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From Trump to #MeToo: A Dizzying Year in TV News

December 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Michael: So is TV’s superstar system dead?

John: It’s one of the more fascinating developments of 2017. Star systems have existed in network news for years. Look back to Roone Arledge, who in his time at ABC drove his news division to success with powerhouses like Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters and Ted Koppel. Big salaries, big ratings, big perks. (NBC flew Mr. Lauer back and forth from the Hamptons every week.) For decades, networks were frightened to lose big names. Now we have CBS replacing Scott Pelley on the evening news with a guy named Jeff Glor.

Michael: A man also known as “Who?”

Megyn Kelly and Hoda Kotb dancing on “Today.” Video by ET Canada

John: And the biggest network transfer of the year — Megyn Kelly to NBC, at a cost of about $17 million in salary — got off to a rough start. It’ll be hard to forget that awkward dancing clip with Hoda Kotb anytime soon. (Or the look on Jane Fonda’s face.) But as the year closes out, she’s found some momentum with going all-in on the #MeToo movement and becoming the go-to venue for interviews with harassment victims.

Michael: Mr. Trump was TV’s first great cataclysm of the year; #MeToo was the second. TV news had a raunchy reputation in the industry, but it’s now become perhaps the most prominent example of the national reckoning over sexual harassment. In a way, that’s helped drive home the insidiousness of the issue: Harvey Weinstein was famous, sure, but average viewers had no emotional connection to him. TV stars, however, are like family. Matt Lauer used to be called, only semi-ironically, “America’s dad.” Now Dad is disgraced.

John: But if TV superstars were possibly a wee bit overrated …

Michael: Just a tad, yes.

John: … it doesn’t mean stars can’t be born. Thanks to the daily press briefings at the White House, people like April Ryan, Jim Acosta and other workaday journalists became boldfaced names.

Michael: And for every TV touchstone like the James B. Comey hearing, there were a dozen other microevents that burst and faded like a Fourth of July firecracker. Rachel Maddow’s “scoop” on Mr. Trump’s tax returns. Sean Spicer’s “Holocaust center” gaffe. The ethics of Megyn Kelly’s interview with Alex Jones. And remember when Van Jones, back in February, declared the State of the Union the day Mr. Trump “became president”? It became a meme, and a cautionary tale, about the folly of cable news punditry.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/business/media/trump-tv-news.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

How Do You Turn an Ad Into a Meme? Two Words: Dilly Dilly

December 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment

F John Parker, another creative director, said he thought he had heard something familiar when he was watching a fourth-quarter play of a “Thursday Night Football” game in November. He was watching with his wife as Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, called out in code to direct his teammates.

“Did he just say ‘dilly dilly’?” he asked his wife. He rewound, and sure enough — yes, he did.

Ben Roethlisberger calling out “dilly dilly” before a Pittsburgh Steelers play. Video by drummsticker

The ad makers had succeeded in creating a genuine meme, which can’t simply be bought by expanding an advertising budget. Attention in social media is harder to buy than a 30-second spot after a punt.

And while memes churn through popular culture at a rapid pace, they are rarely spawned from television advertisements, a medium that has been hit hard by cord-cutting and ad-skipping technology.

“Consumers today have so many more options and things to occupy their time,” said Andy Goeler, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing. “They’re not waiting for the next ad to come on either their mobile phone or TV. It’s much harder today to break through and to connect with that consumer base out there because of all of the multiple options they’re exposed to.”

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Still, the fact that Bud Light invests in big-ticket live television events — namely major football games — offered “dilly dilly” a better chance at viral success, Mr. Henderson said. The chances of simply ginning up a meme without that help would be much lower.

“Once people see it a couple of times, they take it online and they use it socially and it grows from there,” he said. “If we tried to take this thing immediately into social media, I don’t know if it would have taken off.”

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Mr. Goeler said he believed that “dilly dilly” had surpassed the popularity of “whassup” and the frogs, and he said that the success had prompted Budweiser to expand the campaign. Additional advertisements were created to introduce new characters into the “Game of Thrones”-inspired universe, including a trilogy that will culminate in a Super Bowl ad, he said.

“Dilly dilly” does have a history, notably in the folk song “Lavender Blue,” which Burl Ives recorded in 1949. Another version of the song appeared in the 2015 Disney film “Cinderella,” though the creative directors at Wieden Kennedy said they were unaware of the song when they wrote the spot.

