broadcast

It’s not that Apple is going to broadcast F1. He is building the “iTunes of sports”

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Apple has closed the rights to Formula 1 in the United States for five years and 750 million dollars. But looking only at the price is missing the pattern: it is building a vertical sports platform where it controls broadcasting, statistics, context and extra content. An ecosystem. The inventory. In less than three years, Apple has accumulated: Exclusive MLS Rights worldwide ($2.5 billion until 2033). F1 rights in the United StatesApple is accumulating broadcasting rights, launching its own apps and structuring a closed ecosystem against the traditional broadcast model from 2026 (150 million annually). AppleSportsfree app launched in February 2024 with real-time statistics. Sports integration in Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music and Fitness+. The model. Unlike MLS, where matches require a separate subscription, F1 will be included on Apple TV ($12.99 per month in the United States). The playoffs of the MLS have also become free for subscribers. Apple is keeping it simple: one payment, sports content included. F1 TV Premium, the competition’s own service that costs $16.99 per month, will be included at no extra cost for those who already pay for Apple TV. Between the lines. Apple is not seeking immediate profitability with sports rights. Seeks to anchor users to the ecosystem. Each broadcast supports Apple’s association with sport and can be an opportunity to sell more subscriptions to Fitness+ (there is F1 content that will be integrated there) or Apple One, or more Apple Watches ultimately. The strategy is the same as with Apple Music, TV+ (now ‘AppleTV‘) or iCloud: the content is the hook, the ecosystem is the business. Telefónica, DAZN and traditional broadcast companies now have to compete against those who can afford to lose money on rights because they earn elsewhere. The same thing that happened to Netflix when Amazon or Apple itself entered its business. He timing. The F1 movie, starring Brad Pitt and produced by Apple, has raised $629 million and has become the highest-grossing sports film in history. Apple has been working with F1 for three years. The rights agreement is not coincidental: it is the next phase of an already consolidated relationship. F1 has grown exponentially in the United States thanks to ‘Drive to Survive‘ from Netflix. Apple has detected the exact moment to enter: when the public is built but before the market becomes saturated. With Brad Pitt’s movie, Apple launched a huge marketing campaign disguised as a movie and validated its own products as suitable for the film industry. Yes, but. This model only works with great financial muscle. ESPN paid 85 million annually for F1. Apple has doubled the figure without blinking. Netflix has not shown great interest in live sports. Amazon bought the rights to the NFL and Ligue 1 at the time, but has not gone further. Apple is creating something different: a layer that wraps sports in its technology. The Apple Sports app does not currently include any of streamingbut it is a hub that will be able to direct traffic to Apple TV. The threat. If it works, Apple can bid for European rights: Premier, Champions, LaLiga… They have money, technology, brand and 2 billion active devices. The problem for traditional TVs is not just that Apple enters their market. It’s that you can afford not to make money from it for years while you build your platform. In Xataka | The new Apple M5 is a potentially monstrous chip, but the surprise is where it makes the real leap: in the execution of AI models Featured image | Apple

Iceland’s public television did not broadcast on Thursdays. Since then the legend of a Thursday “baby boom” has circulated.

