Streaming King Jeff Shultz Plots Radial’s Grab for Hollywood’s Crown Jewels

Max Sterling, 12/3/2025 Streaming gets a jolt as Radial—fueled by cult classics, FAST ambition, and ex-Pluto TV dynamo Jeff Shultz—sets out to turn Hollywood’s content chaos into curated mayhem. Forget algorithmic blandness; this Hydra wants your eyeballs, your nostalgia, and probably your midnight guilty pleasures.

Calling this a merger hardly does justice; it’s more like splicing a hydra, where each head bites into a different genre. Radial’s content library—an unruly beast of 70,000 movies and episodes—now sits poised on digital shelves. We’re talking everything from “Hell’s Kitchen” cook-offs to the oddball brilliance of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” plus the sort of true-crime labyrinths that lure insomniacs and armchair detectives alike. Imagine, too, “Conan” bantering eternally in the late-night ether, all under one virtual roof.

Of course, these moves don’t happen in a vacuum. Oaktree—yes, that Oaktree, the one with a $218 billion war chest—steered the summer’s power play, weaving Shout! and FilmRise into one entity, then christening it “Radial.” One suspects the stylized all-caps branding is less about typography and more a gleeful barb at the established order. While Garson Foos, veteran of the industry and the face behind Shout!, has captained this ship, that’s changing come January 2026. Foos is handing the wheel to streaming’s own expansionist, Jeff Shultz, and shifting upstairs to the boardroom alongside FilmRise's Danny Fisher.

Selecting Shultz for the top job was hardly random. His resume reads like a streaming victory parade: Pluto TV’s meteoric rise (back when FAST was just a four-letter word), the billion-dollar Viacom buyout, not to mention his latest gig at Paramount Streaming, wrangling global growth in a market that changes faster than a TikTok trend. “A proven builder of high-growth businesses,” Foos and Fisher said somewhere amid the formality of their joint statement, though it’s not hard to picture a few late-night arguments and empty espresso cups behind the scenes.

Shultz, never one for chest-thumping press quotes, still let the mask slip ever so slightly—admitting Radial’s combination of “financial scale, vast catalog, and distribution,” all with the windfall of Oaktree’s backing, gives the new studio a shot at genuinely moving the needle. Or, as he might put it behind closed doors: If Netflix, Disney, and Amazon think their algorithms are safe, they may need a rethink.

Here’s where Radial’s playbook gets interesting. Their recent acquisitions read like a love letter to genre fans and TV historians: the entire run of “Conan” (guaranteeing no talk show bit is ever consigned to oblivion), “Hemlock Grove” for those who crave blood moons and slow-burn horror, true-crime originals like “Murder in Mind” and “Pushed to Death,” plus the wonderfully niche “Hong Kong Fight Club” FAST channel. There’s even a spot for indie cinephiles, thanks to Radial’s snap-up of the Golden Princess film library, providing a home for films that usually linger in festival catalogs and collector’s basement shelves.

The challenge, though? Massive scale doesn’t always equal meaningful impact. For all the talk of “peak TV” having come and gone, 2025’s streaming landscape feels more baroque than ever—blockbusters parade beside ultra-specific genre aisles, prices inch upward, and the average menu seems designed to overwhelm rather than invite. Radial’s success might hinge less on catalog size, and more on the art of curation—finding a way to make those thousands of titles feel coherent, almost personal. Shultz has always had a nose for the underdog; turning content sprawl into a genuine lure could be his trickiest high-wire act yet.

There’s an undeniable swagger to Radial’s current posture, a sense of coming at the legacy platforms sideways rather than trying to bulldoze through them. One can almost picture Oaktree’s strategy meetings, dreams of transforming content maximalism into a weapon, as the other giants fret about their ballooning budgets and hits that fade after a single weekend on the trending charts.

Industry insiders have started speculating: will this new entity be a just another digital tomb for forgotten IP, or something wilder—a kind of Criterion Channel for the streaming age, but amped up, caffeinated, and not above a midnight rerun of “Kitchen Nightmares”? Shultz may have made his name by betting on free, ad-supported models before they were chic. That sort of contrarian streak, particularly when blessed by Oaktree’s billions, could spell a new kind of streaming destination.

Jared Frandle of Oaktree weighed in with the usual boardroom gravitas, praising Foos’s foundational stewardship and heralding Shultz as the guy for the “next chapter.” The translation, for those skimming between the lines, is unmistakable: business as usual is out; fireworks are in.

Ultimately, though, the real test for Radial won’t come from industry press releases or even the first wave of subscriber stats. What matters—perhaps now more than ever, as cultural attention spirals in a dozen directions—is whether a company this audacious can give audiences somewhere genuinely worth wandering, not just another infinite scroll of content vapor. Maybe the answer lies in that messy middle ground: nostalgia with a pulse, cult classics getting a fresh lease on life, oddball genres tucked alongside the occasional Emmy winner.

Hollywood doesn’t leave empty space for long. As the battle for relevance rages into 2026, Radial, with Shultz steering, looks well positioned to serve up a little mayhem—maybe even change what it means to be a “destination” in a streaming world always hungry for the next big thing. It’s enough to get even the most jaded pop culture watcher a little curious about what happens next.

