Lifestyle
After a grueling 2023, here are 4 predictions for media in 2024
The numeral 2024 in Times Square in New York City on Dec. 20. 2023, after traveling across the country, beginning in Los Angeles.
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The numeral 2024 in Times Square in New York City on Dec. 20. 2023, after traveling across the country, beginning in Los Angeles.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
Given how turbulent 2023 turned out, saying it was a challenging year for media feels like the understatement of the decade.
Here’s what we survived: Two lengthy strikes by Hollywood writers and performers that paralyzed new production, crippling the business in ways we’re just beginning to fathom. Layoffs in the media sector totaling more than 20,000 positions, according to one study. Hikes in subscription fees, which hit consumers of almost every major streaming service, including Netflix, Disney+, Hulu and Apple TV+, and confrontations between media companies and cable providers leading to questions on whether cable TV can even survive in the streaming era.
But experience has taught me that, when it comes to the media business, things are rarely as bad – or as good – as they initially seem. So, my predictions for media in 2024 may sound negative — based mostly on a growing cynicism about the abilities of those leading our biggest media companies to meet a historically challenging moment. But I’m also, oddly, a bit optimistic.
In other words, as clueless or greedy as media executives get, this critic remains convinced talented creators, journalists and performers will find a way to excel.
We’ll probably have fewer TV/streaming series. But that will likely be a good thing.
One minute, analysts were complaining about the glut of TV and streaming programming at the beginning of 2023 — offering too much material for anyone to keep tabs on — before the cancellation of shows and the tactic of completely removing titles from streaming services as tax write-offs drew howls of criticism as the year wore on.
Unfortunately, the numbers won’t get much better in 2024. I fear the economic hit media companies likely took from the strikes and the added costs incurred by new contract terms will result in fewer shows getting made and even more shows getting the ax in the new year. But the silver lining here: given that 2022 saw nearly 600 separate series available to viewers, the industry was long overdue for serious shearing, anyway.
The key to bringing the glut of TV down to a manageable level for the average consumer is ensuring the right programs survive – including shows featuring marginalized groups and cultures. After a year in which programs like A Black Lady Sketch Show, Reservation Dogs, the LGBTQ-centered reboot of A League of Their Own and the Black-centered revival of The Wonder Years all went away, the industry must work overtime to ensure diversity doesn’t decline along with the number of TV series.
Streamers will cost more. But you’ll have even more subscription options.
One of the sneakiest media trends in 2023 was all the different techniques streaming services used to squeeze additional revenue from subscribers. Amazon announced, for example, that Prime Video subscribers will begin to see ads in their streaming content on Jan. 29, but customers can pay an additional $2.99 for ad-free content. Netflix eliminated its cheapest ad-free tier months ago, forcing those who wanted to avoid ads to buy the pricier, premium subscription. And lots of services cracked down on password sharing while boosting prices.
Still, streaming services’ drive for profit also creates more opportunities for consumers. Some platforms have worked out limited deals to share content with other services, bringing select HBO titles to Netflix. Streamers are also bundling services, with Disney offering Disney+ and ESPN+ to Charter cable customers for a single price, while Verizon has brought together Max and Netflix. We’re back to the future as companies and consumers rediscover the cost savings of advertisements and bundling that were always hallmarks of cable TV.
I also think we’re going to see a landscape where there is a small number of giant streaming services and a bunch of boutique specialty platforms, with midlevel players like Peacock and Paramount+ facing increasing economic pressure to join bigger companies (hence the rumors about Warner Bros. Discovery talking about merging with Paramount Global and rumors that Comcast might also benefit from buying Paramount.)
Journalists took a serious hit in 2023. But the fight against misinformation is only beginning.
One bright spot for journalism in 2023 was the gigantic settlement Fox News paid for airing and repeating lies about the last presidential election and the dethroning of the news channel’s biggest star, Tucker Carlson. What remains astonishing is how little those moves have curbed similar rhetoric on other media platforms about the election or the continued influence of toxic ideologues like Carlson and Megyn Kelly.
Expect that fight to only grow more intense in 2024, as the presidential season unfolds and people actually begin voting in primaries (I’m still upset by news items that say a given candidate is “ahead” when no one has voted yet, and we’re only talking about poll results.) Kudos to news outlets that have adopted journalism professor Jay Rosen’s admonition to avoid “horse race”-style reporting to cover “the stakes“ for the next election, particularly The Atlantic‘s entire issue devoted to the possible consequences if Donald Trump wins a second term as president.
Not the odds, but the stakes.
