The Best One Yet - BONUS 🤩 “The Entertainment Pod” — Our Best Entertainment stories yet of 2023

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

A bonus episode featuring 3 of our top pop-biz news stories from 2023 on the entertainment industry. So toss on some PJs, hit the couch, and grab the 7 different screens around you, let’s hit our entertainment pod…1) The Lion King, from January 6th: Disney’s Lion King Musical set a Broadway Record — Because on Broadway you can’t make a living, but you can make a killing.2) iMessi (7/18): Lionel Messi came to America to play soccer, but the real winner was Apple — We call it iMessi.3) Spotify Songs (9/21): Have you noticed that songs are getting shorter? Cause they are — The average song is literally shorter, cause artists don’t just play for fans, they play for algos.Subscribe to our newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletterWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on Youtube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. And today's entertainment pod is the best one yet. It's amazing. T-Boy is the top three pop business news stories you need to know today. But this year-end bonus episode is our top three entertainment stories from 2023. And if you've got a buddy in music, movies, or the media industry, you've got to share this episode with them. Ladies, if they're an actor, a journalist, or a PM over at Snapchat, just slide this pod into their DMs.

And if you show us you shared, you'll be entered. to win a free kit of T-Boy merch and two tickets to a live show next year. In the meantime, Jack, I got the mascara. I got the blush. You're looking fantastic over there. First stories for today's entertainment pod. What do we got?

For our first story, it's the Lion King from January 6th. Disney's Lion King musical set a Broadway record. Because on Broadway, you can't make a living, but you can make a killing. For our second story, it's I-Messie from July. Lionel Messi came to America to play soccer, but the real winner was Apple. We call it I-Messy.

For our third and final story, it's Spotify from September 21st. Have you noticed songs are getting shorter on Spotify? Because they are. The average song is literally shorter. Because artists don't just play for fans. Artists play for algorithms. But Yeties, before we hit that fantastic mix of stories. That is just a wild mix of stories, Jack.

This is Jack, that's Nick, and we're both in the media industry. Full disclosure. We never thought we'd be in media, didn't we? Jack, like, did you ever think that? But we kind of love it. It's a great career. Honestly, what makes media is such a fun industry to begin is that it's such a hard industry to defy. I actually kind of hate the words media and content because they're so annoyingly vague. Yeah, like together they all cover TV and YouTube and singing and dancing and Broadway and streamers, all that stuff. If you watch it, it's content. And if it's content, it's media. But Nick and I think there's a better word,

entertainment. Entertainment. It's more entertaining. Literally. And we cover. And we cover enough entertainment stories this year? I don't know, to win some kind of award. Let's say an Emmy, Jack. We'll take the Emmy. Well, we'll accept. First, the Mario Brothers set a box office movie record. And then Barbie and Oppenheimer set a new box office movie record. And then NASA launched a streaming channel called NASA Plus. We now have subscriptions to a NASA movie channel. What is going on, Jack? 2023. Well, who could forget Mr. Beast, the king of YouTube launching a burger chain? Mr. Beast Burger. And then we looked at the business model of late night talk show TV.

James Gordon stepped down and what have we learned about late night TV, Jack? They're not that profitable anymore. And we looked at Saturday Night Live's brand new growth act. SNL's Instagram is bigger than Saturday Night Live on TV. Netflix opened its first mini theme parks. And Disney's not mini theme parks hit record high profits. HBO totally rebranded as Max. And Twitter totally rebranded to X.

But Sesame Street, they're still kicking it, aren't they, Jack? And for the fourth straight year, TikTok did not. not get banned. Congratulations, TikTok. So yet, he's, toss on some PJs and grab a screener tale. Join us on this media journey. Let's jump into our three favorite entertainment stories of 2023. And action.

Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that cost of culture. 50%. That's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more.

So just start. Start the show. For our first story, it's the Lion King musical. This story is from January 6th. The booming business of 2023 so far? It's actually the Lion King musical. So we're looking at the economics of Broadway. There is only one way you and I can kick off this story.

Push and play. Come after us, Disney lawyers. Oh, the Lion King. The movie came out in 1994, great year with James Earl Jones dominating as Mufasa. Yes, and that's when Nathan Lane taught us what a mere cat was. Jack, you are not a millennial unless you've had like recurring nightmares about those hyenas. Ed. Ed is such a great hyena.

