Weekly Roundup – Week of September 2nd, 2024

"A carriage dispute between the companies has blocked DirecTV from broadcasting all Disney-owned channels, just ahead of the coming NFL season.
Disney-owned channels including ABC and ESPN were pulled from DirecTV’s lineup on Sunday after talks to reach a new distribution deal between the companies collapsed. The blackout started midway through ESPN’s broadcast of the US Open tennis tournament, and just ahead of the NFL season opener this coming weekend.
DirecTV and Disney are both blaming each other for causing the blackout."

"ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro says the company has suggested to sports leagues and leaders that it could help distribute games to specific markets through its streaming properties — including a new full-ESPN streaming product that it expects to launch about a year from now."

"Sports fans are being bombarded daily with gambling advertising via social media in the United States – and the majority of ads could be in breach of regulations, according to a new study.
The findings, exposing non-compliance to the industry’s codes, have prompted calls for strict legislation to better curb and police online gambling advertising, which has surged in recent years.
The rapid review, led by marketing experts at the University of Bristol in the UK, found nearly 1,700 gambling ads were posted on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook by four leading sports gambling brands during a single week, equating to more than 230 ads each day.
More than four in five (81%) were organic ads, as opposed to paid-for, and the majority of this type of ad (58%) were not clearly identifiable as advertising."

Our Take: The advertising seems to be working as consumers are gambling money that would have otherwise gone to their retirement savings.

"In recent months, SiriusXM inked a $100 million deal to acquire the distribution rights for the popular “SmartLess” podcast hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes. Spotify signed a new multiyear deal with Joe Rogan worth up to $250 million, announcing that his podcast, the platform’s top-performing program, would no longer be exclusive to the audio app. And earlier this month, Alex Cooper departed Spotify in favor of a three-year, $125 million contract with SiriusXM that granted the platform exclusive ad and distribution rights to her sex and relationship podcast, “Call Her Daddy.”
The eye-watering figures mark the return of major podcast companies paying stars enormous sums for their audio programs, but with a twist on their previous business strategy. Rather than banking on unproven stars who might fail to deliver on episodes or a massive audience, companies are increasingly inking advertising and distribution deals to publish the shows across competing platforms."

"Taylor Swift is looking to make the second single from her latest album The Tortured Poets Department a smash, just like the first tune, “Fortnight,” was upon its arrival. Weeks into picking the cut as a proper promotional single, the track isn’t performing as well as some might have guessed–it is a Taylor Swift single, after all. While the tune has a lot of room to grow when it comes to several important metrics, radio seems to be picking up the slack and keeping “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” alive.
This week, “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” rises to a new high point on three Billboard charts. All of them are radio-focused, as that’s where Swift’s latest is performing best.
At the moment, Swift’s new single is a top 10 hit on just one of the three radio lists it appears on. “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” rises one slot to No. 7 on the Adult Pop Airplay tally, hitting its new top placement this frame."

"With Netflix’s victory in the SVOD-centric battle cemented last year, a shift in focus from subscribers to ad dollars, new partnerships between rivals and a significant cooling of the content arms race are all signifying that active hostility has given way to an uneasy truce.
...
Chief among these challenges is maintaining — or in many cases securing — robust subscriber engagement."