Usually this blog is reserved for matters involving corporate and securities law rather than updates in the accounting standards, but the email alert from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that I received yesterday is definitely an exception. The FASB email alert first mentions that FASB yesterday issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2019-02, Entertainment—Films—Other Assets—Film Costs (Subtopic 926-20) and Entertainment—Broadcasters—Intangibles—Goodwill and Other (Subtopic 920-350): Improvements to Accounting for Costs of Films and License Agreements for Program Materials (a consensus of the FASB Emerging Issues Task Force). To read more about this update, see this news release. However, the best part of the update in my non-accountant opinion was the video explanation produced by FASB where it discussed the new accounting standard and the related effective dates.

As a former staffer in Corp Fin’s Office of Rulemaking, I’ve personally worked on SEC adopting releases, and I’ll proudly say that they are probably the most in-depth and user-friendly rule publications of all the financial agencies, and even include an economic analysis where some of the other agencies do not. However, I must admit that FASB’s video explanation idea may set a new bar! Should we expect to see SEC Commissioners and staff starring in the roll-out of new rules soon? I really hope so. It appears from this “SEC Videos” page that the agency already has great video production capabilities.

Click here to view video.