A version of the folk song “Lavender Blue” in the 2015 “Cinderella.” Video by USS SIS

The creative directors gave credit for the phrase to Alex Ledford, a senior copywriter, and N. J. Placentra, a senior art director. The pair were trying several nonsense phrases when one uttered “dilly dilly,” and it made them laugh.

They claim to have destroyed records of the other phrases they tried, though Mr. Henderson was skeptical.

“They have a list that they either will not share or they have actually lost,” he said.

Attempts by The New York Times to retrieve the list were unsuccessful.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/business/media/dilly-dilly-bud-light.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

Tax Law Offers a Carrot to Gig Workers. But It May Have Costs.

December 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment

The provision may also turn out to be a boon for employers who are trying to reduce their payroll costs. Workers hired as contractors, who tend to be cheaper, may be less likely to complain about their status under the new tax law.

“Firms currently have a lot of incentives to turn workers into independent contractors,” said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. “This reinforces the current trends.”

But it could lead to an erosion of the protections that have long been a cornerstone of full-time work.

Formal employment, after all, provides more than just income. Unlike independent contractors, employees have access to unemployment insurance if they lose their jobs and workers’ compensation if they are injured at work. They are protected by workplace anti-discrimination laws and have a federally backed right to form a union.

Those protections do not generally apply to contractors. Nor do minimum-wage and overtime laws.

“What you’re losing is the safety nets for those workers,” said Catherine Ruckelshaus of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group.

Traditional full-time jobs also insulate workers against the peaks and troughs in the demand for their services. Consider, for instance, the erratic income of retail or fulfillment-center workers hired in the fall and let go after the holidays.

Workers like janitors were once typically on the payrolls of large companies, enabling their wages to rise with those of other employees if the business did well. Now, such work is increasingly done by contractors. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

And because companies have internal pay scales, the lowest-paid employees tend to make more than they would on the open market.

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“It used to be that companies like G.M. or the local bank or factory directly employed the janitor, the clerical worker,” Professor Katz said, noting that their pay would rise along with other employees’ when the company was doing well.

Unwinding employment relationships eliminates these benefits, increasing the volatility of workers’ incomes and magnifying pay disparities and inequality.

It’s difficult to say how many workers would choose to become contractors as a result of the new provision, which for couples frequently begins to phase out at a taxable income above $315,000. Mr. Kamin said joint filers who make close to $315,000 and could transform most of these earnings into business income would find it most compelling to make the change. (It could be more compelling still if one spouse’s employer offered the couple health insurance, which many employers provide even though they aren’t required to.)

On the other hand, many individuals fail to avail themselves of existing tax deductions, like the one that freelancers can take for their expenses, said Jamil Poonja of Stride Health, which helps self-employed workers buy health insurance. That may reflect the lack of access among lower-earning workers to sophisticated tax advice.

The tax benefit could also be offset in some cases by the need for contractors to pay both the employer and employee portion of the federal payroll tax.

Many employers are already pushing the boundaries of who they treat as employees and who they treat as independent contractors.

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In theory, it is the nature of the job, and not the employer’s whim, that is supposed to determine the worker’s job status.

If a company exerts sufficient control over workers by setting their schedules or how much they charge customers, and if workers largely depend on the company for their livelihood, the law typically considers those workers to be employees.

True contractors are supposed to retain control over most aspects of their job and can typically generate income through entrepreneurial skill, and not just by working longer hours.

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In practice, however, many companies classify workers who are clearly employees as contractors, because they are usually much cheaper to use. And many labor advocates say the new tax deduction will encourage more employers to go that route by giving them an additional carrot to dangle in front of workers.

“The risk presented by this provision is that employers can go to workers and say, ‘You know what, your taxes will go down, let me classify you as an independent contractor,’” said Seth Harris, a deputy labor secretary under President Barack Obama.

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Anything that makes workers more likely to accept such an arrangement makes it harder to root out violations of the law. That is because the agencies responsible for policing misclassification — the Labor Department, the Internal Revenue Service, state labor and tax authorities — lack the resources to identify more than a fraction of the violations on their own.

“Your chances of finding a worker that’s been misclassified if that worker has not complained are worse than your chances of finding a leprechaun riding a unicorn,” Mr. Harris said.

