Self-Driving Cars Hit Roadblocks & Are Streaming Bundles the New Cable?

0:00Tonight 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 I do it! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere tonight on NBC. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, streaming is basically cable now, and the only thing that's missing is an extremely confusing remote.

0:41Then Red Lobster is shutting down 99 locations, and we're officially on Bankruptcy Watch. So time to start hoarding those cheddar biscuits. It's Wednesday, May 15th. Let's ride.

0:56Out with the metaverse, in with the Jeopardy-verse, Sony Pictures, who produces the famous show, announced a new Jeopardy spinoff yesterday called Pop Culture Jeopardy, where contestants answer questions on topics like The Avengers, Mixed Martial Arts, Broadway, and Zendaya. Yeah, just her. Neil, as the only person I know to have ever held a buzzer, albeit on Kids Jeopardy, what are your thoughts on Pop Culture Jeopardy and the wider Jeopardy-verse? Did you know that between July of last year and April of this year, there was not a single version, there was a single episode of regular Jeopardy, just traditional Jeopardy.

1:33It was all these tournaments that they're trying to do, the Invitational, the Masters tournament, the Second Chance tournament. And so they're clearly trying to build up stars that have been on the show in the past that you know and love, the Amy Schneiders of the world, and have them come back on the show and build up their profiles. but I just worry a little bit that it might be too much of a good thing and Jeopardy is getting a little too big and trying to expand into too many different areas. But maybe expanding it into various subtopics and putting it on Amazon Prime Video like they're doing here and just keeping the original Jeopardy more traditional as people have known and loved for 36 years is the way forward.

2:11That was very Jeopardy of you, by the way, answering my question with a question of your own. Well, I'm going to hit you with a question. Who do you think should host it? Oh, I don't know. So Ken Jennings, pop culture. They're probably going to go with like some football player, Kelsey. Well, isn't Kelsey hosting another show on Amazon Prime? Let's just have the Kelsey's host everything. Yeah, Jason Kelsey. Now let's hear a word from our sponsor, the Wendy's Cinnabon Pull Apart. Neil, our time with the Pull Apart is coming to a sweet end today. We are scraping the bottom of the cup to get that last hit of cinnamon sugar and icing right now.

2:43I say we celebrate this sponsorship coming to its close the same way we ushered it in, by saying ooey gooey a startling number of times. I couldn't agree more. You want to do the honors or should I? After you. Ooey gooey, ooey gooey, ooey gooey, ooey gooey. Ooey gooey, ooey gooey, ooey gooey, ooey gooey. We will miss you, Cinnabon Pull Apart, and all of your doughy, sweet, cinnamon, and yes, ooey gooey goodness. You were more than a sweet treat to us. You were the sweet treat. But fret not, even though this is our last ad for the Cinnabon Pull Apart, You can still get a taste of ooey gooey magic by heading to a Wendy's near you or going to wendys.com slash morning brew.

3:21Eczema 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. And most of those people maintain 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.

3:57EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EpGliss. Before starting EpGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about EpGliss and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Chinese electric vehicles are pretty much invisible on American roads, and President Biden wants to keep it that way.

4:27Yesterday, he said the U.S. would quadruple tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25 % currently to 100 % effectively boxing them out of the market. For some context, with a 100 % tariff, a Chinese automaker would have to sell their EV in the U.S. at half the price of cars made elsewhere to compete, which simply isn't going to happen. The higher tariffs on Chinese EVs was just one of a series of trade barriers Biden placed on China yesterday, including doubling tariffs on solar cells and semiconductors, tripling tariffs on some steel and aluminum products, and higher duties on certain advanced batteries.

5:02The goal is to protect American manufacturers from getting undercut by cheap, highly subsidized clean energy products coming in from China, which makes more of these items than its own population can possibly buy. And that's especially true of Chinese electric vehicles, which are scary good and scary cheap. Elon Musk recently said Chinese EVs will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world if countries don't slap tariffs on them. And Biden was happy to oblige. He was happy to oblige. And this is a bid to do kind of a lot of things, actually. One, as you said, prevent this flood of low cost Chinese cars from swamping domestic manufacturers.

