That’s how much analysts say Digitour, a traveling show featuring teen social media celebrities, is set to make this year. Buzzfeed embedded a reporter on the tour, which has been packing sold-out theaters with centennial girls who want to catch a glimpse of their favorite Vine and YouTube personalities. It’s unlikely you’ve heard of them, but Digitour’s acts together boast tens of millions of followers, and a sponsored six-second video from them costs six figures. It’s big business, big enough to potentially blur the line between “internet famous” and just “famous.”
That’s how many black-owned banks are in Chicago — half as many as there were just a few years ago — and one is on the brink of shutting down. That’s a pretty major loss; during segregation those banks would give out loans to black homeowners and entrepreneurs when no one else would, and today community banks still diffuse racial prejudice in loan applications.
That’s how many of Wal-Mart’s stores will be testing out greeters at the front entrance as an anti-theft measure. After having been moved to the self-checkout area for the past couple years, the greeters will be returned to their spot front and center — the idea being potential thieves will be deterred by the knowledge that someone is watching. Last year, theft cost retailers an estimated $44 billion.
That’s how far ratings dropped from last year at Viacom’s cable networks, Bloomberg reported. The company at MTV in particular, part of Sumner Redstone’s media empire, is having trouble adjusting to disruption in the industry, but industry watchers are divided over the reason why. Executives blame poor audience measurement, while others blame Redstone’s alleged health problems and an unwillingness to take risks on programming.
That’s the percentage drop in digital music sales in the first half of 2015, according to a report on Nielsen stats by Billboard. But as the Verge reports, even more startling is the fact that people are streaming music twice as much as they did during the same period of time last year.
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