I got to be honest, Rafiki, a little scary too sometimes. I kind of love Rafiki, actually. He's a great guy, but he's kind of intense. Well, yet he's the Lion King Musical. The musical was created a few years later, and it's living on like Elton John. Get this. Between Christmas and New Year's of last year, Broadway, had one of its best weeks of ticket sales in the history of live performances. $50 million of ticket sales.

Okuna Matata money. That's what we're talking about. By the way, Broadway draws 14 million people per year. That's a lot of people. That's more people than New York City's professional sports teams combined. Madison Square Garden. How do you like them apples? Last week, Harry Potter and the Curse Child passed $2 million for the first time in a week. Last week, Chicago of the Music. had its best week in 26 years.

Last week, Carol King, the musical, was crushing it. Yeah, because Baby Boomers just apparently love that musical. But the star over the holidays on Broadway was Simba, Nala, Pumba, Timoan, and maybe Rafiki, too. The Lion King Musical brought in a whopping $4.3 million in just seven days. 4.3 million dollars in ticket sales. It's the best week of sales for any show in Broadway history, edging out Hamilton from before the pandemic. Jack, have you seen this musical, by the way? No. Okay. It is like, it is

every single mask in that show is like a life-size Picasso. I heard humans like are somehow giraffes and going up and down the aisles. It's an engineering marvel. Yeah, it's really good. It's really good. I got to see this. But since we can't get tickets right now, Jack and I jumped

in T-boy style and we noticed the Lion King is actually the only publicly traded Broadway show. That's right. Just like the movie back in 1994, this Play is still 100% owned by Disney. And here's what we find fascinating. Disney has figured out how to scale the musical business model.

Disney has made nearly $2 billion in ticket sales on the Lion King in the 26 years it's been on Broadway. And that's because the Lion King, unlike any other show, simultaneously plays in nine different cities at once with nine different productions. 115,000 people can see this show weekly. Now we know what you're thinking, Yeties. Yeah, 10 times more people could probably see the Lion King musical if it were streamed on Disney Plus. But viewers paid 10 times the price to watch it live in theater.

That's what we call the Circle of Life. The average ticket for last week's The Lion King was $300 on Broadway. That's why the Lion King is the highest grossing show in Broadway history. So when you hear these huge numbers, you're probably thinking, uh, Broadway musicals, they must be profit puppies. False. Yeah. Broadway is actually one of the riskiest business ventures we've ever heard of. So James Earl Jones, what's the takeaway for our buddies over on Broadway? You can't make a living, but you can make a killing.

Yeties, get this. Only 20% of musicals on Broadway make a profit. It's like one of the riskiest business ventures we've ever seen. 80% fail. Yeah. Yes, the ticket revenues are high, but so are the costs of a Broadway production. According to The Hustle, to launch a musical on Broadway requires, on average, $15 million just in upfront costs. But unlike other industries, there aren't economies of scale with live theatrical performances. So the performance doesn't get cheaper the more you perform it.

The cost just stay the same. And if you want to do a second production, you have to pay double the costs. It doesn't scale like tech does. You've got equipment and marketing and rent you got to pay. That's over $2 million in operating costs every single. week. Oh, and if the show can't make $2 million in ticket sales in the first two weeks, the show gets canceled. Yeah, the show does not go on, apparently. And then, if it gets canceled, you lost that entire $15 million up front investment. So the way Jack and I see it, clearly investors do musicals

for the passion, because it's actually one of the riskiest ventures we've ever seen. Simba, someday everything the light touches will be yours. For our second story, it's I'm messy. Nick, take us back to July 18th. Leonel Messi, the world's greatest soccer player is officially an American soccer player right now. It says he plays for Inter-Miam. But Leonel Messi really plays for Apple. Coach Tim Cook would like to have a word. Yet he's Lionel Messi. The biggest athlete in the planet, the most followers on Instagram. He won the World Cup last year.

Keep going, Jack. I love what you're putting out. What else we got on this guy? He turned down $500 million from Saudi Arabia to play in the United States instead. Now, the last time Jack and I had talked to you about Lino Messey, we talked about how Lino Messey took the most unconventional deal we'd ever seen. Instead of $500 million, Saudi dollars, Lino took equity over cash. He took upside for this Argentine. Here's what happened. Messi is getting paid by Inter-Miamy soccer club to play soccer for Miami.

