The Weekly Listen: Why awards shows are actually a huge deal, Netflix's sports play, and can "news" survive online?

On today's podcast episode, we discuss what the 2024 Oscars taught us about the future of awards shows, whether its time to give up on email, how Netflix's sports strategy will play out, if the idea of "news" can survive online, how the money in the world is shared between us, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Bill Fisher, forecasting analyst Zach Goldner, and director of forecasting Oscar Orozco.

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Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson:

This episode is made possible by Nielsen. Behind every good decision is great data, because when you're prepared, there are no surprises. Empower your decision-making with Nielsen's 2024 UpFronts, NewFronts Guide, you can head to nielsen.com for more information.

Hello everyone and thanks for hanging out with us for the Behind the Numbers weekly listen, an eMarketer podcast made possible by Nielsen. This is the Friday show that, well, a lot of things to be honest, it's the Friday show that will never get over that gap down public toilets in America. The end of cubicles you go into, why do they have to have a little gap down there?

Bill Fisher:

Yeah, we don't have that.

Marcus Johnson:

Right Bill? Thank you. Thank you.

Oscar Orozco:

I wish I could answer.

Marcus Johnson:

Why? Why?

Oscar Orozco:

Take out their cool sneakers. That's why.

Marcus Johnson:

Underneath is one thing, but it's down, which shouldn't be there either, but down the side so you can, as you're trying to look along the queue, sometimes they look at you through the gap.

Oscar Orozco:

Do you not wave?

Bill Fisher:

I hate it.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh my God, you wave?

Oscar Orozco:

Do you not play footsy with these people? [inaudible 00:01:14].

Marcus Johnson:

This is also the show-

Zach Goldner:

I'm a Midwestern at heart. You got to be friendly.

Marcus Johnson:

Hi. This is also the show that thinks knocking on the toilet door before you enter should be banned. That's also awkward. What am I supposed to say? Hello? I'll be right there.

Oscar Orozco:

I can't argue with that one. Yeah.

Marcus Johnson:

What are you supposed to say in that moment? There's a comedian who says that one time he knocked and the voice on the other side of the door said, come in.

Oscar Orozco:

I'm always just saying, give me a few more minutes. Be right out.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. It was such an awkward-

Oscar Orozco:

So awkward. So awkward.

Marcus Johnson:

It's the worst.

Bill Fisher:

I'm taking [inaudible 00:01:55].

Marcus Johnson:

No, that's this show. In today's episode, what the Oscars this year taught us about the future of award shows. Is it time to give up on email? Will Netflix's live sports strategy work? Can the idea of news survive in the digital world? And some facts about wealthy people.

Join me for this episode. We have three people. Let's meet them. We start with our principal analyst who lives in the South Coast of England. He covers the UK and a little bit of Western Europe things, and he's also the host of our Around The World show. It's Bill Fisher.

Bill Fisher:

Hello Marcus.

Marcus Johnson:

We're also joined by Zach Goldner, senior forecasting analyst based in Colorado.

Zach Goldner:

Hey Marcus. Glad to be here.

Marcus Johnson:

It's Zach Goldner. I think I said your name twice.

Bill Fisher:

Hello.

Zach Goldner:

Yes, you did.

Marcus Johnson:

We're also joined by Oscar Orozco who is one of our senior forecasting directors. He's based in New York City. How you doing?

Oscar Orozco:

Hello gentlemen. Happy to be here.

Zach Goldner:

Hey Fella.

Marcus Johnson:

I think I said who you are. They know. We start with the story of the week. We then move to a debate. We end up with some trivia. Let's go. We start of course with the story of the week.

What this year's Oscars taught us about the future award show. So, the 96th annual Academy Awards ceremony that saw Oppenheimer take home the most awards, drew 19.5 million viewers on ABC on Sunday, March 10th. That's 4% more viewers than last year, writes Joe Otterson of Variety. It should be noted that the show started an hour earlier than years past.

