Number Crunch

$10 billion: That’s how much the American film and TV industry stands to gain in annual revenues, a 7% increase from the baseline, by addressing racial inequities prevalent in the industry, according to a recent study by the consultancy McKinsey, and reported in Deadline.

The McKinsey study found that Black-led film and TV projects are consistently underfunded and undervalued even though they tend to outperform other projects when it comes to returns on investment. …

When Nick Jones, the founder of Soho House, the chain of swank private member clubs, began plotting his invasion of Hong Kong more than a decade ago, he never could have predicted how bad the timing of its actual debut would be. The city, a former colony of the British Crown, was home to a booming economy, and a thriving urban creative elite — the type to which the London-based club has long catered. Meanwhile, the 50-year “one country, two systems” deal under which Great Britain had transferred sovereignty back to China wasn’t set to expire until 2047.

By the…

Over the past few months, the popularity of Clubhouse, the invite-only, live-audio app, has reached a fever pitch, exploding to 2 million users and reaching a $1 billion valuation in January. The social media platform has proven to be a thriving microcosm for a certain set of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and celebrity influencers, like Elon Musk.

But long before Musk arrived on the scene, as Keith Nelson Jr writes in LEVEL, Black power and influence was at work and held an outsized role in getting Clubhouse off the ground. …

Number Crunch

17.1 million: That’s how many viewers tuned into Oprah’s two-hour interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on CBS last Sunday, according to preliminary data from Nielsen, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

In the bombshell interview, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared additional context surrounding their departure from the British monarchy last year. Markle also painted a disturbing picture of racism directed at her and her unborn child when she was pregnant with her son, Archie.

For exclusive rights to air the tell-all, CBS struck a deal valued between $7 million and $9 million with Oprah’s production…

The world of online fashion has been going through the same reckoning with white supremacist conspiracy theories as the rest of the internet. Platforms such as Etsy and CafePress were skewered shortly after the January 6 insurrection for hosting merchandise celebrating the event, which caused them to scramble to take some of the incendiary content down. If you type “QAnon” into sites such as Zazzle or Etsy, you will not get any hits, except for maybe a parody “QaNOPE” T-shirt.

This more aggressive posturing, however, has not rid these platforms of conspiracy theory merch. With minimal effort, you can still…

Number Crunch

62%: That was the drop in Golden Globes viewers on Sunday compared to last year, according to Nielsen ratings reported on by the New York Times.

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen ratings drop for live TV events like the presidential debates (the first one was down 13% compared to the first Clinton-Trump debate four years prior) and the Super Bowl (down 15% in 2021 compared to 2020). But last Sunday’s Golden Globes, which pulled in only 6.9 million viewers, saw a far steeper plunge, pulling in less than half its 2020 audience and its smallest audience since the TV and…

In summer 2019, Popeyes fired the first shot in the chicken sandwich war, going after chicken king Chick-fil-A and vowing to take no prisoners. After just two weeks, the first battle reports were in: The Popeyes sandwich was a runaway hit. Straight out of the gate, Popeyes had grabbed more than 30% of the already-competitive chicken sandwich market, announcing it had plumb sold out due to astronomical demand. People trying to get a grasp of this chicken sandwich mania blamed Chick-fil-A and its viral, decade-long growth into a 2,500-location phenomenon, surging past Wendy’s and Burger King in revenue. …

“Underestimating Elon is not a good idea,” Bill Gates said on Kara Swisher’s podcast the other day. But really, at this point, who is underestimating Elon Musk? The man is everywhere, influencing everything (or trying to). In addition to hyping his own companies, he’s chiming in on cryptocurrency and “Gamestonk,” interrogating the CEO of Robinhood (and putting Clubhouse on the map in the process), separately inviting both Kanye West and Vladimir Putin for another Clubhouse appearance, and even slamming the operator of Texas’ power grid. And that’s just the past couple of weeks.

It’s tempting to believe that we have…