Morning Wire XX
[0] Westerns have made a comeback on mainstream TV, with the show Yellowstone separating itself as a game -changing series.
[1] We look at why the record -breaking series has lassoed in millions of viewers across the country.
[2] You see what I did there?
[3] That was bad.
[4] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[5] It's November 26th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
[6] The collapse of cryptocurrency company FTX sent ripples throughout the sports world.
[7] Why has the company's downfall put athletes and league officials alike on defense?
[8] And as world leaders steer towards electric vehicles, some are hoping to leave Chinese supplied parts in the dust.
[9] We discuss how a new battery designed could cut costs and ties with China.
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[11] Stay tuned.
[12] We have the news you need to know.
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[20] The hit Western series Yellowstone returned for its fifth season with record -breaking ratings.
[21] This marks its second season as the most popular series on television.
[22] Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham joins us now to put Yellowstone's success in the context of the wider entertainment landscape.
[23] So Megan, I couldn't really get into Yellowstone, but apparently it's crushing even breaking bad at its peak.
[24] Is that true?
[25] It is true.
[26] I know.
[27] It's crazy.
[28] So the show, which airs on the Paramount Network, actually drew more than 12 million viewers last Sunday night.
[29] And that makes it the top scripted series premiere.
[30] of the year.
[31] But what's really important to note is just how much the show's audience has grown.
[32] So it was up overall with audiences of all ages, and that's impressive enough, given that it was already doing pretty well with older viewers.
[33] But what's really amazing is how it scored with advertiser -coveted young adults, because you don't really imagine a show about a Montana ranching family starring 67 -year -old Kevin Costner necessarily drawing a lot of younger viewers.
[34] Well, it's up 52 % with that 18 to 34 -year -old demo.
[35] Now, is this part of a growing trend in viewership overall in TV, or is Yellowstone outperforming all of its peers right now?
[36] Yeah, I think you have to say that Yellowstone is outperforming.
[37] In fact, the context here is that the rest of the small -screen world has really been struggling.
[38] So Netflix has had to completely revamp its business model, and it's gone through two rounds of layoffs, in part because audiences just weren't tuning in for its' original series.
[39] And then you have Disney, which has seen the popularity of its Star Wars and Marvel series, Wayne.
[40] It's now announcing layoffs as well.
[41] Meanwhile, Amazon notoriously did not score the hit it hoped to with rings of power.
[42] And while the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon has done very well for HBO, Yellowstone's numbers even beat the dragon by a couple of million.
[43] So compared to the rest of the television landscape, which has been fracturing and pulling in more and more niche audiences, Yellowstone's success is pretty stunning.
[44] And by the way, one more note, it's doing all of that without having that all -important intellectual property.
[45] What that means is it's not based on some other novel or comic book or movie that already had a built -in fan base with 100 % original.
[46] Now, I didn't watch enough to find out, but why is it so popular?
[47] But, you know, I think there's some obvious and uncontroversial reasons.
[48] It's got that same kind of soapy appeal that Dallas did, which was the big hot Western show of the 1980s.
[49] The Montana backdrops are just gorgeous.
[50] And while I would personally say that some of the performances are uneven, Kevin Costner is an Oscar winner.
[51] The show hinges on him.
[52] His performance is outstanding.
[53] On the controversial side, though, there's also been a lot of discussion about how the show hits, with Republican -leaning audiences who rarely feel that their tastes are served by Big Hollywood Productions.
[54] So on the conservative side of that commentary, you have the New York Times columnist Ross Douthit, who has called Yellowstone the most red state show on television.
[55] His liberal colleague, Trasier McMillan Cottom, sort of echoed that idea, but she couched it in much more negative terms.
[56] She called the series an homage to the idea of white America's last stand.
[57] And she went on to say, and I'm just going to quote her words, this show in post -Trump America, the political backdrop of white grievance and white reclamation that we are undergoing trying to claw back to a sort of mythical 40, 50 years ago when our systems worked better for white Americans than they did for non -white Americans.