David Weil, the administrator of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division under Mr. Obama, believes the change will add fuel to a trend that has been several decades in the making.

During that time, as Mr. Weil documented in a book on the subject, “The Fissured Workplace,” employers have steadily pushed more work outside their organizations, paring the number of people they employ and engaging a rising number of contractors, temporary workers and freelancers.

The tax law will accelerate the shift, he said, because employers who are already keen to reorganize in this way will recognize that even fewer workers are likely to object as a result of the tax benefits.

The effect of the deduction could be especially big in industries where misclassification is already rampant.

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Many small-time construction contractors hire full-time workers who should be classified as employees but are kept on as freelancers or paid under the table, said Kyle Makarios, political director for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

Mr. Makarios said the pass-through provision would encourage even more building contractors to misclassify workers, allowing them to reduce their labor costs and underbid contractors who play by the rules.

The practice by ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft of classifying drivers as independent contractors has long been criticized by labor advocates and plaintiffs’ lawyers. They argue that the companies control crucial features of the working relationship and hold most of the economic power.

Neil Bradley, senior vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that gig-economy companies classify workers as contractors when it suits the needs of their business and that he did not expect that to change. He also said he did not expect firms with traditional business models to follow suit as a result of the new provision.

“I think the decision is going to be driven by the considerations” that lawyers cite, such as the amount of control a company exercises, he said, “not by this tax bill.”

But Mr. Weil was less sanguine.

“These kinds of approaches to making it easier to slide into independent contractor status reflect unequal bargaining power,” he said. “When you add to that an additional financial incentive, you’re just unwinding the whole system.”

Follow on twitter: @noamscheiber

Jesse Drucker contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on January 1, 2018, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: New Tax Law Offers Carrot to Gig Workers, but It May Have Costs. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/business/economy/tax-work.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News

‘Last Jedi’ Is 2017’s Box Office Winner in a Women-Led Year

December 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Third place went to that breaker of comic-book movie glass ceilings, “Wonder Woman,” which lassoed $412.6 million in domestic ticket sales ($409.3 million overseas) for Warner Bros., minting two new A-list stars in the process — the actress Gal Gadot and the director Patty Jenkins.

Overall, the year was a mixed one for studios and theater owners. Domestic ticket sales totaled about $11.12 billion, a 2.3 percent decline from last year and on par with results for 2015. Horror movies, which do not quite play to the same effect on Netflix and other streaming services, were a particular bright spot for theaters, with films like “It” and “Get Out” becoming cultural sensations.

Marvel superheroes also did some heavy lifting. Led by Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” was the fourth biggest movie of the year, while “Spider-Man: Homecoming” rounded out the top five. “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Logan” made the top 10.

“Despicable Me 3” was the only animated film to rank among the year’s 10 biggest ticket sellers. Illumination Entertainment/Universal Pictures

Underneath those positive results, however, was a grim reality: Ticket sales were propped up by higher prices. Attendance declined by roughly 4 percent, to 1.26 billion, according to analysts, the lowest total in about two decades, as a string of big-budget films stumbled.

Disappointments included “Justice League,” with Ben Affleck as Batman; “The Mummy,” starring Tom Cruise; “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” starring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow; “Baywatch,” led by Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron; and “Alien: Covenant,” directed by Ridley Scott.

Mr. Scott also had a tough time over the weekend with “All the Money in the World” (Sony), a crime drama about the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III and his grandfather’s refusal to pay a $17 million ransom. The film, which cost Imperative Entertainment more than $50 million to make, collected about $5.5 million, for a domestic total since arriving on Monday of $12.6 million.

It was a miracle that “All the Money in the World” arrived at all: To the astonishment of Hollywood, Mr. Scott — only six weeks before the film’s release — expunged the disgraced Kevin Spacey, replacing him with Christopher Plummer and refilming extensive sequences. Reviews for the retooled movie were mostly positive. Ticket buyers gave “All the Money in the World” a B grade in CinemaScore exit polls.

Also of note for the year in moviegoing: Only one animated movie, “Despicable Me 3,” ranked among the top 10 ticket sellers. Last year, four films made the cut (“Finding Dory,” “The Secret Life of Pets,” “Zootopia” and “Sing”). The pullback may involve blurring boundaries — chunks of superhero movies are essentially animated — and sequelitis: “Cars 3” underperformed for Pixar.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/movies/last-jedi-2017-box-office-winner.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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The biggest oil story of 2017

December 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Oil discoveries at lowest point since the 1940s

The ban on crude exports from the US was lifted at the end of 2015, and exports ticked up in the following year, but only modestly. 2017, however, was the year that the floodgates opened.

