📅Context Collapse: The Weekender 02/09/24

Disney Rules Everything Around Me: CC #283

In This Issue: I Don’t Need To Piss On The Grammys… / It’s the right decision, one Gus Wenner and I made after many discussions about the direction of the brand / NBA In-Season Tournament Renamed 'NBA Cup' With Emirates As A Sponsor / Don't Touch That Dial: AM Car Radio Is Not Dead Yet / Disney Takes A $1.5B Stake In Epic Games To Build An ‘Entertainment Universe’ With Fortnite / We Need A Free Press. Do We Need The Free Press? / ESPN, Fox And Warner Bros. Discovery To Form Sports Streaming Service Venture / The Collapse of Hollywood.

Photo by Zuyet Awarmatik on Unsplash

Welcome to Context Collapse, the world’s best comms newsletter. I’m Neal Ungerleider. I run Ungerleider Works and used to work as a reporter for Fast Company, write op-eds for the LA Times, and work as a senior copywriter for R/GA. This newsletter helps readers navigate the weird new world of media and gleefully ignores all the conventional wisdom about journalism, public relations, marketing, and advertising.

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Each weekend I publish a collection of links and stray ideas I think my readers should know about. They aren’t necessarily the best-known pieces of industry news but they’re the things you should be thinking about. Especially if you want to make more money or have more impact on the culture.

One quick note. The Super Bowl is this Sunday and yes, it’s the most important day in the global advertising industry. No, I won’t write about it ahead of time or livetweet it or anything like that this year.

My son is five years old and finally old enough to understand both football and why mommy and daddy work in advertising and talk about hero images and agencies of record a lot. Super Bowl Sunday is for explaining both football and television advertising to the kiddo—crucial lessons both.

Now on to the links.

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“I Don’t Need To Piss On The Grammys…” “You could resist everything on the show tonight.

Except, of course, “Fast Car.” But that’s from 1988.

And the guy who signed her, Brian Koppelman, is now famous for “Billions,” he left music behind. And that tells you everything you need to know. The zeitgeist is contained in streaming TV, where they tell stories that inform and titillate and surprise us. Every time I get together with people they want to talk streaming TV, not music. Even youngsters.”

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“It’s the right decision, one Gus Wenner and I made after many discussions about the direction of the brand”:

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NBA In-Season Tournament Renamed 'NBA Cup' With Emirates As A Sponsor: “The NBA's in-season tournament is no longer the In-Season Tournament. Going forward, it will be called the NBA Cup, the league announced Thursday, and it will be sponsored by airline Emirates.

The name of the trophy won by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first iteration of the tournament two months ago will not change. Next season, the winners of the second annual NBA Cup will hoist the NBA Cup.”

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Don't Touch That Dial: AM Car Radio Is Not Dead Yet: “There is also a contingent of lawmakers who believe that eliminating AM radio capability is an attempt to cut down on the reach of talk radio. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas previously declared his opinion that preserving AM radio capability is akin to protecting free speech.

The arguments against forcing automakers to include broadcast AM radio capability is largely the cost that such would add to each vehicle. There are also those who see the Act as big government meddling. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky vetoed a push to approve the bill under unanimous consent in December of last year, saying, "Mandating that all cars have AM radio is antithetical to any notion of limited government."“

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Disney Takes A $1.5B Stake In Epic Games To Build An ‘Entertainment Universe’ With Fortnite: “Epic and Disney announced today that the companies will partner on an “all-new games and entertainment universe” that will bring characters from Disney’s deep catalogue to life through a tie-in with Fortnite. Disney will take a $1.5 billion equity stake in Epic Games as part of the deal.

The scope of the project sounds massive, to say the least. In a press release, the companies described the forthcoming project as “an all-new games and entertainment universe” offering players a way to “play, watch, shop and engage with” characters and storylines from Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and others. The collaboration will use Epic’s Unreal Engine and plans to be “interoperable” with Fortnite.”

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We Need A Free Press. Do We Need The Free Press?: “The trouble with The Free Press surfaces when you stop judging it as a corrective to blind spots in the progressive worldview and begin judging it as a worldview in and of itself. While it bills itself as merely a throwback to the abandoned creed of objective reporting —“built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of American journalism” — The Free Press does have a worldview. It reflects the frustrations of college-educated moderates, disproportionately Jewish, in big cities and other enclaves of progressive America. But those frustrations, while often grounded in reality, ignore the vast swaths of reality outside blue America.”

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ESPN, Fox And Warner Bros. Discovery To Form Sports Streaming Service Venture: “Three of the biggest sports TV companies in the U.S. are creating a joint streaming venture with all of their linear sports TV content, the firms announced Tuesday. Why it matters: The new service is intended to reach sports fans ditching pricey cable bundles. Each company — ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery — will own one-third of the venture, and they'll need to select a management team, branding and pricing.”

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The Collapse of Hollywood: “Look at this way; pretty much everyone between you and your intended audience is some kind of salesperson; agents and managers, producers, sales agents, executives, commissioners, marketing and PR people... Everyone is trying to sell this thing you've created to the next person in line, that's how the industry works. At its core, it’s a sales business. Not creative. Try to get that into your head.”

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