Good morning. 📉 Global stocks and U.S. market futures are down this morning amid ongoing coronavirus fears and concerns about the Senate's failure to pass an economic rescue package.

🇨🇦 Tokyo Watch: Canada and Australia said they will not send athletes to the 2020 Olympics if the games aren't delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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The Big Picture

Hollywood is frozen, but user-generated content is about to explode

Moving the Market: The coronavirus pandemic, which has forced hundreds of millions of people around the world into isolation and ground the entertainment industry to a halt, may catalyze a new golden age of user-generated content (UGC) as people spend more time communicating, consuming and creating online.

• The big picture: Housebound consumers are driving up demand for in-home entertainment at the exact same time that traditional supply chains (film and television production, live sports, etc.) are freezing up. Thanks to social media, this vacuum will largely be filled by the consumers themselves.

• "With so many people staying home, we're all going to see a lot more media consumption. More of the new content, if staying at home lasts months, and I think it will, will come from people and not studios over time," Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, tells me.

• These consumers — be they high school students on TikTok, influencers on Instagram or DIY experts on YouTube — will have more time than ever to create content. They'll also be creating it for a wider and more engaged audience.

What's next: The increased cultural importance of user-generated content will accelerate trends that have been taking place since the advent of social media: new innovations in storytelling, new content genres, new celebrities and influencers, etc.

• In an era of isolation, the most popular content may center on social experiences no longer available to people. For instance, Mosseri notes increased interest in "moments," whether that's live music performances via Instagram, churches that "go live on Facebook," or Twitter users who all decide to watch and discuss the same movie.

• The premium on collective, in-person experiences is likely to elevate a new kind of celebrity: the preacher who gives the sermon that goes viral; the science teacher who somehow makes quantum physics accessible; the Zoom friends whose inane weekly chat somehow becomes the hottest reality TV show.

"Seeing people come up with new and inventive ways of 'coming together' despite the fact that they need to remain physically distant is going to be really interesting," says Mosseri.

It may also become appointment viewing.

🖥 Virtual Hang 🖥

As physical distancing ordinances have forced more people to stay home and avoid groups, virtual hangouts are all the rage.

• Zoom, the video-communication platform, has seen its stock price soar as the broader market has plunged. Downloads of Snapchat's video filter desktop app are up over 10 times the usual rate.

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Combatting Coronavirus

Big Tech steps up its response

Big in the Bay: "The tech industry is mobilizing its considerable resources to attempt to support efforts against the growing global coronavirus pandemic," TechCrunch's Darrell Etherington writes.

• The big picture: "No one company is going to solve a challenge like this alone, and it’s going to take the private and public sectors working together to turn the tide on COVID-19," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella writes.

The efforts: Nadella is donating 15,000 protection goggles, infrared thermometers, medical caps and protective suits. Microsoft is also working on telehealth software, data sets and projects like a global COVID-19 confirmed case tracker.

• Tim Cook says Apple is donating "millions of masks for health professionals in the US and Europe"; Facebook has given at least 700,000 masks and wants to give "millions" more; Elon Musk has offered to use his Tesla factory to make ventilators. And so on.

What's next: "We are in uncharted territory," Nadella says.

Market Links

• Mark Zuckerberg cuts video quality in Europe (Reuters)

• Ginni Rometty commits to COVID-19 research (CNN)

• Bob Chapek postpones the launch of Disney+ India (TC)

• Jimmy Pitaro will air WrestleMania events on ESPN (Variety)

• Alex Mather & Adam Hansmann drop freelancers (TBL)

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No Fox Given

Lachlan Murdoch goes AWOL

Moving Midtown: Fox Corporation chief Lachlan Murdoch could have stopped Fox News from airing "potentially lethal" misinformation about the coronavirus but was too distracted, NYT's Ben Smith writes in the latest edition of his media column.

• The big picture: Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan are responsible for "misleading and possibly harmful coverage" of coronavirus, as I wrote two weeks ago. Smith's reporting explains why: The Murdochs don't have their hands on the wheel.

Top lines:

• While some Fox News hosts were treating coronavirus as a partisan hoax, Lachlan "was focused instead on buying a streaming company called Tubi for $440 million."

• "Mr. Murdoch is likable and handsome. But even his allies told me they no longer think he has the political savvy or the operational skills his job demands."

• "People close to Lachlan Murdoch describe him as a laid-back executive who doesn’t spend his days watching Fox and is sometimes surprised to learn of a controversy it has generated."

What's next: "Fox is consumed by internal finger-pointing... [and] the finger-pointing extends to the very top."

📺 What's next: Fox Business has cut two more hours of its daily programming in response to the coronavirus outbreak. It's the kind of change that could soon be coming at other news networks.

See you tomorrow.