That 19.5 million viewers makes it the most watched Oscars since 2020. The 2021 telecast took a pandemic hit drawing an all time low of 10 million viewers before rebounding to 17 million the year after that, 2022, and then nearly 19 million last year, 2023.

But now it's time for mini Shark Tank. Where each person gets one minute to present their version of the future of award shows, what things will look like sometime in the future. I have 10 investment points to dish out. The more convincing you are, the more investment points you get. And we've got three futures here that I chose but have asked the gents to present. Bill drew the very short straw, and so is going first with future one, and that future is award shows will change radically and grow the audience. Bill, good luck.

Bill Fisher:

Thank you. I'll need it. Well, clearly they need to change, right? You mentioned there was a slight uptick in viewer numbers this year, but it's still way down on some of the previous audience sizes and this is a pattern we're seeing across live broadcast TV. There's still a place for appointment viewing though, but it's where people are heading for those appointments that's changing. So, I think that these award shows need to follow that fragmentation if they can be across multiple platforms, if they can alter their format slightly to allow for these different platforms. So, gone with the four, I don't know how long the Oscars are, four or five hours, something like that, too long. We need more bits that can go viral. We need shorter clips, and where they're appearing, as I say, across these different formats and platforms. And if they do, then that's where people are. So, there's no real reason when we take the big picture that total audiences can't increase further.

Marcus Johnson:

So Bill, yeah, you having to present the award shows will change radically and grow the audience because, to your point, they need to. It would be great if they could get back to some of the numbers they were putting up before because the audience is large, but it's definitely lower than it was. From 2000 to 2013, the Oscars was averaging around 40 million viewers. From 2013 to 2019, it was closer to 30 each year, so a bit of a step change, but still a lot. And then 2020 was 24 million. That's because it was in February that year, so it was before the pandemic really, really hit. And then it tanked to 10 million in 2021. Now it's closer to the pre-pandemic 2020 figures. But yeah, you could argue it needs to do something. Let's move to Oscar, future two, award shows should stay the same but won't grow the audience.

Oscar Orozco:

So, Bill made some great points there. I am by no means saying that award shows are at their peak popularity at the moment, but I am a traditionalist and I think award shows should fall into that category. When you look at the viewership numbers, I know went as low as about 10 million, you said Marcus, so a few years back due to the pandemic. But we're back up to 18, 19 million. This year we saw an uptake. So, it's very much impacted by the popularity of the films at the time.

But since when would we complain about viewerships that are that high? Ultimately the production cost, all of that is really low. And we're on, what, year 95 of the Oscars. Why would we want to change anything at this point, given the fact that it's sort of a legacy, a tradition? We want to see X winners introduce A-listers on stage. We want to hear Jimmy Kimmel roast the celebrities on stage. We want to see what they're wearing on the red carpet and hear from them. And so I don't see why anything really needs to be changed. If it were up to me, at least.

Marcus Johnson:

It is still a huge audience. 19 million, it was nearly 19 million last year, 2023 Oscars, and that would be the 15th most watched primetime telecast of the whole year. And everything else ahead of it, one through 14, was NFL games. And everything behind it, 16 through 30, were NFL games. And then I think it was another award show or another TV show, and then it was NFL games again. So in terms of trying to attract an audience that's not football, it's the biggest by a country mile. And also this year's Oscar's ad slots sold out again, pricing going back up. So, you could argue, yeah, just hold the ship and things will return to decent enough.

Oscar Orozco:

Or perhaps the expectations of those 40 million viewership numbers, you went back a quarter of a century, that's just not the new reality. But it doesn't mean anything really needs to be changed.

Marcus Johnson:

Yep. All right, Zach, you're presenting our final future, future three, award shows will not change and therefore will crash and burn.

Zach Goldner:

Well, it's lost its cultural prominence. You no longer have Will Smith hitting people in the front stage of the Oscars. That's what people are talking about.

