ARTS

Broadway Cannot Defy Gravity

Against all odds, Cats the movie is only the second-worst thing to happen to musical theater recently. Yesterday morning, the Broadway League extended its shutdown to January 3, 2021. 

That doesn’t mean curtains rise with the new year. Productions will honor refunds and exchanges through then, but shows will resume on a rolling basis after. 

Let’s talk $

Last year, 65% of Broadway's $1.8 billion in ticket sales came from tourists, and Broadway’s pull on outside visitors contributed almost $15 billion to NYC’s economy in 2018–19. But the pandemic has frozen international tourism. 

• For theater professionals, COVID-19 has been harder to stomach than Russell Crowe as Javert. High-budget shows can take years to turn a profit, and even when theaters reopen in 2021, social distancing means they won’t be selling nosebleed seats on someone else’s lap.

Big picture: Broadway's challenges are representative of the teetering performing arts industry. Yesterday, Cirque du Soleil filed for bankruptcy after closing shows and laying off ~95% of its workforce in March because of the pandemic.

Congress set aside $250 million in pandemic relief to help the arts, but that might not be enough. In April, Americans for the Arts found nearly two-thirds of artists and creatives were unemployed.

The return playbook

When shows resume, they’ve got at least one working model to follow. Since mid-April, the world tour of Phantom of the Opera has played shows before big audiences in Seoul, South Korea. 

How they did it: Before entering the theater, the audience is sprayed with disinfectant mist, gets their temperature checked, and is quizzed about symptoms and recent travel. 

• South Korea has more meticulous test, trace, and quarantine protocols in place than the U.S. When a cast member tested positive in March, the entire crew was quarantined and 8,000 attendees alerted. 

Looking ahead...some theaters have gotten creative with livestreams in the last few months, but Broadway's biggest test on the small screen will be this Friday, when Hamilton debuts on Disney+.

SOCIAL MEDIA

r/Goodbye

Reddit, a corner of the internet where people discuss the corners of the internet, disbanded one of its most controversial forums yesterday—the 790,000-member subreddit called r/The_Donald devoted to, you guessed it, supporting President Trump. 

The ban was part of a policy change that led to a widespread purge of about 2,000 subreddits. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman cited rule-breaking, deliberate provocation of other users, and failure to “meet our most basic expectations” as reasons for shutting down specific forums, which also included the popular left-wing r/ChapoTrapHouse subreddit. 

It’s a bad week to be hate speech

• Facebook announced on Friday it would add new guidelines to label hate speech in a major 180.
• Twitch, Amazon’s streaming subsidiary, banned Trump’s channel yesterday for violating its rules against hate speech. 
• YouTube also made moves yesterday, banning six channels including those belonging to two white supremacists, Richard Spencer and David Duke, for violating its policies. 

Bottom line: With advertisers throwing their weight around and election season looming, it looks like social media platforms are becoming increasingly comfortable taking hardline stances on toxic speech.

FITNESS

In Mirror, Lululemon Sees Itself

Lululemon is trying to make it easier for customers to admire their butt in sculpt leggings. Yesterday, the athleisure retailer announced its first-ever acquisition: fitness startup Mirror for $500 million. 

A match made in sweat heaven? Mirror makes wall-mounted, interactive mirrors that, instead of just telling you you look good like the one in Snow White, guide you through 30 grueling minutes of barre pulses.

It’s an investment

One Mirror costs nearly $1,500, plus a $39 monthly subscription to access live classes and on-demand workouts. 

But in an era where gyms are creaking open, COVID-19 is still running rampant, and people are tired of using wine bottles as weights...Lululemon thinks Mirror will show off its best features.

• Peloton, Mirror’s cycling equivalent, has been a pandemic superstar—its stock is up nearly 300% since a March low.

Looking ahead...Mirror will operate as a standalone unit in Lululemon with founder and CEO Brynn Putnam in charge. Earlier this year, Putnam told the Brew's Business Casual podcast she envisioned Mirror being “the next iPhone.”

Check out the rest of that interview .

SPONSORED BY ATTENTIVE

A Mobile Messaging Match That Makes Marketers Magnificent

Which channel reigns superior? Text messaging or email? This age-old question has confounded scientists, marketers, and grandmothers everywhere for years.

To set the record straight, we turned to Attentive—the personalized mobile messaging experts.

In Attentive’s unrivaled experience, email and text are equally powerful in performance marketing—when used together. 

