Dichen Lachman and Adam Scott in "Severance." (Photo via Apple)
In one of those announcements that feels made primarily to be mocked, Apple TV+ quietly rebranded itself this week as (drumroll, please) … Apple TV.
Like a lot of stupid-sounding things at first blush, though, there was actually some significance in the moment—namely, that streaming, which has used that “+” to denote its specialness relative to traditional media, has essentially morphed into plain old “TV.”
“I just want to know how much they paid a firm to think of this,” journalist Jemele Hill tweeted. "That’s the business I need to be in.”
Streaming services do have a way of appearing to waste vast amounts of money just on updating their stationery, starting with HBO’s journey to, from and back to HBO Max. After new management killed CNN+ in 2022 a month after its launch, the network confirmed this week plans to soon launch an “all access” version that looks a lot like it, only without the “+.”
This week alone yielded several stories highlighting streaming’s…
The rest of this story is for paid subscribers only.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Scoop-driven reporting and sharp-edged analysis. See why The Wall Street Journal declared Status a “must-read.”
The latest episode of our podcast, Power Lines, just dropped.
In this week’s episode: We discuss Pete Hegseth’s propaganda play at the Pentagon and how he unsuccessfully tried to turn the press corps into North Korean-styled anchors who only parrot government talking points. Then we go inside the painful cuts at NBC News and how the network gutted its diversity teams. Finally, we look at how the so-called “manosphere” comedians are turning on Donald Trump over his ICE raids, Zohran Mamdani’s move to talk to the president via Fox News, Olivia Nuzzi’s forthcoming book, and much more.
You can watch on YouTube—or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
George Orwell as seen in the documentary "Orwell:2+2=5" (Courtesy of Neon.)
Why ‘Orwell’ Adds Up in 2025: Donald Trump would seem like an unlikely champion for reading the works of George Orwell, but the president and author who died 75 years ago share one key trait: A belief in the power of language, lies and repetition.
The Trump-Orwell connection is among the points that soberly registers watching “Orwell: 2+2=5,” the latest documentary from director Raoul Peck and indie studio Neon. Those sequences stand out in the current political climate, as Trump repeats falsehoods until supporters begin parroting them, while rebranding things and bending reality (see “Gulf of America” and “Department of War”) to suit his whims and objectives.
Like all of Peck’s work (which includes the James Baldwin doc “I Am Not Your Negro”), “Orwell: 2+2=5” is highly cinematic, and as urgent as…
The remainder of this newsletter is for paid subscribers only.
Scoop-driven reporting and sharp-edged analysis. See why thousands of industry professionals rely on Status.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
A subscription gets you full access to our nightly newsletter, which includes:
✅ Essential reporting on and analysis of the Fourth Estate, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the Information Wars, and more.
✅ Hand-curated links to the most consequential stories moving the needle in the key corridors of the industry.
✅ Unlimited access to our online archive where you can read previous editions of the newsletter.
