Headlines of The Year
2024 was a pivotal year that highlighted major shifts in the entertainment and tech landscape that will shape our lives for years to come. We take a look at some of the most important headlines.
As the year is winding down, the final days of 2024 are the perfect opportunity to revisit the major stories that shaped the world of tech, entertainment, and business. Not to dwell in the past, but in today’s information overladen world it’s easy to miss or forget things (can you recount all of your Christmas presents from last week? See.)
To remind ourselves of the most important topics from this year that will continue to play a huge role in 2025 and beyond, here’s a look at some of the top headlines that are worth filing in your long-term memory.
EPIC Games won against Apple
After years in court, a ruling was finally upheld that forced Apple to change the terms of its App Store to “allow app makers selling to U.S. customers to add links and buttons inside their apps that bring users out to a website where they can input their credit card information” (CNBC). It wasn’t the paradigm shifting win EPIC’S CEO Tim Sweeney and his team were aiming for that would have seen Apple open up the iOS ecosystem for competing third-party marketplaces and payment solutions. Instead, Apple redirects users to external websites but is requiring app makers to position Apple’s payment solutions as a side-by-side alternative. Similarly to the 15-30% cuts Apple takes on any in-app purchases, the iPhone maker still collects a 27% commission fee for payments facilitated by third-party payment solutions. For now, EPIC’s win is a small win, but a it’s a win nonetheless.
Expect to see EPIC Games continue to fight for more competition that would benefit developers and consumers alike.
Disney’s big bet on gaming
Disney made waves in February when it announced a staggering $1.5 billion dollar investment in EPIC Games alongside a multi-year project to create expansive gaming and entertainment worlds connected to Fortnite. The aim is to bring Disney’s vast IP catalogue to consumers in more immersive ways. Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said in a public company statement: “This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can’t wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways.”
It might take a bit longer than 2025 to see the first outcomes of this deepened partnership, but you can expect the rumor mill regarding Disney potentially acquiring a veritable video game company (EA’s name always seems to come up, but why not EPIC Games?) to keep going.
The TikTok ban
A bill to ban social media juggernaut TikTok in the United States was passed by lawmakers in March this year - a decision that was later upheld by the appeals court, setting the stage for a ban or sale to come into effect on January 19, 2025. But don’t worry - it ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings. With president-elect Trump set to assume office on January 20, only a day after the ban would be a reality and consumers in the US would no longer be able to download TikTok from either app store nor update it, we’re certainly in for more plot twists to kick off the new year. Trump has already asked the Supreme Court to press pause on the ban to allow for more time for a resolution via negotiations.
With 170 million users in the United States alone and billions of dollars on the line, there is simply too much money involved and too many people in Trump’s circles stand to benefit from an eventual IPO of the still privately-held app that an outright ban seems unlikely. But: the geopolitical concerns and risks are legitimate with potential consequences that would far outweigh billions of dollars. This is one to keep an eye on.
Reddit goes public
The first quarter this year ended with a bang. Internet darling Reddit went public. The IPO valued the company at over $6 billion dollars and shares popped 48% in its market debut. Since then, the stock is up a whopping 255% year-to-date and the company posted a profitable second quarter of 2024. In the US, Reddit tends to be the third most frequently visited website only trailing google.com and youtube.com - demonstrating its vast untapped potential to further monetize its reach with a valuable audience.
Roblox partners with Shopify
A headline that definitely didn’t get the attention it deserved was the announcement that social media gaming platform Roblox made in partnering with Shopify to enable sales of physical items directly within Roblox - essentially bringing e-commerce to gaming, or gamifying e-commerce. It’s easy to denounce this as a marketing ploy, but that would be missing a major point: 86% of consumers who purchase a virtual item also purchase the corresponding the physical item. Gaming environments are extremely powerful at keeping a user’s attention and compelling them to act. The major shifts coming for the retail sector are already palpable when looking at social media apps like Instagram or TikTok, and how commerce is starting to blend itself more seamlessly into the actual feed a user engages with inside the app. The combination of video games and commerce will take this to a whole new level and given how archaic most e-commerce websites today feel, many retailers will be in for a rude awakening.