In the first half of the year, there were several weeks when the US topped 1 million barrels per day (mb/d), but exports averaged about 750,000 bpd between January and June.

In the third quarter, the export machine really kicked into high gear, and Hurricane Harvey was arguably the spark. It may seem odd at first blush that a disastrous storm that ravaged Texas would be the thing that spurred a rise in US oil exports, but because so many refineries were damaged, a lot of the oil produced in Texas had to go elsewhere.

That surplus of crude and the temporary shortage of refining capacity was visible in the discount for WTI relative to Brent, a price differential that widened to as much as $7 per barrel after the storm, the largest disparity in years. If you are a buyer in say, China, paying $7 less per barrel than elsewhere is pretty appealing, even after factoring in high transport costs. As such, it is no surprise that US oil exports to China surged this year.

Read more on Oilprice.com: Chinese Ships Caught Illegally Selling Oil To North Korea

US oil exports hit a high at 2.133 mb/d in the last week of October, and have fallen back a bit since. In fact, it would seem to be a struggle for the US to maintain such a high level of shipments. The more oil that is exported, the more likely the discount between WTI and Brent would narrow, which would essentially eat away at the competitiveness of US crude.

Canadian oil prices plunge to $30

Nevertheless, the US has averaged exports of 1.5 mb/d in the fourth quarter, which is very high historically and makes the US a significant player in the global oil market. At that level, the US is shipping more oil than 6 of the 14 OPEC members.

Moreover, even as US oil exports may ease a bit next year, there are some forces working in its favor. The WTI discount remains exceptionally large, with front-month prices still trading almost $7 per barrel lower than Brent. That will keep exports high. Argus Media notes that transport costs of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) run at about $3.75 per barrel, which means the differential between WTI and Brent is supportive of US exports.

The discount is helped along by the fact that US shale output is surging, which acts as a drag on WTI. The EIA predicts that the US will average 9.9 mb/d in 2018, an all-time high. OPEC and other analysts expect growth of US shale by about 1 mb/d; the IEA sees slightly less but still robust growth of about 870,000 bpd.

At the same time, the outage at the Forties pipeline directly affected Brent, both in terms of fundamentals (an outage of several hundred thousand barrels per day) and in the way the benchmark is priced (Brent prices are specifically based on oil coming out of the North Sea). Other outages, such as in Libya, have more of an effect on Brent than WTI.

Read more on Oilprice.com: How China Is Killing India’s Solar Industry

In addition, the longer the discount stays in place, the more likely the US holds onto some customers even after the discount narrows. Argus Media reports that refiners from South Korea, India and Poland are beginning to make purchases of American crude, replacing barrels that typically come from the Middle East. Refiners in these countries recently booked initial cargoes from the US ahead of several more purchases scheduled in subsequent months.

Another reason why exports could remain elevated is that more crude export terminals are set to come online in 2018 and 2019. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is making changes to its facility in order to handle VLCCs, which will expand the ports capacity and lower the cost of export. That upgrade is slated to reach completion in early 2018.

US oil exports surged in 2017, and 2018 could see more of the same.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/414680-oil-price-us-exports/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Sex abuse, box office bombs: Disastrous year for Hollywood comes to merciful end

December 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Sexual misconduct ‘everywhere’: Letter from 200+ women in US national security

Statistics show Americans are falling out of love with going to the movies. Audiences have steadily shrunk as home entertainment options improved and movie theater attendance fell to a 22-year low.

“It’s not a sea change, it’s a tsunami,” Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations, was cited as saying by Variety magazine. “The tide has moved against movies. They used to be the hub of what entertainment is, but that core has shifted to streaming and television. Back in the day, people talked about ‘Back to the Future’ or ‘E.T.’ when they talked about entertainment. Today, it’s ‘Stranger Things’ or ‘Game of Thrones.’”

Box office revenue in 2017 was the worst in a decade. Fifty-one percent of its total revenue was gobbled up by just 20 titles, leaving 145 other releases to split up the rest. Forty percent of the shrinking earnings have been eaten by two large studios, Disney and Warner Brothers.