Oscar Orozco:

That was last year Zach.

Zach Goldner:

Yeah. Well we aren't talking about anything that happened this year. It's not the same as what it once was, and we're referred to the trend line of viewership for the Oscars in particular. Its peak was at 55 million in 1998. It was at 44 million 2014, like we mentioned. When it went down to 10 million, it's raised back up to 30 million. We have to put that in perspective of where it once was at. Viewership is less than half of what it once was. And while I do enjoy the Oscars, I don't see it going back to its previous form. I think the truth of the matter is that public opinion is that award shows are mostly an echo chamber of celebrities praising one another. And I don't think a lot of America wants to see it. It's a night of watching films that you have never heard of before win awards. I just don't see it going back to the fame that it once was.

Oscar Orozco:

Are you recommending that The Avengers should be winning the Oscar for best picture? [inaudible 00:10:27].

Zach Goldner:

Yeah. That or Barbie or I'd recommend this, have Ryan Gosling perform, I'm Just Ken, the whole show, that's all what people cared about. You have that. You have sports betting that happens during the show. You could have a lot more of a change, but I don't think anything is going to happen to the viewership figures.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, some of the ads turning up in the broadcast itself, which was a first, a lot of the articles we're reading for this were saying, there was a plug for Don Julio tequila in which Guillermo Rodriguez, who's on the Kimmel Show, was offering the drink to celebrities in the audience. And I think Jimmy Kimmel also had a beverage and was toasting folks with that. So, that was a change that we've not seen on the advertising side. So, that was something that was a bit different on the advertising side of things. I don't know if it needs to change or whether they're going to change it because the numbers are heading in the right direction and because other award shows are doing well. The Grammys attracted 17 million viewers, the show's largest audience in four years, up 34%. Viewership at the Globes was up 50% year-on-year and the Tonys were up a bit as well.

Oscar Orozco:

Yeah, I think fringe adjustments, little tweaks and things like that are always, I think, welcome. But I really don't see why we need to do much else.

Zach Goldner:

One thing that should be taken out of [inaudible 00:11:52] that was mentioned in that article was award shows are losing a large part of their key demographic. So, they have a aging demographic, they're losing your 18 to 20 something that advertisers love to capture.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, they had the, what was it? Those are the 18 to 49 demographic also went down a little bit, even though viewership overall went up. So yeah, that's a great point, Zach.

All right, we'll see which future comes true. Maybe a fourth, which I didn't think of. That's all we've got time for the story of the week. It's time now for the debate of the week. Today's segment, make the case.

Raw panel. Zach, Bill and Oscar present the for and against arguments for each of the following questions based on three news stories, two contestants per question. Also the following takes don't necessarily reflect the analyst's personal views. Their job is to just present the best case regardless and offer objective analysis. Question one is Bill against Oscar. Is it time to give up on email? Ian Bogost of The Atlantic believe so. There are too many, he argues. Fair?

One email when you place an order, another for when it gets shipped, one email for when it's delivered. You get another saying do this survey and then another one to open a new account, another for an upgrade. It's too much, Mr. Bogost says. Email has felt overwhelming for a long time now. Think spam, scams and discount codes. But what used to be a vexatious burden is now a source of daily torment. Email cannot be reformed, he argues. Email cannot be defeated, email can only be forsaken. The question is, is it really time to give up on email? Bill is going to argue it is time to give up on email. One minute on the clock, Bill make the case.

Bill Fisher:

Yeah, we need something else. It won't happen right away, but certainly in the near future. And then when I look at things like this, when we look for future trends, we look down the generational ladder, right? And I take a look at what Gen Z are doing. They don't like email. I look at my own young kids, they have email out of necessity in the piece. It mentions why you need them for all these various things. They need them for their gaming accounts, for bank account opening, all that sort of stuff. They don't read a single email. They have hundreds, if not thousands of unread emails in their inbox. I have to prod them to check, have you had this email from school or college or whatever, and they don't open them. So, I hope that as they age into the working population, they'll do something about it and get rid of this email thing, which is become too much.

