Underrepresentation of women in key media roles has been a consistent theme throughout the years. The discrepancy has been even more pronounced among minorities. Brande Victorian, Managing Editor at Madamnoire, and Robyn Moreno, Co-President at Latina Media Ventures join us on Cheddar to discuss diversity in media.
Victorian chats about the biggest challenges of being part of a minority-run publication. Victorian said a big challenge is advertising. Competition is stiff, and they don't typically have the same funding as large corporations such as Vice and Complex.
Moreno weighed in by saying minority work has never been more important due to the current political climate.
Latinos made up just 3% of speaking roles in the top 100 films in 2016, despite making up about 26% of the U.S. population. Moreno said Latinos are holding up the movie industry. She said 1 in 4 movie tickets are bought by Latinos. Not only isn't it insulting, she said, but it's also bad business.
Adele Shraiman, Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Fossil Free Finance Campaign, joins Cheddar Climate, where she explains how Wall Street and climate change are related. She also elaborates on how decisions made by financial institutions are actually hurting the ability to reduce carbon emissions.
Hugh Odom, founder and president of Vertical Consultants, shared his expertise on telecommunications with Cheddar on the safety issue raised about 5G deployment by airlines. The installation was partially delayed again on Tuesday as the airlines warned of potentially catastrophic delays in a letter to the Biden administration. Later, both Verizon and AT&T relented and put a pause on some of the implementations. "The first thing the Biden administration needs to do is get everybody in the room and say, look, aviation industry, identify the problem — wireless industry, come up with a solution," said Odom.
Microsoft announced on Tuesday it's acquiring video game publisher Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion in cash, a company that's is known for big titles like "Call of Duty" and "World of Warcraft." Lyron Bentovim, Glimpse Group president and CEO, and Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush, sat down to talk about what Ives called "a shot across the bow" towards the competition. "This is pretty exciting for the industry as a whole because another one of the big players is coming to the metaverse," said Bentovim. "Microsoft using metaverse in the quote from their CEO in their press release shows the importance of this deal."
Netflix may not be staying at the top of the streaming wars, according to some wary investors, as competition heats up and it raises prices yet again. Tuna Amobi, director and senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, spoke with Cheddar about what investors should be considering should they stick with the streaming pioneer or drop the investment. "I think it's always mostly about the subscriber growth for the Q4, which is going to be an indicator of how the company has been navigating the speed bumps that we saw early in the year," said Amobi.
L’Oréal is doubling down on its investment in tech. The French beauty giant unveiled two new high-tech products ahead of CES 2022, aimed at simplifying the hair coloring process. Guive Balooch, global vice president of L’Oréal Technology Incubator, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the company's innovations for hair coloring, including the Colorsonic application device and the Coloright AI diagnostic tool.
Walmart is one of the latest companies looking to adapt to the emerging digital economy by possibly establishing its own cryptocurrency. The retail giant filed at least seven applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, including one for blockchain assets.