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USA’s Sunisa Lee (gold) celebrate son the podium during the medal ceremony of the artistic gymnastics women’s all-around final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo on July 29, 2021.
Lionel Bionaventure | AFP | Getty Images

If last year’s biggest corporate media challenge was launching subscription streaming services, this year’s unifying dilemma is figuring out what to put on them.

The tension between how to balance streaming video, theatrical release and linear TV is leading to some peculiar choices bound to confuse consumers in what’s becoming an increasingly jumbled landscape.

“The challenge all of these companies are battling — the central question — is what content goes where, who decides, and why?” said Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at LightShed Partners.

The programming decisions may alter how the public views streaming video. So far, most media companies have marketed streaming video as a complement to traditional pay television. This is why so many of the products are named with the suffix “plus” — Disney+, ViacomCBS‘s Paramount+, Discovery+, etc.

In the long run, it’s possible each streaming platform will become the home for all of a media company’s programming. The “plusses” will essentially be lopped off. ESPN+ may just be ESPN, with everything ESPN has to offer.

But the world isn’t there yet. And the results are increasingly confusing for consumers as new programming is made specifically for streaming services, and the best of linear TV still doesn’t show up on streaming.

The streaming labyrinth

For scripted television series, media executives have largely made the decision that streaming services will be the home for the highest quality original programming. Disney, AT&T‘s WarnerMedia, Comcast‘s NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS are all attempting to convince Wall Street they can grow beyond traditional cable television. They’re using new hit shows, including “The Mandalorian,” “Mare of Easttown,” and “Yellowstone,” as bait to entice subscribers. The results have varied from service to service, but all of the major new streaming services are growing by millions of customers each quarter.

For movies, there’s disagreement at a film-by-film level across the different services. Disney put Pixar movies “Soul” and “Luca” directly on its Disney+ service for no additional charge upon release. For “Jungle Cruise,” “Black Widow” and “Raya and the Last Dragon,” the company decided to make users spend an additional $30 to stream the movies before eventually making them free with a subscription. NBCUniversal placed “The Boss Baby: Family Business” on its paid tier of “Peacock” but only released “F9” in theaters. WarnerMedia decided to place its entire slate of 2021 films directly on HBO Max but won’t do that for blockbuster movies in 2022.

For news and sports, most media companies have kept their most valuable programming exclusively on traditional cable TV. The most-watched primetime programming on CNN, MSNBC and ESPN is still locked inside the cable bundle. This has allowed executives to push against the steady but not yet overwhelming surge of pay-TV cancellations, keeping alive a highly profitable business that brings in billions of dollars each year.

Choice overload

NBCUniversal is navigating the challenge of distributing valuable programming as it broadcasts the Olympic Games. Executives can choose to air live and pre-recorded events on NBC’s broadcast channel, NBC’s cable networks, NBC’s authenticated apps for cable subscribers, NBC’s free apps, Peacock’s free tier and Peacock’s paid tier.

The variety of choices has led to a complicated ecosystem because NBCUniversal is attempting to achieve several goals at once. The company wants to push Peacock subscriptions, appease pay-TV distributors who have agreed to many years of fee increases because they were receiving unique content, and maintain expensive TV advertising rates by attaching commercials to exclusive live programming.

“It’s the innovator’s dilemma in action,” said one veteran broadcast television executive. “You know the linear TV world is collapsing, but you’re trying to stay on the Titanic for as long as possible. At the same time, you’re setting up the lifeboats, which are digital and streaming.”

Making the numbers work

Disney is staring down a major streaming dilemma as soon as next year with “Monday Night Football.” The company secured rights to stream the perennially most-watched cable series on ESPN+ in its new TV rights deal with the National Football League in March. But Disney and ESPN haven’t said anything about when it will actually include “Monday Night Football” on ESPN+.

ESPN is by far the most expensive network on cable TV. It gained that distinction by being the only way Americans can watch “Monday Night Football” and other popular sporting events. If Disney starts moving previously exclusive programming from ESPN to ESPN+, pay-TV distributors will push back on future rate increases and millions of consumers will be given another reason to cancel cable TV.

