Study Hall Digest 1/27/2020

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

The IP Wars Meet the Streaming Wars

Last week, Netflix reported earnings for the fourth quarter, showing what may be some wear from the ongoing streaming wars with a growing number of competitors — Hulu, Amazon, Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus. Domestic subscriber growth was down by a not-inconsiderable margin, with the streaming giant adding only 550,000 new subscribers in the U.S. and Canada versus 1.75 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. It’s worth noting that Netflix’s subscriber growth still surpassed expectations internationally (8.6 million!!!) and it raked in more revenue than expected at $5.47 billion.

The thing is, Disney Plus launched in the US in November and hasn’t gone international yet. Netflix is currently weathering an unprecedented amount of competition domestically, and that competition will be global soon. And it’s only getting more heated: In the coming months, AT&T is launching its HBO Max service — HBO’s answer to Netflix, which will be the new home of “Friends” plus a bunch of other exclusive content — and Comcast is launching Peacock for NBCUniversal content. There are suspicions Netflix’s crown is slipping; CNBC saw “a whiff of desperation” in the fact that the streaming service changed the way it counts views, from counting a view when a user watches 70% of something to counting at only two minutes.

Netflix is also billions of dollars in debt, and that debt is growing as it pours money into creating its own content. But in a world where IP is king, that may be the smart move. Alex Goldberger, Vice President of MediaLink, which advises media companies on monetization strategies, told Study Hall that Netflix is trying to own as much IP as possible. A few years ago, the company’s first acquisition was comic book company Millarworld, responsible for such titles as Kick-Ass and Kingsman. “It’s buying some character they can own completely and be able to fully exploit the value of that IP,” said Goldberger. “I think they’re clearly moving in this direction but it’s going to be a really long time.” There was some concern around Netflix’s letting go of Friends, but it seems to be smarter to acquire IP than to license content for boatloads of money (in the end, Netflix was paying $100 million to keep the show).

The other looming question is whether Netflix will ultimately go the way of Hulu and incorporate advertising into the platform. CEO Reed Hastings has sworn it will not, for a variety of reasons, including a prioritization of user enjoyment. Still, it’s easy to see Netflix reconsidering that position as competition climbs in 2020. Goldberger noted there is a lot of financial pressure for it to do so.

“Advertisers are absolutely clamoring for more premium content,” he said. “There’s just not enough inventory. It’s why Hulu has been such a valuable platform. Netflix could bring to the table an offering that would be first in class…there’s a ton of pent-up demand on Madison Avenue for this.”

G/O Media Managers Back At It Again

G/O Media has hired Jim Rich, former top editor of the New York Daily News, to helm an attempted revival of Deadspin — not that Deadspin was ever officially declared dead, but it has been a zombie publication since pretty much the entire staff resigned in protest over a “stick to sports” directive (and the firing of Barry Petchesky, the deputy editor who disobeyed that directive). Rich seems like as good a candidate as any to restore a flickering publication to its former glory. He told the Wall Street Journal he is sympathetic to staffers’ decision to resign, as he himself stepped down from the Daily News amid Tribune Publishing’s bloodbath, and he doesn’t seem intent on honoring any sports-only mandate.

But it wouldn’t be a G/O Media hire without controversy: Rich will be based in Chicago with G/O owner Jim Spanfeller, who staffers recently called to resign with a near-unanimous vote of no confidence. The GMG Union tweeted shortly after the news that the position of Deadspin EIC is supposed to be based in New York and covered by the union contract, which Rich is not.

Meanwhile, news of Spotify’s impending purchase of The Ringer took the sports and pop culture publication’s unionized staff by surprise. Spotify is obviously interested in picking up the site for its trove of successful podcasts, but The Ringer also employs editorial staffers who are now anxious about the fate of their jobs and are imploring their bosses for answers. As of Friday — a week after reports surfaced of the intended sale — the staff still hasn’t heard from management about what it might mean for their jobs.

Joe Rogan, Uniter of Americans

Who would’ve guessed that the guy who gleefully watched people eat beetles as the host of Fear Factor would rock the world of Bernie Sanders supporters? Last week on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian and mixed martial arts commentator revealed that he’ll “probably vote for Bernie” because the Vermont senator has been “insanely consistent his entire life.” Cue a Bernie Sanders video sharing the endorsement and, immediately after, a wave of controversy.

For those unfamiliar with Joe Rogan’s media empire, he has 5.7 million Twitter followers, his podcast’s subreddit has nearly half a million members, episodes regularly top millions of downloads, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard have also appeared on the podcast (Rogan also claims that Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg have all requested to be on the show), and he’s expressed racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic views in the past. The latter fact is why Political Twitter and the Human Rights Campaign were upset when Sanders celebrated the endorsement.