The end of franchises such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, Star Trek, Independence Day, and Ghostbusters has become another major blow for the Hollywood. The irreplaceable brands were vital for the industry, which has been releasing fewer titles lately.

But Hollywood will mostly remember 2017 for the sex abuse scandals which rocked the industry. The victims alleged decades of sexual misconduct and discrimination by some of Tinseltown’s most influential movie figures. Since the first allegations emerged against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in October, hundreds of other alleged victims have come forward to claim they have been harassed or assaulted by high profile industry figures. Though this year is coming to an end, it is likely the sexual harassment scandal, and its long-lasting ramifications will be felt throughout 2018.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/414668-hollywood-scandals-disastrous-year/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

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Losses from global disasters in 2017 exceeded $300bn

December 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Five of the worst hurricanes to ever hit the US (PHOTOS)

The company estimates, insured losses from natural and man-made disasters around the world was approximately $136 billion, up from $65 billion in 2016.

This is “well-above the annual average of the previous ten years, and the third highest since… records began in 1970,” Swiss Re said in its report.

The reinsurance firm said insured losses from disasters have exceeded $100 billion in a number of years.

“The insurance industry has demonstrated it can cope very well with such high losses,” said Martin Bertogg, Head of Catastrophe Perils at Swiss Re.

“However, significant protection gaps remain, and if the industry is able to extend its reach, many more people and businesses can become better equipped to withstand the fallout from disaster events,” he added.

According to Swiss Re, “Globally, more than 11,000 people have died or gone missing in disaster events in 2017.”

The US was hardest hit, including by hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, “which have made 2017 the second costliest hurricane season” after 2005, the company said.

The economic losses from the three hurricanes will be much higher given the significant flood damage – often uninsured – from hurricane Harvey in densely populated Houston, Texas, an extended power outage in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria, and post-event loss amplification.

“There has been a lull in hurricane activity in the US for several years,” said Kurt Karl, Swiss Re’s Chief Economist. “Irrespective, there has been a significant rise in the number of residents and new homes in coastal communities since Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005, so when a hurricane strikes, the loss potential in some places is now much higher than it was previously.”

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/414623-global-disasters-2017-cost/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Inside the Hollywood Home of Social Media’s Stars. (Don’t Be Shy.)

December 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Some are comedians, some are models, and some are famous for being famous. But all are so-called influencers, social media speak for people with a huge digital audience.

1600 Vine offers a peek into the booming ecosystem of these social media stars. As in any caldron of attention seekers who live and work together in the same building, it’s an atmosphere rife with cliquishness, jealousy, insecurity and the social hierarchy of high school, except everyone knows precisely how popular (or unpopular) you are. And it’s amplified by the fact that influencers can become millionaires with a following on a par with any movie star’s.

Joshua Cohen, a founder of Tubefilter, a site that tracks the online video industry, described the talent at 1600 Vine as a modern-day version of the Brat Pack or the Mickey Mouse Club.

“You have all these people in the same environment who grew up together and getting their entertainment chops together,” Mr. Cohen said. “Now, they’re some of the biggest people on whatever platform they’re on.”

Katie, left, and Bri Teresi, sisters and swimsuit models who live at 1600 Vine, were tapped by a neighbor to appear in an Instagram video that has been viewed more than two million times.
 Molly Matalon for The New York Times

Gaining Followers

The origins of 1600 Vine as a social media launching pad are rooted, appropriately enough, in the video platform Vine.

Around 2014, the stars of Vine’s six-second videos started flocking to Los Angeles to turn a hobby into a career. A few of the early stars moved into this contemporary, amenity-rich complex, above a Trader Joe’s and between Jimmy Durante and Clark Gable on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Within a few months, the apartments — notable for their floor-to-ceiling windows, modern kitchens and living spaces, and common areas that include a pool and hot tub — became a recognizable backdrop to the most popular Vine videos. It wasn’t long before 1600 Vine became the place to be.

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It remained that way even after Vine shut down in 2016.

One of the early stars was Ms. Cerny, 26, who moved to Los Angeles from Florida four years ago to become an actress. Rejected by agents for a lack of experience, the former model started making Vine videos. Her goofy comedy sketches were a hit, and she moved into 1600 Vine to be closer to other Vine stars.

“It was perfect — we could film wherever, whenever,” she said. “Being able to surround yourself with other creative people helps.”

