Tracey Baker-Simmons

Michael Jackson has been dead for 16 years. His loyal fan base just opened a movie to $217 million globally this weekend. Critics gave it 38%. His audience gave it 96%. They were not reviewing a film. They were honoring a relationship he spent a lifetime building. That is the difference between a career and an audience. And it is the most important business lesson in entertainment right now. Druski started posting comedy from his mother’s living room during the pandemic. Today he earns $14 million a year and sells out international arenas. No network greenlit him. His audience found him first. Ryan Coogler did not walk into Warner Bros. as a filmmaker asking for a shot. He walked in as the man who built the Black Panther audience. That audience gave him something no studio can manufacture. Warner Bros. responded with a 25-year rights reversion clause and first-dollar gross participation. The industry called it unprecedented. His audience made it inevitable. Tyler Perry built a 330-acre studio in Atlanta, debt free, without asking anyone for permission. Because his audience belonged to him before a single executive said yes. The throughline is not talent. The industry has never had a shortage of talented people who never accumulate leverage. The throughline is architecture. Michael built something so deep it is still paying 16 years after his death. That is what we all want to build. This week’s TvDecoded breaks down exactly how he did it and what Druski, Coogler, and Tyler Perry are building right now using the same blueprint. Link in bio. Who do you think has built the most loyal fan base in the game right now? Drop it in the comments. #MichaelJackson #MichaelJacksonBiopic #RyanCoogler #TylerPerry #druski

They gave him Best Screenplay. They gave him Best Actor. They gave him Best Cinematography. They gave him Best Score. Every tool a director uses to make a masterpiece. And in 98 years — not one Black director has won Best Director. I’m celebrating the wins. But I am not ignoring the elephant in the room. The culture won tonight. But the pattern held. 👉🏾 Full breakdown in this week’s TvDecoded. Link in bio.

I’ve spent months researching for this week’s newsletter and I genuinely believe it’s one of the most important ones I’ve written for TvDecoded. Love & Hip Hop. 485 episodes. Cancelled. Basketball Wives. 12 seasons. Cancelled. Nick Cannon created Wild ’N Out. Built the culture around it for twenty years. Now being sued for trying to take his own format somewhere else. Three Black creators. Three franchises that defined an era of television. Zero ownership. This isn’t bad luck. This is the structure we’ve all been working inside. But here’s what I also want you to know there’s a window opening right now that looks exactly like a moment I lived through in 2004. And the producers who see it and move first are going to be in a completely different position five years from now. The full breakdown is in this week’s newsletter. Everything. The research, the patterns, the playbook, and what I think you should be doing right now. Link in bio. Go read it. And if it hits for you please share it with one producer who needs to see this. 🔗 tbakersimmons.substack.com #TvDecoded #independentproducer #loveandhiphop #producerlife #tv

not ms my man my man my man got me doing his job

New York is my favorite city so when we wrapped our shoot the other day I decided to take a stroll in Times Square. These past few weeks have been challenging and I owe you an update. Nobody ever talks about having to work on a project while building others — but that’s the gig. That’s Producer Life. Still in production on the N&A series. Months of shooting becomes 8 half-hour episodes. That’s the math nobody tells you about. The film investors chose another project. We’re told they’ll present it to two other groups. In the words of Jesse Jackson , “keep hope alive.” I turned a speaking engagement at A&E into a meeting with the President of Programming. He scheduled the meeting for 1. Hour and I plan to make the most of every minute of it. And my doc projects have been waiting on me so this week I’m back on the grind hoping to find the right funding partners. This is what producing actually looks like. Not the credits. Not the greenlight. The in-between where you keep moving even when nothing is certain yet. New Substack Newsletter available now. Link in bio. #ProducerLife #visionary #womeninfilm #tvproducer #entertainment TvDecoded

15 years of Love & Hip Hop helped build Paramount’s empire. Now with this $111 billion merger they get cancelled and a clip show called The Final Chapter. This is not a story about one show ending. It is a story about who owns the asset when the deal closes — and who gets a farewell special instead. Swipe through every slide. The last one is the question you need to sit with this week. Know a creator who needs to see this? Tag them or send it directly. Check out my Substack link in my bio #LoveAndHipHop #Paramount #BlackCreators #EntertainmentIndustry #CreatorEconomy

Plot twist energy, front and center 🎬 I came on here ready to spill the gossip of the week… and somehow we took a hard left into my daddy lore 😭 Like how did we even get here?? Y’all don’t stay on topic for NOTHING. Drop a 🫣 if you came for the tea Drop a 😂 if you stayed for the chaos And be honest… do we finish the gossip or keep unpacking this?? 👀

We're back! We had this one in the chamber and your girl been down real bad with sinus this week. All I can say is "he need to listen to his momma" What's y'all think? #family #mommasboy #humor #wisdom

The bag comes out when it’s time to get to the bag. Being an executive producer means the job starts before you ever step on set. It’s the flight, the right fit for every location, and reading the room before the crew does. On location as an EP — every day looks different. Every scene calls for something different. Over 25 years of this life. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 🎬✈️ #ProducerLife #executive #TVProducer #BehindTheScenes #WomenInFilm

My Oscar carousel hit 300K+ views. People kept asking: where do you write this down? My answer is I give the highlights here but the full insight on Substack. Every week I decode what the industry doesn’t put in the press release. The leverage, the moves, the deal patterns, the business decisions that look like creative ones. 25 years as an Executive Producer. Being Bobby Brown. The Houstons. Nelly & Ashanti. I’ve been in the rooms. Now I write about what happens in them. Swipe to see what TvDecoded covers → Free subscribers get the full newsletter every week. No paywall. No pitch. Just the analysis. 📩 Link in bio or go directly to tbakersimmons.substack.com #tvdecoded #tv #producer #entertainmentbusiness

Y’all already know we do this for a living but ChatGPT got the messy reads and we here for it. @phaedraparks @porsha4real married to the game and the law 😜 #rhoas17 #RHOA #bravo #realhousewivesofatlanta

Like many of you, I believe in the resurrection. And the older I get, the more I see it everywhere. Not just in faith, but in life. In careers. In ideas that were told no. In industries that everyone said were dying. Resurrection doesn’t always look like what we expect. Sometimes it doesn’t come back the same way. Sometimes it comes back transformed into something the people who buried it don’t immediately recognize. That’s where we are in entertainment right now. The rooms where deals got made just closed. A $111 billion merger is being fought in Washington. And at the same time TikTok is casting actors, YouTube just passed Disney as the biggest media company. The industry isn’t dead. It’s rising from different stones. I’ve been in this business for 30 years. I’ve watched things close that I thought would last forever. And I’ve watched ideas I believed in come back around sometimes in my hands, sometimes in someone else’s. Both taught me something. Swipe through. 👉🏾 This week’s TvDecoded is about finding the stones worth standing on. The full newsletter is free. Link in bio. What has resurrection looked like in your life or your career? I’d love to hear it. 👇🏾