys will become first of the major award shows to move to streaming in a new deal worth $90 million.

~~Skynet~~ Skydance finalized their long and messy merger, A$AP Rocky announced a scholarship to Roc Nation’s school, CD sales are up by nearly 50%, and all of Toronto’s major sports teams are now owned by the same company.

Student? Assistant? Looking to break into the Industry? Our panel + networking event on 10/18 in LA now features the below guests + 6 more to be announced:

⭐ Andrew Miller, Scripted TV Agent at CAA
⭐ Antonio Hairston, VP of Recruiting at WME
⭐ Ron Laffitte manages your favorite artists including Backstreet Boys, OneRepublic, Usher, Carly Rae Jepsen
⭐ Terra Potts, CMO & COO at Ryan Coogler's Proximity Media & many more to be announced soon

Less than 200 tix left. Grab ‘em or regret it forever.

💼 Looking for open Entertainment jobs? Today we highlight jobs from NPR, The-Team, AEG & Warner Bros. Discovery. Scroll to the bottom of this email, or visit our Job Board, which now has 215+ early career Entertainment roles.

If artists are expected to build the audience before a label signs them, the label needs to justify how much it takes. There has never been more misalignment between labels and artists, and a ton of Artists have been speaking out. The topic itself is not new by any means, but the post-Covid social media boom makes it more nuanced.

I sat down with singer-songwriter Scott Helman yesterday, who wrote the now viral hit Mr. Record Label about his frustrations with the record industry after signing his first deal at 15.

One thing I remember that was really frustrating: it was COVID, there was no touring, so I thought the only way to keep building my career was to try stuff online. We had a couple of things start to spark, and I just remember the label being like, "It didn't get a million views…. The onus to build equity in an artist project is more and more on the artist. It used to be that the model was built so the record label was there from 0 to 100

— Scott Helman via AvA LIVE

He’s not alone. Just in the past year, Chappell Roan, Halsey, Oliver Tree (RIP), RAYE and a ton of others have voiced their frustrations.

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We got into the issues on yesterday’s AvA LIVE episode:

🎬 The Emmys are officially heading to Amazon Prime in a new 6-year deal that will cost the streamer $15 million annually.

Their partnership begins in 2027 and will make the Emmys the first of the EGOT award shows to make the switch to streaming over cable TV. Back in December, The Academy signed a multi-year deal with YouTube granting it exclusive global rights to stream the Oscars starting in 2029 through 2033. The exact financial terms of that deal weren’t disclosed, but sources say it’s in the nine-figures.

It’s very clear reaching more eyeballs is the goal for Award Shows that have taken a hit post-COVID. This is a smart move for both. I predict major IP will be streamed on TikTok sooner than we think.

🗼 Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery officially closed the longest wedding ceremony of all time with a toxic step dad and grandpa fighting harder than the couple.

Now the formalities are setting in with David Ellison confirming that there will be more layoffs to come, leadership changes are already taking effect, debt has been shuffled around like a plate at family dinner when you try to explain what you do for a living to your family, and the water tower has been painted with their new name. Roll credits!

Ellison and recently named co-CEO Ynon Kreiz now are faced with paying down a staggering $80 BILLION in total debt.

Hey at least David Ellison locked in that $150M payday bonus for getting this done, which will certainly be pulled from the extra $4B they just raised from RedBird yesterday.

How in the world will this end well for anyone?

Credit: Getty Images

🎵 A$AP Rocky announced a 4-year full tuition scholarship for one lucky student to attend Roc Nation School of Music, Sports, and Entertainment.

💿 CD sales increased by 45.7% in the first half of 2026 to 17.5 million, with revenue growing by 58.6%. Physical media and IRL events continually on the rise…

🍁 In CANADIAN NEWS Rogers Communications now owns all 5 major league sports teams in Toronto after buying the last 25% of the Maple Leafs for $3.1 billion.