 |
|
|
|||||
In the months following 2023s Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors GuildAmerican Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes, film-industry workers adopted a refrain: Survive til 25 — a meager goal reflecting industry reality. The strikes came shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic ground production to a halt. The dream factory had become a nightmare. The pandemic-inflicted production pause bled workers savings, forcing many to seek income outside the industry. Once work restarted, those who wanted to return to work — grips, camera operators, writers, directors, administrative staff, the Teamsters who ferry cast and crew to film sets — found some of those jobs never came back — the new normal of smaller, leaner Hollywood, had arrived. While union members voted almost unanimously in favor of the twin writers and actors strike, it dragged on, and the industry contraction continued. Two years after the end of those strikes, production is still down. When news broke that Netflix sought to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery for $83 billion, a deal that includes its sprawling Burbank studio lots, and HBO Max (WBDs cable channels would be spun off into a separate entity), the industrys workers were quick to voice their opposition. The worlds largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent, the WGA-West and WGA-East said in a statement urging the deal be blocked. The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers. The DGA released a similar statement; Director James Cameron frankly warned that the buyout would be a disaster. SAG-AFTRA was slightly more measured. A deal that is in the interest of SAG-AFTRA members and all other workers in the entertainment industry must result in more creation and more production, not less, the union said in a statement. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos sees only upside, describing the merger as pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker as well as pro-creator and pro-growth. Prospects for the streaming giant appear rosy: On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that WBD is rejecting Paramount Skydances attempt at a hostile takeover, stemming in part from concerns over the deals financing. Netflixs bid, the board believes, still offers greater shareholder value. David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount-Skydance, has tried to assuage criticism of his proposed takeover by stating that a combined Paramount-WBD would have more than 30 theatrical releases per year, a slight increase over the current output of the two studios. But skepticism among the industrys workers comes from precedent. When companies merge, it means job losses and fewer projects. IATSE, the union of below the line film workerscamera operators and technicians, makeup and costume artists, grips, electricians, and the likenoted the deleterious consequences that follow from such deals in a recent issue of its bulletin. Unfortunately, when large entities merge, they dont continue producing the same amount of content as when they were two separate companies, the union wrote. (IATSE has not yet commented on the Netflix-WBD deal.) Bleeding jobs In April 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded a loss of 217,000 jobs in the motion-picture and sound-recording industry — its biggest single-month drop ever. Even as the pandemic receded, production didnt return. FilmLA, a nonprofit set up by the City and County of Los Angeles, found the LA metro area lost nearly 19.7 percent of its share of first-run scripted television projects between 2022 and 2023, one of the largest drops since the organization began tracking the data. The number translates to thousands of lost jobs. In 2023, workers struck to secure more sustainable wages and benefits and protections against the threats posed by artificial intelligence. But strikes are an economic disruption (indeed, therein lies their power) and studios decision to downsize following the recent ones may prove permanent. A 2025 report from Otis College of Art and Design found that Californias film, television, and sound sector is roughly one-quarter smaller than in 2022. FilmLAs 2025 Q2 report logged 5,394 on-location shoot days, down 6.2 percent from the previous year and more than 30 percent below the five-year average. Productions continue chasing tax incentives abroad (you might be surprised how much unscripted television is shot in Ireland for this reason), further cratering domestic production. By the end of 2024, the BLS recorded 100,000 jobs in the industry in the greater Los Angeles area, down from 142,000 two years earlier. When one considers freelancers and adjacent industriesthe citys service sector, for instance, is inextricably tied to cinemathe losses are even higher. There is plenty of evidence to support that contention. When Disney merged with 21st Century Fox in 2021, 3,000 people lost their jobs amid downsizing, delayed or permanently shelved projects. Disney shuttered Blue Sky Studios (best known for the Ice Age franchise) the same year, eliminating 450 animation jobs. WBDs merger with Cartoon Network Studios eliminated axed departments. NBCUniversal, Lionsgate, and Netflix have all carried out company-wide layoffs in recent years. Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison, laid off 1,000 people at Paramount after purchasing the company earlier this year. The CEO has stated that he plans to reduce the workforce by a further 2,000 — numbers that are sure to weigh on WBD employees minds should Ellisons attempted hostile takeover of WBD succeed. Uncertain future The Netflix-WBD deal is expected to face regulatory scrutiny over its potential consequencs for consumers: Netflix is already the leading streaming-video-on-demand (SVOD) company, with 300 million subscribers; adding HBO Max to its base would make that 430 million. Antitrust regulations require investigation for any deal that would allow a single entity to control more than 30 percent of a market; this one would give Netflix a 43 percent share of the SVOD market. But its not only the potential for subscription price hikes and the continued decimation of the moviegoing experience that are at issue. Worker opposition can also cause the Department of Justice to block the merger, as it did with Penguin Random Houses $2 billion bid to purchase Simon & Schuster. Authors, including Stephen King, testified that the merged super-publisher would mean lower advances for their books, with dire consequences. A combined Netflix-WBD poses the same risks. A writer or director hoping to get a project greenlit by a studio will have one fewer potential buyer. The megacorporation may ultimately constitute a monopsony employer, able to dictate the standards of employment across the industry by dint of its size. The imperious studio executive declaring Youll never work in this town again! to an underling is a familiar trope in Hollywood; Netflix-WBD executives will hold such power. Fewer companies means fewer people deciding what art you can see, what options the viewer has. It means greater sidelining of visionary work, the type that executives dismiss as too weird, not marketable, or politically inconvenient.Its too soon to say how this will all shake out. Netflix and WBD believe it will take eighteen months to complete the deal and clear all regulatory hurdles. WBD’s rejection of Ellisons counter-bid may not put an end to hish campaign to turn the public and regulators against Netflixs purchase. Yet Ellisons proposed purchase of WBD has its own problems, from its conglomeration of financial backers whose ties to the Trump administration will alarm many in the industry, to its own possible antitrust obstacles. For Sarandos, Ellison, and WBD CEO David Zaslav, making quality films that pay workers enough to keep them in the industry, is of course, not the goal. Maximizing shareholder value remains the priority. No matter what the executives say, neither potential merger is likely to be good for the worker. And so its up to them to look out for their own — and by extension, film itself. Even in the most unfavorable labor market, there is a power in such clarity of vision.
Category:
E-Commerce
Last month, Believer Meats was basking in acclaim. The startup had just secured final U.S. government approval for what it billed as Earths largest cultivated-meat facility, a $125 million complex near Raleigh, North Carolina. Boosters hailed the plants role in strengthening U.S. competitiveness in the race to grow meat from cellsa sector long dominated by Israel. (Senator Thom Tillis called it a major economic win for the state and region.) Believer Meats CEO Gustavo Burger said he was thrilled about the facilitys opening, calling it a major milestone that would redefine the future of food. Boom, he wrote on LinkedIn, announcing that the company was set to begin commercial production of its flagship lab-grown chicken. Heres to the next chapter! That chapter lasted roughly two weeks. Today, the 200,000-square-foot facilitys fancy bioreactors and centrifuges sit quiet. In an all-hands meeting over Microsoft Teams on December 1, a tearful Burger informed staff that Believer was ceasing operations and laying everybody off. The worst day of my career, he told employees, according to people on the call who spoke with me under anonymity so as not to harm their future work prospects. A major financial backer had pulled out, leaving management scurrying to secure a last-ditch loan, which was also denied. The startup, valued at $600 million in 2021, would be closing shop before putting a single lab-grown chicken strip into a consumers hand. It had just posted an ad for a new plant manager. [Image: Believer Meats] It is a stunning collapse for one of the sectors most promising players. Founded by Hebrew University biomedical engineer Yaakov Nahmias, Believer