October 20 2025 · By · 3.8 minutes to read On Sep 3 2025, the New York Times ran a headline, “Behind the Numbers: How Hollywood Missed Its Mark This Summer”, on how an expected return to pre-COVID spending failed to happen. At the top of the article was this graph (I’ve added a blue trend line). I believe that consumption patterns for traditional entertainment will not return to pre-COVID levels. And while COVID had a drastic impact on the industry, it was not the cause of the ongoing decline.