Marcus Johnson:

By they, do you mean your kids specifically?

Zach Goldner:

Or you're referring to me because I don't know the last time I checked my email. Sorry Oscar.

Marcus Johnson:

These Gen Z people.

Bill Fisher:

Pretending to be Gen Z.

Oscar Orozco:

I wish most of the listeners could see the distaste on my face right now. The disappointment.

Marcus Johnson:

Oscar is going to argue, it isn't time to give up on email, make the case.

Oscar Orozco:

Give up on email? Do we want to defund the US Postal Service or the post? Is that what we want to do next too? Listen, the Atlantic article brings up some good points, Bill as well. It's entertaining. The article itself is kind of funny, but some of these issues could be applied even to our SMS texts now. They're filled with spam and codes and verification receipts. We're not going to get rid of that too. How are we going to communicate? What are the alternatives, guys? You know what it is? I think that there's this belief that email should be self-sustainable in some way, but you're owning the email inbox, clean it up, apply filters and labels and organize it. And this could be done in five minutes a day, checking your email. You spend more time, like an hour a day, scrolling through TikTok videos or looking through an Instagram feed. I just think it takes more ownership from people, but email is a necessity and it should not go away. Please.

Marcus Johnson:

I thought he was talking about the general public, but when he said you spend your day scrolling through TikTok, I was like, he's talking about Bill specifically. This just got personal.

Zach Goldner:

This is what I was saying Oscar here. Oscar is a traditionalist. He is showing it true and true, but I agree with him, email serves its purpose.

Oscar Orozco:

Thank you.

Zach Goldner:

It has its own workflow. It might be easier to send messages over Slack or on another messaging service, but if you want to get back to the conversation thread, it's easiest to go back to an email and look back in your history and something that'll always be there. That's why we [inaudible 00:16:40] email.

Bill Fisher:

We're old. We are old.

Oscar Orozco:

This is a Gen Zer speaking.

Bill Fisher:

Yeah, yeah. We're old. This is not the future.

Marcus Johnson:

Defund the US Postal Service next. That was quite the leap Oscar.

Oscar Orozco:

Apparently. Is that where we're going in next week's weekly listen?

Bill Fisher:

When was the last time you sent a letter Oscar?

Oscar Orozco:

Every month. I also balanced my checkbook, Bill.

Marcus Johnson:

To me. I told him to stop. [inaudible 00:17:07]. Good God. Question two. It's Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul. Netflix bets big on live boxing, writes Nicholas Hatcher of the Wall Street Journal. He explains that in its latest foray into live sports following its Netflix Slam tennis match, Netflix Cup live golf tournament. Netflix will now live stream a boxing match featuring former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson. He's now 58 years old. And YouTube star turned Boxer, Jake Paul, who's 27, so 30 years apart. The match will be held on July 20th at the Cowboy Stadium in Dallas. Any Netflix subscribers will be able to watch the event. The question is, will Netflix's sports strategy work? It's Zach against Oscar. Zach arguing Netflix's sports strategy will work. Make the case.

Zach Goldner:

Oh yeah. I love sports. Sports is the most watched content in the U.S. Marcus brought this up earlier. Of the top a hundred broadcasts in the U.S. in 2023, 93 of them were NFL alone. Half of the U.S. population watches sports. I just want to put those facts into context and show you what market Netflix is going after. Netflix has looked into different areas like gaming, I don't see that really panning out, but I see sports as a winning strategy for them moving forward. So, you bring in two huge media presences for a boxing match, being Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. Everyone wants to go see that. That'll be a fun match.