5:40It also is a bid to reduce the big trade imbalance that we currently have with China. and then also potentially eliminate some of those security risks of importing a bunch of cars made by China. These are all relatively bipartisan issues as well, which is why we see a massive, massive tariff like this come into play. A hundred percent tariff is nothing to joke at. No, but compared to President Trump, it's low or former President Trump because you have to look at this also in the context of the election. President Biden is really gearing up for those votes in the Midwest, in those swing states like Michigan and Ohio.

6:16And he really wants to show American automakers and the people who work there that he's trying to protect their jobs. Meanwhile, Trump has tried to one up Biden in the first place when it comes to tariffs. He slapped tariffs on 300 billion dollars worth of Chinese imports when he was president. And as soon as this news came across his desk, he launched into his plan to put 200 percent tariffs on Chinese EVs. And he wants to slap 60 percent tariffs on every product coming in from China and 10 percent tariff on everything coming across the board. So both presidential candidates are in this mode of protectionism.

6:54Protectionism, for sure. Does this mean cars are going to get more expensive? EVs are going to get more expensive on the surface? probably not initially because the tariff is not going to buy anyone's car buying life right now because as you said, China sells basically zero EVs in the US right now. Last year, Chinese car companies exported$400 million worth of EVs in the United States. And if we compare that to European manufacturers, sales by European manufacturers were almost 20 times higher. So again, right now, Chinese EVs are a drop in the bucket. So this is more of a protectionist, more of a preventative tariff than anything trying to reduce the current amount of EVs coming into the United States.

7:36Yeah, I think the only brand that exports EVs from China to the U.S. right now is Polestar, which is owned by Geely. The big winner of this probably is going to be Mexico because Chinese automakers are going to set up shop, set up these factories in Mexico that will be able to send autos to the U.S. without that tariff. BYD, which is one of the biggest Chinese EV makers right now. is already releasing a pickup truck for the Mexican market. So we'll see whether Mexico emerges as the big winner here. Of course, Trump also wants to put tariffs on Chinese EVs made in Mexico so they can't come across the border.

8:12So both presidential candidates right now are raising tariffs. There's been a lot of pushback, though, saying, hey, what about the green transition? Don't we want consumers to be able to have cheap EVs? Aren't you trying to get us to a zero emission world here. And so to put up barriers for lower cost EVs and lower cost, just clean tech energy and clean tech products in general, people say is counterintuitive. It's counterintuitive, but you also don't want to completely undercut the US auto market. And so by leveraging these tariffs, hopefully you get just a more holistic and more US focused approach to still advancing that clean energy agenda.

8:51This is getting ridiculous at this point. another bundle has hit the streaming industry. This time it's Comcast teaming up with Apple and Netflix to offer its Peacock streaming service as a bundle exclusively available to their customers. The new combo is called StreamSaver and is the latest effort by entertainment companies to try and lure and retain customers by offering more content for less money. It's not lost on customers though that were watching cable get re-bundled and reinvented in real time. I mean, it was literally less than a week ago that Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery said they were teaming up to offer Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max as a bundle as well.

9:28The Logic Makes Sense offers several services in one package to simplify a fractured entertainment landscape, but it also adds in another layer of options and price points for customers already overwhelmed with them. Neil, we don't know the price yet, but what do we think about this latest Comcast, Apple, Netflix, Three-Headed Dragon? I'll tell you what Jimmy Kimmel thinks. So he presented for Disney last night. He got on stage and he made a lot of jokes. He said, we are bundling. And while from the outside, this may look like an act of desperation from the inside. It also looks like that. We didn't want to bundle.