rose on the promise of being the first company to turn cell-based meat into a low-cost commodity. By 2021, it had raised $347 million from giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson Foods. After opening what it called the worlds first commercial cultured-meat factory in Rehovot, close to Tel Aviv, the company began scouting U.S. sites for a far larger facility. Additional money came from the prominent food investment firm S2G Ventures; Neto Group, one of Israels largest food conglomerates; and Bits x Bites, a Chinese foodtech accelerator. In 2024, Jeff Bezos donated $30 million to help Believer create the North Carolina State University Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein. This past summer, Believer became the fifth cultured-meat startup to secure a no questions safety letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, putting it alongside Upside Foods, cell-based salmon maker Wildtype, Mission Barns (whose pork meatballs just became the first cultured meat sold in U.S. grocery stores), and Eat Just (which five years ago sold the worlds first cultured chicken, in Singapore). In September, Believer announced that it had completed the plants construction. The facility boasted a bioreactor that it said would revolutionize animal biomass in the same way Fords assembly line revolutionized automobiles. For phase one of operations, the plant would be able to produce 21 million pounds of chicken per year, at a cost of $8.50 to $10 a pound. Hundreds of thousands of people could potentially try it, Believers chief product and growth officer Heather Hudson said, making it more accessible not just for a certain demographic, but for most people. Capacity was designed to double, eventually, to 42 million pounds, and Believer claimed that a price point of under $7 per pound was in view. [Photo: Believer Meats] Believer Meats comes to an end The alternative meat protein industry has long operated in a Silicon Valleystyle reality distortion field, one that ignores the stubborn physics of the real world. Eat Just founder Josh Tetrick, who built the eggless mayonnaise brand Just Mayo, told Better Meat Co. founder Paul Shapiro, for his 2018 bestselling book Clean Meat, that Eat JustJust Mayos parent companywould be the worlds largest meat company by the year 2030. A think tank predicted that demand for cow products would fall by 70% by that same year. Believer had made bold statements of its own, particularly about its own success with reducing costs, the biggest hurdle standing in lab-made meats way. In 2021, Nahmias noted that Believer was cultivating chicken breast for $7.70 per pound, down from $18 six months earliera price decrease that seemed to validate the sectors meteoric hype. It was a massive improvement from 2013, when a team of scientists led by Mark Post, founder of Leonardo DiCaprio-backed Mosa Meat, served the first cultured burger through the help of an eye-popping $330,000 investment from Googles Sergey Brin. At the time, Nahmias called Brins $330,000 hamburger probably the silliest idea Ive ever heard. Last month, Nahmiass lab published astudy in Nature Food outlining a new method for dividing cow cells that doesnt require gene-editing. Estimating that beef produced this way would cost in the range of $7 to $10 per pound, Nahmias declared it a true eureka moment, overturning decades of assumptions about bovine cell biology. Believer ran out of cash two weeks later. According to insiders, the company is currently seeking a buyer or some alternative structure that would allow the business to continue in some form. Its unclear if any top level executives remain. But some people in senior management, like chief product and growth officer Heather Hudson, reportedly left Believer just weeks before the layoffs. Believer employees were not offered severance. Worse, the final pay period passed without them receiving paychecks. By law, employers laying off their workforce with a headcount of at least 100 must either warn employees 60 days in advance, or pay them for 60 additional days. Interview requests I sent in early December to the Believer communications department and to CEO Gustavo Burger have gone unreturned, including queries about the companys actual headcount at the time of its collapse. Believer had said that the North Carolina facility would employ 100 people, and additional team members worked from its Chicago headquarters. The companys LinkedIn page listed the workforce as being between 50 and 200. [Photo: Believer Meats] Big tours and taste tests Built by Gray Constructiona firm that has handled warehouses for Mercedes-Benz, Caterpillar, and WalmartBelievers North Carolina facility had been in its windup phase, called commissioning in industry-speak. Former employees tell me that the target date for shipping the first finished chicken products to Believers co-packer had been tentatively set for early spring. The initial customers were going to be wholesale