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--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm John Bickley, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I'm Georgia Howe, co-host of Morning Wire. It's Friday, December 15th.
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--:-- John Bickley: Vice President Kamala Harris pushes the White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinians as President Biden signals softening support for Israel.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I think that we have made it clear to the Israelis and they're aware the safety of innocent Palestinians is still of great concern.
--:-- John Bickley: Will the Biden administration continue to back Israel in its campaign against Hamas?
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Daily Wire, Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
--:-- John Bickley: After years of pressure, Netflix releases viewership data for its programming. Why did Netflix finally cave, and what did we learn?
--:-- Georgia Howe: More than 50% of the viewing in the first six months of the year was driven by Netflix originals. That's sort of a validation of all the spending that has been done on original programming.
--:-- John Bickley: And Argentina's new president is taking dramatic action in the country that has seen triple-digit inflation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For the first time since the war in Gaza started, the Biden administration has begun to rebuke Israel for their handling of the conflict. The shift comes amid growing pressure from pro-Palestinian Democrats in Washington.
--:-- John Bickley: Hey, Cabot, so a fluid situation here. Give us some context.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, so two months ago when Hamas launched their unprecedented terror attack on Israel, President Biden came to the defense of the Jewish state, vowing to support them in their effort to destroy the terror group.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But over the last week or so, the president and his staff have really for the first time begun to publicly criticize Israel for their handling of the war.
--:-- John Bickley: Speaking at an off-camera fundraiser on Tuesday, Biden said Prime Minister Netanyahu, quote, has to change and accused Israel of, quote, indiscriminate bombing in Gaza, warning that their actions were causing them to lose support from the international community.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: He also repeated his concerns that Israel would make the mistake of overreacting the way that he said America did following the attacks of 9-11.
--:-- John Bickley: And we've now seen similar messages from key figures in his administration, correct?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. Now, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel last week that they risked a, quote, strategic defeat in the region if they drive civilians, quote, into the arms of the enemy.
--:-- Kevin: For the first time in the company's history, Netflix announced it will start releasing ratings data, information it previously kept confidential.
--:-- John Bickley: The industry is calling it a major step in viewing transparency, but some are asking, why now?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, I think there's a number of reasons. So one, their hand has been forced somewhat by the recent Hollywood strikes.
--:-- John Bickley: In the past, CEO Ted Sarandos said that Netflix was keeping that viewing data private to protect creators.
--:-- Megan Basham: This was what he said during Netflix's third quarter earnings interview, and that took place just this past October. Part of our reason for not publishing early was part of our promise with creators.
--:-- John Bickley: At the time we started creating Original Program, our creators felt like they were pretty trapped in this kind of overnight ratings world and weekend box office world defining their success and failures.
--:-- Megan Basham: And as we all know, you know, a show might have enormous success down the road and it wasn captured in that opening box office.
--:-- John Bickley: So part of this was the relationship with talent, not just the business aspects of it.
--:-- Megan Basham: But a lot of writers and talent felt that not having the information, in fact, allowed streaming platforms to avoid paying them what they're worth.
--:-- John Bickley: So the new union contracts require streamers to provide those viewing metrics, at least to them.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, technically, this is not the first viewership rankings. For example, they've had top 10 for a little while now.
--:-- John Bickley: I know some people would comment that those rankings seemed a little fishy sometimes, but they also released sometimes piecemeal data.
--:-- Megan Basham: So I'm thinking of things like Bird Box, where they announced really large viewership numbers.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, they did, but a lot of critics pointed out that those numbers seemed inconsistent and they were so broad that they could be biased because no one was able to vet them independently.
--:-- Megan Basham: If Netflix said 30 million people watch something, you pretty much had to take their word for it.
--:-- John Bickley: So a number of companies stepped into that gap and they started providing analysis based on a variety of metrics.
--:-- Megan Basham: Parrot Analytics was one of those. Samba TV was another. And of course, Nielsen, which is the industry standard for broadcast ratings, they started to release some streaming rankings as well.
--:-- John Bickley: So this was really unavoidable because traditional broadcast ratings are increasingly becoming less important.
--:-- Megan Basham: To give you just one example, in August, Nielsen found that streaming captured about 40% of all TV usage, and that was a record high.
--:-- John Bickley: So Sarandos seems to be acknowledging that if Netflix didn't offer some detailed metrics of its own, the media was going to continue to rely on some of these outside companies.
--:-- Megan Basham: So what we may be seeing here is an attempt to wrest some control of the ratings narrative back from them.
--:-- John Bickley: So this is what he told Bloomberg a couple of months ago. Streaming itself is not that exotic anymore.
--:-- Megan Basham: And every other segment of the business does have, you know, Nielsen ratings or box office reports or the New York Times bestseller list, all those things.