The problem with this endorsement backlash is that it undercuts a pretty important part of winning elections: appealing to more than just your base, which is probably why Bernie appeared on the show back in August. There are limits when it comes to bringing new supporters into your camp, but unlike tight bonds between Trump and former KKK grand wizards or Tulsi Gabbard and Russian Twitter bots, I don’t see Joe Rogan’s support as toxic to the Sanders campaign. As the Sanders campaign press secretary Briahna Joy Gray said in the aftermath of the endorsement: “Sharing a big tent requires including those who do not share every one of our beliefs, while always making clear that we will never compromise our values.”

The Joe Rogan endorsement is more important than something like the New York Times dual endorsement mess from last week because, unlike the NYT, Rogan’s fandom is far outside of the liberal mainstream. Winning an election takes more than winning over the people who share the same values as you. Instead of denouncing Bernie for embracing Joe Rogan’s endorsement, it might be helpful to consider why someone so far removed from Bernie’s left-wing base decided that Sanders is America’s best bet. — Chris Erik Thomas

American Dirt Was Destined to Succeed (Even as it Failed)

The discourse around Jeanine Cummins’s racist border novel American Dirt has shed light on the fact that a book can be widely loathed by discerning critics and readers and still poised for commercial success. The novel has been skewered by Latinx authors for its improbable, stereotype-riddled tale of an upper-class Mexican mother braving a harrowing journey across the border with her young son. Cummins, who is white (since the book’s publication, she has decided to also identify as Latinx because her grandmother was Puerto Rican), has said she felt compelled to write the book in order to correct a perception of migrants as a “faceless brown mass.” This was included in an apologetic author’s note that attempted to get ahead of criticism but, naturally, made the whole thing worse.

It is difficult to see the book as anything other than an attempt by its white author to profit off the pain of migrants. The whole thing is made more gross by the optics of the much-anticipated book launch. Publisher Flatiron Books, which acquired the book in a nine-way bidding war, rolled out the red carpet a year in advance with a party for Cummins that included barbed wire fence centerpieces; Oprah selected it for her book club; celebrity endorsements from celebrities including Gina Rodriguez (lol) and Stephen King have flooded in.

Most telling of all, the book had already been optioned by Imperative Entertainment a year before publication, and is set to be adapted for the screen by the same screenwriter who penned Blood Diamond. A book can be total garbage, it turns out, and still be lucrative if it is topical, brimming with pathos, and fueled by performative white guilt!

Longread of the Week: Sasha Weiss at the New York Times wrote a fascinating look at a modern-day revival of West Side Story, a production from director Ivo von Hove characterized by dizzying ambition and risk. “The dancing is visceral and sharp; the play’s inherent violence graphic; the staging, with the video elements, dizzyingly active. Some people have walked out, but on the four nights I was there during previews, the house was full and the applause enthusiastic. Still, the show wasn’t finished yet — each day, video was being reshot, numbers were being restaged, new meaning was being discovered in the text.”

Other Longread of the Week: Sit down, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and dig into the job listing for a nanny posted by a Silicon Valley CEO that runs over 1,000 words, and includes such requirements as “likes river swimming” and “[can] correctly quantify how much fish to purchase for five people.” Ruth Graham at Slate did us all an enormous service and interviewed the mom here.

Comings and Goings

— The recently relaunched Jewish Currents hired Peter Beinart, who will write a twice-monthly column for the leftist magazine.

— Brooklyn Councilperson Rafael Espinal, who helped pass the Freelance Isn’t Free Act, is resigning nearly two years before the end of his term to become executive director of the Freelancers Union.

— Former Texas Tribune editor Emily Ramshaw announced the launch of The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom that will “deeply cover gender, politics and policy.” The nonprofit news trend continues!

Everything Else

— After a series of embarrassing incidents and a flurry of criticism (never forget bedbug-gate) the New York Times is ramping up oversight of its opinion section. Vice reports that Times standards editor Phil Corbett will now advise the section as he does the rest of the paper.

— Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez tweeted out a story about the rape allegation against Kobe Bryant shortly after the LA Lakers player and eight others, including Bryant’s daughter Gianna, died in a helicopter crash on Sunday. The backlash was swift. “Award-winning journalist” Matthew Keys (I know him as a reply guy who once sprung up to say the payment structure for freelancers is a-ok and that I just needed to budget for late payments) tweeted that he’d captured screenshots, followed by a “Bye, Felicia.” After tweeting that the Post had suspended Sonmez for sharing the story, Keys reported that she had actually been suspended for violating the Post’s social media policy by tweeting out one of the thousands of hateful messages she had received in response, which showed the full name of the guy calling her a cunt.

— Kelly McBride, chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, posed this question on Twitter: “Should journalists vote in the primaries? Go.” A ratio to remember!

— Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused NPR journalist Mary Louise Kelly of lying about the nature of an interview, implying she had agreed to stick to questions on Iran, but emails show Kelly never agreed to take anything off the table. Pompeo also accused her of lying by breaking an off-the-record agreement, but those don’t exactly extend to verbal abuse!