Broadway has finally returned to pre-pandemic revenue. Season-to-date revenue has reached $1.8 billion, surpassing pre-pandemic for the first time. The revenue was led by the shows Good Night, Good Luck, Othello, and Glengarry Glen Ross, all with celebrities in leading rolls.
The Mellon Foundation has announced emergency funding to replace cuts instituted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE has cancelled $65 million in grants to arts organizations, and without alternate sources of revenue, many state arts councils would need to make steep reductions.
Trump-appointed Kennedy Center head Ric Grenell is calling for a blacklist of the artists that have refused to perform at the Center. Some of the artists boycotting the Center include the cast of Les Miserables and Lin Manuel Miranda.
All ten directors of the National Endowment of the Arts have resigned in protest. The directors oversee grants to organizations, and at the direction of President Trump, over half of open NEA grants are being terminated and there are calls to defund the NEA.
President Trump has signed an executive order calling for the defunding of NPR and PBS. The order also seeks to eliminate the organizations’ indirect sources of public funding. NPR and PBS receive about $500 million in public funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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Charter and Cox have announced plans to merge in a deal worth $34.5 billion. Charter is the second-largest cable company after Comcast, and the merger with Cox will add 6 million subscribers.
Universal Music Group revenue for the first quarter was up 9.5 percent. The growth comes primarily from subscription streaming revenue. Ad-supported streaming revenue was nearly unchanged, but physical sales rose 15 percent, driven by vinyl sales.
California governor Gavin Newsom has announced his desire to work with President Trump to create a $7.5 billion federal tax incentive for the film industry. He has already pledged to more than double California’s film tax incentives. Senator Adam Schiff has also announced that he is working on legislation to implement a federal film incentive. Trump meanwhile has announced plans to put tariffs on films produced outside the United States, which he calls a “national security threat” as he believes foreign films bring foreign “messaging and propaganda.”
Entertainment company stock tumbled after President Trump announced plans to impose a tariff on foreign-produced films. Companies such as Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros., and Paramount all took a hit, as many movies and shows are produced in multiple countries.
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The Miami Symphony has extended the tenure of music director Eduardo Marturet another five years, until 2032. Marturet was appointed in 2006, and has served as music director for twenty years.
Florida Grand Opera has named Pablo Mielgo as music director. Mielgo was previously music director of the Symphony of the Americas. In collaboration with general director Maria Todaro, he will create a resident orchestra for the Opera, which has outsourced its orchestra over the past 25+ years.
Florida Grand Opera to “create an orchestra “? Halaluia! It’s about time they had an orchestra. Funny thing, the new “created orchestra “ will pay likely less than the previous one did.
We have met with FGO management and they have stated that they intend to pay local scale wages.