Brian Stelter here at 11:01pm ET on Monday, July 18. Scroll down for the latest on Twitter, "The Late Show," the Pulitzer Prize board, Snapchat, UTA, Desus & Mero, and more... Hollywood on edge |
Netflix shares have fallen 68% year to date. Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos have been humbled. Investors have soured on streaming. But the story is far from over – and the next chapter is being written on Tuesday. Netflix is reporting Q2 earnings after the closing bell on Tuesday, kick-starting a particularly stressful season of media and tech world earnings. "Hollywood is bracing for impact," TheWrap's Joe Bel Bruno says, as the subscriber totals and forecasts "could become a defining moment for the entertainment industry's multi-billion dollar streaming arms race." CNBC's Alex Sherman says the run-up to Netflix's earnings release feels like hurricane preparation: "A storm is coming. It's probably going to be bad. Shareholders are praying the foundation is sturdy enough to withstand the damage." The key data point: Netflix "warned that it expects to lose 2 million global subscribers in the second quarter. That would be the single largest quarterly loss in the company's history. It's possible the losses will be even worse than projected..." Four POVs >> Netflix bear turned bull Michael Pachter in a recent report: "We think that Netflix is positioned to exceed its guidance for Q2 particularly because of the staggered release date for 'Stranger Things 4,' which has very strong viewership..." >> Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan in a note to clients: "It remains clear that Netflix remains mired in a period of post-pandemic growth normalization while also seeing increased industry-wide competition..." >> Julia Boorstin on CNBC: "Whether or not Netflix becomes a takeout target depends on what it reports tomorrow and over the course of the rest of this year and how much its stock moves slower…" >> Matthew Ball on CNN: Across the streaming video business "there are fears of saturation; of price tolerance; of the number of services the average person will hold; and Netflix, which is the most saturated, the most widely adopted, is starting to feel the pressure..." Netflix's newest account-sharing test The streamer "will ask customers in five Latin America countries to pay a fee if they want to use their account in an additional home, a test the company hopes will generate additional revenue by getting customers to pay to share their Netflix account," Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw scooped on Monday. It sounds like a second-home test – asking customers to "pay an extra fee if they use an account for more than two weeks outside of their primary residence..." Can Netflix come up with franchises? "We want to have our version of 'Star Wars' or our version of 'Harry Potter,' and we're working very hard to build that. But those are not built overnight," Netflix VP Matthew Thunell told Reuters reporters Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine for this new story. Key paragraph: "Netflix executives point to 'Stranger Things' as a model," but know they need a whole lot more. "Executives said they plan to or are in the process of giving at least a dozen series and films the 'Stranger Things' treatment..." |
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THREE OF TODAY'S MUST-READS |
-- CNN's Peter Nickeas identifies "the key questions that remain unanswered after the release of the House committee report on Uvalde..." (CNN) -- Rob Price's newest story for Insider is chilling: "First came the threatening texts, followed by the SWAT teams. Then someone wound up dead." And it was all due to a "bizarre obsession with the most sought-after handles on Instagram and Twitter..." (Insider) -- CNN's Sara Ashley O'Brien and Clare Duffy are out with an equally troubling new story: "She warned other women on TikTok about her ex-boyfriend. Then she received a cease-and-desist..." (CNN) | |
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Time for the first Twitter-Musk hearing Tuesday's initial hearing between lawyers for Twitter and Elon Musk is still on... but no longer in person. Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick has tested positive for Covid-19, so the 11am hearing will now take place on Zoom. (Bummer – I was thinking about taking the train down to Wilmington to watch the proceeding!) The hearing will address how soon the case will go to trial. Twitter wants a "speedy trial." Musk does not... >> Musk is far, far away from Delaware... Paparazzi photographed him on a yacht in Greece with Ari Emanuel on Monday... |
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"USC sex scandals and the paper that tried to cover them up" That's the subject of Paul Pringle's new book "Bad City," out Tuesday. Katie Benner, who reviewed it for the NYT, says it is a "master class in investigative journalism," as well as a "stark look at the weakening of local news, especially at The Los Angeles Times." The LA Times, now under new leadership, published a detailed story about the book last week. And THR is out with an excerpt... |