10:01We had to like when you're freezing to death and it's so cold, you have to get into a sleeping bag with your uncle so you don't die. That's us. And these streaming companies are seeing massive cancellation rates that they've never had to deal with before. People are balking at these higher prices and are saying, OK, we need to start offering maybe the equivalent of a value menu where we're putting a bunch of these services together. And this is historic. I mean, this has never happened before, where these top-tier streaming services from various different companies are coming together. But it just goes to show you the state of the times now.

10:32One of the issues is stickiness has been a real, real problem. As you said, a lot of these streamers are raising prices, which has increased churn as well. But then also what increases churn is the bingeability of the current entertainment landscape. Usually you sign up for a service. You watch one show on it. Once that show is over, you're like, yeah, I don't really know if I need this anymore. So that's one attractive thing about these bundles, at least from the bundler's perspective, is that giving people a wider buffet of content will hopefully make them stick around for longer. You won't just cast Apple TV to the side now that you're – I don't even know an Apple TV show right now.

11:10What's a good one? That's going on right now. We're getting ready for severance because it hasn't been on so long. So please come back. There you go. Yeah, that's my Apple TV show. Yeah. So, OK, who are you taking right now? We got these different bundles. We got Comcast, Netflix and Apple TV Plus against Disney, Hulu and Max. I mean, probably Disney, Hulu and Max at this point. That feels like you got both the top end and the bottom end as well. So that's taking out Netflix. I'm taking out Netflix. What about you? I'm going with Comcast, Netflix and Apple TV Plus. Absolutely. And it looks like it's going to be at a pretty attractive price point together.

11:45All three of those, the cheapest you can get them is$22. And Comcast CEO said this is going to be a lot less than that. But yes, we are in a new era. All of these streaming companies have also rolled out ad services to ad platforms. So we truly are back to cable. OK, raise your hand if you are a self-driving car company and you're not under investigation from the feds right now. I see no hands, which is not surprising. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened at least four probes in the past month into vehicles that can drive themselves or assist human drivers. And two came in the past few days.

12:23The agency is investigating Amazon's self-driving robo-taxi unit Zooks after two of its vehicles break suddenly and were rear-ended by people on motorcycles. Yes, Zooks is a real thing. The next day, it announced it was investigating the self-driving company Waymo. over 22 reports of those cars crashing into gates, chains, or parked vehicles, or doing something else that may have violated traffic laws. And that comes on top of probes into Ford's Blue Cruise hands-free driving software and a review of its massive Tesla recall last year over its autopilot feature. These flurry of investigations show that federal regulators are ramping up their scrutiny of autonomous vehicles, just as these companies are hoping to roll them out onto more roads.

13:02It's been a bumpy ride so far, and it looks like it's only gonna get bumpier. Right, and one of the things that makes it even bumpier too is that Americans are still a little bit nervous when it comes to EVs, or not EVs, autonomous driving. According to a AAA survey on autonomous vehicles, 66 % of US drivers express fear while 25 % express uncertainty about fully self-driving vehicles. So if you talk about headwinds to an industry right now, you're getting it both on the consumer side and then also on the regulator side. But other than that, if you zoom out though, these companies are full steam ahead.

13:36And I mean, we just talked about Wave, which is this London-based autonomous driving company that just raised over a billion dollars worth of capital. These companies want this to happen, even though there are a bunch of bumpy roads ahead. Right. And even Cruise, which is GM's subsidiary for autonomous driving, got dragged literally because it dragged a pedestrian 20 feet and it had to take all of its cars off the road. At that point, GM really could have just said, all right, we're done with this. Like, this is too much of a headache. But actually, there's a bit of a renaissance, and Cruise just started deploying its fleet again last month.

14:13So Cruise is making a comeback. Elon has said he's balls to the wall with autonomous. So there's going to be this tug of war between regulators and autonomous driving companies, and we're just going to see what happens. But there's definitely an increased pushback from regulators right now. I do just want to also call out that autonomous vehicles are here. I mean, if you look at Waymo, Waymo's robo-taxis are making 50 ,000 trips a week with a pretty strong safety track record here as well. So this is not something that is far-fetched or futuristic at this point. 50 ,000 trips a week is a not insignificant number.

