Apple's Top Podcast Is.... (And It's Not Joe Rogan)

Apple released its list of this year's top podcasts, which had some surprising results.

The Joe Rogan Experience - widely regarded as the most popular podcast in the world - came in a distant third behind a much less prominent true crime pod, according to The Daily Mail (US). 

Occupying the number one spot on Apple's list was New York Times 'The Daily,' hosted by Times reporters Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise.

The Daily, which averages three million daily listeners, covers a wide variety of topics but usually centers on the biggest news story that broke the day before.  

Although Joe Rogan wasn't able to snag the gold on Apple's platform, his interview with now President-elect Donald Trump was the second-most listened to episode. It was also the fifth most shared. 

On YouTube, the episode has over 50 million views.

Apple runs one of the largest podcast platforms in the world, and 2024 marks the first year Rogan's show was returned to Apple Podcasts after his exclusive deal with Spotify expired.

The Daily, which averages three million daily listeners, covers a wide variety of topics but usually centers on the biggest news story that broke the day before.  

Although Joe Rogan wasn't able to snag the gold on Apple's platform, his interview with now President-elect Donald Trump was the second-most listened to episode. It was also the fifth most shared. 

Apple runs one of the largest podcast platforms in the world, and 2024 marks the first year Rogan's show was returned to Apple Podcasts after his exclusive deal with Spotify expired.

Joe Rogan: CNN, MSNBC Are Delusional

Joe Rogan lambasted “delusional” left-wing media Thursday for thrusting its bias forward at the cost of its readers’ trust — which is resulting in a “hemorrhaging” of subscribers.

“I was just reading something about CNN’s ratings and MSNBC’s ratings post-election — they’ve crashed,” the “Joe Rogan Experience” host told guests Jimmy Corsetti and Dan Richards of “Debunking the Past”

“All these left-wing kooks on YouTube are hemorrhaging subscribers. Where people go, ‘You guys are out of touch, you’re not accurate, you’re delusional,'” Rogan continued.

“And people are speaking with their subscriptions and they’re speaking with their purchasing of the Washington Post and their purchasing of the New York Times.”

🇺🇸JOE ROGAN: THESE LEFT WING KOOKS ARE HEMORRHAGING SUBSCRIBERS

“I was just reading something about CNN's ratings and MSNBC's ratings post election.

They've crashed.

All these left wing kooks on YouTube are hemorrhaging subscribers, where people go, you guys are out of… pic.twitter.com/50RS9kzs0i

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 22, 2024

The NY Post reports the conversation kicked off when Rogan, 57, brought up Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’ divisive October opinion piece, “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media” — in which the billionaire Amazon founder declined to continue the newspaper’s legacy of endorsing a candidate for presi

The Washington Post planned to endorse Kamala Harris before Bezos stepped in, claiming political endorsements “create a perception of bias.”

The move cost the newspaper thousands of subscribers, but Rogan theorized it would have lost much more if it stuck to its progressive endorsement.

“Essentially saying that you have to take divergent viewpoints, you have to take a bunch of different perspectives, we can’t just be this left-wing echo chamber, and it’s the reason why the business is faltering,” he noted.

The New York Times is suffering from the same left-leaning affliction, Rogan argued, pointing to a recent fact-check the newspaper published earlier this week on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim that a popular breakfast cereal contains several artificial ingredients in the United States that are not used in other countries.

FCC Chair Could Make Life Difficult For Media Companies

President-elect Trump’s nomination of Brendan Carr as the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is bringing both hope and fear to the media industry.

For media executives, the hope comes in the promise of industry consolidation, according to The LA Times.

Companies such as Fox Television Stations, Nexstar Media Group, Tegna and Gray Media are eager to buy more TV stations to better compete against deep-pocketed tech firms that are aggressively pursuing viewers and ad dollars. Carr is expected to support revisiting the rule on ownership of TV stations.

The trepidation comes from Carr’s open criticism of broadcasters and tech firms on behalf of Trump, who is famously hostile to journalists and outlets that criticize him. Carr, a Republican nominated to the FCC during Trump’s first term in 2017 and again by President Biden in 2023, wrote the chapter on the FCC in the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025.

During the election, he jumped on social media when Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on the Nov. 2 episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” to point out that the network also owed an invitation to Trump under the FCC’s equal time provision.

NBC obliged, giving Trump time at the end of a NASCAR race and following “Sunday Night Football.”

Carr got the industry’s attention again last Tuesday when he told Fox News that his recommendation on the Paramount Global merger with Skydance Media would consider recent accusations from Trump’s camp that CBS News edited its “60 Minutes” interview with Harris to make her sound more coherent

“That news distortion complaint over the CBS ‘60 Minutes’ transcript is something that’s likely to arise in the context of the FCC’s review of that transaction,” Carr said.