But you also have other content on Netflix. I think that they're coming out with a sequel to the show Quarterback, which will highlight receivers, being Justin Jefferson, Davante Adams, a few others. And Netflix has also signed a new huge deal with the WWE for $5 billion. If you want to look at the WWE, I think that their fan base is over 35 million worldwide, a huge audience to tap and I can really see that bringing in more subscriptions and more revenue for them down the line.

Marcus Johnson:

I did think it was just Ross who watched wrestling and he was the last person in the country, but apparently, no, he's in the majority, almost 35 million people. Oscar, Netflix's sports strategy won't work. Make the case.

Oscar Orozco:

Zach. Zach. Zach. Sequel to the show Quarterback, is that what we're using as a reason why it will work for Netflix-

Zach Goldner:

You have the F1 series. They're doing something with [inaudible 00:19:43]. Let's keep going.

Oscar Orozco:

Five billion for the WWE?

Zach Goldner:

Yeah.

Oscar Orozco:

Five billion.

Zach Goldner:

Yeah, I don't watch wrestling, but other people do.

Oscar Orozco:

Over paid.

Marcus Johnson:

One person does. Ross.

Oscar Orozco:

Let me tell you, the Netflix Slam exhibition almost had to be canceled twice because Nadal and Alcaraz couldn't stay healthy. That was something that was big on Netflix where they were promoting the heck out of that for a while. The tennis documentary, Breakpoint, had to be canceled. What it comes down to is they're late to the game. Apple TV has the MLS and MLB. Max has the MLB and March Madness. Paramount has Serie A and Champions League. I can go on and on.

Netflix is late to the game. Of course they should have gotten involved earlier. Sports is huge. We know the differentiator that it creates when we think of traditional cable providers and streaming services. But they're just late to the game and I have serious doubts that it would work at this point. I think they should reconsider. Maybe they should rebrand as the only streaming platform with no sports content.

Zach Goldner:

I would argue your point there, Netflix isn't late to the game, they are the game. They're the largest streamer in the country, in the world, and what they want to do, they're able to do and they'll bring in more subscription revenues. Let's just see when they fail.

Oscar Orozco:

Bring us back in a year, Marcus, and I'll brag about being the winner.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, it's a compelling matchup though. I think a lot of people are going to watch it because of the personalities they're grabbing. So, maybe they focus on that. Maybe they go after, I don't want to say celebrities per se, but the huge sports personalities. Because, you've got Tyson, Mr. Hatcher was outlining this, how the fighters stack up. Mike Tyson, one of the most feared boxes of all time, he's got a record of 50 and six with 44 knockouts during his pro career. Was the undisputed heavyweight champion from '87 to '90. He did lose his last pro fight though in 2005 to Kevin McBride. He also fought an exhibition match against Roy Jones Jr in 2020 that ended in a split draw. Jake Paul on the other hand became a professional boxer in 2020, is currently nine and one with six knockouts.

Bill Fisher:

Can I just technically say that this, I would say this is isn't a sports strategy because I don't believe we can call this sports. And at the risk of upsetting-

Marcus Johnson:

Boxing?

Bill Fisher:

... WWE fans, I don't think that's a sport either. It's entertainment, right?

Marcus Johnson:

Ross just slapped me.

Oscar Orozco:

Thank you, Bill.

Zach Goldner:

That's a good point.

Oscar Orozco:

Thank you Bill.

Marcus Johnson:

He's livid.

Question three gents, for the last question for our debate of the week we've got, can the idea of news survive in the digital world? Bill versus Zach. This was a question put forward by David Streitfeld of the New York Times. He points to a laundry list of companies cutting back staff like tech news site, Engadget, Conde Nast, Time, Washington Post, The LA Times, and the uncertain futures of Vice Media and Sports Illustrated, and the fact that one in three newspapers that existed in 2005 no longer do, according to Northwestern University. Mr. Streitfeld notes that the advice columns, movie reviews, recipes, stock data, weather report, just about everything else in newspapers moved easily online except the news itself. Now he says there are signs that the whole concept of news is fading. Asked where they get their local news, nearly as many respondents to a Gallup poll said social media as mentioned newspapers and magazines. Can the idea of news survive in the digital world? Bill is arguing the idea of news can survive in the digital world. Make the case.

