Are Reality TV Stars…Employees? & ‘Hot Ones’ Sold For $82M

0:00Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, mysterious drones are flying over New Jersey and nobody has any idea what's going on.

0:41Then 10 wings doused in hot sauce may have just saved BuzzFeed. It's Friday, December 13th. Let's ride.

0:53Toby, welcome back. Hope you're feeling better. Neil, thanks for holding down the fort. You are a one-man band, a solo act. Incredible performance yesterday. Thank you. It's also Friday the 13th today, which is one of the spookiest days on the calendar. But not everyone is proceeding with caution. For some people, the number 13 is actually lucky. One person I'm thinking of is obviously Taylor Swift. Her birthday is today. She considers 13 to be her lucky number. And then some cultures, including ancient Egypt, also believed the number 13 was lucky. And then for Colgate University, the number 13 is just venerated.

1:31The New York school was founded by 13 men with$13, 13 prayers, and 13 articles. They have a whole website dedicated to the number 13. So they love 13. Are you a person who thinks 13 is lucky or unlucky? I mean, I was going through it because I was wondering if I have any superstitions. And I have routines. Like, I set my alarms at the same time every morning. I always lay my clothes out the night before. But I think I'm realizing that it only moves from routine to superstition if something bad happens following a departure from that routine. And so far, so good. I haven't had anything bad befall me if I do set my alarm at, you know, 408 instead of 409.

2:14So I don't think I have superstitions. Were you a superstitious guy? I am, but I think it permeates my life so much that I can't identify just one. but I will think over, I'll think of them over the course of the show and let you know if any pop up. So you're not superstitious. You're just a little stitious. Now let's hear a word from our sponsor Sage. Neil, two words I want to talk about today, visibility and speed. Sounds like you're a pit boss at a Formula One race. Oh, I wish I'd take down Red Bull for sure, but no visibility and speed are in reference to Sage. If you are a finance pro, you need greater visibility and control over your entire business and Sage can give that to you.

2:49But you also can't get bogged in time-consuming manual processes, Sage helps automate stuff like bill pay and cash management so your team can be freed up to enhance real-time business insights or catch Max Verstappen around turn three. If you want visibility and control over your entire business and want to be faster in all your core financial capabilities, head to sage.com for more info. That's sage.com. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from EBCLIS. After an initial dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking EBCLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks.

3:27And most of those people maintained skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBCLIS, LibriKizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EPCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EPCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe.

3:56Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EPCLIS. Before starting EPCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about EPCLIS and visit ePCLIS.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. If you thought the dating scene was tough right now, The National Labor Relations Board is here to shake things up even more. The NLRB issued a complaint this week suggesting that the love seekers on the Netflix reality show Love is Blind, who date one another whilst in separate rooms known as pods, aren't just participants in a social experiment.

4:33They might actually be employees. It is the Labor Board's first time venturing into the messy world of reality TV, but comes after some of the show's on-screen personalities have advocated for change. If the NLRB gets its way, it could turn the reality TV world on its head. If the show's contestants are employees and not contractors, that could lead to unionization, better pay, and less restrictive non-compete clauses. Neil, maybe what these contestants need in their life was less blind love and more labor protections. Right. This could be an earthquake for reality TV. We've talked about the National Labor Review Board on the show before, but for the most part, it's been in the context of industries like Starbucks unionization or Amazon unionization or auto workers.

5:19This is the first time they ventured into reality TV. There have been a number of lawsuits filed by former Love is Blind contestants and extends to other shows as well, accusing the producers of these shows of being abusive, exploitative, and then putting all of these clauses in their contracts, such as non-competes and pay or leave, which is something like you have to pay a fine if you leave the show. So that really gets you in there. So they've chronicled a bunch of these exploitative practices that they're bringing to the National Labor Review Board. And there will be a final determination next year whether reality TV show contestants, at least on Love is Blind, are employees.

5:57So the world of reality TV show, there's a lot of wild stuff that happens on screen. That's kind of par for the course, and it's what the producers of the show want. So these production companies that put on the shows always want to reduce their exposure, reduce their exposure to litigation. So that's where you get these very tightly worded, these very tightly written contracts, usually with these confidentiality provisions, also with these other restrictions. And so one big one that the NLRB pointed out in relation to Love is Blind is that they have this non-compete provision that says cast members cannot give interviews.