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For approximately twenty years, Iceland decided not to broadcast television on Thursdays. The reasons for this decision were varied, but they triggered a belief: the obligation not to watch television made many young people look for other entertainment. And they did it. And the birth rate skyrocketed. Today we delve into the history behind this decision and decide what is reality and what is urban legend. TV stories. Iceland did not have its own television channel until 1966with the creation of the state radio station RÚV. Until then, the only television available to some Icelanders was the one broadcast by the US military base in Keflavík, since 1955 and with an antenna only for soldiers, an invention soon imitated by Icelanders. When RÚV began broadcasting (after the controversial decision to leave Icelanders unable to receive the signal, which caused a tidal wave of complaints), it did so with a very restricted schedule. Initially, it only broadcast two days a week (and a few hours a day). As its programming expanded, a day without television was established: Thursday. Why wasn’t it broadcast on Thursdays? There were two reasons. The most well-known and romantic reason is that they wanted to promote social and family life. The government wanted Icelanders to dedicate a day to socializespend time with family, read or enjoy the outdoors instead of staying home in front of a screen. People were encouraged to participate in community activities, meet with neighbors and keep traditions alive. There was also some concern about foreign cultural influence (already present with the programming at the Keflavík military base) and it was felt that limiting national television hours could help protect Icelandic identity. A more practical reason. But there was another reason of a budgetary and personnel nature. RÚV, the state broadcaster, operated with a very limited budget and staff. Leave a day without broadcast (and also a whole month in julyuntil 1983) was a practical way to give a day off to its employees, many of whom multitasked to keep the channel running. Since the station had a monopoly, it could afford this luxury without losing audience, since there was no other option to watch on television. A summit ended the custom. The first interruption of the Thursday blackout occurred in October 1986, when RÚV broadcast on an exceptional basis on Thursday to cover the historic Reykjavík summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The definitive change, of course, came with the appearance of competition: in 1986 a new private channel, Stöð 2, was launched, broadcasting seven days a week. Since October 1, 1987, RÚV also began broadcasting on Thursdays, ending this tradition of almost two decades. The myth of “Thursday babies.” The popular belief that this tradition increased the birth rate is actually a joke or myth that Icelanders who lived during that time tell themselves: by not having the distraction of television, couples spent more time together, which supposedly increased the probability of conceiving. And although it is a correlation that has remained in the popular imagination of Iceland, there is no scientific evidence to show that the birth rate in Iceland increased significantly on Thursdays, or nine months after Thursdays. But it says a lot about how entertainment and family life were conceived not so long ago. Photo of Cassie Mouth in Unsplash In Xataka | The story of the old television that left an entire Welsh town without internet at 7 in the morning

‘The Brutalist’ is only broadcast in 70 mm in three Spanish cinemas. Two of them are in an unlikely city: Zaragoza

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‘The Brutalist’, one of the premieres of the yearreaches Spanish screens with its 10 Oscar nominationsbut it does so in a very special way: from a week before, in Zaragoza, where it is also being seen in 70 mm format. An unusual decision that is usually reserved for large capitals, but in this case it has given an unusual privilege to the city. Early release. To start, the winner of three Golden Globes It was seen a week earlier in Zaragoza: it premiered on Friday, January 17, while it hits theaters in the rest of Spain on the 23rd of the same month. Furthermore, he did it that Friday with a special pass: at the Palafox Cinemas, with Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Eduardo Torres-Dulce and Inocencio Arias, members of the radio program ‘Cowboys de Medianoche’, directed by Luis Herrero, and who maintained a discussion with the spectators at the end of the screening. Only three in Spain. But not only that: the film is shot in VistaVision, a widescreen format owned by Paramount and not used since the 1961 classic western ‘The Impenetrable Face’. This means that the best format to be enjoyed is 70 mm, and that only three cinemas are equipped to project in Spain: Phenomena and two cinemas in Zaragoza, Palafox and Aragonia. Nolan went first. The format is, therefore, ideal for watching ‘The Brutalist’, a film with a very careful image, since the 70 mm. They offer up to three times the resolution than 4K (reaching a digital equivalent of 12K), and stand out for their excellent brightness and sharpness. It is not the first time that Zaragoza, along with Barcelona, ​​has become an icon of screenings in traditional formats: Christopher Nolan films such as ‘Interstellar’ or ‘Oppenheimer’ have also been seen almost “how he would like it“. “Almost” because the format Nolan plus ultra It is the 70 mm IMAX, and for this there are no cinemas in Spain. But the 70 mm. Analogues are a good approach for which Zaragoza is prepared. The man from Zaragoza. Behind these cinemas is Francisco J. Puig, owner with his Zarafilms group of a third theater in the Aragonese capital, the Cervantes cinemas. At the Palafox they started their projections in 70 mm. in the complicated times of the pandemic, as told by ‘The Herald‘, precisely with a screening of Nolan, ‘Tenet’. A bet that, over time, has ended up configuring the city as a center of film pilgrimage from other parts of Spain. Medium-sized cities also exist. The case of this exceptionality in the Zaragoza exhibition puts the problem of the quality movie theaters outside big cities. However, the drop in collections After the pandemic (which is being noticed worldwide, but in countries like Spain it has had a special impact) it has especially affected cinemas in medium-sized cities or, of course, in rural areas. Often, entrepreneurs like Puig and his resistance to abandoning the traditional film business are a small-scale reflection of the drama of exhibition in Spain, which in 2024 was especially affected by a very little collections. In Xataka | The IMAX technology used in ‘Oppenheimer’ is overwhelming. But it depends on a 20-year-old Palm Pilot

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