The Bloomberg Screentime 2026 conference in Los Angeles, held in New York earlier this week, brought together the moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the next phase of pop culture.

As entertainment and media industries continue to evolve amid disruption and consolidation, Bloomberg Screentime conference, hosted by Bloomberg’s Managing Editor of Media and Entertainment Lucas Shaw, hosted leaders across film, streaming, music, sports, gaming, social media and technology to examine the business models, cultural shifts and innovations reshaping what audiences watch, hear and experience, according to Bloomberg.

Speakers for 2026 edition included Ben Affleck, actor-producer and CEO, Artists Equity; Donna Langley, Chairman, NBCUniversal Entertainment; Tarek Mansour, Co-Founder & CEO, Kalshi; Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO, Netflix; Mikey Shulman, Co-Founder & CEO, Suno; Matt Belloni, Founding Partner, Puck.

Here, according to a Bloomberg report, are some of the key takeaways from the two-day Screentime Conference held on September 30 and October 1:

# Netflix Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos said the streamer isn’t growing “as fast as I want us to, and we’re working on making that move faster.”

He also said the company isn’t on the hunt for another deal to replace the lost bid for Warner Bros.

# Ben Affleck is using the AI from his own startup, InterPositive, in his own movie. “More people are being employed,” he said, “We’re trying to make what we’re doing better.”

# Nithya Raman, the progressive LA mayoral candidate, encouraged Paramount Skydance Corp. CEO David Ellison to spend more on productions not just in the US but in Los Angeles specifically.

Raman says she will do everything in her power to make sure that LA benefits from Paramount’s production commitments.

# HBO chief Casey Bloys hinted that HBO Max will be bundled with Paramount+ once the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. merger is cemented. “That would make a lot of sense,” he said.

# Laurene Powell Jobs is rejoining the board of Anonymous Content, the media production company behind shows like Netflix’s upcoming series East of Eden. She took a shot at Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, saying his business interests conflict with the paper’s independence.

# Suno Inc. CEO Mikey Shulman announced the AI music startup is launching a new tool that will let users put background music to their spoken-word creations, like poems, meditations and speeches.

# Gerry Cardinale, founder of RedBird Capital Partners and a major investor at Paramount, said the “coziness” people talk about between Paramount and President Donald Trump is “way overstated”.

# Donna Langley, Chairman of NBCUniversal, said 2027 doesn’t have as much potential for billion-dollar breakouts as 2026, but predicted that 2028 will be another strong year at the box office.