6:32They can't go on media on their own behalf or for any third party one year until after the last episode air. So it's a very restrictive non-compete clause that kind of the contestants bristled against. They also had the no-show fine that if they left the show, they'd have to pay$50 ,000. And then also just the pay was a little low. Some people were saying they were getting$1 ,000 a week stipend. And if you went down through the amount of time they spent on set, they were making below minimum wage$7 an hour based off of the entire time that they were working. So a lot of these different complaints added up, and that's why the NLRB got involved.

7:10And the companies are not going to go down quietly. They issued a response last year to one of these lawsuits. The show's creator said, we document the independent choices of adults who volunteer to participate in a social experiment. Their journey is not scripted, nor is it filmed around the clock. We have no knowledge or control over what occurs in private living spaces when not filming, and participants may choose to end their journey at any time. So that's the producer's side. They're saying, look, they signed up for this. We're giving them fame and celebrity and things like that. We signed a contract, and this is what they agreed to.

7:43So that is, you know, the battle lines are being drawn. This will be resolved next year one way or the other. The big question mark is whether this is a huge reckoning for reality TV, if they are classified as employees, or whether it's a nothing burger. And that all depends on who Trump appoints to the National Labor Review Board, because it is a commission made up of a bunch of different people. If he appoints a Republican, then this thing is going to be absolutely dead in the water, and they're just going to go back to the way things were. But it does seem like there's a broader, what they call a reality reckoning around the Bravo-verse right now.

8:17You know, Bethany Frankel is probably one of the most famous Real Housewives called for unionization among contestants last year. So there's a broad acknowledgement that perhaps reality TV contestants should be afforded more rights as, you know, compared to the other industries that everyone works in. BuzzFeed stole the studio behind the YouTube show Hot Ones for a non-poultry sum of$82.5 million, offloading one of its most prized assets in order to keep its struggling business afloat. So who bought it from BuzzFeed? A consortium of investors led by an affiliate of Soros Fund Management acquired the pair company of hot ones called First We Feast and will run it as an independent entity.

9:00The show, in which cool-as-a-cucumber host Sean Evans interviews celebs while they eat increasingly spicy chicken wings, has become a massive hit since its debut in 2015. First We Feast has over 14 million YouTube subscribers and does about$30 million in annual revenue. That's a nice business, but BuzzFeed has bills to pay, specifically a$120 million tab from debt and interest that came due last week. It's using the proceeds of the Hot Ones sale to pay that down, so it only has$30 million in debt remaining. Now, BuzzFeed is in a much better place financially, saying it has a cash balance bigger than its total outstanding debt.

9:38Still, Toby, I have a lot of questions here. Hot Ones was the one thing BuzzFeed had going for it. What's the strategy going forward? And for Hot Ones and First We Feast, what is the ceiling for them as an independent company? Please answer. I do think BuzzFeed had to, you know, cut off the arm to save the body in this case. Yes, Hot Ones was their buzziest and probably most well-known property, but they are a business in decline right now. They had to make some cuts. They had to get some cash in the bank so they could make these interest payments. Now all that's left is BuzzFeed, the actual site that you know from those listicles and quizzes and celebrity news that you used to do a lot of back in the day.

10:17They have HuffPost still, which is a news site, and then they also have Tasty It's Food Vertical. And that's it right now. They got rid of Hot Ones. They are now moving into what their CEO, Jonah Peretti, calls new AI-powered interactive experiences. So he is betting a lot on AI here, and I guess you can't have an AI version of Sean Evans. As for Hot Ones, they're joining Soros, a conglomerate of Soros companies, which sounds weird on the surface because George Soros is worth over$7 billion, has been this very big proponent of liberal causes. So why are they owning this celebrity interview show?

10:53They have been moving into the media space in past years. The Soros empire is now run by his son, Alex. He acquired a minority stake in Crooked Media, which is the media company behind Pod Save America. They also have a controlling stake in Odyssey, which is this radio company. So they have been making inroads into the media company. This is now another crown jewel that they're adding to their portfolio. And Hot Ones is, let's just put an emphasis on it, incredibly successful. I mean, it is a destination stop on the press tour circuit. If you have a movie coming out, then you absolutely go on this show.

11:29You were looking at some of the numbers this morning, and they sometimes exceed the hundreds of millions for one episode. Yeah. Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds went on to promote Deadpool and Wolverine. That pulled in 31 million views. Ariana Grande was recently on to promote Wicked. 8.3 million. Paul Mezcal, only 1.9 million. Come on, Paul. Get those numbers up. All time, though, on the all-time list, I was wondering who is the most famous Hotline guest, and it is Gordon Ramsay with 129 million views. You are right, though. It's almost replaced late-night television as the go-to stop, the de facto stop for if you are a celebrity because it just has this very dedicated audience.