Big media companies are bracing for the possibility that he will do Trump’s bidding when the president-elect threatens retribution against media outlets that are unfriendly to him.

Disney Positioned To Make Streaming Work

Disney has emerged as the most promising traditional media company to pivot successfully to streaming, with a $321 million quarterly DTC profit, a $134 million profit for fiscal 2024, and 42% of its media revenue now stemming from streaming, putting it ahead of Paramount (27%) and WBD (26%) in monetizing its transition, according to The Wrap. 

Industry trends show linear TV subscriptions declining 8% quarterly, while streaming subscriber growth (+10% this quarter) and pricing strategies, particularly ad-supported tiers, are driving revenue growth, with Disney, WBD and Paramount all showing incremental DTC profitability.

Analysts highlight consolidation opportunities and scaling challenges for media companies, with Disney focusing on integrating ESPN into its streaming portfolio, WBD considering acquisitions and Netflix maintaining its dominance through global expansion and ad-tier success.

Disney squeezed out another quarterly profit in its overall direct to consumer (DTC) streaming business of $321 million, and it had a profitable fiscal year 2024 of $134 million after a dismal $2.61 billion loss in 2023. It now has 236.2 million Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions, about 47.5 million less than industry leader Netflix.

More importantly, 42% of Disney’s total media revenue (excluding Experiences) came from streaming this quarter. That compares to Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery — the companies struggling the most to make streaming work and close the gap with Netflix — whose DTC revenues accounted for 27% and 26% of their total revenues, respectively, according to Macquarie Equity Research.

“Disney will get there,” Tim Nollen, an analyst at Macquarie, told TheWrap, echoing what other Wall Street analysts said last week. “Their pivot to streaming will enable them to overcome the declines in linear.” But for “the likes of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, it’s more questionable.”

Young Americans Are Turning Off the TV

As streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ have taken over a huge chunk of TV consumption in the United States, traditional TV is finding itself under increased pressure to defend its place as the go-to medium for entertainment, distraction and information. And while people still spend a lot of time watching live and timeshifted TV on average, that's largely due to heavy TV usage by Americans aged 65 and above, who watch roughly 10 times as much traditional TV as young adults do.

According to Nielsen, Americans aged 18 to 34 watch less than five hours of live and timeshifted TV per week. At the other end of the scale, those aged 65 and older watch more than 40 hours on average. Making this worse for the TV industry, there's a growing share of young adults who don't watch TV at all, as they get all they need from digital sources. 

According to Statista Consumer Insights, 50 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. say that they don't watch any traditional TV, compared to just 29 percent of 55 to 64-year-olds. That share would likely be even lower for those aged 65 and older, but they have not been surveyed in this case.

The Picture Is Bleak For The Once Mighty Cable Industry

When Comcast swallowed NBC and Universal Studios 14 years ago, the sibling cable channels USA Network, Bravo and CNBC were considered diamonds in the rough.

USA Network had gained traction with its “Blue Skies” programming strategy: sunny and upbeat TV programs infused with a buoyant energy and natural light. The cable channels were NBCUniversal’s equivalent of blue skies, routinely delivering three-quarters of the company’s profit. In 2012, cable networks threw off a robust $3.3 billion in cash flow.

Times have changed, observes The LA Times.

Comcast last week announced its plans to jettison all but one cable channel into a separate, stand-alone publicly traded company that will take shape over the next year.

“This is a reminder that the cable television network business is yesterday’s news,” analyst Craig Moffett said Wednesday in an interview. “If it feels like Comcast is shedding itself of an albatross — that’s because it is.”

For now, Comcast’s cable channels remain a viable business by generating $7 billion in annual revenue. But you have only to look at the properties the Philadelphia cable giant is keeping to see how the top brass has picked future winners and losers in a fast-changing media landscape.

Will DOGE Target NPR?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) already has ideas for how the federal government can cut some of its debt  — defunding NPR and other government-funded media.

Driving the news: According to Axios, defunding NPR was suggested throughout President-elect Trump's first term, and resurrected last week by Elon Musk.

What they're saying: Greene told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that a new subcommittee working in support of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will look at cutting "everything from government-funded media programs like NPR that spread nothing but Democrat propaganda" and grant programs that "don't help the American people."

Greene, who was stripped of her committee appointments in 2021, is the chair of the Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee, which falls within the purview of the House Oversight Committee.

"We are going to be searching for the facts, we're going to be verifying if this is worth spending the American people's hard-earned tax dollars," she said.

