Hello! After much speculation, Joe Biden officially announced his 2024 candidacy yesterday. If successful, Biden would be 86 at the end of his tenure, which would make him the oldest to hold the office by almost 10 years. Today we explore:
Still runnin'
Although the run on Silicon Valley Bank happened over a month ago, the impact on other lenders is still being felt. This week the ailing First Republic Bank reported a staggering 40% drop off in deposits for the most recent quarter, undoing two-and-a-half years of growth and sending shares down a staggering 49% yesterday.
The plunge meant that First Republic was holding $104.7 billion in deposits at the end of Q1, a figure that would have been substantially lower were it not for a $30 billion rescue package from 11 larger banks back in March.
Trust fall
The bank, founded in 1985, is taking drastic action to try and stay afloat. However, plans to cut 25% of staff and slash execs’ wages to get its balance sheet in order could be too little too late if trust in the bank isn't restored and the flood of withdrawals continues. The company's shares closed at $8.10 on Tuesday, down nearly 95% from the same point last year, suggesting that investors' hope that the ship can be righted has almost completely evaporated.
The company is now reportedly exploring asset sales, with ongoing discussions between First Republic and the government, as well as some of the larger banks involved in the $30bn rescue package. The race is on to save America’s most beleaguered bank.
Stairway to heaven
Spotify announced yesterday that it has reached half a billion monthly active listeners. That marks a 22% increase compared to the previous year, making it the company's strongest first quarter ever, sending shares in SPOT up 5%.
The company wasn't quite as successful at getting those subscribers to cough up for their music — the number of paying subscribers only rose 15% — but it nevertheless caps the end of a solid quarter for the company, which had to layoff around 600 employees in January.
AI ft. Drake
The results come after a TikTok-inspired revamp of its app and with the company currently navigating a delicate balance between the benefits and costs of AI, with the CEO, Daniel Ek, calling the technology “cool and scary”.
On the one hand, the company has recently introduced an exciting new feature, AI DJ, which provides personalized music selections introduced by a lifelike DJ voice powered by AI — a feature that already reaches millions of active users every week.
On the other hand, the company faces the challenges of AI generated songs infringing on copyright, an issue which hit the headlines last week after a song created by AI, featuring fake versions of Drake and The Weeknd, had to be pulled from the platform after Universal Music claimed an infringement. That song racked up over 600,000 plays on Spotify alone, demonstrating the viral potential of AI-generated content.
We wanted AI to do our work, so we could spend our time making art. For now, at least, it seems like the other way round is more likely.
Untucked
Last Friday, Tucker Carlson unknowingly hosted his final show at Fox News, as the network confirmed on Monday it was parting ways with the controversial prime-time personality, an abrupt firing of one of the network’s most-watched anchors. Carlson’s departure came in a week of cable chaos — with high-profile exits at CNN and NBCU — and just days after Fox settled its lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems for a staggering $787m, a trial which saw Carlson's texts and emails released during discovery.
Carlson had been a prominent figure at Fox News since joining in 2009, but his screen time — per Stanford’s Cable TV News Analyzer — skyrocketed in 2017 when he took over the coveted 8pm slot from commentator Bill O'Reilly. Regularly racking up 20+ hours of screentime a month, Carlson’s show often drew more than 3 million viewers, consistently ranking as the #1 or #2 cable news show.
That meant big bucks for Fox. Despite some premium advertisers boycotting the show, Variety reports that advertisers spent more than $77m on Tucker Carlson Tonight last year, more than the ~$54m worth of airtime that advertisers bought on The Ingraham Angle and the $50m spent on Hannity. The firing suggests that Fox execs are keen to show that no personality is bigger than the network, with plans to rotate hosts for the prized 8pm slot suggesting the decision was made abruptly, with no “succession” plan in place.
• Searching for a second Squid Game? Netflix is planning to spend $2.5 billion on South Korean content over the next 4 years.
• The share of Americans feeling “very happy” has hit its lowest point since 1972 at 12%, according to a Wall Street Journal survey.
• America’s most sought-after student has received a record-breaking $9 million in scholarship offers from a whopping 125 colleges.
• British American Tobacco has been ordered to pay $625 million after selling cigarettes to North Korea, breaching strict US sanctions on the nation.
• From Paris, Texas to Naples, New York — exploring America via its internationally-inspired place names.
• In light of Biden’s reelection bid, here’s a chart showing where he currently stacks up age-wise compared to other global leaders.
Off the charts: Which platform that’s seen ad revenue decline for the last 3 quarters (announcing a 2.6% slowdown in Q1 this week), have we taken off this chart from June last year. [Answer below].