Bill Fisher:

Yeah, I think all of these make the case items are about change, aren't they? And this is very much my argument here. News consumption, as you mentioned, has changed immeasurably. News delivery has to a degree, it needs to continue to change. But if it can, and I believe it can, then there is some hope. And I want to pin this hope on a piece of legislation in the EU. So, the Digital Services Act came out last month. This is quite a wide-ranging piece of legislation. I won't go into it, but it aims to protect people online. And one of its aims is to protect digital users from misinformation.

Without reliable news outlets of whatever kind, digital platforms will be at risk of peddling this type of stuff, disinformation. And they will ultimately face significant sanctions. They'll get massive fines. And were this kind of regulation to be rolled out elsewhere, check an upcoming ‎Around the World podcast next week, there's a plug, then news in the digital world should certainly be safe.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, Bill's going to be talking about this a lot more next Thursday's episodes of Around the world. So, check that out. Zach arguing the idea of news can't survive in the digital world. Make the case.

Zach Goldner:

Remember the days of your dad opening up the newspaper, kicking up his feet.

Marcus Johnson:

Here we go.

Zach Goldner:

As you're eating breakfast.

Marcus Johnson:

Shouldn't have asked.

Zach Goldner:

It doesn't happen anymore. Now it's just people opening up their phones first thing, social media. They're doing that in the morning. They're doing that throughout the day. People are increasingly turning to social media for local news, and we can argue whether news will exist or not. I think news will exist, but it's going to get worse and worse. And a lot of that's coming from its existence on social media. So, there's a Pew study that half of Americans are getting their news on social media, Facebook being the biggest platform followed by YouTube. If you want to look at TikTok, roughly half of TikTok users are regularly getting their news from TikTok. That's a scary fact.

And then you also factor in another development that's happened in the last year, and this is according to Axios, that there's been a significant decline in traffic referrals to top news sites from social media. So, more and more news sites are relying on social media for people to go there and their social media companies in return are deprioritizing news sites and their lists of news in their newsfeeds. So, a very bad mix. I can see news not surviving throughout all this.

Marcus Johnson:

It's not looking good for a lot of news. Particularly local though. The New York Times article pointing to a recent attempt to give folks free subscriptions to their local papers in Pennsylvania as part of an academic study. It drew almost no takers. So, couldn't even give it away.

Oscar Orozco:

I am a huge, huge proponent of digital news outlets. There's so many great ones out there. But I'm with kind of with Zach here. We see the trend. And old habits break hard. The younger generations seem to be getting their news in other places. Some people like to just make up their own news, they created themselves. So I'm skeptical as well, and I'm worried. I'm worried about news surviving the digital world.

Bill Fisher:

Yes, Zach's absolutely right. It's where you are getting that news and it's getting the referrals back to the news sites. But I still think there's something to be said for reputable news organizations telling the news in those environments, right?

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, that's a good point. Roger Fiddler from this piece spent over 20 years at Knight Ridder newspaper chain was saying, "We're flooded with information because everybody's a journalist now. Everyone thinks they have the truth. Everyone certainly has an opinion." And we didn't just see news move from traditional ways of getting to people to online same institutions. It is now the case where everyone can say they're a journalist or act like a journalist. And a lot of the time they are believed like they're journalists.

All right, gents, that's where we'll leave the debate of the week. Excellent debate this week. We move to the final segment of the show. It's of course dinner party data.

Oscar Orozco:

Wait, Marcus, you forgot to let the listeners know that I won.

Marcus Johnson:

You didn't win. There's no winner. Okay. I didn't forget anything.

Oscar Orozco:

Okay.

