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Happy Thursday, FutureParty people. In the run-up to this weekend’s release of Bleecker Street’s Sasquatch Sunset — the comedy in which Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough play grunting Bigfoots — Eisenberg hosted a special screening for a group of bonobos. Yes, chimpanzees were shown a movie. The screening, organized by the Ape Initiative in Des Moines, Iowa, apparently was a big hit with the primates. How’s that for a focus group?
In other news… NBCU gets Olympics-ready, American bars serve up good audio, and Sundance may be looking for a new home.
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YouTube – Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics
X
(Twitter)– Quentin Tarantino cancels The Movie CriticGoogle – Caitlin Clark’s pro salary
Reddit – Brian Cox vs. Joaquin Phoenix
Spotify – “Love You Better” - St. Lucia
.SPORTS.
Cameras on // Illustration by Kate Walker
Paris prepares to turn the Olympics into a showstopper
The Future. NBCUniversal is giving its long-running Olympics coverage a major modern overhaul for the Paris edition, including it being the first time that the event will be shown in its entirety on both broadcast and streaming. Considering the record viewership for the Super Bowl after Paramount Global simulcast it on Paramount+, it’s possible that the Paris Olympics will be a ratings juggernaut and drive record signups for Peacock.
World class
NBCU is getting experimental for its 7,000 hours of Olympics coverage that will run from July 26th through August 11th.
It’s tapped celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, Carrie Underwood, Snoop Dogg, Peyton Manning, and Call Her Daddy podcaster Alex Cooper to provide coverage and commentary during the games and opening and closing ceremonies.
On Peacock, NBCU will show events both in real time and via a primetime highlights show, which will include interactive stats, athlete profiles, and other digital features.
What’s sure to go viral are live stats of heart-rate monitors given to parents of competing athletes during their events. (They’ve already been a hit with test audiences.)
NBCU is pulling out all the stops for the Olympics not just because the company has $1.2 billion in ad-revenue commitments but also because the Paris games are a dry run for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles — the first stateside games since 2002. That event could end up being the biggest moneymaker in NBCU history…
…but only if the changes made for Paris go off without a hitch.
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Would you go to a listening bar?
53.2% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Are you into wellness experiences?
“If only I could, well, necessarily afford them!”
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Media, Music, & Entertainment
Sundance announced that it’s officially accepting pitches for a new host city beginning with its 2027 festival… which may likely be a bargaining chip to get a better deal with its longtime home, Park City, Utah. [Read More]
The WNBA Draft scored a record-high audience of 2.5 million viewers thanks to the fever around rookie superstars like Indiana’s Caitlin Clark. [Read More]
Lionsgate’s deal with SPAC Screaming Eagle to split its movie and TV studio from Starz got the green light from the SEC, paving the way for a May listing on the NASDAQ. [Read More]
Fashion & E-Commerce
Amazon may be scaling back its cashier-less “Just Walk Out” tech in its own stores, but it’s increasing sales of the tech to other retailers. [Read More]
The FTC may move to block the $8.5 billion merger between Coach-owner Tapestry and Michael Kors-parent Capri Holdings. [Read More]
Perfumes and cosmetics are helping LVMH keep revenue up during a luxury fashion slowdown. [Read More]
Tech, Web3, & AI
a16z raised a whopping $7.2 billion to start its next era of startup investing — this time focused on the AI industry. [Read More]
Mentee Robotics unveiled a humanoid robot that can listen to natural language commands like “please do the dishes.” [Read More]
Snap will start watermarking AI-generated images on its platform with its ghost logo… but only if the image is saved or exported. [Read More]
Creator Economy
Funding for creator economy startups is on the upswing for the first time in two years, doubling to $341 million in Q1 2024 alone. [Read More]
TikTok has rolled out its Instagram competitor, TikTok Notes, to users in Canada and Australia. [Read More]
T-Series, an Indian record label that has the most-subscribed YouTube channel in the world, launched a campaign to keep MrBeast from surpassing it. [Read More]
.FOOD & DRINK.
Alcohol and audio // Illustration by Kate Walker
Bars start to serve high-end sound
The Future. A new wave of American establishments are taking notes from Japan’s jazz kissa (cafes), outfitting their locations with high-end sound systems and great acoustics to wash diners in music. The popularity of these restaurants could create a fascinating new way for artists to launch new or remastered albums.
Five-star audio
The hottest new trend in dining may be giving your ears something delicious.
Bars like Continental in Nashville, Shibuya in Seattle, and Tokyo Listening Room in NYC are serving shareable bites and cocktails that don’t need to be mixed loudly, while playing some of the best-sounding music you’ve ever heard.
The effect naturally has people talking less, choosing instead to eat and drink in silence to enjoy a full album — it’s all about the vibe.
That’s not to say that patrons can’t talk — the best listening bars have such good acoustics that people can chat low to their friends and still be heard.
Listening bars have become so popular that a Yelp report found that online searches for them have shot up 306% in the past year alone, with as many as 75 locations already open in the US.
In other words, you may soon be checking the dining and sound system options on a Friday night.
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.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT NICE NEWS.
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Listen: The very funny SmartLess trio talk with the very funny Larry David about the end of the very funny Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Watch: WSJ details how the US is gearing up to protect the supply chain for AI chips made in Taiwan amid a possible invasion by China.
Read: The battle between the US Copyright Office and author Elisa Shupe, who “wrote” an autobiography using ChatGPT, highlights the headache of determining authorship in the age of AI.
Courtesy of Salone de Mobile
David Lynch’s “Thinking Room” may be the ultimate brainstorming experience.
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LATEST PODCAST EPISODE
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Boye Akolade. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.