| Thursday, August 21, 2025 |
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TGIT! Here's the latest on ESPN, "romantasy," CBS News, Elon Musk, the BBC, Sydney Sweeney, "Dawson's Creek," Morgan Wallen, and much more... |
ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro calls today an "industry-shaping moment." The sports powerhouse's new streaming product rolled out this morning, enabling people to sign up for the full suite of ESPN channels without a traditional cable subscription. "It is a big bet, and may very well determine ESPN's future," The Athletic's Andrew Marchand writes. "The plan aims to do two things at once: Preserve as much of the past as possible while addressing the present and future of sports consumption." If you don't have cable or some cable-like streaming bundle like YouTube TV, now you have a legal way to watch ESPN. (And Disney is pushing its own direct-to-consumer bundle, enticing people to pay for ESPN, Disney+ and Hulu all in one.) If you're like me and you already have cable, you have access to a bunch of new features and franchises in the ESPN app. This sure looks like the winning way forward for old media giants – offering vertical videos, smart phone alerts and dozens of different newfangled touch points on top of the traditional TV experience. Steven Zeitchik's headline for THR says "ESPN Believes a New App Will Save the Company." He argues that ESPN's challenge is not just cord-cutting, "it's a cultural problem: a generation raised on pro sports as a participatory activity, with social media and video games and fantasy play, sees little need for ESPN's top-down, big-personality, appointment-viewing brand of content." So the new product includes all the live events and studio shows and films from TV, but it also has "a more personalized twist," Zeitchik writes. "You can go deep down the stat and video-clip rabbit hole of your go-to team with a new feature called 'Verts.' You can shop, get betting info and scour fantasy updates right next to a broadcast." You can even personalize SportsCenter "with AI-generated clips based on your team preferences." (And someday you'll be able to place sports bets right in the app.) |
Disney's hype machine is working |
Yes, Disney decided to roll out the new ESPN in the dog days of August, but there was no way to "soft launch" this thing quietly. So the company decided to promote today as "National ESPN App Day;" launch an immersive marketing campaign; and ring the opening bell at the NYSE. This morning on "GMA" the corporate synergy machine was working at full speed, billing the streaming service as "a sports fan's dream come true." Now one of the challenges for Pitaro is to emphasize that this launch is not like "a movie opening," dependent on instant results. "I've been very clear, internally and externally, that this is a marathon, not a sprint," he told Marchand. "This is going to launch with significant enhancements, but not all the enhancements that we have on the roadmap. There is going to be a steady drumbeat of improvements weekly, monthly, annually." Pitaro and Bob Iger are sitting down with David Faber on CNBC later this morning... |
Speaking of the streaming wars: |
>> WWE's premium live events are headed to ESPN sooner than expected, with "Wrestlepalooza" hitting the sports network on Sept. 20. (Variety) >> Isabella Simonetti and Nate Rattner say the new ESPN and Fox streamers "join a baffling landscape for fans." (WSJ) >> Sounds cable-ish! "Facing a chaotic maze of apps, payments and passwords, people are increasingly signing up for multiple streaming services through a single provider," John Koblin reports. (NYT) |
📚 This stat might depress you... |
It sure disappointed me! "Daily reading for pleasure has plummeted 40% over the past 20 years, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal iScience," CNN's Madeline Holcombe reports. "The decline has been sustained over time," about 3% a year, and "African Americans, people with lower income or educational levels, and people in rural areas experienced the steepest decline, which highlights a growing disparity in reading access, according to the study." And/but: "Experts say tools are in place for reading to make a comeback — and romance, fantasy and mystery are leading the way." Read on... | ...But 'romantasy' is on the rise |
It is "propping up the fiction market" right now, the NYT's Alexandra Alter reports. So what is it? A "subgenre that blends fantasy elements like magic, fairies and dragons with love, yearning and explicit sex." In a way, Alter says, the success of blockbuster "romantasy" authors like Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros "stems from the legacy of popular young adult series like 'Twilight' and 'Harry Potter.'" Here's how... >> Related: Spotify "is leaning into the fandom around romantasy novels to promote itself," Kerry Flynn reports for Axios. |
Another Paramount-related probe |
"A pair of top House Democrats are launching an investigation into Paramount's $7 billion merger with fellow media conglomerate Skydance and the circumstances that led to the deal's approval by the Trump administration," Dominick Mastrangelo reports for The Hill. Speaking of Paramount... |
Last night on 'South Park' |
