Most of what I publish on The Business of Television Max runs in one of six recurring themed columns. Articles from five out of six of these columns are available for free to all subscribers for two months from their initial publication date. After that, most move to the archive, where Free subscribers can read a preview section of each article, but only Paid and Premium subscribers can read them in full. Articles from the sixth column — Doing the Job — are generally available only to Paid and Premium subscribers (but may occasionally be offered to Free subscribers on a trial basis).
There are two ways to browse the archive below: by topic and by column.
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Posts are tagged by topic, whichever column they ran in. Click a topic to see everything I’ve written on that subject in one place.
Negotiation: Skills, tactics, philosophy, and illuminating anecdotes to help you take your dealmaking to the next level.
Deal Terms & Structures: Practical guidance for any entertainment professional about how the deals on which the business is built actually work.
Media Business: Commentary on major news, trends, and deals affecting the balance of power among studios, platforms, and talent.
Industry Innovation: Insider insights and universal lessons from the leading edge of innovation in TV financing, production, distribution, and dealmaking (including “Indie TV”).
Guilds & Labor: Deep dives into the process and substance of collective bargaining with the WGA, DGA, and SAG-AFTRA.
Careers & Craft: Advice on elevating your professional craft, developing your executive skills, and navigating your career (without giving up your values or your sanity along the way).
AI (ugh): Occasional targeted insights about the thing that everyone wishes they could just stop reading and talking about (but never actually do).
New here? Start with the posts that are always free.
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Each column has its own section below. Click a column banner to go to a dedicated page with links, thumbnails, and preview text for every article ever published in that column. Where a section ends with a “Show all posts” button, click it to expand the list of articles from that column (or from a specific multi-part mini-series within it).
Commentary and analysis on the industry’s biggest deals, trends, and news: what’s actually happening, why it’s happening, and what it means for the people doing the work. The biggest stories get multi-part deep dives.
Standalone posts
The Comcast/NBCU Split
The 50/50 Pools Waterfall
The Paramount/Warner Bros. Deal
Seasoned advice on negotiation skills and philosophy, drawn from nearly 20 years of dealmaking: how to prepare, how to read the other side, and how to reach a deal that holds up without burning the relationship.
Real examples of excellence from the best in the business (and sometimes from outside it), broken down to show what they did, why it worked, and what the rest of us can take from it.
The lessons of the job that never make it into a training manual: the unwritten rules, unspoken expectations, and hard-won habits that separate the people who get by from the people who get ahead.
Direct answers to reader questions and requests, on anything from deal terms and career moves to the questions you’d rather not ask out loud. Have one? Reply to any post or email ken@tbotmax.com.
Every thought and detail behind my own real work emails, annotated line by line: the substance of good deals and the craft of good dealmaking, as it actually happens. Exclusively for Paid and Premium subscribers.
