TGIF! I'm on a flight to New Mexico right now for a local news symposium. Here's the latest on Ben Collins, Conan O'Brien, David Zaslav, Laura Helmuth, Clare Malone, RFK Jr., Oliver Darcy, Jake Paul and more... |
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney |
Maybe streaming isn't such a bad business, after all.
Major media companies have lost billions of dollars in the turbulent transition to streaming business models. But this month Disney, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN's parent) all reported profitable quarters for their streaming divisions. NBCUniversal made year-over-year progress narrowing Peacock's loss, as well.
The Information's Martin Peers heralded the results this way: "Video streaming is finally becoming a money-making business!"
Disney's earnings release on Thursday also projected $1 billion in operating profit from entertainment streaming in 2025. "Disney's streaming business seems to have turned the emerging media corner to cement itself as a maturing growth driver for the future," Mike Proulx, the head of Forrester's CMO research team, told the AP.
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Can streaming supplant linear? |
Some of streaming's growth is happening because cable is shrinking, of course. But here's something striking, via CNBC's Alex Sherman: "A combination of pulling back on content spending and steadily increasing Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscribers hasn't just turned streaming into a profitable business, it's actually turned streaming into an even better business than traditional TV, according to Disney CFO Hugh Johnston. For Disney's fiscal 2025, streaming will generate enough operating income to offset the parallel decline in operating income from linear TV, Johnston said in an interview."
Sherman's story notes that Warner Bros. Discovery also touted strong streaming numbers last week. "Getting Max right has required patience, discipline and substantial investment," CEO David Zaslav told Wall Street analysts. "Today, those investments are delivering clear results, both in terms of subscriber-related revenue growth and bottom line impact."
>> "So no, streaming was never a terrible business, it just wasn’t nearly as good of a business as cable. At least not yet," Puck's Matt Belloni wrote last night. He calls this "Bob Iger's Netflix Moment..."
>> Yes, but: "Just to get streaming to be profitable has required successive price increases on services," Peers cautioned...
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...Later today, Jake Paul and Mike Tyson are facing off "in a boxing event unlike any other," CNN's Jonny Velasquez reports. The bout at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas "will begin at 5:30 p.m. ET and take place over eight rounds of two minutes."
It's a big moment for Netflix's push into live programming, and live sports in particular. "The intergenerational showdown has all the makings of a crossover hit, with 58-year-old Tyson bringing in the old guard and 27-year-old Paul, who achieved early fame on YouTube, appealing to the younger, screen-toting social media junkies," Amy Tennery and Dawn Chmielewski report for Reuters...
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Right-wing media splits over RFK |
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images |
"This would be a monumental disaster." That's National Review Online editor Philip Klein reacting to the news that Donald Trump wants Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to run Health and Human Services. The New York Post editorial board is alarmed too. "The overriding rule of medicine is: First, do no harm. We're certain installing" RFK at HHS "breaks this rule," the Post wrote. But many Fox News hosts welcomed the RFK news. "In primetime on Thursday, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity both struck optimistic notes as to how Kennedy might help address obesity in the U.S.," Mediaite notes. And this morning "Fox & Friends" defended and promoted RFK at length...
>> This story is complicated to cover because RFK has said a whole lot about a whole lot. Experts say some of his stated goals are appealing while others are backwards and dangerous. There are "kernels of truth" in what RFK Jr. says, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said yesterday, but they're "mixed in with stuff that is not just 'alternative' facts, they are downright false."
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☝️ Maybe this will become a recurring section...
>> Last night, Trump cracked a joke about Elon Musk's constant presence by the president-elect's side. "He likes this place. I can't get him out of here!" Trump remarked. Some stories about the quip left out what Trump said right after: "And you know what, I like having him here too, he's good.."
>> Former FCC insider Blair Levin says "in telecom, I think there is only one question: What does Elon want?"
>> Changes take effect to X's terms of service today. The decision ensures "that lawsuits against X will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservative judges," the Washington Post explains here. The Center for Countering Digital Hate cited that change when it announced that it's quitting X...
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Scandal at Scientific American |
"Laura Helmuth is resigning as editor-in-chief of Scientific American magazine following an expletive-filled rant" about Trump voters, CNN's Jordan Valinsky reports. Helmuth posted the ugly comments on X, then deleted them, apologized, and later announced her departure on X rival Bluesky. Details here...
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The 'ambience of information' |
I highly recommend this New Yorker piece by Nathan Heller about how voters soak up political information. He asks: "How did so many perceptions disprovable with ten seconds of Googling become fixed in the voting public’s mind? And why, even as misapprehensions were corrected, did those beliefs prevail?" He says it's because "the patterns we perceive now rise less from information gathered in our close communities and more from what crosses our awareness along national paths." Detail, "even when it’s available, doesn’t travel widely," but "big, sloppy notions do." And Trump is excellent at those. "It's about seeding the ambience of information..."
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A 'sobering' moment for journalists |
"Do you think mainstream media is dead to half the population right now? Or are we at the CPR stage?" No, "we're not dead," but "we're definitely in the CPR stage," New Yorker media reporter Clare Malone says in this Q&A with CJR.
Malone reflected on her pre-election reporting from Lackawanna County, PA, and said it's "sobering as a journalist to watch, over nearly a decade of your life, as people fall further and further away from quality news sources." Read on...
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What's your 'influencer' strategy? |
"Independent online creators aren't encumbered" by any hand-wringing "over objectivity or standards: They are concerned with publishing as much as they can, in order to cultivate audiences and build relationships with them. For them, posting is a volume game," The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel observes.
