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Forbes
11-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Lady Gaga Breaks Her Own Hot 100 Record
Lady Gaga's 'Die With a Smile' spends 50 weeks on the Hot 100, becoming her longest-charting hit and surpassing 'Just Dance,' which lasted 49 weeks. SNL50: THE RED CARPET — Pictured: Lady Gaga on Sunday, February 16, 2025 — (Photo by NBC/Noam Galai/NBC via Getty Images) Noam Galai/NBC via Getty Images Lady Gaga is primarily known as a dance-pop musician. She got her start in that style and helped repopularize electronic music all around the world more than a decade ago. Throughout the years she's been a superstar, the singer-songwriter has tried her hand at other genres and found great success in some cases. One of her most recent singles, 'Die With a Smile,' favors vintage instrumentation and a '70s R&B/pop vibe, and that proved to be a winning mix for both her and partner Bruno Mars. This frame, the cut earns another special place in Gaga's catalog as it remains one of the biggest tunes in America. 'Die With a Smile' has spent 50 weeks on the Hot 100 as of this frame. It is now Gaga's first tune to make it to that milestone number on Billboard's most competitive songs chart, which ranks the most consumed tunes in the U.S. by blending airplay, sales, and streaming activity. As it hits 50 weeks on the 100-spot ranking, 'Die With a Smile' breaks out of a tie with 'Just Dance,' Gaga's first smash. That tune, a collaboration with Colby O'Donis, stood as Gaga's longest-running Hot 100 win for well over a decade, as it managed 49 stays beginning in mid-2008. That was a massive success at the time, as the tally was compiled in a different manner. Streaming activity was not yet factored into chart methodology, and there weren't rules that removed tunes after a certain length of time if they didn't sit above a specific level. Streams have helped keep smashes on the Hot 100 for longer and longer stretches, and 'Die With a Smile' isn't done yet. As the smash becomes Gaga's longest-running Hot 100 hit, it remains one of the top 10 biggest songs in America this week. 'Die With a Smile' keeps at No. 10 yet again, a position it has occupied for several periods in a row. In two weeks, it will almost certainly become Gaga's first one-year winner on the competitive tally. When it comes to Mars' discography, 'Die With a Smile' is his third hit to reach 50 weeks on the Hot 100. The Grammy-winning tune is just two frames behind 'That's What I Like,' and it will need to live on the list for another half-dozen turns before it matches 'Uptown Funk' — his song with Mark Ronson — in terms of longevity. 'Die With a Smile' appears on half a dozen U.S.-based Billboard rankings this frame. It lives inside the top 10 on a trio of radio lists, including the Adult Pop Airplay, Radio Songs, and Adult Contemporary charts, and holds on inside the top five on all of them. While it's no longer a bestseller, 'Die With a Smile' also appears at No. 35 on the all-genre Streaming Songs tally, where it also celebrates 50 weeks.
Forbes
05-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AMC Theatres: New Plan Of Ads Before Movies Won't Detract Moviegoers
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 05, 2021. Photo an an AMC theater lobby (Photo by Noam Galai/WireImage) AMC Theaters is confident its new business model of running ads before movies won't discourage filmgoers from coming to movies at the theater chain. AMC announced Wednesday that it has partnered with movie ad company National CineMedia to add a 'platinum spot' with commercial ads before movies, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The ads, of course, will run in addition to the movie trailers that run before shows. 'While AMC was initially reluctant to bring this to our theaters, our competitors have fully participated for more than five years without any direct impact to their attendance,' AMC Theatres said in a statement (via THR). 'This is a strong indication that this NCM pre-show initiative does not negatively influence moviegoing habits.' AMC and National CineMedia will share the revenues from the endeavor, THR reported. AMC's ad program with NCM will begin on July 1. 'For the past five years," AMC noted in a statement through a spokesperson to Deadline, 'AMC has sought out crucial revenue that is not reliant on the increase of base ticket prices.' "We've done this through more and better moviegoing enhancements like our significant expansion of PLFs, a greater selection of food and beverage offerings, and the introduction of movie-going merchandise like popcorn buckets and other collectable concession vessels,' AMC said in the statement (via Deadline). NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 09 (Photo by) AMC Theatres is the largest theater chain in the U.S. and Europe. As the largest theater chain worldwide, AMC has 900 theaters that hold 10,000 screens. The company recently noted in a press release that it had a record-breaking Memorial Day weekend holiday at the box office, with 'more than 7 million moviegoers visited an AMC in the United States or an ODEON Cinemas location internationally from Thursday through Monday.' Over the five day, period, which ran from May 22-26 — and saw the openings of Disney's Lilo & Stitch and Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning — 'AMC set all-time weekend records for the Memorial Day holiday for admissions revenue, food & beverage revenue and overall revenue at its domestic locations,' the press release noted. The theater chain added that May 22-26 was the most attended weekend of 2025 and marked its highest-attended Memorial Day weekend since 2013.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Vedika Bhandarkar Believes We Can Solve the Water Crisis in Our Lifetime
