Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your pocket guide to Puck’s best new reporting.

First up today, Eriq Gardner examines an explosive legal battle between Sony and Paramount Global over the streaming fate of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune—a dispute threatening to dismantle a half-century of TV dealmaking and further disrupt an industry model in terminal decline.

Plus, below the fold: Peter Hamby investigates why Trump is losing altitude with pro-crypto Gen Z dudes—spoiler alert, they’re not happy with the economy—and chats with Senator Cory Booker about what Democrats can learn from MAGA’s media playbook. Sarah Shapiro quizzes Dôen’s Margaret Kleveland and Holly Soroca about growing Europe’s favorite U.S. brand. And Julie Davich previews the most valuable Old Masters collection to ever hit the block at Sotheby’s.

Meanwhile, on the pods: Matt Belloni is joined by media executive Hernan Lopez on The Town to explain how YouTube became TV. On The Varsity, Sara Fischer rejoins John Ourand to chart how a recent R.S.N. dispute laid the groundwork for a new D.C. sports monopoly. And on The Powers That Be, Leigh Ann Caldwell connects with Peter to discuss her reporting on Trump’s contradictory midterm strategy.

The streaming land grab just claimed two of the last great holdouts: Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Sony Pictures is officially shopping the digital rights to both game-show juggernauts, a seismic shift for a pair of TV staples that, until now, had been relics of the linear era. Sony worked hard to frame the move as unrelated to its nasty legal fight with CBS over syndication rights, but in reality, this is all about the broader shake-up at CBS’s parentco, Paramount Global, which is in the process of being taken over by David Ellison’s Skydance. Sony’s decision to explore a digital home for Jeopardy! follows its attempt to terminate a 40-plus-year-old agreement, effectively reclaiming full control of the shows’ licensing. In short, this has become a full-scale, high-stakes deconstruction of a half-century of TV dealmaking, a final battle over an industry model that, for better or worse, is dying.

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Six weeks into the new presidency, polls suggest that Trump’s support among young voters is already taking an unambiguous hit, as expectations about a shiny new economy collide with our current reality. To wit: Trump’s overall favorability with Gen Z voters has dropped seven points since pollster John Della Volpe’s January poll, the weekend before the inauguration, and his favorability rating has dropped most significantly among young rural voters, independents, white women, and women overall. Trump’s standing among young white men has remained about the same, but when asked specific questions about how he’s handling the economy and inflation, young men are increasingly dubious. “Women have already broken with him,” said Della Volpe. “If life doesn’t become more affordable as Trump promised, and quickly, even his strongest backers may conclude he can’t deliver.”

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This is how bp does natural gas

bp added $130+ billion to
the US economy over the last two years. Like three major projects in Texas to help modernize our natural gas production. Now, 95% of our wells in the Permian Basin run on electricity – a more efficient way to power our US production and one more way we’re investing in
America.

Yesterday morning, nearly two dozen senators all posted a version of the same selfie-style video, reading the same script pre-butting Trump’s address to Congress last night. They quickly went viral, thanks to Elon Musk and a bunch of MAGA influencers who thought they’d scored a gotcha moment exposing another episode of Democratic cringe. But by sharing and broadcasting the videos, they were inadvertently doing the Democrats’ bidding: Elevating an anti-Trump message about high prices and a sputtering economy to many millions more than would have seen it otherwise. Indeed, Senate Democrats’ corny but MAGA-baiting social media experiment may actually have been a masterstroke. Have Cory Booker et al. finally learned to plagiarize Trump’s media playbook?

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As Dôen approaches its 10th birthday, it seems determined to avoid the awkward tween phase: This
year, the coastal casual brand is set to cross the $100 million revenue threshold, and is expanding without significant investment. Now, suitors are lining up for a brand that’s managed to grow intentionally, striking the right balance between their D.T.C. roots and strategic wholesale partners without succumbing to the growth-at-all-costs tactics that have waylaid competitors. In this candid conversation with C.E.O. Margaret Kleveland and president Holly Soroca, they discuss what they’ve gotten right, how their partnership strategy is unfolding, and what’s next beyond the $100 million mark.

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Jordan Saunders, along with her late husband, the legendary Morgan Stanley banker and private equity O.G. Thomas Saunders III, amassed one of the most consequential collections of Old Masters paintings in the 20th century. And this May, the Saunders collection will go on sale at Sotheby’s, in New York, with an estimate of $80 million, making it the most valuable single-owner compilation ever to hit the block within the category. The auction comprises 56 works, with 42 being offered in a dedicated single-owner sale, and the rest in the various-owners sale the following day. This will be the first time in decades that the Saunders’ paintings are coming on the market, and will allow for the Saunders’ collecting journey to end right where it started in 1998: Sotheby’s.

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Matt is joined by Hernan Lopez, the founder of Owl & Co. and Wondery, to discuss how the narrative is rapidly shifting in the direct-to-consumer landscape now that streaming is, mostly, profitable! Hernan explains why YouTube dwarfs Netflix in consumption but Netflix dwarfs YouTube in revenue, why people are watching YouTube on TV screens more than ever, and what this means for the streaming juggernauts moving forward. Matt finishes the show with a lightning round of predictions about next year’s Academy Awards.

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This is how bp invests in America

bp supports 300,000+ US jobs. America is home to our largest workforce in the world, from the retail stations you know, to places you might be less familiar with – like refineries, offshore production platforms, bioenergy facilities and trading floors. See all the ways bp is investing in America.

Axios’s Sara Fischer rejoins John to dig into the rapid decline of R.S.N.s, and in particular, the unraveling of MASN—once the home of the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles. With the Nationals walking away from the network entirely, could this move pave the way for Ted Leonsis to buy the team and create a D.C. sports monopoly? Plus, the duo forecast the fallout of the MLB-ESPN uncoupling and dig into Fox’s forthcoming D.T.C. product expected to launch by the end of the year.

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Leigh Ann Caldwell joins Peter to discuss Trump’s brass-knuckled tactics to hold the House and
Senate in the midterms while ensuring that Republicans remain loyal only to him—a dual mandate that could put moderates in an impossible position. Leigh Ann also reveals the growing tensions between Trump’s camp and Tim Scott, whose N.R.S.C. is ostensibly in charge of winning Senate elections next year, and the two Trump flunkies whom the president has put in charge of keeping dissenters in line.

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