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December 17, 2019 | Hollywood 
Good morning. 🎙️ Market Scoop: Veteran NBC Sports broadcaster Bob Costas is in talks with CNN to create a new show, sources familiar tell me. Costas left NBC earlier this year.
• The show may air on HBO Max, WarnerMedia's forthcoming streaming service, one source said. CNN, WarnerMedia and Costas' agent did not comment.
Ernesto S. Ruscio/Getty The Streaming Wars Reed Hastings goes global
Moving the Market: Reed Hastings is revealing new data about Netflix's global subscriber base and its overseas expansion, a bid to ease concerns over slowing growth in the U.S. and new competition from the likes of Disney and AT&T.
• The big picture: Netflix's success depends on sustained growth, which is more or less over in the U.S. So Hastings is asking Wall Street to overlook the domestic headwinds and focus on emerging markets.
• Top takeaways: More than 90% of Netflix's growth is international. It has grown by more than 200% in the Asia-Pacific region and more than 140% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa since March 2017.
Total subscribers
U.S. & Canada
Europe, Middle East & Africa
Latin America
Asia-Pacific
What's next: "Netflix altogether is slowing down," NYT's Ed Lee writes. "Asia, Latin America and Europe are also easing up, and Netflix appears to be on a pace to bring in fewer new subscribers this year than it did last year."
• Bonus thought bubble: Last month, Hastings offered a very candid defense of Netflix's decision to appease the Saudi kingdom: "We're not trying to do truth to power." The remark now seems less like a gaffe and more like a wink to foreign partners.
Ernesto S. Ruscio/Getty The Ad Game Netflix plays for brands
Talk of Tinseltown: NYT's Tiffany Hsu notes that Netflix is "finding ways to work with brands" despite its resistance to traditional advertising. That includes a campaign with Subway to sell a sandwich tied to the new series "Green Eggs and Ham," based on the Dr. Seuss book.
• The big picture: Without ads, Netflix's only revenue stream is subscriptions. And while it may have 158 million global subscribers, as Hsu notes, "it also has a $12 billion pile of debt."
🇺🇸 Talk of the Trail 🇺🇸
Bay for Buttigieg: Reed Hastings and other members of the Silicon Valley elite hosted a fundraiser for Pete Buttigieg yesterday in Palo Alto, Recode's Teddy Schleifer reports.
• The big picture: Silicon Valley is embracing Buttigieg, and vice versa.
The Washington Post/Getty Election 2020 🇺🇸 Twitter is not America, con't.
Big in Dubuque: Back in March, just as the Democratic primary was getting underway, Snapchat's Peter Hamby wrote a smart piece for Vanity Fair urging the candidates to "stop listening to Twitter" — with its fleeting obsessions and outrages — and instead focus on voters.
• One month later, The Upshot's Nate Cohn and Kevin Quealy published a smart piece titled "The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Actual Democratic Electorate," with data showing a vast disparity between the interests of Democrats and the interests of Democrats on Twitter.
• Now, in yet another smart piece, NYT Magazine's Charles Homans writes about how Pete Buttigieg is being beat up on "left Twitter," while "offline, in Iowa and New Hampshire, he is gaining in the polls, at the expense of an online-left favorite, [Elizabeth] Warren."
The big picture: Twitter is not America.
Market Links
• Sundar Pichai faces the content moderator problem (Verge)
• Adam Mosseri talks about how he navigates chaos (DDD)
• Jim Bankoff will cut hundreds of Vox Media freelancers (CNBC)
• Jim VandeHei raises another $20 million for Axios (Recode)
• Stuart Emmrich will become Vogue.com's first editor (WWD)
Bloomberg/Getty The Home Front Brian Roberts ups Jeff Shell
Talk of 30 Rock: Brian Roberts has formally announced the leadership change that we reported on last week: NBCUniversal chief Steve Burke will step down at the end of the year, making way for Jeff Shell to run the media and entertainment conglomerate.
• The big picture, via my colleague Jason Abbruzzese: "Shell will take over a company in transition, most notably as entertainment companies move to take on competitors from the tech industry."
What's next: Shell will become CEO in Jan. 1. "Peacock," the NBCUniversal streaming service, launches in April. The 2020 Summer Olympics, a major event for NBC's broadcast and sports operations, kick off on July 24.
Stan Badz/Getty The Sporting Life Jay Monahan strikes PGA deal
Talk of TV Land: PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan has reached tentative deals with CBS and NBC "that will see the PGA Tour reap a sizable rights fee increase of around 60 percent," SBJ's John Ourand reports. The deal "has the potential to reset the sports rights marketplace."
• The deals "will run for nine years from 2022-2030. By early estimates, it’s likely that the PGA Tour could bring around $700 million per year ... compared to its current deals that were worth around $400 million."
• "CBS and NBC essentially will keep the same regular-season packages. The big difference will be... the FedEx Cup Playoffs. CBS and NBC will produce all three playoff tournaments, including the Tour Championship, in alternating years."
What's next: "An official announcement is not expected to come until early next year. The big hold-up is with digital rights, which are currently held by NBC Sports as part of PGA Tour Live and are still being negotiated.
• "ESPN has made an aggressive play for the rights [for ESPN+] ... Discovery also has emerged as a serious contender. ... After initial interest, it appears that Amazon has dropped out of the bidding."
The big picture: "Monahan ... has secured healthy rights-fee increases and will keep his sport on broadcast TV, ensuring the widest possible audience. ... CBS and NBC also emerge as winners, keeping rights to a property that generated a lot of interest among media companies."
• The other big picture: "The deal answers a lot of questions about the new ViacomCBS. ... Coming on the heels of its UEFA Champions League deal... [it] shows that CBS will be aggressive in getting sports rights."
⛳ What's next: Big in the golf world: CBS Sports producer Lance Barrow is the latest casualty of the network's effort to overhaul its golf broadcast.
See you tomorrow.
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