That’s my shortand for the organizing principle we most need from journalists covering the 2024 election. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes. https://t.co/czKcpu3GXV
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 5, 2023
Still, in addition to the job losses, the media’s addiction to toxic but buzzy personalities remains a serious flaw. Too many supposedly serious news platforms refuse to accept that the worst outcome for shameless attention addicts like George Santos isn’t breathless coverage denouncing his lies, but no coverage at all. No more updates on certain people’s Cameo posts or social media outbursts — yes, NPR has covered such things, too — the real solution to handling some awful public figures is to deprive them of the media oxygen they need to survive.
Late night television and cable TV will continue to decline. But they will also survive.
I’ve said and written this a few times: New media doesn’t kill old media. It just forces it to change.
The scariest media moments of 2023 involved watching Internet-led disruption come for familiar forms of media, like late night TV and cable systems. Big names like The Late Late Show‘s James Corden and The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah and Roy Wood Jr. left the late night genre, only to be replaced by a game show and… nothing, yet.
CBS might yet find a hit with After Midnight, the sort of game show it tapped to replace Corden’s program, and Comedy Central may yet conclude its yearlong spasm of guest hosts by finding the one person ready to take The Daily Show into the future. But it feels more like a sector of media that produced an awful lot of modern comedy stars is on the ropes with no clear way back to the top.
Similarly, accelerated cord-cutting and homogeneity of content – cue the jokes about how ridiculous MTV’s marathon airings of Ridiculousness have become – threaten to permanently hobble the industry that gave us modern-day quality TV in HBO, CNN and ESPN.
Because I’m also an optimist, I’m hopeful both these corners of media will find new directions in 2024, led by innovators we may not even know yet. But they’re likely to be in a much-reduced form, a bracing reminder that change eventually comes for us all in media.
And, sometimes, what’s left is a shadow of what once was.
Sunday Puzzle
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This week’s challenge
Today’s puzzle is a tribute to Mimi. Every answer is a familiar two word phrase or name in which each word starts with the letters MI-.
Ex. Assignment for soldiers –> MILITARY MISSION
1. Pageant title for a contestant from Detroit
2. One of the Twin Cities
3. Nickname for the river through New Orleans
4. Super short skirt
5. Neighborhood in Los Angeles that contains Museum Row
6. Just over four times the distance from the earth to the moon
7. Goateed sing-along conductor of old TV
8. American financier who pioneered so-called “junk bonds”
9. Little accident
10. Land-based weapon in America’s nuclear arsenal
11. In “Snow White,” the evil queen’s words before “on the wall”
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from Benita Rice, of Salem, Ore. Name a famous foreign landmark (5,4). Change the eighth letter to a V and rearrange the result to make an adjective that describes this landmark. What landmark is it?
Answer
Notre Dame –> Renovated
Winner
Chee Sing Lee of Bangor, Maine
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from James Ellison, of Jefferson City, Mo. Think of a popular movie of the past decade. Change the last letter in its title. The result will suggest a lawsuit between two politicians of the late 20th century — one Republican and one Democrat. What’s the movie and who are the people?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, April 23 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
This story is part of Image’s April’s Thresholds issue, a tour of L.A. architecture as it’s actually experienced.
A landmark is a landmark because it tells you that you’re home now — the piece of earth you’ve chosen to inhabit saying, “You’ve made it back, congratulations.” We identify our cities with their landmarks, and because we identify with our cities, we identify with the landmarks too. They are us and we are them, mirroring each other through eternity. A city like New York or Chicago, with the Chrysler Building, the Bean, etc., has landmarks that exist in the world’s popular consciousness. But L.A.’s most cherished landmarks belong to us and us alone, a secret you’re let in on if you live here long enough and pay attention.
The Fashion Nova baddie in horizontal sprawl off the Vertigo, for example, is an emblem for those in the know. Our twisted version of a capitalist guardian angel, patron saint of spandex in a cropped matching set. Welcome to El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Fashion Nova. Merging on the 110 South from the 10 East while the sunset burns and traffic thickens is a miracle in more ways than one, and in the spirit of compulsively performing the sign of the cross when you pass a church on the freeway, this billboard is deserving of its own acknowledgment.
It may not be the landmark L.A. asked for, but in Sayre Gomez’s painting “Vertigo,” you begin to understand why it’s the one we deserve. At the opening for “Precious Moments,” Gomez’s solo show at David Kordansky, the room was vibrating. A game of energetic ping-pong unfolded underneath the gallery’s fluorescent light, beams of identification, recollections or stabs of grief bouncing off each piece in the exhibition. People were seeing hyperspecific parts of a city they love reflected in a hyperspecific way — for better and for worse. Recognition has two edges and they both happen to be sharp. Gomez twists the knife deeper for a good cause: He wants you not just to look but to really see.