Yes, but: Trump included cutting CPB's funding in budget proposals throughout his first term, none of which came to pass. Several congressional bills seeking to eliminate or drastically cut funding also failed.

Reality check: DOGE isn't an official government department and must rely on Congress to take action on proposed funding cuts.

Comcast Spinoff Shouldn’t Warrant FCC Review

While there are many lingering questions about the implications of Comcast’s announcement that it will spin off its cable network portfolio into a publicly-traded company, its unlikely that the move to create SpinCo will warrant a review by the Federal Communications Commission, New Street Research analyst Blair Levin told The Wrap.

“As the spin-off does not involve any transfer of FCC licenses, there is no FCC review,” Levin wrote in a research note to clients. He also pointed out that there shouldn’t be any antitrust issues, given that the move does not involve any combination that would “increase horizontal or vertical concentration.”

But he warned the “X factor” is whether Donald Trump, who recently won a second term in the White House, would ask any government officials to “slow-down or otherwise interfere with the transaction, which involves MSNBC—a major Trump nemesis—until Trump receives some sort of concession for how MSNBC covers news in the future.”

Trump has selected Brendan Carr, the author of the FCC section in Project 2025 and the senior Republican on the FCC, to serve as the agency’s new chairman.

Levin expects a Carr-led FCC to revise current broadcast ownership rules that enable more local and potentially national consolidation, which will create new opportunities for Comcast and NBCUniversal to participate in with its spin-off.

Nearly 80M Expected to Travel Over Thanksgiving

AAA projects 79.9 million travelers will head 50 miles or more from home over the Thanksgiving holiday travel period*. For the first time, AAA’s forecast includes the Tuesday before and the Monday after Thanksgiving Day to better capture the flow of holiday travelers. This year’s projection of nearly 80 million travelers is an increase of 1.7 million people compared to last year and 2 million more than in 2019.

“Thanksgiving is the busiest holiday for travel, and this year we’re expecting to set new records across the board, from driving to flying and cruising,” said Stacey Barber, Vice President of AAA Travel. “Americans reconnect with family and friends over Thanksgiving, and travel is a big part of that. AAA continues to see travel demand soar post-pandemic with our members looking for new adventures and memorable vacations.” 

Thanksgiving Travelers By Mode   

By Car: AAA projects a record 71.7 million people will travel by car over Thanksgiving – that’s an additional 1.3 million travelers on the road compared to last year. This year’s number also surpasses pre-pandemic numbers when 70.6 million people drove to their Thanksgiving destinations in 2019. 

Gas prices are lower this Thanksgiving season compared to 2023. The national average last Thanksgiving Day was $3.26. Falling oil prices this autumn may help push the national average below $3 a gallon for the first time since 2021, and that could happen before drivers hit the road for Thanksgiving. Regionally, drivers east of the Rockies will find gas between $2.25 to $2.50 a gallon in more than a dozen states. 

AAA car rental partner Hertz says Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Oahu, Orlando, and Phoenix are the cities displaying the highest rental demand for the Thanksgiving holiday. The busiest car pick-up day is expected to be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the busiest rental return days will be the Monday and Tuesday after the holiday.  

By Air: Thanksgiving air travel is also expected to set a new record. AAA projects 5.84 million people will fly domestically this holiday. That’s an increase of 2% compared to last year and a nearly 11% increase over 2019.  According to AAA booking data, air travelers are paying 3% more for domestic Thanksgiving flights this year, while the number of flight bookings is similar to last year. International flight bookings are up 23% compared to last Thanksgiving, in part because the cost to fly internationally is down 5%.  

By Other Modes: Nearly 2.3 million people are expected to travel by other modes of transportation, including buses, cruises, and trains. This category is seeing an increase of almost 9% compared to last year and an 18% jump over 2019, in large part due to the popularity of cruising. The demand for cruises has been red-hot post-pandemic. Domestic and international cruise bookings are up 20% compared to last Thanksgiving.

Weather Should Be Okay For Macy's Turkey Day Parade

The pre-Thanksgiving rush kicks into high gear today, and at least at the start, the weather will cooperate. By Thursday, though, anyone heading into Manhattan for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade be advised: Wear something rainproof for the post-parade walk to the car or the subway. 

As of Sunday evening, the National Weather Service was predicting a 60% chance of rain for New York City on Thanksgiving, "mainly after 1 p.m." with a high in the mid 40s, dropping down to 43 degrees in the evening.

Or, put another way: Just in time to make the drive home for Thanksgiving dinner one best taken slowly.

