Weekly Roundup – Week of October 21st, 2024

"After weeks of wondering, Mavericks fans who need a streaming option to watch the team’s local broadcasts are getting their wish, albeit for a price.
On Monday, four days before Thursday’s 2024-25 season opener, the Mavericks announced the launch of a subscription service, which initially be powered through the NBA’s Next Gen platform, inside the NBA app."

Our Take: Perhaps inspired by the Dallas Stars' decision to make their games available on a team-specific streaming platform, the Dallas Mavericks are following suit with 'MavsTV'.

Chick-fil-A is releasing its own entertainment app, with family-friendly shows and podcasts
"Chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, milkshakes – and now TV shows and podcasts?
Chick-fil-A plans to launch a new app on Nov. 18, with a slate of original animated shows, scripted podcasts, games, recipes and e-books aimed at families."

Our Take: At first glance, this seems pretty dystopian - a fast-food chain launching a branded entertainment app. However, Chik-fil-A's clientele are typically really, really into Chik-fil-A and anything that would allow them to be more part of the Chik-fil-A universe makes a lot of sense, business-wise.

"Amazon Ads is not only officially on the map; it is actively recreating the map of media, entertainment and advertising.
That was the verdict this week at the Amazon Ads conference in Austin, Texas.
Throughout the conference, Amazon flexed its muscles as a studio entertainment giant – something neither Google nor Meta could boast – and as a native element of the enterprise cloud infrastructure. In its sales pitches, hands-on-keyboard sessions and during conversations with ad tech vendors and Amazon sellers, Amazon consistently combined its content fortress with AWS and its investments in AI and machine learning."

Our Take: Yeah, sure, Amazon is making waves through its entertainment division's ad strategy. Yet YouTube's content is almost exclusively user-generated (read; doesn't cost YouTube a penny to produce), and is by far the most streamed platform in the history of man and makes Alphabet a ton of money.

"What types of accounts do U.S. adults follow on TikTok?
Broadly, they follow lots of creators and influencers who have risen to their current level of prominence via social media, as well as traditional celebrities.1 Together, these groups are around half of all the accounts followed by U.S. adults on the platform and the vast majority of the 100 accounts followed by the largest share of U.S. adults.
But they follow very few politicians, civic actors or traditional media outlets and journalists. Each of these groups makes up less than half of 1% of all the accounts we examined. And the typical U.S. adult on TikTok follows no accounts in each of these categories."

Our Take: Most adults are following creators/influencers and celebs on TikTok who rarely, if ever, post about news/politics on their individual channels. This is despite nearly half of TikTok adult users report getting news/political coverage via the TikTok app. This study hints at TikTok's algorithm pushing news and political content regardless of whether the user is actively subscribed to any news/political accounts.

"Allegations of poor working conditions on YouTuber MrBeast’s new Amazon Studios show have pushed some people who work with creators to call for more safety oversight on their sets.

During the filming of “Beast Games,” MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, faced public backlash amid claims that he fostered an unsafe working environment. At least five contestants filed a class action lawsuit in September alleging they were “shamelessly exploited” while competing. Representatives for Donaldson have not commented on the lawsuit but previously said the production team has “taken steps to ensure that we learn from this experience.”"

Our Take: In the umpteenth hit-piece article by a legacy media publication directed at MrBeast, he demonstrates his continued resilience by still racking up 100 milltion plus views in the span of a week on his latest videos...Outside of whether his productions need more oversight, he's an easy target and he's not going anywhere. He is what Americans watch when they want to unwind.

In her latest blog for Harker Bos Group, Katie Miller questions the merits of using synthetic sample. She argues that using synthetic sample "...is like getting a photocopy of a photocopy - each time, the realness gets more and more diluted."