Weekly Roundup – July 9th, 2024

"The sports broadcasting industry is changing, and the Dallas Stars are at the forefront of its next chapter.
Just days after ending its existing rights agreement with Bally Sports Southwest, the Stars announced Monday morning a new direct-to-consumer streaming app that will allow all in-market fans to watch their games for free starting in the 2024-25 season.
The VICTORY+ app — which will be launched in late summer or early fall on all mobile devices and smart TVs — will allow Stars fans in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas to watch their team’s regular-season games with no costs or strings attached other than watching advertisements during stoppages of play. Blackout restrictions will still apply for out-of-market fans.
The Stars will be the first major professional sports team to offer free direct-to-consumer streaming of their games."

"Amid a U.S. boom in betting online, the European companies behind FanDuel and BetMGM are using features in America that they dropped in Britain after acknowledging them as risks to gamblers.
...
In Britain, where online gambling is more established than the United States, Flutter and other bookmakers have in recent years acknowledged some of their previous practices risked causing harm and ended those practices. Some have also publicly accepted a responsibility to protect customers from problem gambling as cases of addiction, suicide and gambling-related crime stacked up there.
But in the booming American market, Dublin-based Flutter and Britain’s Entain (ENT.L) — which jointly owns U.S. sports betting company BetMGM — have not implemented many of those same safeguards. They also routinely employ practices they discontinued in Britain after admitting they put UK gamblers at risk, Reuters found, based on a review of corporate filings, company statements, executive testimony to lawmakers, job advertisements and interviews with gamblers and former employees."

"Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, are in talks to buy a majority stake in Angel City FC, the professional women’s soccer club based in Los Angeles, a source confirms to The Hollywood Reporter.
Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, has previously been the largest shareholder of the team. If the investment from Bay and Iger finalizes, the team will have a valuation of more than $300 million, per Semafor, making it the highest valued women’s soccer club."

"Harker Bos Group is offering a detailed look into the media consumption habits and deep-seated love of radio of Spanish-language audiences, sharing data first unveiled at Radio Ink‘s Hispanic Radio Conference 2024.
Harker Bos found 72% of Spanish-language audiences regularly engage with radio, underscoring its sustained popularity. In contrast, podcast listening, which stands at 40%, highlights a growing trend although it still lags behind traditional radio in terms of overall sway within this demographic.
So why radio? A significant majority of those surveyed value the local content and community updates provided by radio stations, with many listeners considering it crucial for their chosen stations to feature local happenings and news as part of their regular programming.
The study also touches on the technological aspects of radio listenership, noting that while traditional over-the-air methods are still predominant, there is a notable usage of modern streaming options via apps and smart devices, reflecting a blend of traditional and digital modalities in media consumption."

"Digital advertisers could be forced to adjust their social media strategies after the U.S. surgeon general proposed a new policy that would dramatically alter how young people interact with social platforms.
...
The probability that such a warning will be implemented is unclear, for it requires congressional action to become law. Should a label be brought to social media, it would likely cause a decrease in time spent on platforms by young people, according to preliminary research cited by Murthy. This could feasibly reduce brands’ engagement with Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. But marketers may find upsides too, such as by sharpening their influencer deals and benefiting from a healthier ecosystem, experts told Ad Age."

"The New York Times sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI back in December 2023, claiming copyright infringement. Now, the tech giant wants proof the Times’ articles were “original, human-authored content” in the first place.
The legacy paper claimed the tech giant, alongside Microsoft, used its millions of published articles to train ChatGPT’s system.
OpenAI is defending itself. In a request filed Monday, the company’s lawyers asked the Times to prove its articles are original.
The company requested the paper provide “underlying reporter’s notes, interview memos, records of
materials cited, or other ‘files’ for each asserted work.” OpenAI did not request access to confidential information, like sources’ names.
That request was overly broad, unprecedented and improper, according to a Wednesday filing from the Times."

"Streaming appears poised to undergo what some have called “The Great Re-Bundling,” with services merging, combining or forming alliances that will essentially reconstruct the cable “bundle” that consumers relied upon for decades.
...
The latest news to ripple through the streaming front involved reports Paramount, prior to moving forward on its merger with Skydance, looking to combine its Paramount+ with another service. Max, the HBO-centered provider from CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery, was among those cited as potential partners.
Such an arrangement would follow the formal announcement in February of Venu Sports, a joint sports offering consisting of Disney’s ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros.; Disney’s intra-studio attempt to create a mega-service to subscribers who ante up for its trio of services: Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+; and Disney’s collaboration plan with Warner Bros. on a bundle consisting of Disney+, Max and Hulu.
...
What has become increasingly obvious, though, is for all the knocks on cable, starting with the fact consumers paid for lots of channels they never watched, its one-stop-shopping approach eliminated some of the challenges springing up now."