| As soon as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival ended in April, Paul Tollett started working the phones to secure potential headliners for 2025. The festival had suffered through a tough stretch, shutting down during the pandemic and then failing to sell out the last two years in a row. Tollett, the concert promoter who started the event in 1999, wanted to book some A-list acts to ensure the malaise wouldn't continue into a third year. And he knew exactly who he wanted: Kendrick Lamar and Rihanna. Lamar grew up at the festival, performing on the main stage in 2012 and then headlining in 2017. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Lamar's public war of words with Drake had made him the hottest rapper in the world. Rihanna, one of the most popular and elusive musicians around, hadn't staged a proper tour in years. Her appearance would all but ensure a sellout. But both passed, according to several people familiar with the matter. Lamar is scheduled to perform at the 2025 Super Bowl and then plans a tour of major stadiums. Rihanna, head of a growing business empire, didn't need the money or the exposure. With six months to go until next year's festival, Tollett is scrambling to secure the kind of headliner that can restore the luster of the largest music festival in North America. Coachella has become a victim of its own success, according to several people familiar with the booking process. Fans expect the festival to offer them an experience they can't find anywhere else. While Lollapalooza can get away with booking the same acts as many other festivals, Coachella can't. Yet attracting global pop stars and unique performers has gotten harder as those stars can now make more on their own. A spokesperson for Goldenvoice, the company that puts on the festival, didn't respond to requests for comment. Tollett dropped out of college to work at Goldenvoice, a Southern California concert promoter that initially specialized in hardcore punk shows. He and Rick Van Santen later took over the company from its imprisoned founder Gary Tovar and spent years dreaming up a festival in the desert. In 1999, Beck, Morrissey and the Chemical Brothers headlined the first Coachella, which drew tens of thousands of music fans to the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, about 140 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. "Tollett took the best aspects of the indie-rock, jam-band, and SoCal rave/dance '90s festivals, added the large art installations of Burning Man, and grafted this new festival hybrid onto the original hippie rootstock," John Seabrook wrote in his 2017 New Yorker profile of the promoter. While Coachella lost money in year one — most new festivals do — Tollett built the event into one of the premier music festivals in the world. In 2011, Coachella hosted more than 200,000 fans and grossed $23 million over three days. Kanye West was one of the headliners, a sign of Coachella's broadening musical repertoire. Initially focused on rock and some electronic music, the festival expanded to include hip-hop, pop, Latin, Korean pop and added stages for DJs. (This year's Oasis reunion would have been a perfect set for the Coachella of old.) As the event's stature increased, Tollett began to conceive of performances that fans couldn't find anywhere else. In 2012, he booked Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg featuring a Tupac hologram. Two years later, he staged a reunion of the Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast. In 2018, he secured Beyonce for a rare festival performance. By that point, Coachella's annual sales had eclipsed $100 million. Tollett had also stretched the event across two weekends. The buzz around these performances attracted influencers and young festival goers, transforming the crowd at what had been an event for slightly older, diehard music fans. Party promoters descended to host events specifically for influencers. To satisfy this new clientele, Coachella created locations throughout the festival that were ideal for photos on Instagram. Tollett also booked a growing number of pop headliners, including Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish. For a few years, he thread a difficult needle, booking pop stars prominent enough to sell tens of thousands of tickets without alienating music purists. Yet booking A-list acts has grown harder in recent years. While major musicians headline festivals for lucrative paydays, the biggest acts in the world today can now make more on their own. Promoters and ticketing companies have figured out how to increase prices to record highs. While Coachella pays headliners $8 million to $12 million for the two weekends, Beyonce and Taylor Swift now gross as much as $15 million a night – and with better profits. Coachella has also committed a couple unforced errors. In 2023, Tollett thought he'd pulled off a coup, booking Frank Ocean for his first live performance in six years. (Ocean was supposed to perform at Coachella in 2020 before it was canceled due to the pandemic.) But the set started late and disappointed fans. People online complained when the livestream was canceled, and those in attendance booed when Ocean ended the set after a little more than an hour. Some asked for their money back. After the negative reaction from the crowd and the media, Ocean canceled his performance scheduled for the second weekend. The episode damaged Coachella's reputation in the artist community as many musicians blamed the organizers for mishandling a widely respected artist. Coachella bore some responsibility for the set starting late and a promoter's job is to take the fall for any mishaps. Then came this year, when Tollett failed to deliver the kind of headliners the event has become known for. Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat and Tyler the Creator are all great artists, but there was no act that ensured a sellout. As Tollett talks to artists, managers and agents to dream up the 2025 lineup, he knows he needs to dream big. Coachella has thrived for a quarter century, surviving many ups and downs by putting on great shows. The good news for Tollett is that while Coachella may be in a rut, its sister festival, the country-focused Stagecoach, has never been bigger. This year's festival sold out months in advance. The lineup for next year impressed even Goldenvoice's biggest competitors. It's been a rough couple years for Roku, the maker of your favorite TV dongle. Shares in the company are down about 85% from their high in July of 2021 and are down about 18% just this year. The shares have fallen so far that many Wall Street analysts are starting to see an opportunity. Several top analysts have raised their price target for the company in the last couple months, including MoffettNathanson, which has been one of the loudest skeptics.
Nathanson didn't believe in Roku because he thought the company was benefitting from media companies splurging to market new services, a short-term boost that would go away.
But Nathanson believes that Roku has a big opportunity in advertising, specifically when it comes to the Roku Channel. Americans spend more time watching the Roku Channel than they do Max or Paramount+, and Roku is just beginning to figure out how to make money from it. The No. 1 TV show in the US is…The vice presidential debate. It attracted about 43 million viewers, a decline from the last VP debate. Paramount/CBS News hosted the debate but didn't issue ratings because they are in the middle of a tussle with Nielsen. Nielsen wants to be paid more money and Paramount is flirting with its competitor, VideoAmp, to try and prove that Nielsen isn't the only option.
This is a pretty wonky dispute, but it does determine how billions of dollars in advertising dollars get spent. The No. 1 movie in the world is…Joker: Folie a Deux. The sequel to the 2019 smash hit is tanking. It grossed $40 million in North America this weekend, which is less than half of its predecessor. If anything is going to save the second Joker, it will be overseas viewers. The first film made $743 million abroad. But this one appears to be falling well short of that.
That is five misses in a row for movies based on DC Comics, though this one was not made as part of the new DC universe. Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav hired new leaders for DC Studios and their first release — a new Superman film — opens next year. The stakes are high. The future of satellite TVThe merger of Dish and DirecTV is the latest sign of the collapse of the pay-TV business. But the CEO of DirecTV argued his company will grow by selling digital packages. As part of this deal, private equity firm TPG is buying the rest of DirecTV from AT&T. The telecom giant spent about $176 billion, including debt, on Time Warner and DirecTV. It sold them both for a lot less and has almost nothing to show for it. Deals, deals, dealsThe folks at Netflix told me that Nobody Wants This was made for me. I am sad to report that I am predictable. Go Dodgers. | 
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