These days, Ms. Cerny is in the top tier of influencers, with 18.8 million Instagram followers and 1.1 million subscribers to her YouTube vlogs, the popular YouTube format that marries a daily diary with the artificial drama of reality TV. Sponsors like Guess jeans pay her six figures for promoting their products.

Hanging out at 1600 Vine can open doors, too. A year ago, the actor Ray Diaz had only 5,000 followers on Instagram, even though he was a regular on “East Los High,” a show on Hulu. Then one day, while he was lifting weights in the building’s gym (a friend of his lived there), he met Ms. Pons, a 21-year-old YouTube comedian with 20.9 million Instagram followers. Ms. Pons invited him to appear in her video “My Big Fat Hispanic Family,” a skit about introducing a boyfriend to her eccentric family and friends.

The video has had more than 12 million views, and soon Mr. Diaz became an influencer on his own, reaching more than one million Instagram followers a few months after it was posted. Still, Mr. Diaz wanted more, even after landing a regular role on “Lopez,” a comedy on TV Land. So last December, he moved to 1600 Vine, to one of the nicer, split-level two-bedroom units on the 10th floor.

Today, he has 3.2 million followers and boasts that he went from driving for Uber to driving a Bentley. “Instagram is what pays for the penthouse,” he added.

Residents of 1600 Vine include, from left, Katie Teresi; Gregg Martin, an actor; and Taylor Offer, an entrepreneur. Molly Matalon for The New York Times

Success stories like Mr. Diaz’s are the reason wannabe influencers continue flocking to 1600 Vine, paying anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000 a month. Many aspiring photographers and video editors hang out in the common areas, hoping to get a foot in the door by working with a few prominent influencers.

The complex is one of many modern apartment buildings in the Hollywood area. There is always the whisper that some other, nearby building is the new hot spot with more welcoming rules for social media stars, but 1600 Vine remains the most prominent and best known.

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In June, Bri and Katie Teresi, sisters and swimsuit models, moved into a small one-bedroom apartment, paying $2,700 a month, after they got a taste of what being around other influencers could do for them. Josh Paler Lin, a friend in the building, tapped them to appear in a video in which a Lamborghini’s exhaust blows off their clothes. It garnered more than two million views, and the sisters said they had each added 10,000 followers.

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“Right now, I’m focused on growing and really getting my numbers up,” said Bri Teresi, 23, who has 419,000 followers on Instagram.

Others see living at 1600 Vine as a golden marketing opportunity.

Taylor Offer and Parker Burr moved in last year hoping to befriend social media stars not for their own fame but to promote their sock company, Feat Socks. When Mr. Offer first visited the two-bedroom unit, he said, it was like “walking into Jerry’s apartment building on ‘Seinfeld’” because he recognized it from Vine videos. He signed a lease on the spot, needing to prove only that he and Mr. Burr could afford the $3,700 monthly rent.

But Mr. Offer soon realized it wasn’t enough to live in the building; they had to help the influencers fill their daily need for content. So Mr. Offer bought a cute English bulldog puppy and a flashy Polaris Slingshot car. The puppy appeared in a video with Ms. Cerny while Logan Paul took an interest in the purple car, a three-wheeled vehicle that looks like a roadster.

A star like Mr. Paul has his pick of sponsorship deals, but he took a liking to his new neighbors, so he concocted a bet — or, more accurately, a social media story line. If Mr. Paul could sell 20,000 pairs of socks (printed with an image of his colorful parrot, Maverick), he would get the roadster. He promoted the bet in videos and, even though he fell short, Feat had its best sales month ever and Mr. Paul received a $200,000 commission check.

“As a business expense,” Mr. Offer said, “this place pays for itself.”

Reality Show

Calling 1600 Vine home is still no guarantee of influencer status. It also breeds a certain kind of cliquishness and backbiting.

Gregg Martin, a young actor who has landed bit roles in TV series including “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” said he felt the building’s stars looked down on him. He has 44,000 Instagram followers.

Mr. Offer with the Teresis. Hanging out at 1600 Vine can open doors, with residents working together on social media projects or marketing opportunities. Molly Matalon for The New York Times

“That’s considered laughable for most people here,” he said. “People kind of look at you and just see the numbers.”

One influencer told him that he was following too many people on Instagram. It made him seem desperate. “I thought he was joking,” he said. “But he was dead serious.”