Before then, spectators at the parade, which starts at 8:30 a.m. at 77th Street and Central Park West and ends at Herald Square, can expect a breezy day — with winds at 15-20 mph — but not brisk enough to keep the Pillsbury Doughboy, SpongeBob SquarePants and 20 other giant balloon characters from making their way along the route.

The city mandates that the iconic balloons cannot fly if sustained winds exceed 23 mph and isolated gusts exceed 34 mph. Those rules were implemented after the 1997 parade, when a Cat in the Hat balloon buffeted by strong winds toppled a lamppost, severely injuring several spectators.

The NYPD has promised to be out in full force at the parade. At a security briefing Friday, NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said: "We have assets that you’ll see out there and assets that you won’t see," according to published reports. "We will be highly visible and ready to go."

R.I.P.: Chuck Woolery, Game Show Host

Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of “Wheel of Fortune,” “Love Connection” and “Scrabble” who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, has died. He was 83 reports CNN.

Mark Young, Woolery’s podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. “Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him,” Young wrote.

Woolery, with his matinee idol looks, coiffed hair and ease with witty banter, was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.

In early 1976, Woolery began hosting Wheel of Fortune at the suggestion of creator Merv Griffin, who had seen Woolery sing on The Tonight Show. He hosted in 1978, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Game or Audience Participation Show.

R.I.P.: Alice Brock, Restaurant Owner Made Famous by a Song

Alice Brock, whose eatery in western Massachusetts was immortalized as the place where “you can get anything you want” in Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 antiwar song “Alice’s Restaurant,” died on Thursday in Wellfleet, Mass. — just a week before Thanksgiving, the holiday during which the rambling story at the center of the song takes place. She was 83, according to The NY Times.

Viki Merrick, a longtime friend, said she died in a hospice from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Ever since Guthrie released the song, officially called “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” in 1967, it has been a staple of classic-rock stations every late November, not to mention car trip singalongs on the way to visit family for Thanksgiving dinner.

Radio History: Nov 25

Norman Tokar

➦In 1919...Writer, producer Norman Tokar born (Died from a heart attack at age 59 – April 6, 1979). He directed many of the early episodes of Leave it to Beaver, and found his greatest success directing over a dozen films for Walt Disney Productions, spanning the 1950s to the 1970s.

After a career as an actor on Broadway in the early 1940s, Tokar moved into radio, most notably The Aldrich Family, where he played Henry Aldrich's friend Willie at the microphone and wrote several episodes as well. Tokar then went into television direction on such sitcoms as The Bob Cummings Show and The Donna Reed Show, and the drama Naked City.

In the early 1960s, Tokar’s success working with the juvenile actors on 93 episodes of the TV sitcom Leave it to Beaver encouraged Walt Disney to hire him to direct family features for his studio, which frequently used children in key roles.

WJAX mics at March 1936 news event.
Future FL Gov. Warren Fuller is third person from the right

➦In 1925...City of Jacksonville FL launched a broadcast station. The city appropriated $19,960 to put the station on the air and operate it through 1926. The station manager/engineer, John T. Hopkins was paid $250 a month and his assistant, James Brock made $165. The station, WJAX, made its first broadcast on Thanksgiving 1925 operating on 890 Kc. with 1000 watts using an antenna wire strung between two large tapered towers. WJAX shifted to 880 Kc. in 1928 and 900 Kc. in 1930.(Jacksonville radio historian Billy Williams).   Today, the station is WFXJ, branded as Sports Radio 930 AM and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc.

➦In 1944...The FBI in Peace & War began a 14-year run on CBS Radio. 

➦In 1949..."Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" first appeared on the hit music charts. The song was written by Johnny Marks based on the 1939 story Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer published by the Montgomery Ward Company.

In 1939 Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May, created the character Rudolph as an assignment for Montgomery Ward and Marks decided to adapt the story of Rudolph into a song.

The song was first sung by crooner Harry Brannon on New York City radio in early November 1949, before Gene Autry's recording hit No. 1 in the U.S. charts during Christmas 1949. The song was suggested as a "B" side for a record Autry was making. Autry rejected the song. His wife convinced him to use it.

Autry's version of the song also holds the distinction of being the only chart-topping hit to fall completely off the chart after reaching No. 1. The official date of its No. 1 status was for the week ending January 7, 1950, making it the first No. 1 song of the 1950s.

Autry‘s rendition is the most popular, 80 different versions of the song have been recorded, with nearly 20,000,000 copies sold.

➦In 1960...CBS radio axed five daytime serials from the airwaves, including The Second Mrs. Burton (after 14 years), Whispering Streets, Young Dr Malone & Right to Happiness (both after 21 years) and Ma Perkins (after 27 wonderful years.)