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A must-read, "Choosin' Texas," link here.
Query:
Right now there seems to be a fad over at YouTube to post fan-generated AI music videos of famous artists which are incredibly good. Is it just my imagination or are a huge majority of these of "Lana Del Rey"?
Reply:
It just dawned on me, that except for sports, I no longer watch the legacy networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox) -- I only watch streaming services, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platforms, or digital-first platforms, all the broader category of new media or direct-to-consumer (DTC) networks. These services deliver video over the internet instead of through traditional cable or broadcast airwaves.
- NBC: Funnels its content directly into Peacock, owned by parent company Comcast.
- CBS: Feeds Paramount+, leveraging parent company Paramount Global's massive television and movie archives.
- ABC: Supplies Hulu and Disney+, both managed under the The Walt Disney Company ecosystem.
Disney's combined streaming portfolio (Disney+ and Hulu) commands about 26% of the U.S. subscription streaming market (Disney+ at 14% and Hulu at 12%). For individual platform interactions tracked by JustWatch, Disney+ holds roughly 16%. Paramount+ holds roughly 4.5%, and Comcast's Peacock holds approximately 11.1% of U.S. interactive streaming share.
Live sports remain the ultimate anchor for traditional television, but legacy networks now heavily utilize simulcasting. Major events like NFL games, PGA golf, and Premier League soccer are broadcast over the air while simultaneously streaming live on Peacock, Paramount+, or ESPN+. Additionally, legacy giants frequently team up to offer collaborative digital sports bundles directly to consumers to ward off pure tech competitors.
Okay, back to music.
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The Book Page
The Annotated Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Query:
My book for the week is "The Annotated Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson," edited by David Mikics and foreword by Phillip Lopate. I am absolutely blown away by how "humble Concord (Massachusetts) became a hotbed of intellectual life in the 1840s: Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Alcotts. Truly amazing. Is there a single book, a single volume, that would provide a nice senior high school text or college text for further study?
Reply:
The absolute premier recommendation for a single-volume text tracking this extraordinary intellectual explosion is The Transcendentalists and Their World by Robert A. Gross. Written by a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, this comprehensive book is widely considered the definitive study of how 1840s Concord transformed from a quiet agricultural community into the epicenter of the American Renaissance. It places the entire circle—Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts—directly alongside their neighbors to show exactly how the local landscape entered into their classic works.