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The building also attracts its share of fame seekers, like the Justin Bieber impersonator who has all the same tattoos as the actual singer and is often seen visiting a friend in the building.

It is also a magnet for bizarre behavior that doesn’t exactly make for good neighbors. Social media stars need daily content lest they be forgotten. It’s a dynamic that pushes them to do increasingly outrageous things to capture attention.

Consider Logan Paul, one of YouTube’s biggest stars, with close to 15 million subscribers to his channel. His escalating stunts in March alone included dangling a $20 bill from his balcony using a fishing rod to tempt passers-by, rigging a zip line over Hollywood Boulevard to send gifts to fans camped outside and pretending to be shot as fans watched in horror outside his window.

Building management told Mr. Paul that it was not renewing his lease. Naturally, he recorded the conversation for his vlog, before he moved to the building next door. (He was asked to leave there, too.)

After other neighbors started to complain, management has also limited where residents can shoot. First, it banned filming by the courtyard pool. Then it banned large professional cameras in all common areas. And in June, management went further and now requires residents to seek permission before shooting any video in common areas.

Danielle Guttman Klein, chairwoman of Klein Financial Corporation, which oversees the property’s management, said it needed to walk a fine line between embracing its stars and protecting the interests of tenants whose day jobs don’t revolve around getting likes on Facebook.

The influencers seem to sympathize, at least for now. Ms. Cerny said that she had been threatened with eviction but that management had allowed her to stay when she promised to not film in any of the common areas. But she said she could understand why many of the big stars had moved out.

“It does get overwhelming sometimes,” she said. “Eventually, you need somewhere to go and not post about your life for a second.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/business/hollywood-apartment-social-media.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

The BBC in Pidgin? People Like It Well-Well

December 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

The BBC also has a website in Korean, and it broadcasts radio programs in Korean that can reach the reclusive state of North Korea, bringing the total number of languages it uses to more than 40. The media organization says it aims to reach 500 million people by its centenary in 2022, about twice the current figure.

“We’re reaching new audiences in a language that is popular,” said Bilkisu Labaran, who oversees the service in West African Pidgin and who grew up speaking it, in spite of her parents’ disapproval. In schools, teachers warned students about the dangers of what they considered a “deviant” language.

While Pidgin is looked down upon by some, the word itself is not derogatory. More than 75 million people are thought to speak the language, either as their primary or secondary tongue.

“It’s so expressive, it brings people together and reaffirms a shared African identity,” Ms. Labaran said.

There are many variants of pidgin spoken across West Africa, from Mauritania in the north to Nigeria and English-speaking parts of Cameroon in the south, and the BBC said it is using a mélange in an effort to create some sort of regional standard. This has fueled debates among staff members over word choices: should, for example, an article use a word from Cameroonian pidgin, or from Nigerian pidgin, the most widely spoken variant.

The team is also trying to pioneer a standardized written form of Pidgin, which is primarily a spoken language. There are no formal ways of learning it; people simply pick it up.

Chris Ewokor is helping the BBC effort by putting together a linguistic guide. “I’m creating rules that we never had before,” he said.

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In Mr. Ewokor’s dictionary, “adrenaline,” for example, is translated to “power dey pump for im brain.” Drunken driving is translated as “drunkaman driving.”

Since the Pidgin service started in August, Bill Gates tried his hand at speaking the language in a BBC interview, where he responded to questions from Nigerians, many of whom speak a variant called Naija, or Nigerian Pidgin. (“Bill Gates: ‘Nigeria dey important,’ ” the headline on the BBC Pidgin site later read.) The British high commissioner to Nigeria, Paul Thomas Arkwright, also appeared in a BBC clip, speaking Pidgin rather fluently. (“I like Nigeria well-well,” he said.)

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Pidgin does have its own grammar, phonetics and vocabulary, linguistic experts say, and it has historical and cultural significance in West Africa.

Dr. Christine I. Ofulue, an associate professor of linguistics at the National Open University of Nigeria, who specializes in Pidgin, says it reflects Africa’s relationship with outsiders over the centuries, evolving from the language of the slave trade to a form of resistance and anticolonialism.

Today, she says, it represents African pride, seen in the flourishing number of radio stations and television programs that use Pidgin. An opera sung in West African Pidgin was staged two years ago in London, a world first.