Marcus Johnson:

It's part of the show where we tell you about-

Oscar Orozco:

[inaudible 00:27:56] get my cowboy hat. My winning cowboy hat.

Marcus Johnson:

For the love of God, no. We've gone two wonderful months without that prop. This is the part of the show where we tell you about the most interesting thing we've learned this week. Sand's cowboy hat. But Zach, you can go first.

Zach Goldner:

Sorry, hold one second. Okay.

Marcus Johnson:

Pull yourself together.

Zach Goldner:

The average person, believe it or not, spends six months of their life waiting at traffic lights. I was on the way back home the other day, took a long time to get home. I was a little frustrated. So, I wanted to look it up a little bit.

Marcus Johnson:

Six.

Zach Goldner:

So, you think about how much time six months really is. Let's put that in perspective. You can write a book in that amount of time. You can plan a wedding in the amount of time. That's a lot of time. I wish I had that time back so I can get back home earlier and get a workout in. Or maybe read these articles that we're supposed to today. Yeah.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay, great. Thanks.

Zach Goldner:

I'll save my time.

Marcus Johnson:

No one reads. If you lived in the UK, Zach, you might. Because in the UK, not every light, but we have smart lights, right Bill?

Bill Fisher:

Yes.

Marcus Johnson:

Where they detect an approaching car. And so if it's the middle of the night or anytime, it can tell where the traffic's coming from. And so if you pull up to the light and no one else is around, it switches theirs to red and yours to green. It's just in America where they make you wait for an hour at midnight for the light to turn because they're just on a timer. Disaster.

Zach Goldner:

[inaudible 00:29:27] changed things.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah.

Oscar Orozco:

You have to move back to New York, Zach. Ride a bike. You can walk. Take the metro. No lights.

Zach Goldner:

I'm okay.

Marcus Johnson:

If you want to avoid waiting for things, move back to New York. Hideous advice.

Zach Goldner:

I'm anointed the one stoplight in my whole town. I'm okay, Oscar.

Marcus Johnson:

Bill, you're up.

Bill Fisher:

Okay, thematic this one. We've been talking about the Oscars, so I have an Oscar fact. You guys might already know this. It was news to me. I didn't know that Oscar winners don't technically own the statues they win to do with as they please. Is that news to people?

Marcus Johnson:

News to me. Yeah.

Bill Fisher:

There you go. So, apparently they win the award, but before they can take it home, they have to sign an agreement with the academy stating that if they ever wanted to sell the trophy, they're obligated to offer it to the academy first at a cost of $1. And if they don't agree to that, they are not allowed to take the award home with them.

Marcus Johnson:

So, you have to fake it getting stolen if you wanted to sell it.

Oscar Orozco:

I wonder how heavy it is. I always wonder that. It looks super heavy.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. Interesting.

Zach Goldner:

Win an Oscar and find out.

Oscar Orozco:

I know.

Zach Goldner:

Oscar wins an Oscar.

Oscar Orozco:

That would be incredible.

Marcus Johnson:

Unlikely.

Oscar Orozco:

Let's get into the biz together, Zach.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah.

Oscar Orozco:

Screenwriters.

Marcus Johnson:

The amount of drama on this show from Oscar, you could be in the running for one. What happens next? They defund the U.S. post office.

Zach Goldner:

Jesus.

Oscar Orozco:

It wasn't me who said it. What was it, Zach here or Bill? Everybody else.

Marcus Johnson:

Oscar, you're up my friend.

Oscar Orozco:

So disappointing. All right. Well, kind of in line with what Bill had here, I also had sort of some Oscars. I got into the Oscars award ceremony sort of thinking. And I was thinking a little bit of reminiscing to this summer. It was so exciting, right? What was it called? The Barbenheimer Summer. And I was more specifically interested about the success of the Barbie movie, which I did watch, everyone. But it was incredible. It grossed nearly 1.5 billion worldwide. It was a huge international hit. It was the highest opening weekend for a non sequel, non remake, non superhero movie.