In his work exist iconic signs of beloved local establishments — like the Playpen — the blinding glint reflecting off downtown’s skyline, telephone poles regarded as totems. The line to see Gomez’s replica of L.A.’s graffiti towers, “Oceanwide Plaza,” snaked through the gallery’s courtyard. Once inside, at least three graffiti writers whose names were blasted on the replica pointed it out proudly, even gave out stickers to take home. The truth can be beautiful and it can be ugly — in this case it’s both — on the flip side showing up in the form of smog, tattered flags and an abandoned graffiti tower that starkly represents the pitfalls of capitalism and greed, a neon arrow pointing to the homelessness crisis.
Because the Vertigo is something everybody who lives here recognizes as central to a sort of framework of Los Angeles. And I think the encampment has become that as well. It’s connecting these integral components — something that’s more revelatory and more fun with something that’s more grave.
— Sayre Gomez
In the main gallery, I was stuck on “Vertigo.” On the 12-foot canvas, my eye went to the place out of focus: the thin strip of billboard in the background featuring a young woman with sand-dune hips, patent knee-high boots and long black hair laid up on her side, wearing cat ears and a tiger bodysuit as flush as second skin. The model made the kind of eye contact that felt dangerous — might cause an accident if you’re not careful. “#1 Halloween Destination … FASHION NOVA,” it read. I knew her, anyone who has driven through the two main arteries of Los Angeles knows her. The black-and-white smiley motif of the Vertigo, an events space, sat right next to her face, just happy to be there, it seemed, above a painted sign that says “Ready to Party?”
The sky was the color of cotton candy, but the stale kind that’s been hardening in a plastic bag for days after the fair. Something rancid about it. In the foreground of the painting was a car encampment with a tattered floral sheet woven through the windows, cloth tarps and couch cushions creating a shield against the elements. Small plastic children’s toys lined at the top of the car — dinosaurs and dump trucks and sharks — creating their own shrunken skyline in front of the Vertigo, signaling that young kids likely lived there. It’s less juxtaposition for juxtaposition’s sake and more an accurate reflection of the breakneck duality of living in a place like L.A.
Even angels exist within the context of their environments. Our Fashion Nova baddie hangs off the Vertigo, a building that has used its ad space as physical clickbait and political posturing for over a decade. It’s promoting the kind of fast fashion brand that’s been regarded as a case study on the industry’s environmental impact. In the years the billboard has been up, it’s looked over dozens and dozens of car encampments like the one depicted in Gomez’s piece.
She feels dubious, yes. But no less like ours.
Julissa James: I’ve lived in L.A. for 13 years now. For me, the city and the architecture of the city is less the Frank Lloyd Wrights and Frank Gehrys — there’s that — but other landmarks that signal, “Oh, I’m home.” The Fashion Nova baddie above the Vertigo has always been that for me. Your piece is layered and there’s so much more to it than just that, but that’s the first thing I saw and was like, “Whoa. I need to talk to Sayre. We need to talk about ‘Vertigo.’”
Sayre Gomez: It’s like L.A.’s Statue of Liberty. It’s the city of anti-landmarks, you know what I mean? I mean, there’s the Hollywood sign, which I think is so telling, because it’s the remnants of a real estate venture. The city is built by real estate schemes and 100 years later we’re feeling the effects of it. You’ve got empty skyscrapers and a massive homeless catastrophe. L.A. doesn’t really have real landmarks. It has anti-landmarks.
JJ: When did the Fashion Nova billboard above the Vertigo click for you as something that felt representative of the city, or something that you wanted to depict?
SG: My studio is in Boyle Heights, so I pass that billboard multiple times a week. This is my 20th year in L.A. and that building’s always been a big mystery to me. It was empty when I moved here before this guy Shawn Farr bought it and turned it into Casa Vertigo. I think he probably makes more money on it with the ad space than anything. I know nobody who has ever been there. Very mysterious to me. So that’s what I was drawn to.
