Slam dunk for streaming media in acquiring NBA rights

Earlier this month, Head of US Media and Entertainment Research Jessica Reif Ehrlich hosted her annual Media in Montauk conference. As is typical, discussions at the conference were most focused on long-term trends and strategy. Women's sports got a lot of focus, especially as the WNBA has seen rising ratings and interest. Year-round offerings are particularly important for streaming networks looking to combat churn and the scheduling of the WNBA helps, given that the season starts when the NBA is coming to an end. Jessica believes cable is becoming less important to media companies as streaming becomes more critical. The oldest form of video, broadcast, remains key because of its wide reach. Jessica suggests box office receipts should pick up in the back half of '24 and normalize by '25 as the impact of strikes wanes. There are mixed signals in travel and entertainment demand, with small cracks in concert demand but there's a new park scheduled to open next year in Orlando and that should drive traffic. Targeted ads on streaming services remain a big opportunity.

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The labor market has remained robust, adding an average of about 250k jobs monthly since the start of the year. But services jobs account for the bulk of the recent growth and at this point, demand in many parts of the service economy have fully recovered. Additionally, structural changes and shifts toward automation accelerated amidst the difficult hiring backdrop. Michael Gapen addresses questions about how much growth is left in services jobs, he explains what could account for the somewhat different messages being sent by the two government employment surveys and addresses the fading boost from fiscal policy. The US Economics team believes that job gains will slow but they're not expecting a sharp decline, partly because certain job categories like healthcare still have room to add employees.

You may also enjoy listening to the Merrill Perspectives podcast, featuring conversations on the big stories, news and trends affecting your everyday financial life.

"Bank of America" and “BofA Securities” are the marketing names for the global banking businesses and global markets businesses (which includes BofA Global Research) of Bank of America Corporation. Lending, derivatives, and other commercial banking activities are performed globally by banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including Bank of America, N.A., Member FDIC. Securities, trading, research, strategic advisory, and other investment banking and markets activities are performed globally by affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including, in the United States, BofA Securities, Inc. a registered broker-dealer and Member of FINRA and SIPC, and, in other jurisdictions, by locally registered entities.

©2024 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.

Food companies are seeing negative volumes, both in their grocery businesses and their food service businesses. The volume picture looks a bit better for the largest restaurants but it's also sluggish. Consumers seem to be economizing more than they were a year or two ago, one way is by eating more leftovers, or eating breakfast at home, and that poses some important questions for these industries as they seek to improve volume growth. But just as higher prices have pushed consumers into different foods and restaurant types, more promotional activity may help to bring them back. There's data to suggest that some increase in promotional activity is underway or may be soon. We'll discuss what we've found and what a pickup in discounting may mean for the companies engaging in it.