[58] So pretty spicy and a fairly common view among left -leaning entertainment media.
[59] But frankly, there are some hard numbers to back that political hypothesis up.
[60] Viewers in states with Republican governors watch Yellowstone at three times the rate of states led by Democrats.
[61] And typically, successful series start out by being popular in urban centers and then spreading out to the rest of America.
[62] Yellowstone has had the opposite trajectory.
[63] It first found its audience in smaller towns like Abilene, Texas, Boise, Idaho, Lexington, Kentucky, and then it spread out from there.
[64] All right.
[65] Well, I live in Tennessee, so maybe this is the show for me. Megan, thanks for reporting.
[66] My pleasure.
[67] That was Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham.
[68] Coming up, the collapse of FTX shakes the sports world.
[69] Hey there, producer Colton here.
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[80] The collapse of cryptocurrency trading firm FTX is affecting the sports world in a big way, while the NFL faces another race -based controversy.
[81] Here to tell us more is Crane & Company co -host David Cohn.
[82] All right, David, there is a lot of chaos surrounding this FTX situation and both financial and political implications.
[83] But there's also a sports angle.
[84] What is the latest on the sports front as it relates to this crypto collapse?
[85] Yes, it's been a bit of a mess in the sports world, and one stadium is even getting renamed.
[86] So following the announcement that FTX was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the first domino to fall was in the NBA.
[87] When the Miami Heat announced they planned to terminate their relationship with the cryptocurrency trading company.
[88] In May 2021, when FTX had not even been in existence for three years, the company signed a 19 -year, $135 million contract to secure the naming rights for Miami's Arena, which was then named FTX Arena.
[89] Now, after only 526 days, the heat are looking for a new naming rights partner.
[90] That was a quick collapse, and that's not the only consequence, right?
[91] Yes, many professional athletes are all.
[92] also caught up in this situation.
[93] A class action lawsuit has been filed against FTX founder Sam Bankman -Fried, and the suit also names NFL quarterback Tom Brady, his now ex -wife, Giselle Bunchin, NBA standout Steph Curry, former NBA standout Shaquille O 'Neill, former MLB star David Ortiz, Angels All -Star Shoha Tani, the U .S. Open winner, Naomi Osaka.
[94] And that's just some of the big names.
[95] The suit describes these well -known figures as parties who either controlled, promoted, assisted in, and actively participated in FTX trading.
[96] And the lawsuit also claims that consumers suffered over $11 billion in damages.
[97] A mess indeed.
[98] So as you noted, the NFL plays into this FTX situation.
[99] There was also some other big news in the league recently, a notable coaching shakeup and it has some racial controversy there.
[100] What can you tell us about that?
[101] Yes, this all revolves around former all -pro offensive lineman Jeff Saturday.
[102] He was hired as the Indianapolis Colts interim head coach, and he made his debut for the Colts against the Las Vegas Raiders two weeks ago.
[103] Saturday's hiring came as former head coach Frank Wright was fired following a 3, 5, and 1 start to the season.
[104] Now, many people were caught off guard by Colts owner Jim Ursay hiring Jeff Saturday due to his lack of head coaching experience.
[105] Former coaches and players such as Bill Cower and Joe Thomas called the hire disrespectful to other coaches around the country, while some media personalities criticized racial aspects of the hire, saying no former black players would receive such an opportunity.
[106] Now, supporters of Jeff Saturday, myself included, have pointed out that he was hired on an interim basis, not the permanent full -time position, with no indication that he would be the full -time head coach.
[107] and he did win a Super Bowl with the franchise, plus made six Pro Bowls as a member of the Colts franchise.
[108] All right, so he has some credentials to really back up the interim hiring.
[109] Certainly.
[110] Well, David, thanks for coming on.
[111] Thank you.
[112] That was Sports Writer and Crane & Company co -host, David Cohn.
[113] As governments around the world push for a transition to electric vehicles, startups are attempting to mass produce new kinds of batteries to lower costs and cut out Chinese supply chains.
