NBCUni's Olympic Win

Plus: Liza Minnelli Outlives and Bumble Fumbles

Happy Monday! We’re already suffering from Olympic withdrawals as we await the arrival of this year’s Paralympic games. But first…

📡ON OUR RADAR

• Uber’s ad business just hit a $1 billion annual run rate, signaling a significant shift in how brands might allocate their ad budgets. With access to extensive user data and various ad formats, Uber is positioning itself to lead a revamped approach to D2C advertising.

• The Daily Beast interviewed Scott Gorenstein, the wizard behind X account LizaMinnelliOutlives’s curtain. Like the pop-culture turned breaking news accounts like Pop Crave and Pop Base, LizaOutlives has shifted how we consume news.

• Following years of explosive growth, the music streaming industry is experiencing a “hangover.” In an oversaturated market, music corporations are pivoting to determine what the next era of listening might look like— be it “superfan” offerings or a spike in vinyl sales.

💡ON OUR MINDS: NBCUni’s Olympic Win

• While the 2024 Summer Olympic Games have wrapped and most of the medals have been handed out, there’s still another victory worthy of recognition.

• For the first 13 days of this summer’s games, NBCUniversal averaged 32.2 million viewers across its TV and streaming platforms, reflecting an 87% uptick from the Tokyo games, breaking advertiser dollar records as well. 

• With special love from fans for a successful comprehensive daily streaming coverage on Peacock, the network benefitted from heightened consumer interest in sports and, of course, the United States walking away with the highest medal count this year. 

• It was predictable that the games would produce cultural moments and memes, and the network was ready to move on them, adapting coverage to lean into viral sensations like adding an on-screen countdown to Stephen Nedoroscik’s pommel horse routine.

• NBCUniversal’s wins here reflect the importance of building the proper infrastructure fine-tuned for an event of this magnitude, and as the streaming wars pick up, earn Peacock some much-needed brownie points. 

🥊QUICK HITS:

In case you missed these reads:

• The Harris-Walz campaign’s camo hat has reached nearly $2 million in sales. 

• Bumble slashed its annual revenue growth forecast from 8-11% to 1-2%, leaving investors concerned about its growth story and driving shares down 30%.

• Bloomberg reports that one of the jewels of the US National Park system, Yosemite, is deteriorating.