After the initial pilot this year, Roblox and Shopify are planning a larger launch in 2025. Watch this space.
Australia bans social media for kids under the age of 16
The men and women down under showed politicians and lawmakers around the world what it means to fulfil your role as an elected government official by representing and acting in the best interest of the people. The Australian government banned social media usage for children under the age of 16. Finally. The emissions that we have so willingly accepted over the past two decades have turned our youth into collateral damage under the auspice of technological progress (no, this is not a rant against capitalism. Quite the opposite, in fact.). Yes, social media definitely has its upsides, even for teenagers. They can find their tribes more easily. They can establish more connections, more easily. But, and this is a big but. The downsides have been far too severe. Just to provide one example: According to a research study of American teens ages 12-15, those who used social media over three hours each day faced twice the risk of having negative mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms. If you want a deep dive into the topic and what we can do about it, I can highly recommend Jonathan Haidt’s excellent book The Anxious Generation.
Australia’s actions are a much needed first step. We can expect other countries to follow in 2025 as well as topics such as age gating or phone bans in schools to be on the menu.
The (imminent) death of Cable TV
The writing has been on the wall for this for a very long time, and here we are. Cable TV as some of you (or maybe most of you) still know it from when we grew up (am I getting old?) is pretty much dead. Not immediately. But the grave has been dug.
Comcast announced the separation of its cable TV networks from the rest of its businesses in a separate SpinCo, meaning the highly cash flow positive but slowly declining cable TV assets can live out its last days separately from the rest of Comcast’s universe without impeding its growth stories. The benefit for companies like Comcast is twofold: one, they can direct growth capital and resources more efficiently towards their businesses that represent the future and two, their stock prices are set to increase because the markets will ascribe these “clean” companies a higher earnings or revenue multiple compared to before where the market would base its valuations of the entire company on typically the shittiest business (read: cable networks) applying what is called the conglomerate discount.
And Comcast isn’t alone. Warner Bros. Discovery redefined its internal operations to clearly separate its cable TV networks from all other businesses in what sets the stage for a potential spinoff. As these companies face the reality of forever changed media consumption habits of consumers (see our next headline), Comcast and Warner will be joined by others in 2025 in bidding farewell to what was once the dominant form of media and entertainment.
The podcast election
Speaking of changed consumer media consumption habits. If it needed a high stakes pivotal moment in time to clearly define the changing tides for all to see, the US presidential election in November was that moment. Not because Donald Trump won (we’re not getting into politics here) but because of how he did it. Podcasts overtook any other medium in reaching and engaging important voter groups effectively, essentially swinging the election in Trump’s favor. 14% of voters said they learned information about Kamala Harris during the campaign from a podcast compared to 23% on Trump’s end. Scott Galloway offered an excellent write up in his newsletter appropriately titled The Podcast Election.
The political power of podcasting is only beginning to be felt. This election was supposed to be a referendum on bodily autonomy: It wasn’t. Historically, the candidate who raises the most money wins: She didn’t. In each election the victor is likely to be whoever best weaponizes an emerging medium: He did. By far the most potent media weapon this time was podcasting.
- Scott Galloway
Here are a couple of key comparisons between cable TV and podcasts that highlight a) the death of the former (see above) and b) the importance of the latter:
Median age of audience: 70 years versus 34 years
Average audience size: 5.2M (primetime news on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC combined) versus 11M (average listeners per episode on the Joe Rogan Experience)
Podcasts are expected to grow by 18% in 2025 (more than Meta) and generate more than $2.5 trillion dollars in advertising revenue by 2026. Money follows attention. It’s clear which medium is able to command an audience’s attention better than most other mediums at the moment - podcasts.
We hope 2024 was an amazing year for you and that 2025 will be a thrilling next chapter. Thank you for reading Technically Entertaining - we don’t take it for granted. If you feel your friends and colleagues could benefit from following TE, please consider sharing our Substack with them.