đź’Ť A reality streamer is born
Hey Snackers,
It's Tuesday, but Monday morning has never felt so good: the holiday break was briefly extended for some yesterday when Slack went down on the first business day of 2021.
What also went down yesterday: stocks, which retreated sharply from last week's all-time highs. Covid-19 hospitalizations in the US jumped to a record on Sunday. Also concerning: new coronavirus mutations.
Discovery+ is the latest player in the streaming wars — but does it have QQE?
Not a travel credit card... Discovery+ is the new streamer from Discovery, whose networks include family favorites like: Food Network, Animal Planet, HGTV, and of course... Discovery Channel. It's known for cranking out classic reality shows that you actually watch on normal TV. Like: Shark Week, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and 90 Day Fiancé.
- Discover+ launched in the US on Monday for $4.99/month (or $6.99 ad-free). And it'll be free for some Verizon subscribers.
- Discover's CEO calls it “the perfect companion for every household’s streaming and TV portfolio.” But will it land a coveted spot on our rosters?
"You may say, I'm a streamer... but I'm not the only one." We’ve reached a level of streaming saturation where one service just isn’t enough: 70% of US households have at least one video subscription.
- Streamers aren't vying for monogamy — The average American subscriber watches 3.4 services, spending $29/month on video streaming. Buuut...
- Our "streaming portfolios" have limited spots, while the limit for new streaming services apparently does not exist (#subscripturation). So the competition is aggressive.
Streamers need QQE to succeed... that's quality, quantity, and exclusivity. Netflix and Disney have high QQE factor: top notch content, a lot of it, and exclusive shows/movies (think: Netflix-only originals). Apple TV+ and Prime Video — not so much. But Discovery might bring the trifecta: It owns some of the most-watched cable shows in the US (Quality). It'll offer more than 55K episodes on Discovery+, including content from other networks (Quantity). It also plans to launch 1K hours of original programming in the first year, like 90 Day Fiancé spinoffs and Bobby Flay in Italy (Exclusivity).
General Electric's monster wind turbine could set it up for the Green Rush
You could light up a town... Tell that to your significant other, or to General Electric's ginormous wind turbine, which could (literally) light a small town on its own.
- Haliade-X: Sounds like a Zenon: Z3 spinoff, actually a monster wind turbine in the Netherlands. GE's testing it for a new series of giant offshore turbines.
- 853 feet: How tall this thing is — the turning diameter is longer than two football fields. It's the largest wind turbine ever built. GE's planning to make more and stick them in oceans.
Started from the microwave... Now we here. For most of its 128-year history, GE was an exemplary giant of American business. It was the longest-standing member of the exclusive Dow index – until it got booted in 2018. GE stock has plunged ~75% over the past 10 years (largely why it got booted). But...
- Haliade-X could bring greener pastures for old-school GE. Wind turbines have the potential to replace the pollution-spewing plants that power our cities (read: future-friendly).
- Competitive advantage: Larger turbines produce more electricity, but also reduce the cost of building and maintaining wind farms.
- That makes Haliade-X attractive to wind farm developers, who are competing for contracts to supply countries with wind energy at the lowest price.
We’re at the start of a Green Rush... for clean energy. More than 110 countries have pledged carbon neutrality by 2050, and big corporations like Amazon have pledged to go carbon neutral by 2040 — Microsoft is aiming for carbon-negative by 2030. All these governments and companies will need clean energy to achieve their green goals. GE is still pretty new to the offshore wind game. But if it can succeed in the (big) challenge of manufacturing and installing its turbines at scale, it could rise yet again.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Bubu: Quibi (RIP) is reportedly in talks to sell its shows to streaming dongle company Roku . Two-syllable streamers of the world, unite.
- Uh: Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma hasn't been seen in public since November, when he missed an appearance on his own TV show.
- Union: More than 400 Google employees have formed a rare Silicon Valley union — but it's more about activism than pay raises.
- Ey: Chipotle launched cauliflower rice nationwide, just in time for those New Year's grain-free diets (#CauliByYourName).
- Pill: Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway end their three-year-old venture Haven Health, which sought to "transform health care."
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Tuesday
- Senate election runoff in Georgia
Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Google, Amazon, and Disney
ID: 1466278
Correction for 12/22/20 letter: Foxconn is a Taiwanese company with factories in China, not a Chinese company.