With over 50% of emails being opened on mobile devices and read rates for texts averaging 98%, Attentive says these two channels can work together like a majestic tandem bicycle guiding customers through the brand journey.

Not convinced texting has the chops? SMS alone is quickly becoming a top revenue channel with 25x+ ROI and 30% click-through rates.

Join over 1,000 leading brands relying on Attentive to reach customers effectively.

Download their guide today.

PHARMA

$3,120 for a Coronavirus Treatment? Come on Down.

Gilead Sciences said its coronavirus treatment, remdesivir, will cost $3,120 for a typical U.S. patient with private insurance. 

• It’ll charge governments less than that—$2,340 for a standard five-day course (six vials at $390 a piece). 

Why it matters: It’s...a treatment for a virus that’s brought the world to its knees, and we finally know how much it costs. 

What else do we know about remdesivir? A U.S. government-led clinical trial showed that the drug reduced COVID-19 patients’ recovery times by four days. But it hasn’t been proven to reduce mortality. 

Some critics are feeling sticker shock. A consumer group called the price an “outrage,” especially considering the tens of millions in taxpayer funds Gilead received for the drug’s development. Gilead counters that remdesivir will save $12,000 per patient by getting them out of the hospital more quickly.

Looking ahead...remdesivir has been given emergency approval by the FDA, and Gilead plans to start charging for it next month.

COSMETICS

Should We Call It Koty Now?

There are a couple of topics we write about a lot in Morning Brew: FAANG, the Fed, and recently...Kim and Kanye. Following in half-sister Kylie’s footsteps, Kim agreed to sell 20% of her Kim Kardashian West (KKW) makeup line to cosmetics giant Coty for $200 million. 

• The deal values KKW at $1 billion—or, as Kylie likes to call it, less than the $1.2 billion Kylie Cosmetics was valued at when Coty acquired a 51% stake last year.

Coty’s play

Snagging two members of the Kardashian gang is a page right out of Yeezy Gap’s “partner with a mega-celebrity to look cool again” playbook. And Coty is desperate for relevance. 

• Coty admitted last year that a staggering 60% of its makeup brands were “margin dilutive,” i.e. they weren’t making any money. It took a $3 billion writedown to its valuation and promised to turn a corner.

Bottom line: Some think Coty might have overpaid for KKW, but Morningstar analyst Rebecca Scheuneman is more concerned with Coty playing the influencer game. “It’s risky to build brands around celebrities,” she told Bloomberg, given that public opinion can quickly change.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Microsoft has reportedly extended its pause on FB and Instagram ad spend worldwide. It was FB's third-largest spender last year. 
• The Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that applied tight restrictions on abortions.
• India said it was banning 59 apps made by Chinese firms, including TikTok, for national security reasons. 
• AMC pushed back its phased reopening to July 30.
• The NYT has ended its partnership with Apple News.

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BREW'S BETS

Can’t live without your calendar? Or are you more of a Post-It note scribbler? With this quiz, you can figure out which type of worker you are and learn strategies for eliminating distraction and achieving ultimate productivity bliss.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Check if you’re part of Microsoft’s Beta group for STOCKHISTORY, a new Excel function that lets you run some fancy analysis on your Robinhood portfolio.

Workout: Brew writer Toby Howell recommends the “deck of cards” workout. Each suit corresponds to a different workout movement, while the number on the card shows how many reps you need to perform. Pick your workouts, shuffle the deck, and get to sweating. 

On the last day of Pride, we’re bringing you some videos, images, and articles to learn more about this month and why it matters.

• TED: A collection of LGBT talks
• NYT: How Pride celebrations changed this year
• New Yorker: Stonewall 50 years later and stories of NYC’s trans community
• The Conversation: The role local media played in the Stonewall riots

FROM THE CREW

Yesterday, we unleashed Marketing Brew on the world—a 3x/week newsletter devoted to covering the advertising industry in the Brew’s fun and informative style. If you work in the sector, it’s the perfect afternoon complement to your Morning Brew.

You can read the , or if you’ve already heard enough, just sign up.

BROADWAY TRIVIA

There is one letter row (A, B,...Z) nearly all Broadway theaters intentionally omit. What is the row and why?

BROADWAY TRIVIA ANSWER

Row I, because it can be confused with the number 1. Some theaters also omit Q and O because they can be confused with each other as well.