14:48So do just want to give the entire industry a little bit of credit here as well. Up next, Caitlin Clark's WNBA debut kicks off a new era for the league. I'm Christian McCaffrey, pro running back and Abercrombie is an official fashion partner of the NFL I'm not kidding when I say NFL by Abercrombie broke the internet last year and I think this season's lineup is even cooler and so does my wife who keeps stealing all my hoodies stay fit for the season and Abercrombie's newest arrivals shop NFL by Abercrombie in the app online and in store

15:30When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp. The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. the most anticipated start to a WNBA season ever tipped off last night as Caitlin Clark in the Indiana fever took the court for the first time. The game ended up being a blowout with the fever losing to the Connecticut Sun by 21 and Clark had 10 turnovers, but that did little to dull the sheen of an evening that has been circled on the league calendar ever since Caitlin Clark was taken number one.

16:20Overall, the Clark effect can already be felt around the league ticket sales are up 93 % across the league compared to last season. Games have been moved to bigger arenas to accommodate demand, and a lot more games are being shown on national television. It goes beyond just attention, though. The entire league is getting charter flights for the first time this year. Caitlin Clark and MVP frontrunner Aja Wilson both inked signature shoe deals with Nike. The Golden State WNBA expansion team also announced its name and brand identity yesterday, the Golden State Valkyries. Neil, just in terms of sheer volume of things that are happening and attention being drawn to the league, this year has a chance to shift the entire trajectory of the game, and we don't even have the viewership numbers from last night yet.

17:02There's so much anticipation. Every single team in the WNBA, all 12 of them, is on track for record attendance this year. Everyone's waiting to see whether what Kaitlin Clark did for college basketball at Iowa will translate to the WNBA. But the fact that her team got blown out last night shows that there is a huge, there's a wider league beyond Kaitlyn Clark. And I think the most important thing that the WNBA is to do this year is to send all of the attention that's going to be on Kaitlyn Clark across the league and build up its other stars. Because that's what's going to make the Kaitlyn Clark effect more sustainable is if it permeates the entire league and not just the Indiana fever.

17:40Right. And some of the other college stars are still fresh in people's minds. I mean, Cameron Brink from Stanford, she's out in L.A. now. You have Camila Cadorso from South Carolina and LSU's Angel Reese now on the same team. Both of them also have great rivalries with Kaitlin Clark as well. So I do think you're right. How can the attention fracture and not just be this heliocentric league around a single player? I think hopefully it's a rising tide floats all boats kind of situation here. And it might be because I saw that the Washington Mystics were moving their June 6th game from the current arena seats 4 ,200 seats.

18:13and they're moving it to the Capital One Arena where, you know, the big men, the male leagues, play in Washington, D.C. that has 20 ,000 seats. And then I looked at who they're playing. I was like, oh, it's obviously going to be the Indiana Fever. No, it's actually the Chicago Sky. So there's one indication that the interest in the WNBA is going beyond Caitlin Clark, although the TV network staff certainly zeroed in on Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever. 36 out of their 40 games are going to be on national TV, even though they were quite terrible last year. They were like 13 and 27. Right. Another interesting part of that TV pie, though, is what's going to happen with local broadcasters.

18:51Local broadcasters have really taken advantage of the increased attention this year. A lot of people, as we talked about in our previous story, are cutting their cable subscriptions. So some teams like the Sun and Jazz and the NBA are broadcasting all of their local games on free TV. A lot of those teams are striking, a lot of those broadcast networks are striking similar deals with WNBA teams. So I do think a winner here are local broadcasting networks rather than just like the national broadcasting networks. And the big question is, so when are these women going to get paid more? Because this went viral and Caitlin Clark's salary came in at$76 ,000.