"The third episode of 'South Park' Season 27, titled 'Sickofancy,' once again depicted President Donald Trump with a micro-penis and mocked him for accepting bribes from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook," Variety reports. "It also reunited him with Satan in bed..." 🔌: For more on the "South Park" resurgence, you can catch me on Vox's "Today, Explained" podcast. |
The Defense Department's press operation is trying (and failing) to discredit reporting from The Washington Post by falsely claiming that this story endangered Defense Secretary Pate Hegseth. The Post reported that the Army's Criminal Investigation Division has been "under significant strain" due to Hegseth's "unusually large personal security requirements." Pentagon flacks responded by saying "these 'reporters' are disgusting" and urging "severe punishment" for them. >> Dan Lamothe, one of three bylines on the story, said on X that it looked like a "coordinated reaction," following "a string of undisputed WaPo scoops that have detailed dysfunction on Secretary Hegseth's team..." |
Still waiting for the 'America Party' |
"Nothing @WSJ says should ever be thought of as true," Elon Musk wrote on X in response to Brian Schwartz's scoop about Musk "quietly pumping the brakes on his plans to start a political party," partly to preserve his relationship with a top 2028 contender, VP JD Vance. Here's the thing: "Despite Musk's social media response, he appears to have taken few concrete steps toward creating a new party," CNN's Hadas Gold wrote in this followup. |
Ari Shapiro saying farewell to NPR |
"All Things Considered" co-host Ari Shapiro, one of the core voices of NPR, is exiting the network next month. Shapiro said his decision "has nothing to do with the challenges facing public radio, the news media, or the country." Edith Chapin, who also recently announced that she is leaving NPR, said "next steps" to fill Shapiro's host chair will likely be announced next week. Liam Reilly and Hadas Gold have more here... |
💡 The BBC as the 'People's Platform' |
James Harding, a former director of BBC News, "made an impassioned plea for the corporation to become more independent of government, thereby pivoting to being the 'People's Platform,'" Deadline's Max Goldbart reports. Harding delivered the annual MacTaggart Memorial Lecture yesterday, and there are several handy summaries online. Per The Guardian's Michael Savage, Harding pointed to Trump's defunding of public media "and said it would be 'recklessly complacent' to believe something similar could not happen in Britain." The BBC, he said, needs to be "beyond the reach of politicians." Sky News has more here... |
>> CBS News "is losing around $50 million a year," Dylan Byers reports, citing two sources familiar with the news division's finances. (Puck) >> Scott Nover is out with a new followup about what the Nexstar-Tegna deal means for TV watchers. (WaPo) >> New from WSJ. Magazine: "How Sydney Sweeney Became the Most Talked-About Woman in Hollywood," by Allie Jones. (WSJ) |
>> Sen. Amy Klobuchar penned a personal account about the powerlessness that you feel when someone makes an AI deepfake video of you. (She also pitches a proposed bill to remedy the problem, natch.) (NYT) >> OpenAI just achieved its first $1 billion revenue month. Sarah Friar says "the biggest thing we face is being constantly under compute." (CNBC) >> Sony is hiking the price of the PlayStation 5: "Starting August 21 in the US, every edition will cost $50 more than it did the day before, thanks to Trump's tariffs." (WIRED) |
'You never want to leave' |
"Current and former TikTok employees have raised concerns internally about how the app's popular algorithm could hurt young users' mental health, a newly unsealed video presented as evidence in a North Carolina lawsuit against the company shows," CNN's Clare Duffy reports. In one of the clips from an internal meeting, TikTok exec Brett Peters talks about diversifying the platform's content to make it a place "that you never want to leave." >> TikTok says the video compilation is "a shameful attempt to distort an open internal conversation about making the platform safer when TikTok was just beginning five years ago." Read on... |
>> Morgan Wallen "will not submit his latest album for consideration at the Grammy Awards." The country superstar is "rebuffing an institution that has paid him little attention during his rise as one of the most popular artists in music," Julia Jacobs writes. (NYT) >> The cast of "Dawson's Creek" will reunite "for a live script reading of the show's pilot next month on Broadway." (CNN) >> "The Muppets will mark their historic Broadway debut" in October. (Vulture) >> "Taylor Swift's new album comes on cassette. Who is buying those?" Jordan Valinsky found out who. (CNN) |
Hollywood creators must "hold a mirror up" to America's political reality, Variety's Michael Schneider writes. He says "these aren't normal times, so we can't rely on normal stories in our TV shows." Schneider asks: "Will political dramas depict the crumbling of America's place and influence in the world? Will legal dramas take on the ICE invasions of our cities? What about the attempts to silence journalists? The move to erase the sometimes ugly truth about this country's history?" And he doesn't stop there... |
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