But he's also going to get paid by Apple, and he's going to get paid by Adidas. Oh, not too shabby. And on Sunday, Messi arrived in Miami, held up a pink number 10 jersey and officially became America's biggest soccer player. By the way, for a pink podcast,

we should point this out. This team in Miami is the only men's professional team in the United States to have pink as one of their colors. Yeah, they're slamming salmon from foot to head. And the first match for Inter Miami with Lionel Messi, tickets are going as high as $110,000. $10,000, Jack, we even seen that kind of money for a ticket since actually Taylor Swift

last weekend. It's like tomorrow. It's actually cheap. But yet he's, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. The real story isn't actually Leonel Messi. The real story is actually Apple. You don't think of Apple as a streamer or as a sports company for that matter. Not really.

Not really, Jack. When we look at the revenues, it's not, that's not the focus for the company. But Apple has the exclusive streaming rights to the number one sport in the world. world in the number one biggest TV market in the world. Because Yetis, let's bring along some context here. This is year one of Apple's 10-year deal to stream every single major league soccer game. If you want to watch Leo Messi on Friday night, you can pay $110,000 to watch them in person in the stadium.

Oh, must be nice. Or you can pay like 30 bucks to watch them on the Apple TV app. Yeah, we'll take the latter. Now, this is key, Yetis. Leonel Messi doesn't just boost the prospects for this club, Inter Miami. He also boosts the prospects for the entire Major League soccer. And that is why Apple sweeten this here deal to bring Messi to America to play soccer. Apple wants MLS to blow up.

So Apple is giving a cut of each new subscriber to Apple's MLS pass to Lionel Messi. Apple just bent the financials like Beckham. Probably like a dollar of every subscriber goes to Messi, not just to Apple. So the way Jack and I see it, as much as Messi is playing for the team in Miami, he's also playing for the team in Cupertino known as Apple. I think Messi's on the Apple org chart. Like, seriously.

They've got engineers and then they've got a roster that includes Messi. He's vice president of a goal scoring. If you need help with your iPad, you can see Messi at an Apple store. Oh, and yet these sports are becoming the centerpiece of every streaming business strategy. We've noticed that in the streaming wars, the battlefield is really the playing field.

Amazon has Thursday Night Football Now. Apple has the other football now. Yeah, that's why. they went after Messi. So Jack, what's the takeaway for everyone in the streaming wars? The Lasso Way. Apple's master plan to make Americans love soccer. Ladies, Jack and I are feeling like we're experiencing a master plan, a master plan that is playing out to perfection. Three years ago, Apple debuted Ted Lasso season one on streaming on Apple TV Plus. A classic tale of an American with a mustache who knew nothing about soccer or about coaching soccer.

Well, two years ago, Apple bought the streaming rights to a America's Soccer League for $2.5 billion. Just as Ted Lassau was winning American hearts and winning Apple Emmys. And today, MLS has the number one athlete in the world, and you can only watch it on Apple TV. That's why we're calling it the Lassau Way. Apple's master plan to make America love soccer. And then make a heck of a profit doing it. For our third and final story, it's Spotify Songs.

This one's from September 21st. Yes, Yeties. Yes. Today's music is shorter than the music from the past. Yep. Spotify and music streaming have literally changed the sound of music. Call Captain Von Trapp. The Hills are alive.

The hills are alive. With shorter music, Jack. But Jack, to hit this story properly, can we travel back in time? 1972, way before we were born. In 1972, The Temptations won three Grammys and had the Billboard number one with this track. What was it? Popple was a Rolling Stone. We would play it for you, Bessie.

but we'd get sued. Now, here's the interesting thing about that track. It's seven minutes long. That's pretty long. But what was also crazy about that song is there wasn't a single word until a minute and 57 seconds into the track. It took them two minutes before they started speaking.

It was just like guitars, drums, horns, and a whole lot of funk for two minutes in the song. It was still a fantastic track. Nick and I were listening to it before the show. We love this song. But that top song from 50 years ago would never get produced today. And why is that, Jack?

Because today, the average song has shrank down to under four minutes. Can you sprinkle on a little more context, yeah? That's down 30 seconds from the year 2000. Get this, Yeties. Let's look at Beyonce's cuff it. Three minutes and 50 seconds. Ed Shearin's afterglow. Three minutes and 19 seconds.