The math makes this calculus tricky. Beginning Aug. 13, Disney will charge $6.99 per month for ESPN+ after a recent price increase. But Disney makes more than $9 per month per cable subscriber for ESPN, according to Kagan, the media research division at S&P Global, in pay-TV distribution fees. When bundled with the other ESPN networks, Disney Channel and ABC, Disney makes more than $16 per month.

In other words, for every customer canceling cable, Disney loses more than $16 per month. It will need to start charging more for its streaming products to break even  and that’s not even counting the loss in advertising associated with its linear programming, which dwarfs streaming video advertising revenue.

“Nobody is ready to unplug the linear ecosystem, because it brings in so much cash,” Greenfield said. “So they’re all balancing how to manage legacy assets with future investments that are free cash flow negative to show Wall Street that they’re trying. They’re all walking the tight rope.”

News programming decisions

NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia announced this month they’ll hire hundreds of new employees to beef up their streaming news services.

Instead of simply duplicating MSNBC, CNBC and CNN programming on “Peacock” and “HBO Max,” the media companies are taking a different strategy. CNN is building a subscription news service, CNN+. CNN chief digital officer Andrew Morse said he plans to hire 450 people to develop and market new series and newscasts. NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde announced plans to hire nearly 200 new employees across its news brands, the majority of which will support NBC News Now, the company’s flagship streaming network.

The decision to create separate programming for streaming — some of which may duplicate the content of what’s already being broadcast on linear TV — can be viewed in several different ways.

Skeptically, it could be seen as a waste of resources, filled with redundancies, as a “moment in time” decision to keep exclusivity in the cable bundle that may no longer exist in two or three years.

But NBC News executives say the investment acknowledges streaming audiences aren’t the same as linear viewers. That should lead to programming decisions that acknowledge digital viewers tend to be younger and more diverse.

“We’re always thinking about ways to optimize our journalism for each distribution platform,” said Noah Oppenheim, president of NBC News. ”How do we engage these new audiences? Sometimes the answers lead to different faces on screen, different approaches to storytelling, a different lens on the world.”

It’s unclear if there’s actually an audience for an all-streaming news network — especially one that demands consumers pay a monthly subscription fee, such as CNN+, which debuts in 2022. The notion of programming to a younger audience is suspect, as a video news broadcast, whether streaming or on traditional TV, may simply not appeal to those under 25. The decision to invest more in streaming news could lead to a gradual decline in investing in broadcast or cable productions if total revenue is shrinking.

NBC News Chief Digital Officer Chris Berend said he’s confident further investment in NBC News Now will pay off because he can already see the growth in time spent on the existing product, which launched in 2019. NBC News Now is free for consumers, backed by advertising.

“We are incredibly excited about the millions of hours audiences spend with NBC News NOW and how that continues to grow as we continue to invest,” said Berend. “That time spent, which includes more than an hour per visit on some platforms [like YouTube], is a clear indicator we are satisfying our audience across many platforms, each with their own demographic nuances.”

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on earnings and streaming business

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FTC asks to delay Amazon Prime deceptive practices case, citing staffing shortfalls

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FTC asks to delay Amazon Prime deceptive practices case, citing staffing shortfalls

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Federal Trade Commission asked a judge in Seattle to delay the start of its trial accusing Amazon of duping consumers into signing up for its Prime program, citing resource constraints.

Attorneys for the FTC made the request during a status hearing on Wednesday before Judge John Chun in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Chun had set a Sept. 22 start date for the trial.

Jonathan Cohen, an attorney for the FTC, asked Chun for a two-month continuance on the case due to staffing and budgetary shortfalls.

The FTC’s request comes amid a push by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency to reduce spending. DOGE, which is led by tech baron Elon Musk, has slashed the federal government’s workforce by more than 62,000 workers in February alone.

“We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on our case team,” Cohen said.

Chun asked Cohen how the FTC’s situation “will be different in two months” if the agency is “in crisis now, as far as resources.” Cohen responded by saying that he “cannot guarantee if things won’t be even worse.” He pointed to the possibility that the FTC may have to move to another office “unexpectedly,” which could hamper its ability to prepare for the trial.

“But there’s a lot of reason to believe … we may have been through the brunt of it, at least for a little while,” Cohen said.