12:08It puts celebrities in a great scenario. You get to see them. Everyone's tried spicy food before, so it's very relatable. And then Sean Evans also asks these great deep questions to them. So you are totally right that it's become part of the late night media apparatus in a way that I don't think anyone really could have foreseen when it started 10 years ago. New Jersey residents, are your necks sore? People living in the Garden State have reported a rash of mysterious drone sightings over the past few weeks, prompting wild explanations for their presence ranging from foreign motherships to aliens.

12:42These drones have been described as larger than your typical hobbyist models and are often seen flying over critical infrastructure like reservoirs, airports, and military bases. Witnesses describe the drones as being about the size of bicycles or even small cars, with some seen flying in clusters late at night. Understandably, residents have called on public officials to figure out what the heck is going on. Yesterday, the White House's National Security Communications Advisor, John Kirby, assured the public that there is no threat to public safety or national security. But the same day, Senator Richard Blumensahl said they should be shut down if necessary, a sentiment shared by two New Jersey area congressmen, Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, who've called on the military to shoot them down as well.

13:27The FBI has formally launched an investigation asking residents to share any videos and photos they may have. It's become this whole thing. And the only consensus, Neil, is that nobody really knows what they are. No, I was going down a deep thread last night and there are so many more questions than answers. I think one thing you could probably point to is maybe some of them are just planes. There's a lot of private airports in New Jersey and people might have this confirmation bias where there's knowing that others are seeing drones in their state. They might be seeing them as well and documenting just actual planes.

14:02But it does remind you a bit of the panic around the Chinese spy balloon where we sent, you know, an F-16 to shoot down a hobbyist balloon that cost$10 with a Sidewinder missile. So there's a question of whether this is a panic, but also at the same time, mayors and local officials are putting a lot of pressure on people at the national level to have more transparency, to actually look into this, because their residents are calling them and saying, we're seeing these drones. We're scared. We have no idea what's going on. The whole thing kind of blew up a little bit in mid-November when drones were spotted near Picatinny Arsenal, which is a military research facility, and then also over Bedminster, which is where Trump has his golf course.

14:46So those two things, and then you have officials saying they saw him over critical infrastructure as well has led to a lot of nerves and that is completely understandable so you have this push and pull between local mayors saying we demand answers and federal officials saying there's maybe not much to see here and we'll see what happens going forward i mean there is this background context of a increased interest in ufos but as the government classifies them as uaps which are unidentified anomalous phenomenon there have been two major hearings this year on uaps held in front of Congress, where leaders are just calling for greater transparency from the Pentagon.

15:22So I think you can't talk about these things without also talking around the greater interest at the governmental level when it comes to UAPs, UFOs, whatever you want to call them. So until we figure out what this is, it still is just a big question mark. We were speaking this morning, and they think the only possible explanation is just a hobbyist got a really big drone and it's just flying it around and people are freaking out about that. But until you have answers, then there's really nothing you can say other than the fact that you hope it doesn't, you know, impact national security or isn't a threat from another country, which the Pentagon has said it doesn't believe it is.

15:58But until one of these drones is, you know, taken down from the sky and examined, we just don't know. Up next, it's stock of the week, dog of the week time.

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16:51See a Lowe's Red Vest Associate or visit lowes.com slash holiday install to get started. Lowe's. We help. You save. Basic install only. Date restrictions apply. Subject to availability. Install by independent contractors. See Associate for details. Contiguous U.S. only. Welcome to Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, the Friday segment where Toby and I pick one stock that nailed the high note in Defying Gravity and another that had to take it down the octave. I won the pre-show contest of who hosted yesterday, so I get to go first. And my stock of the week is Google, or Alphabet if you want to be a snob about it.

17:28Alphabet, Google's parent company, shot up more than 11 % this week after the company released a new AI model that sets the stage for a universal personal assistant that can do pretty much anything you want for you. Oh, and there was also that quantum computer that proved the existence of the multiverse. But back to the AI stuff, because that's what get investors really foaming at the mouth these days. Google lifted the lid on Gemini 2.0, its upgraded AI model that lays the foundation for AI agents, which is like chat GPT on steroids. While chatbots can provide answers to your questions and write bad novels, they require some handholding.

18:05AI agents are like a dog without a leash. They can complete tasks on their own and solve multi-step problems without you giving them instructions every step of the way. Many leaders in the AI space see these agents as the industry's next big consumer application, and Google just threw its hat in the ring with Gemini 2.0. Let's talk about timing. None of these agents will hit your Chrome browser anytime soon, but they will come next year. And that seems good enough to placate investors who are seriously worried about Google search losing its throne to AI upstarts like ChatGPT and perplexity. It really was a great week for Google.