Olivia Rodriguez's masterpiece, bad idea. These hit songs are short. That one's just three minutes and 10 seconds. Yeties, nearly two out of three songs that hit number one in 2021 were less than three minutes long. That is really short. That's not a song. That's a paragraph. That's a song that starts with a two at the beginning.

Really short song. That's awkward. So we got to ask the question, why are artists shortening their songs? And what is the answer, Jack? The Spotify algorithm. Yetis, the business model of streaming has literally changed the beat. According to Wall Street Journal reporting, streaming platforms punish and reward songs depending on two key metrics.

Okay, okay, here's the first metric. It's called the skip rate. And that's how often people skip to the next song within the first 30 seconds. So if you're listening to a track for only 29 seconds before pushing next, then that counts as a skip and the artist doesn't get paid. If you listen for 29 and a half seconds, they don't round up. That's a skip too. So Spotify will not recommend that song.

Only if the song is listened to for 30 seconds, does it count as a play and does the artist get paid. And here's where things get kind of funky yeties. That phenomenon has caused musicians to move the best part of the song. Yeah. The chorus. The chorus, best part. Up into the first 30 seconds to get you to keep listening.

To make you listen to the first 30 seconds so they get paid, they've moved the chorus into the first 30 seconds. So Ed Sheeran is serenating us with an afterglow chorus 20 seconds into the song. It's like, whoa, that was quick. And our buddy, Olivia Rodriguez, is dropping a vocal climax like in the intro beat. So the 30 second skip rate rule is one reason music is shorter today. Okay, but there's another one, isn't there, Jack? The other reason is non-complete hers. Okay, here's what that is, Yetis.

If you don't listen to an entire track, then Spotify actually punishes the artist. So artists are just finishing early. They're ending before you had the chance to push scary. For example, Whitney Houston? Yeah, I will always love you. Yeah, sorry, I will always love you. Yeah, let's get right to it, Whitney. Jack, take it to the bridge.

What is the takeaway for our buddies over at Spotify? And all streaming. Artists don't just play for fans. They have to play for algorithms too. Here's the crazy thing, besties. It's not just musicians who are changing their music, their content to score points with an algorithm. It's all digital content, whose viewership depends on an algorithm. For example, have you noticed those long dinner recipes you read online when you're just trying to make a meal? How long does it take to bake a chicken? You have to read 2,000 words before you get the answer.

The recipes are long because that's what wins Google's search algorithm. Or, have you checked out YouTube recently? Yeah. The crazy face of the host on the thumbnail? Well, those faces are crazy by creators because they want to satisfy YouTube's algorithm. Now, tech platforms would argue that their algorithms reflect what consumers want based on what consumers are clicking, viewing, and their watch time. But Jack and I don't remember filling out any surveys about wanting two-minute and ten-second songs. No, I don't want a two-minute ten-second song. Yeties, the temptations, they could afford seven minutes of funk back in the day.

But artists today can't because they are playing for the algorithm too. Now time for the best fact yet. This one whipped up by Jack and me. Jack, what do we got? Our favorite kind of best fact yet, a trivia question. This is such a good trivia one. You want to kick it off, man? What's the most watched YouTube video in 2023?

Here's a hint. It's the same video as last year. And the same video as the year before that and the year before that. Besties, the most watched YouTube video of this year is Baby Shark Dance. Baby Shark Dance because you don't watch that. video wants. You watch it till you go crazy, Jack. And you actually don't watch it at all. You plug your ears while your kids watch it over and over and over. We'd play you a clip, but first

they would sue us because they'd make a lot of money. And second, you would not tune in for tomorrow's podcast. You'd sue us too. Oh, baby shark. It is a full body experience. Jack, this song lives in your head, but not rent free. It charges you rent, man. Yeties, you looked fantastic for our bonus entertainment pod. Jack, what is the best thing to do if you enjoyed today's podcast? You gotta share this episode with your buddy who works in media. Yeties, call up your agent and give him this episode. Are you not entertained?

If they're not entertained, they should listen to this episode. And if you show us that you shared the episode, you'll be entered to win a free kid of T-boy merch and two tickets to a T-boy Live show. Now that is some content. media jack now that's entertainment and scene nick and i will see you next week i already said and seen you're saying and seen