19:27Meanwhile, Victor Wimbanyamu is the number one pick for the NBA, is making more than 100 times that. And so the question is, what's going to happen here? And the big thing is that the WNBA has just to make more money from its TV deals. Currently, it's making$60 million a year. The commissioner wants to at least double that with negotiations with Disney in 2025. And I think she has a great bargaining chip with Caitlin Clark. Can it bring that to the table and say, hey, you know, we're worth more than$60 million. We're going to bring a lot more eyeballs to the table for advertisers, for sponsors, for others.

20:02So it will take time for these women to get paid more, but I think it will happen if things go according to plan this year. If there's one thing this podcast needs more of, it's metal energy. So let's discuss the saga of a mining deal that will impact everything from the clean energy transition to your wedding ring. Last month, Australian mining giant BHP made an offer to buy England's Anglo-American for$39 billion. That would be the biggest mining deal ever, and the incredibly high price tag is due to one reason, and one reason only, copper. Copper is a crucial ingredient for making electric vehicles, transmission lines, AI data centers, and more high-tech products.

20:42And as more money pours into clean energy infrastructure, demand for copper is booming. This week, the price of the metal hit a two-year high and is projected to go even higher. And luckily for Anglo, it's sitting on cushy copper mines in South America, which make it such an enticing takeover target for BHP. And it's also why Anglo rejected BHP's original$39 billion offer and then rejected BHP's revised$43 billion offer this Monday. It doesn't think this is a fair price given the upside potential of its copper reserves. Toby, we haven't seen such intense action over mines since Gandalf confronted the Balrog.

21:18No, we haven't. What you have here is this industry titan, Anglo's over 100 years old. It's trying to figure out what to do with itself. Should it break off some of its assets, get smaller, get leaner? Should it just accept the deal that's being presented to it? Whatever the choice is, one thing is clear. Copper is the focus going forward. Copper is the new oil. That's what the chief strategy officer at an energy company recently said on Bloomberg. He said it's the highest conviction trade I've ever seen. Copper prices are surging everywhere you look. It's because you cannot avoid them. It is powering everything from the EV revolution, but also like the AI revolution relies on copper as well because transition lines and power lines are a big part of that equation.

21:58So everywhere you look, it's copper all the way down. And so that's why we're talking about like this relatively large mining deal right now. When is Roaring Kitty going to tweet about copper? I don't know what the Roaring Kitty equivalent is right now, but maybe it's you and me. I tell you what. Meanwhile, there's another angle to this deal also because you mentioned Anglo is looking to shed its other part of the business. It wants to prove to shareholders that it knows what it's doing because it's trying to block this deal and not get taken over. So it actually owns De Beers, which is this diamond mining giant, this iconic company.

22:31And it wants to spin that off or sell it, which is spooking the diamond market, which is already going through a lot of rough times right now because of inflation. Consumers are pulling back on buying diamonds. And then you have man-made diamonds, which has taken up a lot of market share. So De Beers is in this weird liminal space right now where its future is in doubt. It's casting this shadow over the entire diamond market, which is going through a really rough time right now. It sounds crazy to think that De Beers is this cast-off, this spinoff asset. But it used to be very much associated with luxury.

23:02And it's a premium asset. But now you're right. The diamond industry has just completely shifted. One thing that might hold that up, though, is that the government of Botswana owns 15 % of De Beers as well. They've had this partnership that's gone back over half a century at this point. So that's one thing that could hang it up because Botswana does not want to get spun off or does not want to kind of be a part of maybe another deals as it's become one of the continent's richest economies on the backs of De Beers. So that's another wrinkle to get a very wrinkled merger deal that's going down between these two companies.

23:36It could be the end of Red Lobster as we know it. At least 99 locations are being abruptly closed as of yesterday with their entire contents, restaurant equipment, cheddar biscuits and all being auctioned off. That amounts to about 15 % of its locations nationwide, leaving the largest seafood chain in the country looking like a shell of its former self. Red Lobster has struggled to molt and adapt to a higher interest rate world with higher material and labor costs while still trying to claw its way out from under a significant debt load. Earlier this year, its largest investor announced it was seeking to exit its position.