[114] Here with the details is Daily Wires Michael Whitaker.
[115] Michael, thanks for coming on.
[116] Thanks for having me. So the Biden administration, as well as leaders around the world, are trying to make this transition to EVs as part of their plans for a carbon -neutral economy.
[117] But there have been a lot of stumbling blocks.
[118] Tell us about that.
[119] As of now, electric vehicles are very expensive.
[120] The lithium -ion batteries that run the car costs anywhere from $10 ,000 to $12 ,000.
[121] And a new electric car costs around $64 ,000.
[122] For reference, the average new car costs about $48 ,000, and it's still one of the most expensive things the average American buys.
[123] The materials used to make most EV batteries, lithium, cobalt, manganese, and nickel, have become much more expensive over the last few years.
[124] Supply chain issues have not helped.
[125] Another issue is the environmental impact of mining and manufacturing these materials.
[126] Some estimates suggest that the cost of the environment offsets the benefit of switching from gas vehicles, with many studies suggesting that the greenest option is actually to buy a used car rather than spring for a new EV.
[127] Although that is a contested literature, different studies will give you different findings.
[128] strategically, over 80 % of all lithium ion batteries in the world were manufactured in China in the last year.
[129] China has about 7 % of the world's lithium reserves, while South America has over half, but according to a UK -based consultancy called benchmark mineral intelligence, China currently has 75 % of the world's cobalt refining capacity, and about 59 % of its lithium processing capacity.
[130] The U .S. and other nations are building more factories of their own, but that will take years, and it could be decades before our production capacity matches China's.
[131] If EVs another battery -reliant renewable energy tech is going to become a key component of our economy in the near term, that could give China a lot of leverage over the United States.
[132] Now, as John mentioned at the top, some engineers are trying to find workarounds.
[133] Tell us about that.
[134] Essentially, they're trying to find new chemical combinations to make batteries from cheaper and more plentiful materials, like sodium and sulfur.
[135] Sodium is fairly common and is a key ingredient in the very familiar table salt, sodium chloride.
[136] Sulfur is found in many living organisms, is a key component of life.
[137] It's often used in fertilizers.
[138] It's also fairly well known for the characteristic rotten egg smell that can produce in the form of hydrogen sulfide.
[139] Right now, some forms of such batteries do exist, although they generally store less energy than their more expensive counterparts.
[140] Sodium ion batteries would bypass the most expensive components of traditional batteries entirely.
[141] Lithium sulfur batteries would still need some lithium, as the name would suggest, albeit in smaller amounts than the traditional ones, but they wouldn't need cobalt or manganese to function.
[142] According to Propakra Patil, a former LG Chem executive, sodium ion batteries do have a place, particularly for low -end vehicles in the more cost -sensitive markets, such as China, India, Africa, and South America, whereas lithium sulfur batteries will be more expensive in the short term, but in the long term, those batteries could end up being the cheapest.
[143] So are we likely to see automakers embrace these new batteries anytime soon?
[144] Maybe, but the new variants have issues of their own.
[145] Sulfur is very corrosive, so it tends to wear down the battery fairly quickly.
[146] within about 30 charges.
[147] And sodium ion batteries are not as energy dense as conventional batteries, so they don't have the same capacity, which is pretty important if you're making long journeys, for example.
[148] Some firms are reportedly experimenting of treatments for the sulfur materials that could keep a battery operational throughout an EV's lifetime.
[149] And there is widespread interest in sodium tech.
[150] CATL, a Chinese company that produces about 30 % of the world's lithium ion batteries, has announced plans to produce sodium ion batteries by 2025.
[151] Various companies in America and Europe, many of them receiving millions of dollars in government subsidies, are attempting to make a breakthrough.
[152] And if they succeed, the hope is that these new batteries will make EVs more affordable and more environmentally friendly.
[153] Right, and make us less dependent on China.
[154] Michael, thanks for reporting.
[155] Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire's Michael Whitaker.
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