"Critics can debate whether this kind of content is capital-J Journalism until the heat death of the universe, but the undeniable truth is that people, glued to their devices, like to consume information when it’s informally presented via parasocial relationships with influencers. They enjoy frenetic, algorithmically curated short-form video, streaming and long-form audio, and the feeling that only a slight gap separates creator and consumer."
>> CNN alum Chris Cillizza reacted to my Thursday column by saying that CNN should learn from online creators... |
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Political media notes and quotes |
>> Former Trump White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin says Matt Gaetz brought a folder full of unhinged internet conspiracy theories about Joe Scarborough to an Oval Office meeting with Trump. (Mediaite)
>> Jasper Goodman writes: "Want a job in the second Trump administration? Get booked on a cable news show." Along with the obvious Fox shows, CNBC's "Squawk Box" has "become a frequent stop..." (Politico)
>> "Don't blame the polls:" That's the title of Amy Walter's latest piece for the Cook Political Report. She says "polling accurately captured the challenges facing the Harris campaign..." (Cook)
>> In previously unreported letters, a Trump attorney lobbed legal threats at The New York Times and Penguin Random House in the run-up to election day, Lachlan Cartwright reports... (CJR)
>> Circling back to our lead story, Disney, Peter Kafka points out that Iger managed to avoid "poking the bear," a/k/a Trump, on yesterday's earnings call. (Business Insider)
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The Onion to 'pave over' Infowars |
What's The Onion going to do now that it has won the auction to acquire Alex Jones’ Infowars? "We're going to take it and take the universe that Alex created and just pave it over," CEO Ben Collins told Jake Tapper yesterday. "We're going to create a new world" for the conspiratorial brand. (Perhaps a parody of itself?) CNN's Hadas Gold, who was the first to report that The Onion had entered the bidding war, has all the details about the both hilarious and serious outcome here...
>> Jones is still fighting: A federal judge in Texas has ordered a hearing into how The Onion won the bidding, "after Jones and his lawyers raised questions about how the auction was conducted..."
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Threads reports big growth |
Yesterday, we mentioned the rise of Bluesky as a rival to X. Now it is Threads' turn. It's been a "huge couple of weeks for Threads," Instagram and Threads boss Adam Mosseri told followers. "More than 15 million signups in November alone, and going on three months with more than a million signups a day..."
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>> Here's a hopeful view from Canada: "The looming death of mainstream media is greatly exaggerated..." (The Star)
>> "Instead of tuning in, the audiences that fueled the post-2016 resistance” to Trump “are checking out," Michael Schaffer reports. (Politico)
>> "Trump vs. media" is moving "back to the White House," Joe Flint and Drew FitzGerald write. (WSJ)
>> "Where to Find the Avuncular Donald Trump? Check the Manosphere," Jon Caramanica says. (NYT)
>> Charlotte Klein's latest: “Who Wants to Cover the Second Coming of Trump?” (NYMag)
>> "The streaming wars didn't kill the little guys. In fact, they're thriving," John Koblin reports. (NYT)
>> "She Was a Child Instagram Influencer. Her Fans Were Grown Men." This is an unsettling story by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller about a dark but profitable "side of the internet..." (NYT)
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>> One of CNN's best, political director David Chalian, has been promoted to senior VP and Washington, DC bureau chief. (Deadline)
>> Liz Seymour, one of the Post's key newsroom leaders, has been promoted to managing editor. (Post)
>> After several days of sensational right-wing media stories, Oprah Winfrey "clarified Thursday that she was 'not paid a dime' for her $1 million Kamala Harris campaign production, noting that only her Harpo staff were compensated," Rocky Harris reports. (TheWrap)
>> Last week, "Amazon Prime's plucky Thursday Night Football telecast beat out ESPN’s Monday Night Football, marking the first time that any streaming service had attracted a larger audience in a same-week battle with one of the NFL’s top TV partners," John Ourand writes... (Puck)
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>> "The European Commission fined Meta $840 million Thursday over allegations that it unlawfully used its signature social media platform to power its classified-ads service, Facebook Marketplace." (Wash Post)
>> Google "will stop showing political ads to users in the European Union next year due to uncertainties around the bloc's new transparency regulations." (The Verge)
>> Sam Altman says "there is no wall" — "an apparent reference to concerns that OpenAI and other companies are facing a slowdown in advancing their AI models." (Business Insider)
>> "YouTube is taking a page out of the TikTok playbook by adding 'jewels' you buy to exchange for gifts for your favorite creators during livestreams." (The Verge)
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O'Brien to host the Oscars |
Late night comedian Conan O'Brien will host the 2025 Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday morning, marking his first stint as host of the star-studded awards show. O'Brien takes over from ABC funnyman Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted Hollywood's biggest night for two consecutive years."America demanded it and now it's happening: Taco Bell's new Cheesy Chalupa Supreme. In other news, I'm hosting the Oscars," O'Brien said in a statement. More here...
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SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST... |
Congratulations are in order for Reliable Sources alum Oliver Darcy. Beehiiv held a swanky Lower East Side launch party for Darcy's new newsletter venture Status on Thursday night. The room was packed with execs like Jeff Zucker, anchors like Abby Phillip and Ari Melber, and fellow newsletter makers like Kerry Flynn and Ryan Broderick. This turnout "means the world to me," Darcy said. "Starting a newsletter is kind of like throwing a party. You wonder, are people going to show up? Are they going to support you? Tonight the answer is yes."
>> Speaking of Beehiiv, the Substack challenger "says it's making a 'multi-million dollar investment' to create a new 'beehiiv Media Collective' of journalists on its platform," Sara Fischer reports for Axios.
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