John Hueston, an attorney for Amazon, disputed Cohen’s request to push back the trial date.

“There has been no showing on this call that the government does not have the resources to proceed to trial with the trial date as presently set,” Hueston said. “What I heard is that they’ve got the whole trial team still intact. Maybe there’s going to be an office move. And by the way, both in government and private sector, I’ve never heard of an office move being more than a few days disruptive.”

The FTC sued Amazon in June 2023, alleging that the online retailer was deceiving millions of customers into signing up for its Prime program and sabotaging their attempts to cancel it. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing, calling the FTC’s claims “wrong on the facts and the law.”

“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” former FTC Chair Lina Khan said at the time.

The FTC brought a separate case against Amazon in September 2023 accusing it of wielding an illegal monopoly. The agency alleged that Amazon prevents sellers from offering cheaper prices elsewhere through its anti-discounting measures. That case is set to go to trial in October 2026.

In the time since the FTC filed its cases, Khan has been replaced as the head of the FTC by Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson. Tech companies, which are the target of several regulatory agencies, have sought to curry favor with Trump, including Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos. He attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, and Amazon was among several tech companies to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee.

WATCH: Trump FTC Chair tells CEOs it will crack down on conduct or mergers that hurt Americans

Trump FTC Chair tells CEOs it will go after companies if it thinks conduct or mergers hurt Americans

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Tesla bounces for second day after steepest drop since 2020

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Tesla bounces for second day after steepest drop since 2020

Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press as they stand next to a Tesla vehicle on the South Portico of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 2025.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Tesla shares rose for a second straight day in early trading Wednesday after the stock recorded its worst day since 2020 earlier in the week.

Shares were last up 8%, building on a 3.8% gain from Tuesday.

The electric vehicle stock plunged 15.4% on Monday for its worst session since September 2020 as investors sold popular technology shares and markets tumbled on rising recession fears and tariff uncertainty. The move pushed the Nasdaq to its worst day since 2022 and erased $750 billion in market value among the tech megacaps.

Tesla has tumbled in recent weeks, shedding more than 40% in market value since President Donald Trump took office. Shares rallied in the postelection Trump trade on bets that CEO Elon Musk’s close ties to the president would benefit the company.

Tariff concerns have added fuel to that fire as a potential trade war threatens two key supplier markets. That pushed the company to its longest weekly losing streak in its 15-year public market history.

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Since Trump’s inauguration, Musk has become a key face of the new White House administration and close advisor of the president as he looks to reduce government spending, leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

Trump said Tuesday he plans to buy a Tesla in support of Musk as Tesla locations around the country see protests and demonstrations.

Tesla has also dealt with brand erosion stemming from incendiary political rhetoric on Musk’s social media platform X. The platform suffered several outages on Monday. Meanwhile, Musk’s aerospace and defense company SpaceX is currently investigating two test flight explosions.

The company also faces a divided Wall Street, as bears point to rising EV competition, declining new vehicle deliveries and the effects of tariffs on the company’s near-term business. Bulls still have faith in Musk and his promise to unveil an affordable new model EV and start a driverless ride-hailing service later this year.

A recent investor survey found that 85% of respondents believed politics are hurting the company. Shares have lost more than a third in value since the start of the year.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed reporting.

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Spotify says it paid nearly 1,500 artists $1 million or more in royalties for 2024 streams

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Spotify says it paid nearly 1,500 artists  million or more in royalties for 2024 streams

In this photo illustration, the Spotify music app is seen on a phone on June 04, 2024 in New York City.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Spotify is minting music millionaires.

Nearly 1,500 artists generated over $1 million in royalties from Spotify in 2024, the company said Wednesday in its annual Loud and Clear Report.

Spotify said more than 80% of the artists in that pool didn’t have a song reach the app’s Global Daily Top 50 chart.

“Spotify has helped level the playing field for artists at every stage of their careers,” read a portion of the report. “Success in the streaming era doesn’t require a decade-spanning catalog nor a chart-topping hit.”

The news comes about a month after the company reported a fourth-quarter earnings beat that saw the Swedish music streamer record its first full year of profitability. The company said it paid an all-time high of $10 billion in royalties to the music industry for the year.

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