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"The Metaverse" comes out Tuesday Matthew Ball's book, that is. Forbes calls it an "instant classic." The FT says it's a "comprehensive guide to every aspect of the metaverse." Ball said on "Reliable Sources" that we should think about the metaverse as "a 3D version of the internet, a parallel plane of existence." Glimpses of its future can already be seen in education, healthcare, and other fields. For a taste from the book, Ball authored the cover story in the next issue of TIME magazine... |
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Another new low Gallup released these #'s on Monday: "Americans' confidence in two facets of the news media -- newspapers and television news -- has fallen to all-time low points. Just 16% of U.S. adults now say they have 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in newspapers and 11% in television news. Both readings are down five percentage points since last year." The declines are best viewed not in a vacuum, but as part of a broader erosion of trust in everything from banks to police to Congress. Gallup said its June polling showed "declines in confidence ratings for 11 of the 16 institutions measured and no improvements for any. Television news and newspapers rank nearly at the bottom of that list of institutions, with only Congress garnering less confidence from the public than TV news." More here... |
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Pulitzer board rebuffs Trump Trump has been saying for a while that the Pulitzer Prize board should rescind its 2018 awards given to the NYT and WaPo for reports about Trumpworld connections to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. He even sent a lengthy letter to the board about it. It turns out that the board took Trump seriously enough to commission "the journalistic equivalent of a state election recount," as WaPo reporter Paul Farhi described it on Monday. "In an unusual move, it authorized two independent reviews of the articles submitted by the newspapers — and essentially recertified the results." The board issued a statement with the key finding: "No passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes." > Prototypical pro-Trump media reaction: "Even as media credibility craters, Pulitzers are doubling down on the awards they gave to propagandists for perpetrating the false, dangerous, and damaging Russia collusion hoax," Mollie Hemingway wrote... |
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-- CNN's new poll conducted by SSRS found that "the summer of 2022 is a season of deepening and widespread discontent," Jennifer Agiesta wrote. "The survey finds the public's outlook on the state of the country the worst it's been since 2009..." (CNN) -- The poll showed President Biden with a 38% approval rating, "a numeric low mark for the president in CNN polling," David Chalian said... (Twitter) -- In this widely shared new column, Perry Bacon Jr. argued that "the mainstream media has played a huge, underappreciated role in President Biden's declining support over the past year." He says the "flawed coverage" results in "a distorted national discourse that weakens our democracy..." (WaPo) -- Joe Rogan "escalated his one-sided feud with Donald Trump on Monday, suggesting during his podcast that the former president's outsized energy derives from Adderall: 'He's a man baby...'" (Twitter) |
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Counting down to Thursday's 1/6 hearing Evan Perez and Zachary Cohen's Monday evening scoop for CNN: Matthew Pottinger, who served on Trump's National Security Council before resigning in the immediate aftermath of January 6, will testify publicly at Thursday's prime-time hearing, alongside former Trump White House aide Sarah Matthews. Committee members "have said Thursday's hearing will examine Trump's inaction for 187 minutes while the US Capitol riot was unfolding..." Broadcast networks are rearranging shows "Thursday's primetime January 6 House select committee's public hearing is prompting some programming shifts by the broadcast networks," Denise Petski reports for Deadline. "CBS has moved Thursday's eviction episode of Big Brother" – its highest-rated show of the summertime – to Friday night. ABC will pre-empt the game shows "Press Your Luck" and "Generation Gap." NBC will pre-empt reruns. All three networks will show the hearing, while Fox will make a feed "available to affiliates in the event they wish to televise them in their markets." That's what Fox did last time too: Sticking with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, showing the hearing on the much-lower-rated Fox Business, and offering that coverage to Fox affiliates... |