The ground under Hollywood keeps shifting, and—if anyone missed it amid 2025’s endless ticker tape of mergers—those tremors just got louder. Boardroom doors swing open, coffee-fueled meetings stretch into the night, and somewhere, an intern attempts to condense an entire corporate pivot into twelve snappy PowerPoint slides. Radial Entertainment, freshly minted and flush with ambition, has pulled off something that’s already got the town whispering: the union of FilmRise and Shout! Studios, now backed by the formidable deep pockets of Oaktree Capital Management. If the Big Three are quietly clutching their quarterly projections a little tighter, it wouldn’t be a surprise.Calling this a merger hardly does justice; it’s more like splicing a hydra, where each head bites into a different genre. Radial’s content library—an unruly beast of 70,000 movies and episodes—now sits poised on digital shelves. We’re talking everything from “Hell’s Kitchen” cook-offs to the oddball brilliance of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” plus the sort of true-crime labyrinths that lure insomniacs and armchair detectives alike. Imagine, too, “Conan” bantering eternally in the late-night ether, all under one virtual roof.Of course, these moves don’t happen in a vacuum. Oaktree—yes, that Oaktree, the one with a $218 billion war chest—steered the summer’s power play, weaving Shout! and FilmRise into one entity, then christening it “Radial.” One suspects the stylized all-caps branding is less about typography and more a gleeful barb at the established order. While Garson Foos, veteran of the industry and the face behind Shout!, has captained this ship, that’s changing come January 2026. Foos is handing the wheel to streaming’s own expansionist, Jeff Shultz, and shifting upstairs to the boardroom alongside FilmRise's Danny Fisher.Selecting Shultz for the top job was hardly random. His resume reads like a streaming victory parade: Pluto TV’s meteoric rise (back when FAST was just a four-letter word), the billion-dollar Viacom buyout, not to mention his latest gig at Paramount Streaming, wrangling global growth in a market that changes faster than a TikTok trend. “A proven builder of high-growth businesses,” Foos and Fisher said somewhere amid the formality of their joint statement, though it’s not hard to picture a few late-night arguments and empty espresso cups behind the scenes.Shultz, never one for chest-thumping press quotes, still let the mask slip ever so slightly—admitting Radial’s combination of “financial scale, vast catalog, and distribution,” all with the windfall of Oaktree’s backing, gives the new studio a shot at genuinely moving the needle. Or, as he might put it behind closed doors: If Netflix, Disney, and Amazon think their algorithms are safe, they may need a rethink.Here’s where Radial’s playbook gets interesting. Their recent acquisitions read like a love letter to genre fans and TV historians: the entire run of “Conan” (guaranteeing no talk show bit is ever consigned to oblivion), “Hemlock Grove” for those who crave blood moons and slow-burn horror, true-crime originals like “Murder in Mind” and “Pushed to Death,” plus the wonderfully niche “Hong Kong Fight Club” FAST channel. There’s even a spot for indie cinephiles, thanks to Radial’s snap-up of the Golden Princess film library, providing a home for films that usually linger in festival catalogs and collector’s basement shelves.The challenge, though? Massive scale doesn’t always equal meaningful impact. For all the talk of “peak TV” having come and gone, 2025’s streaming landscape feels more baroque than ever—blockbusters parade beside ultra-specific genre aisles, prices inch upward, and the average menu seems designed to overwhelm rather than invite. Radial’s success might hinge less on catalog size, and more on the art of curation—finding a way to make those thousands of titles feel coherent, almost personal. Shultz has always had a nose for the underdog; turning content sprawl into a genuine lure could be his trickiest high-wire act yet.There’s an undeniable swagger to Radial’s current posture, a sense of coming at the legacy platforms sideways rather than trying to bulldoze through them. One can almost picture Oaktree’s strategy meetings, dreams of transforming content maximalism into a weapon, as the other giants fret about their ballooning budgets and hits that fade after a single weekend on the trending charts.Industry insiders have started speculating: will this new entity be a just another digital tomb for forgotten IP, or something wilder—a kind of Criterion Channel for the streaming age, but amped up, caffeinated, and not above a midnight rerun of “Kitchen Nightmares”? Shultz may have made his name by betting on free, ad-supported models before they were chic. That sort of contrarian streak, particularly when blessed by Oaktree’s billions, could spell a new kind of streaming destination.Jared Frandle of Oaktree weighed in with the usual boardroom gravitas, praising Foos’s foundational stewardship and heralding Shultz as the guy for the “next chapter.” The translation, for those skimming between the lines, is unmistakable: business as usual is out; fireworks are in.Ultimately, though, the real test for Radial won’t come from industry press releases or even the first wave of subscriber stats. What matters—perhaps now more than ever, as cultural attention spirals in a dozen directions—is whether a company this audacious can give audiences somewhere genuinely worth wandering, not just another infinite scroll of content vapor. Maybe the answer lies in that messy middle ground: nostalgia with a pulse, cult classics getting a fresh lease on life, oddball genres tucked alongside the occasional Emmy winner.Hollywood doesn’t leave empty space for long. As the battle for relevance rages into 2026, Radial, with Shultz steering, looks well positioned to serve up a little mayhem—maybe even change what it means to be a “destination” in a streaming world always hungry for the next big thing. It’s enough to get even the most jaded pop culture watcher a little curious about what happens next.