Happy Sunday! We hope you’re enjoying the Labor Day Weekend so far. While the box office is expected to be particularly sluggish over the break, at least the markets will get a three-day rest after a big earnings week. Today we’re looking at YouTube’s Oscars bid and the future of the great American box factory.
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MrBeast shouting his way through a 30-second opening monologue; legends of the silver screen making their way onstage to be presented with a statue by one of “the Nelk Boys”; a hastily edited mystery box giveaway section where the In Memoriam once ran. Could this be the Oscars on YouTube? We may find out in a few years.
Though The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been browsing for a new broadcasting outlet for its ceremony since March, a fresh contender recently emerged. According to Bloomberg reporting, YouTube has thrown its hat in the ring alongside Netflix and others to become the home of the Oscars from 2029 onwards, taking over from ABC, which has hosted the show for almost five decades.
However, considering that YouTube has now been the biggest thing on American TVs for six months straight, the deal might not be as crazy as it first may sound — especially since we just don’t watch TV in the same way we used to. Indeed, mega formats and mainstays like sitcoms and late-night talk shows are struggling to attract the audiences they once did on linear television.
Still, while YouTube has gone from strength to strength in recent years, appetite for Oscars content on the platform hasn’t tracked in the same direction. |
Interestingly, the 2014 show, where host Ellen Degeneres took one of the most retweeted photos of all time, was also when YouTube search interest in the Oscars peaked. The climbdown since that point suggests that Alphabet’s video-sharing giant will have work to do to rally its native audience around the ceremony if it can secure the rights post-2028.
With that factor and others in mind, does a new deal to bring Hollywood’s biggest awards show into the fold actually make sense for YouTube in the current landscape? Read the full story online: Could YouTube really be the answer to the Oscars viewership problem? |
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Other great stories from the week |
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Cardboard box makers in the US have announced plans to shutter, in aggregate, about 9% of their production capacity this year. The sharp reductions will put roughly 2,500 people out of work in an industry that, because of the cardboard box’s ubiquity in shipping, sometimes serves as something of a bellwether for large swaths of the US economy.
The capacity reductions offer a glimpse into the way the Trump administration’s push for tariffs continues to ripple through the US economy, even in industries that face little foreign competition. That’s because a lot of American boxes — about 10-15% of the US industry’s capacity, according to Barclays analysts — are used to send US exports abroad.
However, utilization rates (essentially how much a factory is producing versus what it could produce if it were running full blast) could see these recent closures provide an opportunity for traders who might be looking for stocks with some potential profit upside — which is why, despite tariff trouble and factory closures, these stocks still aren’t cheap. |
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