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REMEMBER THIS? Colbert production team will not be prosecuted "Federal prosecutors in Washington, DC will not prosecute members of a production team for 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' who were arrested last month by US Capitol Police for unlawful entry as they filmed a comedy segment at the US Capitol," CNN's Whitney Wild reports. >> Context: "After reports of the arrests surfaced last month, some conservatives pretended as though the apprehensions were comparable to those arrested for violently storming the Capitol on Jan. 6," Mediaite's Michael Luciano writes... |
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| -- WaPo's WH bureau chief Ashley Parker is moving into a new role: Senior national political correspondent... (WaPo) -- Toluse Olorunnipa will take over as WH bureau chief... (WaPo) -- "Two Democratic senators are planning to reopen a high-stakes battle over internet access in the coming weeks, with a bill aiming to restore net neutrality regulations for broadband providers" that the Trump-era FCC gutted, Brian Fung writes... (CNN) |
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Zoom has an unlikely new competitor — Snapchat CLARE DUFFY WRITES: Unlike many other social media platforms, Snapchat has been available only on mobile since its launch over a decade ago. But on Monday, the company launched a web-based version of the popular messaging app. The goal is to give users the freedom to switch between their phones and computers, but the new desktop option could also help Snapchat take on a surprising rival: Zoom. It turns out that, according to Snap, video calling has become a popular feature of the app. Read on... |
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Spanish-language disinfo machine is 'revving up again' "Fake news speaks many languages, but it's particularly fond of Spanish," WaPo contributing columnist Lizette Alvarez wrote Monday. "An epidemic of Spanish-language right-wing disinformation that spiked around the 2020 election on social media platforms, and in some big-city AM radio stations, is revving up again ahead of the fall midterms." Read on... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE |
-- A new extension of the "Today" show universe: On Tuesday "Today" will "unveil its first digital cover story, an in-depth look at creator and actor Issa Rae that will get exposure not only on its digital site, but on the linear TV show and across its social channels," Brian Steinberg reports... (Variety) -- Disney says its upfront sales "were the strongest in the company's history," with $9 billion in agreements, Christopher Palmeri reports. "About 40% of spending went to its online offerings..." (Bloomberg) -- "Hulu has emerged as Disney's fastest-growing U.S. streaming service, just as the company loads up on more adult-focused entertainment in a bid to expand its reach to a wider variety of viewers," Robbie Whelan reports, citing data from Antenna... (WSJ) -- "Amazon is giving Prime Video its biggest redesign in years," and Chris Welch has details... (The Verge) -- "After a four-plus-year absence from the public eye, scandal-plagued director Brett Ratner is slowly venturing out… and raising eyebrows along the way," Tatiana Siegel reports… (The Ankler) |
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Investing in UTA THR's Alex Weprin reports: "A fund operated by the private equity firm EQT Partners has made a strategic investment in talent agency UTA, in a deal the agency says 'will help fuel the next phase of investments in talent, innovation and international expansion.' EQT will become the largest outside shareholder in UTA." Specific terms were not disclosed... |
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Casey Bloys re-ups with HBO Puck's Matthew Belloni broke the news on Sunday night: "The HBO/HBO Max chief content officer just closed a big new deal to stay at the company. It's a five-year contract, I'm told, and it comes with a sigh of relief from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who made re-signing Bloys the top personnel priority of his first 100 days. An HBO rep confirmed the deal to me but declined to comment further..." |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR |
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Desus & Mero call it quits On Monday Showtime "confirmed that its late-night series Desus & Mero is officially over following rumors of a falling out between co-hosts Desus Nice and The Kid Mero," The Daily Beast's Matt Wilstein wrote. The two men "will be pursuing separate creative endeavors moving forward." Fans of the pair have known something was up for a while. Gawker and UPROXX have details... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE |
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LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST... Pets of the day! Reader Teresa Butler emails: "This is Seamus and he always makes time to read Reliable Sources with Mom before he heads to the office..." |
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| Thank you for reading! Feel free to email us anytime. See you tomorrow... |
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