--:-- John Bickley: So we're heading towards that for sure. To a time we'll be fully transparent on viewing data.
--:-- Megan Basham: And now Netflix says it will be releasing these quote-unquote engagement reports twice a year.
--:-- John Bickley: And I think we could probably see some other platforms follow with something similar very soon because it's going to be hard for them to avoid it now that Netflix has set this standard.
--:-- Megan Basham: So that's the why. What did we actually learn from this report?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, they put out a lot of analysis on hours viewed.
--:-- Megan Basham: And Netflix says that that's a more accurate measurement than simply how many views a particular movie or series has.
--:-- John Bickley: And they say this report represents 100 billion hours viewed of their 18,000 titles between January and June.
--:-- Megan Basham: So that encompasses 99% of all the companies viewing.
--:-- John Bickley: And that first report found that Jennifer Lopez's The Mother was the most watched movie with about 250 million viewing hours.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, a lot of viewing hours. And The Night Agent was the most popular series with its first season netting a little over 800 million viewing hours.
--:-- John Bickley: Wow. So not Squid Game, not Stranger Things. I never would have guessed those.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, maybe because those are somewhat older titles.
--:-- John Bickley: All right. Well, Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Javier Malay officially took office as president of Argentina on December 10th. Since then, he's instituted aggressive reforms in an attempt to pull Argentina out of a years-long economic tailspin.
--:-- John Bickley: Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to discuss Malay's first days and what at stake for Argentina.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So Tim what has President Malay done since being sworn in?
--:-- John Bickley: He only been in office a few days but already he taken more decisive action than a typical politician may take in years.
--:-- Tim Pierce: But then that's the kind of action Malay campaigned on. And supporters of the president say that's what Argentina needs to rescue the economy from triple-digit inflation and the threat of a tenth default.
--:-- John Bickley: Malay's new economy minister, Luis Caputo, outlined the government's approach on Tuesday.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The new administration will start work on the inflation problem immediately by devaluing Argentina's currency, the peso, by 50%.
--:-- John Bickley: That will bring its value closer to parity with other currencies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The government will also drastically cut spending.
--:-- John Bickley: That includes disbanding half of the government's 18 current ministries, slashing subsidies for energy and transportation, and canceling any public works projects that haven't broken ground yet.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And after all that, the government estimates that those cuts will amount to about 3% of Argentina's GDP, which is just a fraction of the cuts Malay promised on the campaign trail.
--:-- John Bickley: So some very aggressive cuts to spending, maybe more to come.
--:-- Tim Pierce: What about the other side of the ledger with revenue? What is he doing with taxes?
--:-- John Bickley: Those are going up, at least in the short term.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The government will raise the tax rate on goods coming into the country from 7.5% to 17.5% and extend a tax of 15% already on goods flowing out of the country.
--:-- John Bickley: I should note that while Malay's austerity measures are severe, he is increasing spending in a couple areas.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The government plans to increase benefits given for children and welfare for the country's poor citizens.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, these are extreme austerity measures. Is it even politically viable to follow through on this?
--:-- Tim Pierce: That depends on how much Argentinians are willing to take.
--:-- John Bickley: But also, Malay was pretty candid during his campaign that austerity would be painful.
--:-- Tim Pierce: He told Argentina that he would tackle the country's bloated government and runaway spending head-on.
--:-- John Bickley: He also said that with the pit Argentina has dug itself, short-term pain is the only option to a healthier country.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, how are markets responding?
--:-- John Bickley: On the economic side, it's been pretty positive.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The way the bond market has responded suggests some growing confidence in Malay's approach.
--:-- John Bickley: The price of Argentina's bonds has surged about 25% in the last week and over 40% since he was elected president last month.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So that could be a sign that people are willing to buy Argentina's debt and are more optimistic that they won't default.
--:-- John Bickley: The International Monetary Fund, which Argentina owes $43 billion to, was optimistic as well.
--:-- Tim Pierce: It said in a statement that it welcomed his bold initial actions after recent setbacks on the loan under the previous government.
--:-- John Bickley: The IMF also promised to work expeditiously with Malay's government, which is supposed to pay the IMF $2 billion in January.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, what about dollarization? Malay said he wanted to move Argentina off the peso entirely.
--:-- John Bickley: Has he made any progress on that?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, that was one of Malay's most controversial ideas during his campaign.
--:-- John Bickley: And no, he hasn't moved on that yet.
--:-- Tim Pierce: But it is only his first week, and dollarization to pull it off effectively would take some time.
--:-- John Bickley: National Security Spokesman John Kirby was actually asked about that on Thursday.
--:-- Tim Pierce: He didn't have an answer.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, it sounds like a rocky road ahead for Argentina, but hopefully they can be successful.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for having me.
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--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
