The AvA Connection

🐝 The Weekly Buzz

1) Taylor Swift’s appearance on the New Heights podcast (unsurprisingly) broke a YouTube record, peaking at 1.3 million concurrent livestream viewers and hitting 18.5 million as of this morning.

Swifties, no Bad Blood, but the top podcasts on YouTube are a Love Story she’s not part of (yet). She’s got a lot of Blank Space between her and The 1 spot.

2) SZA signs on as Vans’ new Artistic Director in a multi-year deal. For Gen Z, authenticity is currency. It’s no longer enough to throw a celebrities’ face on a billboard, or IG ad, and expect $$ to roll in. SZA carries cultural weight and trust with Gen Z, and this role will allow her to control the narrative vs. simply license her image. Some other examples:

• Pharrell Williams - Louis Vuitton

• Tyler, The Creator - Converse

• A$AP Rocky - Puma

• Rihanna- LVMH + Savage x Fenty

• Travis Scott – Nike

• No I won’t name the one you are all thinking of

3) Karol G is set to headline the halftime show for YouTube’s first ever broadcast of an NFL game. The Columbian Artist will head back to her home continent, with the game happening in Brazil.

4) The one about a festival agent lying about booking Doechii and SiR and pocketing $200k. Baltimore’s AFRAM festival organizer has filed a fraud lawsuit against talent booker Christopher Young.

5) Bye Bye MSNBC. Hello… MS Now? This year has had more rebrands than Kanye (I said I wouldn’t say it my bad).

💼 AvA Job Board

Our new job board features 80+ early career roles in Entertainment:

Some standouts:

💼 Executive Assistant & Athlete Relations Coordinator - EAG Sports Management - Apply Here

💼 Assistant, External Affairs - WME - Apply Here

💼 Theatre - Business Affairs Assistant -CAA - Apply Here

💼 Promotions Event Support - iHeartMedia - Apply Here

💼 Assistant, The Wall Group - WME - Apply Here

💼 Entertainment & Theming Coordinator (Assistant-Level) - Circuit of The Americas - Apply Here

💼 Scheduling Coordinator - Disney - Apply Here

💼 Executive Assistant, Creative Advertising - Paramount - Apply Here

💼 Assistant to Partner, Comedy Touring - UTA - Apply Here

🎒 Fall Intern, Membership & Industry Relations - The Recording Academy - Apply Here

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📚 Recs: 🎧

📚 This week is one great article and one great pod. This week I read a breakdown of how MrBeast makes YouTube videos in Business Insider. “What emerged was a portrait of a large-scale content operation that, in many ways, mirrors traditional Hollywood productions only faster-paced and occasionally more chaotic…. You'll see a lot of former film and TV people dropping everything in their lives in order to move out to Greenville."

One note that I had to point out “The company (MrBeast) previously referred to workers on MrBeast sets as "friends of friends" rather than production assistants.” Hmmmm 😐

🎧 And check out Dan Porter who was the head of Digital at WME in 2013 (safe to call him a pioneer), founder of Overtime, a digital-first sports league and media brand, on My First Million (I know we recommend them a lot), but this convo was great. Dan is launching a water brand, 67 Water, with a 17-year-old player in his basketball league based on a TikTok meme. Need I say more about modern media?

👋 See you back here on Wednesday

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This newsletter is written by Warner Bailey and edited by Riley Furey and Dominik Sansevere.

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