restaurant partners. But the plant reportedly ran into operational issues. Former employees describe glycol leaks, improperly welded pipes, and cooling problems that delayed the timeline by weeks at a time. Believer reportedly hired an outside contractor to fix issues more quickly. Two sources told me that construction delays were a significant obstacle to progress. In November, Believer held a town hall meeting during which attendees say executives hinted at financial trouble. A funding round deemed mission-critical was underway, they explained; much suddenly seemed to hinge on its success. Former workers say that in recent months, big tours and taste tests had been organized for well-dressed groups of prospective financial suitors. On December 1, Burger told the staff via Teams that the company was kaput. The evening, an outsider whod been rooting for the companys success reached out to me to share that Believer had closed the plant. A few days later, Gray filed a legal complaint demanding $34 million for the outstanding debt that Believer owes for the facility. [Image: Believer Meats] The brutal efficiency of the bird In the meantime, the faucet that practically gushed money has slowed to a drip. According to the alt-protein trade group Good Food Institute, funding to cultivated-meat companies has shrunk from $1.38 billion in 2021 to just $139 million in 2024. Upside Foods suffered two rounds of layoffs in 2024, and a third major restructuring in March. A decade after also encountering labeling disputes, regulatory setbacks, and other problems with Just Mayo, Eat Just switched the chicken its selling in Singapore to a 3% cultivated chicken, 97% plant-based protein hybrid product, and meanwhile got sued for more than $100 million by bioreactor partner ABEC for unpaid bills. ABEC alleges that Eat Just was woefully undercapitalized from the beginning. Even cultured meats most vocal cheerleader, Paul Shapiro, has staked his company Better Meat Co.s future not on lab-grown cells, but on a complete protein made from mycelium. Then there is Meati, which by 2025 had secured $400 million in funding and was selling its alt-steaks in 7,000 stores nationwide. It was reportedly headed toward bankruptcy by last spring (after a protracted IP dispute, incidentally, with Better Meat Co.). Yasir Abdulan infomercial entrepreneur who made his fortune selling belts, car dash cams, shoe insoles, and Drain Buddy hair catchers on late-night TVtook control of the company in a fire sale. In a press release, he asserted that when startups and founders bild a brand, they have tunnel vision, but Meati would tap into new growth by harnessing the power of direct-to-consumer sales: As Seen On TV products are available in all major retailers across the world. And yet cultured-animal players are hardly the only names struggling in alt-meat. Beyond Meat once traded at $230 a share after its 2019 IPO, with a market cap of $14 billion. This summer, CEO Ethan Brown told me that the company was reorienting the brand to highlight vegetables as pure, clean ingredients instead of existing as a sort of not-meatto the point of dropping Meat from the name. But after reporting a $100 million loss for the third quarter of 2025, Beyonds stock price slid to less than $1 a share. In June, Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness warned his company was mulling a burger that was half real beef. For the past decade, the percentage of Americans identifying as vegetarian and vegan largely hasnt changed. Yet during this same period, spending on plant-based foods doubled, from less than $4 billion in the mid-2010s to more than $8 billion today. The gap is explained by meat eaters behaving like vegans part-time. But this group is less ethically bound to the diet. Externalities like taste, price, and cultural trends can push these consumers back to more conventional meat options. In fact, amid continued inflation, sales of plant-based foods fell in 2024. Cultured meat, in particular, is crashing into the brutal efficiency of the bird. Chicken is the most common meat to try to cultivate, and the modern broiler chicken is the cheapest form of animal muscle meat. Disruptors like Believer are asking consumers to pay $8 per pound for a product that tastes and looks different, while a rotisserie chicken at Costco costs $4.99. Meanwhile, mainstream consumers are pursuing natural products more than ever. Food has landed in the crosshairs of a growing cultural pushback against artificial slop. Products that veer into an Uncanny Valley of food are therefore at a special risk. Impossible Foods CEO McGuinness captured this well at the recent World Economy Summit in October. He acknowledged that the industrys high-concept pitch was becoming a losing proposition and recast the sectors origins as a tactical error. People dont want to eat tech food or climate foodthey just want to eat delicious, nutritious food, he said. Thats what were trying to get back to.
