Katie Couric's New Media Venture Looks for Partner Companies With 'Ethos'
*By Madison Alworth*
Katie Couric is all in with new media. Since the journalist left Yahoo roughly one year ago, she's expanded her own production company, Katie Couric Media, joined forces with theSkimm newsletter, and entered the fight for gender equality.
“I’ve sort of been staffing up, and we are doing a number of interesting projects," Couric, a seasoned vet of the more traditional CBS and ABC networks, said this week in an interview on Cheddar.
"We’re teaming up with companies that have kind of an ethos and social responsibility side that resonates with me. So companies like Procter and Gamble, I’ve been working with them because they’ve been on the forefront of gender equality, and \[chief brand officer\] Mark Pritchard is an amazingly enlightened individual in corporate america. And P&G is a fantastic company, so I'm proud to be associated with them.”
P&G ($PG) is sponsoring one of Couric's first video projects with new media company theSkimm.
"I’m doing a series called 'Getting There' with theSkimm, because it’s really designed to inspire younger women to show how very successful women got there ー from Ina Garten to Issa Rae to Eva Chen to Bozoma St. John to Jennifer Fisher to Bethenny Frankel ー all really successful women in their own right."
TheSkimm, which was founded in 2012, has since grown to [6 million subscribers](http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/11/with-video-and-audio-the-skimm-pushes-further-into-the-daily-routines-of-its-6-million-readers/), according to the latest estimates. The newsletter company expanded into video and audio last year, a natural extension for the millennial-focused start-up.
Once the star of the "Today Show" and the "CBS Evening News," Couric is well aware that media was vastly different at the start of her career. “I always thank my lucky stars I went into television news when I went into television news, because it is completely different today,” she said.
But Couric isn't intimidated by change ー she's inspired by it.
“You have a lot of different platforms, you have to iterate the content to match the platform. I think it's challenging, because it is so fragmented and so niche and there is so much content out there," she said.
"On the other hand, that is presenting really exciting opportunities to do different things. I always like to be forward-thinking.”
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/katie-couric-media).
Diageo, one of the largest distillers in the world, recently reported its global sales have surpassed pre-COVID levels. Debra Crew, the company's North American president, joined Cheddar to discuss the surging sales, supply chain disruptions, and its efforts in non-alcoholic beer and spirits. "We had growth across all five regions," Crew said. "A year ago that wasn't true. This was really more of a North America recovery story. This year you really see this across the globe, people returning back in. On premise reopening really helped us." The producers of Don Julio tequila and Ketel One vodka also opened a new carbon neutral distillery in Lebanon, Kentucky.
Although the auto industry is faced with chip shortages and supply chain woes, Tesla was still expected to report record earnings, and Elon Musk did not disappoint. Jon Rettinger, President of JFL Network, joins Cheddar News to discuss the company, the electric vehicle competition, and growth for the auto industry.
A year after the r/WallStreetBets community on Reddit drove GameStop and other meme stocks to unprecedented heights, the subreddit seems to be losing its luster among retail investors. Caitlin McCabe, markets and retail trading reporter from The Wall Street Journal, joined Cheddar to talk about the waning popularity of the group “Users are going on to find the next GameStop, and instead, they're seeing many of the new users who have joined the subreddit still talking about GameStop and AMC," McCabe noted. "And, they've become frustrated as they're ready to move on from those original meme stocks."
Tech titan Microsoft reported its second fiscal quarter of 2022 earnings on Tuesday, its first earnings report since announcing its plans to acquire gaming company Activision Blizzard in a multibillion dollar deal. Steve Larsen, co-founder of PlannerDAO, explains the role that cloud services played for Microsoft in the quarter and what the future may hold for Microsoft in the midst of the new acquisition.
Microsoft is expected to report financial results for its second fiscal quarter of 2022. It comes after the company beat on its top and bottom line in its previous four quarters. John Freeman of CFRA Research explains what investors will be keeping an eye out for as Microsoft continues to expand its domain.
Sam Stovall, Chief Investment Strategist at CFRA, tells us what to expect as the month of January comes to a close, and whether or not recent market volatility is at all indicative of how the year will likely forecast.
