Weekly Roundup – Week of September 12, 2022
Sports Media & Sports Betting News
Disney CEO Says Sports Betting Is A Reason For Keeping ESPN
“Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek said the ESPN sports networks are critical to his overall vision of the company, one that involves more direct connections to consumers, including wagering on sports.
“Sports betting is a part of what our younger, say, under-35 sports audience is telling us they want as part of their sports lifestyle,” Chapek said in an interview at Disney’s D23 fan event in Anaheim, California. Asked if the company was developing an ESPN sports-betting app, Chapek said: “We’re working very hard on that.””
NFL Thursday Night Football On Amazon Prime Video Is Following Several Trends
“Amazon Prime Video exclusively streaming Thursday Night Football follows several trends. One is the continued migration of video content away from broadcast television to streaming video. This month alone the long-running unscripted show Dancing with the Stars will move from ABC to Disney+ for their 31st season. Also, the daytime drama Days of Our Lives, which debuted on NBC in 1965, has just left the network to be streamed exclusively on Peacock.
Amazon Prime streaming Thursday Night Football however, will be far more impactful. In 2021, NFL games accounted for 75 of the 100 most watched TV programs. In addition, last season, Thursday Night Football averaged 16.4 million viewers across FoxFOXA -0.7%, NFL Network and Amazon, making it, among regularly scheduled prime time shows of 2021-22, second to Sunday Night Football.
With the Amazon agreement, the NFL continues to follow another trend of supporting nascent media outlets. In 1987, when only half of U.S. households were cable subscribers, ESPN began televising Sunday Night Football. In 1994 the fledgling Fox Network which had been regarded as “the fourth network” began televising NFL games on Sunday afternoon. Fox had outbid CBS which had been televising NFL games for 38 years and helped to legitimize the network to advertisers. More recently, in 2015 Yahoo paid the league $20 million for the rights to live stream its first NFL game.”
VSiN Expands Footprint To Providence, Honolulu, Kansas City
“VSiN has announced affiliation agreements with several stations around the nation as the Las Vegas-based sports betting content creator continues to expand.
VSiN has a new partnership with News Radio 920 WHJJ in Providence, Rhode Island. Programming from VSiN will be heard on the stations each weekday evening from 7:00 PM-10:00 PM ET. Brent Musburger’s Action Updates will also air twice a day on the station, in addition to sister stations 94 HJY and B-101.
The Hawaii Sports Radio Network in Honolulu has added VSin’s Final Countdown with Storym Buonantony and Matt Brown. That show will air at 11:00 AM Hawaiian.
Finally, due to the recent launch of sports betting in the state of Kansas, 101 The Fox and KCMO have partnered with VSiN to provide news and analysis short-form features, as well as VSiN analysts to make appearances on the Fox Football Gameday Show to discuss betting lines for the Chiefs, the AFC West, and other NFL games.”
Read more on BarrettSportsMedia.com
Politics + Media + Radio News
Are Polls Once Again Overestimating Dems?
“Spencer touched on this New York Times analysis yesterday, which I think is quite interesting and speaks to at least some of the points I raised in my pre-Labor Day ‘electoral lay of the land’ post. Polling errors have not been unusual or infrequent in recent cycles, with most of the misses inflating Democrats’ standing, compared to their actual vote share performance when the votes were counted.
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In 2020, the ‘generic ballot’ average predicted an expanded Democratic House majority, with Nancy Pelosi’s team leading by nearly seven points. The actual margin? Less than half of that, enough of a difference to allow Republicans to sweep literally all of the House races rated by the Cook Political Report as ‘toss-ups.’
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In the end, Democrats fell to 222 seats, with the GOP gaining 14 net seats in the cycle. I’m not here to predict that Republicans will once again substantially over-perform their polling. But it’s not a crazy thought to be breezily discounted, given recent history — in addition to the reality that ruling Democrats are facing serious historical and political headwinds. If Republicans merely achieve the modern historical average of the opposition party in a midterm election, they’d gain roughly two dozen House seats, more than enough to retake the majority. The historical expectation is even worse for the party of an unpopular president. Those statistics, plus the polling failures, are raising some alarm bells among left-leaning election watchers. The Times story mentioned above basically warns readers that some of the relatively rosy-looking numbers for Democrats at the moment feel eerily familiar:”
Twitter Begins Rolling Out Podcasts To Blue Subscribers
“Twitter is rolling out its redesigned Spaces tab, which includes podcasts, to Twitter Blue subscribers on iOS. The social network says Blue subscribers on Android will get access to the redesigned Spaces tab soon.
When Twitter first announced that it was adding podcasts to its platform via a redesigned Spaces tab, the company said they would be accessible to a group of global English-speaking audiences on iOS and Android. Now, Twitter says it’s going to test podcasts with Twitter Blue subscribers.
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Twitter says the podcasts are part of its plans to provide users with an “all-in-one, personalized audio destination” by giving users even more audio content to listen to. The company says its internal research shows that 45% of people who use Twitter in the U.S. also listen to podcasts monthly, so the company will automatically suggest podcasts to help users discover content based on the topics they’re interested in.”
Minimal Oversight And Few Obvious Repercussions Leave YouTube’s Royalty System Ripe For Abuse
“Louis Armstrong released “What a Wonderful World” in 1967, and the track eventually made its way to YouTube, like nearly every other recording, where it earns royalties for the single’s owner as well as its songwriters. For roughly a month in 2017, however, about $468 of the song’s publishing royalties made its way to the company Create Music Group, despite the fact that Create did not represent any of the parties involved in the song.
Create later said that its claim on Armstrong’s classic, made through YouTube’s online rights management portal, was the result of an error, according to emails shared with Billboard. The mistake was subsequently rectified with a payment to the proper entity. Publishing rights are infamously complicated, and sources from around the music business say YouTube’s rights system — which allows select companies to claim royalties on compositions — can be chaotic. It’s “a nightmare,” according to one executive with extensive royalty collection experience.
And not just for old songs: Half of the top 20 tracks on the Billboard Hot 100 are “in conflict,” according to Create co-founder Jonathan Strauss, which means rights holders have an unresolved dispute over royalty income. YouTube holds on to the money until the disagreements are sorted out.”
Recent Blogs on HarkerBos.com
HBG Media Minute: Radio Presets Are Alive and Well
In the latest installment of the Harker Bos Group Media Minute, Sean dives into recent research exploring the current use of radio presets in cars.