Pidgin helps bring together, at least linguistically, large parts of a continent carved up by European colonizers who were later replaced, in many cases, by corrupt leaders. “It’s the language of the masses,” Ms. Ofulue said.

She commended the BBC’s decision to offer the service, saying it helped remove the stigma attached to Pidgin, often derided as a corruption of standard English.

West African Pidgin has its origins in the 15th century, when Portuguese traders were the first Europeans to reach the western shores of Africa, looking for copper, ivory and pepper, as well as slaves. Vestiges of Portuguese remain — for example, “pequenho,” the Portuguese word for “small,” evolved into “pikin,” the Pidgin word for “child.” “Sabi,” the Pidgin word for “to know,” comes from the Portuguese verb “saber.”

Then came the British, who developed a more robust form of communication with local chieftains in the 17th and 18th centuries. At the time, Pidgin was regarded as a language for the local elite, who benefited from the slave trade of their own people. In Nigeria, the largest former British colony in West Africa, Pidgin thrived as more and more people interacted with the colonizers.

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As British English was introduced into schools in the region as a result of colonialism, Pidgin began to be viewed as a bastardization of the pure English that had been promoted with the help of institutions like the BBC.

But as time went on, Pidgin evolved into a language of resistance and anti-colonialism, embraced by activists like Fela Kuti, a firebrand Nigerian musician, who sang in Pidgin as an act of defiance. In “Gentleman,” for example, a song in which he attacks Western standards imposed on Africans, he sings: “I no be gentleman at all o, I be Africa man original.”

Even after West African nations gained independence, artists used Pidgin to criticize their leaders. In 2004, Nigeria’s president at the time, Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military general, banned a popular rap song, “Jaga Jaga,” (“Rubbish Rubbish”) about politicians who were “scatter scatter” (ruining) the country.

Although some critics discourage the use of pidgin, its supporters say it represents far more than a language.

“Young people are taking it and owning it, and creating an identity from it,” Ms. Ofulue said. “This is our creation. That pride belongs to us.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/world/africa/bbc-pidgin.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

US gold of low purity & that’s why audit of reserves will never be allowed

December 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

The US government claims to hold 8133.5 tonnes of physical gold in its official reserves. Fifty-eight percent is reportedly held in Fort Knox, Kentucky, 20 percent at West Point in New York State, 16 percent is said to be at the US Mint in Denver, Colorado and five percent is held at the NY Fed.

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“The entire story around the US gold reserves is opaque and secretive. There has never been a full independent audit of the US gold reserves, and the custodians of the gold, the US Mint and the Federal Reserve of New York will not let anybody into the vaults to view the gold or to count it,”Manly told RT.

However, despite the numerous accusations against the US Treasury that it has much less gold than it claims, there is another reason, according to the expert – US gold is of bad quality.

“Even the details that have been provided on the supposed US gold holdings show that a majority of the gold bars are low purity and in weights that don’t conform to the industry standard ‘Good Delivery” gold bar specifications,” says Manly.

“So even if the US has the amount of gold it claims to have, most of this gold would not be acceptable for trading on the international market, and could only be used in swap transactions with other central banks that wished to swap Good Delivery gold bars for low purity and unusual weight US held gold bars,” he added.

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If the claims about lower-than-claimed US gold reserves are true, it would re-shuffle the entire global economy, Manly predicts. Though it wouldn’t hit the US dollar directly, or result in an immediate shift away from using the US dollar for international trade, the consequences will be sizable.

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“Firstly, proof of lower US gold reserves than claimed would add pressure for a full independent audit of all US gold reserves. It would also put the spotlight on the gold reserves of other major trading blocs such as the eurozone and China and Russia, and open up a debate as to what is the role of gold in the international monetary system. Which is something the US government constantly tries to avoid,” the expert says.

“It would also then refocus attention on international holders of US dollars pre-August 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window because after all those outstanding dollars held at the time by foreign central banks are still technically convertible into gold at the official gold price of the time,” he added.

Moreover, if the US Treasury gold holdings are falsified, it would put additional pressure on other central banks around the world, which have gold in the United States.

A proper check of the US gold reserves should include weighing all gold bars, checking assays, and publishing a full weight list in the public domain; the audit would have to be conducted by an entirely independent auditor. It will never be allowed by Washington, Manly says.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/414610-us-low-quality-gold/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business
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