18:40Go back to even earlier this year, and it seemed like the AI revolution was passing it by. It was falling behind in this critical race, but now a lot of things are going on at Google that will get you reason to be excited. They have another project called Project Astra, which introduces a virtual assistant like a Siri, like an Alexa. That's slightly more natural to talk to. It can remember and refer back to past interactions. It also is teaming up with Samsung to try to take on Meta in this resurgent market for smart glasses and VR headsets, which is ironic because we're almost a decade removed from its first attempt in Google Glass that went very, very poorly.

19:17It also rolled out this new AI called Gencast. It's a weather prediction model. It can accurately predict weather forecasts 15 days in advance. And then you mentioned the quantum computing thing as well, the willow chip that decreased the error rate involved in quantum computing. So all of a sudden, we were just looking back at Google and say they rolled out a ton of products here that are doing very well and suddenly changed the entire narrative around this company when it comes to AI. And it is still hypothetical because these things aren't going to be released to the public until next year.

19:47And then the quantum computer is not going to come for, I don't know, decades. But it did kind of show investors that Google has its technical chops in order and that it can still provide technological breakthroughs. And that excited investors. Google Alphabet had lagged all of the Magnificent Seven peers up until a few weeks ago. And now it's doing much better with investors super excited about some of these AI products and the fact that it may be able to change its business enough to hold off those competitors. My dog of the week is health care stocks. Following the spate of negative press connected to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Names like CVS, Cigna, and UnitedHealth Group continued to struggle this week.

20:31A bipartisan group of senators pushed things from bad to worse when they introduced a bill that could result in the breakup of some of these healthcare giants. The bill goes after the middlemen of the drug world, pharmacy benefit managers. It would force health insurance companies and PBMs to break off their pharmacy businesses within three years or face penalties. Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a press release that the fact that healthcare companies can own both PBMs and pharmacies are, quote, a gross conflict of interest that enables these companies to enrich themselves at the expense of patients and independent pharmacies.

21:05So in addition to trading lower in the days after Thompson's killing, healthcare stocks are now facing some serious heat in Congress as well. Yeah, UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, and CVS Health are all down at least 10 % this week. There's just a lot of negative sentiment around the health care industry right now. Both all three of those operate huge insurance arms. And then they also have the largest PBMs, which are the drug supply chain middlemen. Collectively, those three companies or those three PBMs operate 80 percent of the nation's prescriptions. And the pitchforks have been out for PBMs for a while.

21:40The FTC started looking to that looking at them in 2022. 2022. So there does seem to be appetite for health care reform right now, which was not talked about at all during the presidential campaign. I don't think they asked a single question about it at any of the debates. What are you going to do with the health care system? But all of a sudden, after this assassination, it's come to the fore as a major talking point here. And we'll see whether, you know, it's very unclear whether this specific bill will gain traction. But for an issue that certainly wasn't top of mind, it will be now in the years going forward.

22:14And we'll see whether the Trump administration decides to take that popular mandate and do something on it. We know that his Health and Human Services Secretary, RFK, really does not like the big health care industry. So we'll see if there's any reform there. But, yeah, there's certainly a lot of negative attitudes towards health care industries right now. And their stocks are plummeting as a result. Yeah, I mean, you just got to go and look at what the people are saying. A Gallup poll said that only 19 % of Americans are satisfied with the cost of health care. I think a lot of people would say, who are that 19 %?

22:45Because a lot of people do feel like the system is not built to support the people who need the care their most. And then all you have to do is point to the stock gains that these companies have seen in the past two decades. Over the last 20 years, UnitedHealth Group, it's up 1 ,200%. Cigna is up 4 ,000 % over the same time period. But then you look at the life expectancy numbers in the U.S. and those have stayed flat, which is part of the reason why people are so frustrated with this particular industry right now. Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. President-elect Trump was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year for the second time.

23:20And to celebrate, he rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange to kick off the trading day. It was a jubilant scene with loads of finance execs in attendance, including Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Citigroup's Jane Frazier and Pershing Square's Bill Ackman. They're excited about Trump's second stint in the White House because his administration is expected to cut taxes, deregulate companies and spur more merger activity, all things that would seemingly benefit Wall Street. Here's an interesting fact, though. Despite being a New Yorker and being in the business scene for decades, Trump's never rung the opening bell before.