(Paul Salveson from David Kordansky Gallery)
The Vertigo has always been mysterious to me. And that whole fashion industry is mysterious to me — the kind of shmatta, American Apparel-adjacent, or maybe coming out of the wake of that. These kinds of businesses, or the representations of these businesses, how do they function and how do they flourish? Is it aboveboard? What more perfectly encapsulates that than that building? It’s this weird thing you can’t quite figure out but somehow it has a lot of money and then it’s an event space, supposedly billed as that. Clearly it’s this big ad thing, and I’m very interested in the changing dynamics of capital. The capital of yesteryear, which was based on the brick and mortar, where things are being made in a specific location, maybe on an assembly line or in a specific way, to a kind of capital that is based solely on advertising or on viewership. These beautiful buildings acting as pedestals for some kind of ad space, you know? It becomes an anti-landmark for me. Something where I’m like, “Oh, there’s that thing again.”
JJ: It’s this gorgeous Beaux Arts building …
SG: It’s a Freemason building!
JJ: When I’ve talked to some people about the Vertigo, they’re like, “the Fashion Nova building?”
SG: They always have the woman in the same pose — same pose, different clothes. If you remember before Fashion Nova, they would have these provocative ad campaigns or provocative slogans. “Twerk Miley” was up, remember that? They did a Trump one: “TRUMP NOW.” They did one for Kanye when he ran for president. The 10 and the 110 are literally the crossroads of the city, so it’s really poised to be a special building. It has a special designation because of the location.
JJ: Talk to me about the process of doing this piece. Where did it start and how did it evolve?
SG: I was cruising around that vicinity trying to see if I could get a good vantage point to take photos of Vertigo. And then I stumbled upon this car — the car that’s in the foreground of the painting. Anytime I see an encampment that has kids’ toys, things that reference back to the lives of children, it hits hard. But I like to lay it all out there. I like to make things confrontational. I want it to be difficult. The painting isn’t based on a one-to-one photo [Gomez paints from a composite rendering of images he’s taken around town], but I knew that I wanted to use that car, and I knew I wanted to get the Vertigo building, and so I started just messing around with different iterations. I could never find a good angle to take a good photo of the building, so I just went on Vertigo’s website and I was like, “I’m just using these.” I switched the sky and put a more moody, atmospheric sky in.
JJ: Which I loved, because we know that feeling — you’re merging onto the 110 and you see a beautiful sunset. The euphoria of like, “L.A. is the best city in the world.” But you know what? What I found so interesting about your piece is that it was revealing to me about myself, but also about so many of us that live in L.A. and have lived here for years and have developed a jadedness. When I saw your piece, immediately I was like, “Oh my God, the Vertigo! The Vertigo! The Vertigo!” And then I was like, “OK, wait, hold on, there’s so much more going on here.” But the fact that my eye went to that first instead of the car encampment, the kids’ toys, brought up a lot of questions about my own relationship to the city and the things that we choose to see, the things that maybe we’ve seen so much of that we subconsciously filter it out. Why was it important for you to put these two things up against each other in this way?
SG: Because the Vertigo is something everybody who lives here recognizes as central to a sort of framework of Los Angeles. And I think the encampment has become that as well. It’s connecting these integral components — something that’s more revelatory and more fun with something that’s more grave. That’s what I’m doing in my work at large. I use the sunsets and the beauty to create a dialogue, to entice people to sort of look a little bit at how things are contextualized, how things act, what’s actually happening. I don’t make things in a vacuum. I was working on this show and I was going to really push this agenda of incorporating more of my experience with my kids into the work. That’s also a double-edged sword. I wanted to interject some levity, because the work can get so dark. I wanted to bring in some iconography from their world and things that they get excited about. When you’re juxtaposing that with really stark things, it becomes darker. I want to thicken the stock a little bit. Make things a little more complex.
Phil Pritchard of the Hockey Hall of Fame works the 2019 NHL Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on June 19, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and guest scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Phil Pritchard and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Adam Burke, and Dulcé Sloan. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
Who’s Alzo This Time
The Don Vs The Poppa; World’s Worst Doctor; Should We Eat That?
Panel Questions
Big Cheese News!
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Our panelists tell three stories about someone missing a huge opportunity in the news, only one of which is true.
Not My Job: Phil Pritchard, the NHL’s Keeper of the Stanley Cup, answers three questions about the other NHL, National Historic Landmarks
Peter talks to Phil Pritchard, the NHL’s Keeper of the Stanley Cup. Phil plays our game called, “Let’s Go Visit The NHL” Three questions about National Historic Landmarks.
Panel Questions
The Trump Dump and Air Traffic Control Becomes Animal Control
Limericks
Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Spice Up Your Spring Cleaning; A Fizzy Meaty Drink; The Right Way to Eat Peeps.
Lightning Fill In The Blank
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