X TV

Hey all, it’s Kurt in Denver. Elon Musk’s X is going deeper into original video programming. But first…Three things you need to know today:• [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey all, it’s Kurt in Denver. Elon Musk’s X is going deeper into original video programming. But first… Three things you need to know today: • Amazon is cutting [staff in the entertainment business]( • China startup deals [fell to a four-year low]( • OpenAI opened its [custom chatbot store]( X does television What do Don Lemon, Tulsi Gabbard and Jim Rome have in common? As of this week, they’re all under contract to [create new video content]( for X, the service formerly known as Twitter, in what appears to be a big push by the company to energize and legitimize its video ambitions. X [announced]( during CES this week that all three will create exclusive video content for the service in 2024. Lemon, a former CNN anchor, will distribute a new program on X called The Don Lemon Show three times per week. Gabbard, a former congresswoman and presidential candidate, will post “an exclusive series of documentary-style videos” to X. The company didn’t disclose financial arrangements, but you have to imagine that all three are getting a nice paycheck and likely a revenue split for bringing their content to X. Despite how much Elon Musk talks about wanting to do things differently from Twitter’s old management, we’ve seen this strategy before. Twitter went after exclusive, high-quality video content years ago, such as a deal in 2016 to [stream the NFL’s Thursday Night Football]( games and other partnerships with several media companies including CBS, Cheddar and Bloomberg. That strategy breathed new life into Twitter at the time but ultimately fell flat. Content rights are expensive, and Twitter never invested enough in the streaming product to make it feel unique. Plus, it turned out people weren’t ready to watch entire football games on their phone. Now, almost seven years later, Musk is going to try a version of this again. And while his short time as X’s new owner has been both controversial and prone to mishaps, there are good reasons to give premium video another shot. For starters, X needs high-quality content for its advertising business. Badly. Musk’s pledge to restore “free speech” to the masses has turned X into a grab bag of misinformation, conspiracies and low-rent memes, which has spooked off some advertisers. Revenue in 2023 was [expected to be down considerably](, and that was before Musk told marketers to “go f--- yourself” from a conference stage in November. Having something that is professionally produced, even by somewhat controversial personalities like Rome and Lemon, could lure some marketers back. One advantage Musk has over the old Twitter is that people are more accustomed to watching video on their phones for long periods of time. He can thank TikTok for that. We all lived through a pandemic, stuck at home on our phones all day. For many people, the phone has been elevated from a second screen to more of a first screen. The success of Musk’s plan, though, will depend on his execution. Can X create the kind of unique viewing experience its predecessor failed to develop for NFL games? Can it find advertisers interested in supporting a show that’s exclusive to X? Is there even an audience for this stuff? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but X has little to lose by trying. —[Kurt Wagner](mailto:kwagner71@bloomberg.net) The big story TikTok became the first app to surpass $10 billion in total consumer spending, and [sales of mobile games were down]( last year, according to a new report. Get fully charged Crypto startup funding was [down two-thirds](. The family behind the Samsung empire sold [about $2 billion of shares](. Palantir said it’s seeing high demand from Israel [since it went to war](. PagerDuty is considering deal options since receiving [takeover interest from private-equity firms](. IAC will sell its Mosiac apps business to [Bending Spoons, an Italian company]( that bought Evernote a year ago. The SEC probably could’ve avoided getting its X account compromised if it [just used two-factor authentication](. More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Q&AI]( for answers to all your questions about AI Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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