Category:
E-Commerce
Welcome to exhausted America 2025: Most adults are more than a little fine with doling out cash as gifts, and many plan to be asleep before midnight on New Year’s Eve, according to a new AP-NORC poll. About 6 in 10 Americans say cash or gift cards are very acceptable as holiday presents, but theyre much less likely to say that about a gift that was purchased secondhand or re-gifted, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Cash is OK for the grandkids I guess, said Nancy Wyant, 73, in rural central Iowa. But Im a gift giver. Come New Year’s Eve, she’ll be fast asleep before 2026 rolls around. At our age, we don’t do anything, the retired bus driver said with a laugh of herself and her live-in partner. Hes set in his ways. They’ll be joined by the 44% of Americans who say they wont stay up to greet 2026, according to the poll. About half of U.S. adults age 45 or older wont make it to midnight, compared with around one-third of adults under age 45. Consider 23-year-old Otis Phillips in Seattle, an outlier for his age. He, too, will turn in early. Its one of the holidays that doesnt really feel special to me, said the master’s student. Most say cash makes an acceptable holiday gift Cash is a safer gift for younger adults. The poll found about two-thirds of Americans under 45 say cash is a very acceptable holiday gift, compared with 55% of adults age 45 or older. Everythings too expensive nowadays. And I dont want to go buy a gift for somebody and then it turns out they dont like it. So cash, said Gabriel Antonucci, 26, a ski resort cook in Alaska, about an hour outside of Anchorage. Most people at least grudgingly accept various gift types, with about 9 in 10 saying cash or gift cards are at least somewhat acceptable and about 6 in 10 saying the same for secondhand gifts and re-gifted items. Teresa Pedroza, a 55-year-old mom of two adult sons in central Florida, is mostly not on board. I don’t like it when kids say they want cash, or I should get teenagers gift cards, she said. It kind of takes some of the charm away from gift giving. But she acknowledged reaching for cards a time or two out of convenience. About three-quarters of adults under age 45 say secondhand gifts are at least somewhat acceptable, compared with about 6 in 10 adults age 45 or older. About 4 in 10 adults age 45 or older say secondhand gifts are somewhat or very unacceptable. Many keep holiday decor up beyond the new year It’s not just your pesky neighbors who leave their holiday decorations up into January. About one-third of U.S. adults say theyll leave them up after New Years Day. Its more common for people to leave their decorations up after the holiday season than to put them up early, according to the poll. About 2 in 10 Americans say they put up holiday decorations before Thanksgiving. I just had my husband bring down the bins. If we werent expecting company, I wouldnt even bother to decorate, honestly. Im tired of doing that, said Pedroza, the Florida mom of two. Many will celebrate Christmas Day with sports About one-quarter of U.S. adults say theyre planning to watch sports on Christmas Day, while only 5% will head for a movie theater. Men are much likelier than women to say theyll watch sports on Christmas, and older Americans are much more likely than younger Americans to tune in. About 2 in 10 adults under age 45 say they plan to watch sports on Christmas, compared with about 3 in 10 adults age 45 or older. Phillips does plan to break out his red sweater with the green Christmas tree that one of his grandmothers knitted for him a couple of years ago. She made all kinds of things for me growing up, he said. This is by far my favorite. Phillips has it in rotation for his part-time job as a grocery checkout clerk. He’s the outlier once again. Women are much likelier than men to say theyll wear a holiday sweater or accessories. Gifts for pets and Elf on the Shelf About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they will give a gift to their pet this year. In Iowa, Wyant’s nearly 3-year-old boxer-Great Dane mix named Indy is among them. She’s a very spoiled dog, Wyant said. Shes got too many toys, so she’s getting treats this year. She loves her treats. And the red felt elf that parents move around the house every night as a Santa spy to see which kids have been naughty or nice? Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults say theyll do Elf on the Shelf. Noooo, Pedroza said when asked if she’d ever done the elf for her kids. My younger son was very well-behaved. I didn’t have to use any kind of tactics. ___ The AP-NORC poll of 1,146 adults was conducted Dec. 4-8 using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points. By Leanne Italie and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||