It was also the highest grossing opening weekend for a film directed by a woman. So, a lot of really cool, interesting facts. I also looked, it was on the list of the top 20 highest grossing movies. And you know what else I saw in there? A couple of Avatar movies, some Jurassic World film, Frozen two. And what I thought was, gosh, this is a big list of mediocre movies. But I think Barbie fits pretty well in there because it was pretty mediocre itself, right?

Marcus Johnson:

Oh my goodness.

Oscar Orozco:

That's what I was thinking.

Zach Goldner:

Get him out. Get him out of here. Get him out.

Marcus Johnson:

Are you kidding me?

Zach Goldner:

Play the music. Play Oscar's music.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, you're done. All right. I've got one for you real quick.

Oscar Orozco:

I'm almost done. I just wanted to say though, in contrast, Oppenheimer won seven Oscars. It was well deserved, and I think that's really what this past year was about. And I think Barbie, what, won one Oscar. That was pretty well deserved. I think Oppenheimer totally made the summer. That was my point.

Marcus Johnson:

You've changed.

Oscar Orozco:

Mic drop.

Marcus Johnson:

Mic drop. You've been dragged off the stage before you... That's why you dropped the mic. Oh my goodness. This was a hideous... This was your worst take.

Zach Goldner:

If anyone wants to know why I don't read Oscar's emails, this is why.

Marcus Johnson:

Brilliant. I've got one for you real quick. Some facts about wealthy people. I've got four for you. The first one, 1% of the world's adults are millionaires, according to the 2024 Knight Frank Wealth Report. Lucky for some. Number two, those 1% of people who are millionaires, if you added up all of their money, they would account for nearly half, 46%, of all the wealth in the world. Seems fair. 52% of people in the world have to share a measly 1% of the world's wealth between them. In the U.S., 50% of households have to share just 3% of the country's wealth between them. The top 0.1% have four and a half times as much money as the bottom 50.

3rd fact. The bottom 25% of Americans, 83 million people, have as much money as the 10 richest people in the world. The bottom 25% of Americans, 83 million folks, have as much money as the 10 richest folks in the world.

And then finally, how much do you need to be in the top 1% of each country, is a Visual Capitalist article by Omri Wallach. Monaco is the city state country in the south of France, which is the second-smallest sovereign state in the world behind only the Vatican City. It has a population of about 40,000 people. 30% of its residents are millionaires. And you would need 13 million dollars to be in the top 1% in Monaco, the most needed of any country. To be in the top 1% of America, you need 6 million. And the top 1% of the UK you need 3 million.

Bill Fisher:

I'm not quite there.

Marcus Johnson:

Nearly Bill?

Oscar Orozco:

Power of trickle-down economics. Right?

Bill Fisher:

I actually live in a town called Worthing. W-O-R-T-H-I-N-G. And I looked into the derivation of that name and it was named because people of worth used to live here. They set it up. But it's gone significantly downhill since then.

Marcus Johnson:

[inaudible 00:35:38]. They named the town after how much wealth they had. And then Bill snuck in.

Oscar Orozco:

And there were walls around the town built to keep people out too.

Marcus Johnson:

My port colors, this huge gates. That's all we've got time for for this episode. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you to Bill.

Bill Fisher:

Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson:

Of course. Thank you to Zach.

Zach Goldner:

Thanks Marcus.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to Oscar.

Oscar Orozco:

It was a great time, guys. Thanks.

Marcus Johnson:

Yes, indeed. Thank you to Victoria who edits the show. James, who copy edits it. Stewart, who runs the team, Sophie, who does our social media and Lance for running our video podcast. Thanks to everyone for listening in. We hope to see you on Monday for the Behind the Numbers Daily, an eMarketer podcast made possible by Nielsen. Happy weekends.