Credit - Noam Galai—Getty Images for Clinton Global Initiative On May 1, Gold House unveiled its annual A100 List, recognizing the 100 most impactful Asian Pacific leaders across industries. See the full list here. Of all the problems the world faces, providing enough water for drinking and sanitation is among the most solvable. Everybody agrees that humans need water. Nobody is morally opposed to providing it. The technology exists to bring water to most places. The earth has enough drinkable water, currently, to meet its needs. And yet about half of the world has to work pretty hard to get water, buying it from trucks, drinking from substandard sources, or sending children or women out to lug it back from a distant supply. What's stopping us from ensuring everyone has access to clean water? 'It is a lot about money,' says Vedika Bhandarkar, 57, the president and COO of 'If I don't have safe water at home, I know I need to get connected to the utility, or I need to build a water-storage tank and rainwater-harvesting system. But I lack the upfront capital and an affordable way to get that capital.' Bhandarkar is on the forefront of clear-cutting a path to financing for those who have none. Before she started working at in 2016, Bhandarkar had never heard of the organization and knew very little about how water was provided around the world. But she was pretty adept at working the levers of finance, having worked in the sector for 25 years and headed up Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse's investment-banking divisions in India. Her success and the rise of India as an economic force grew in tandem, but she was aware that the growth had not lifted the fortunes of everyone. 'Irrespective of where you live, you sort of enclose yourself in a bubble,' she says. 'But it's much harder to do that when you see your own country, women and men, the way they live, and how wrong that is and how unfair that is.' When she decided to leave banking, partly because it 'is all about being younger and leaner and hungrier and meaner, so you should move out before somebody moves you out,' she says, she wanted to find a way to make a different kind of impact. She started by volunteering at the Jai Vakeel Foundation, an Indian organization that works with people with developmental disabilities. But pretty soon philanthropy recruiters came sniffing. She got offers from two organizations, and she discussed them with her husband and two children. When she got to the part about how was co-founded by Matt Damon, her kids had heard enough, she says. 'They turned to me and said, 'Mom, why are you even thinking about the other one?'' While her children's advice was heartening, what really motivated her was realizing how the lack of access to water exacerbated many other problems that impoverished communities faced, especially among women and girls, who use up a good portion of their day fetching water. 'They don't have time to spend either looking after their families and/or engaging in other economic activities,' says Bhandarkar, who, with her husband, had focused their philanthropic giving on women and girls even before becoming a professional in the aid world. 'Girls drop out of school because they're helping their moms collect water, or you have health issues because you don't have access to safe water. When we solve this, we'll also make progress on so many other aspects.' Providing water is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Some places have plenty of rain, but it's seasonal. Householders there would benefit from a tank. Others have groundwater but need a treatment plant or a pump. For many, fecal contamination is the main issue. In 2016 the World Bank estimated it would cost about $114 billion annually to meet the globe's basic water needs, and annual expenditure was about $20 billion—and that was before Western countries including the U.S. and the U.K. began to shrink their foreign-aid budgets. way of addressing that shortfall is to help provide funds to kick-start local water programs that the recipients pay for, via loans. has created several avenues to entice people to fund water access. One of these is a group of five funds, known collectively as WaterEquity, from which donors and investors supply capital to local banks and credit providers, who then make loans to people who need water infrastructure, whether for drinking or sanitation. Bhandarkar's expertise and contacts have helped mobilize the whole spectrum of finance from philanthropists to investors to put this capital together. 'In an ideal world you could say, well, this should be funded by the government, but today there is a big funding gap, and it needs everybody to lean in,' she says. The organization also operates WaterConnect, which offers early-stage funding and technical know-how to local developers to build water infrastructure, and WaterCredit, which provides microloans to families in the developing world for safe water and sanitation. Initially, some of local partners resisted facilitating loans as opposed to grants. But Bhandarkar believes loans are a more sustainable model and allow many more people to be helped. declines to dictate the interest rates charged on the loans, although they are careful about their collaborators. 'You need to leave that decision to the financial institution,' she says. 'If you start telling them 'Charge X and not Y,' then you start distorting the market, and they will do water and sanitation lending only as long as you're partnering with them, and when you step away, they will stop.' So far, 179 partners in 16 countries have made 16.9 million loans, and the organization believes it has had an impact on 76 million people. As the developed nations begin to withdraw most of their support for their impoverished neighbors, Bhandarkar feels the responsibility of her work more keenly. 'There are so many great organizations who aren't able to work or whose ability to work is so severely curtailed right now,' she says. 'So the responsibility on us to put our heads down and work harder to achieve impact at scale is even more today than it was a year ago.' But she's optimistic. 'I do have hope that this problem can be solved,' she says. 'And I do have hope that this problem can be solved in our lifetimes." Contact us at letters@
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Digital Rebound: Is the Sports Card NFT Market Heating Up Again?
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 23: People stand by ALT billboard in Times Square during the 4th annual conference on June 23, 2022 in New York City. The four-day event featured 1,500 speakers from the crypto and NFT space with over 14,000 guests in attendance. (Photo by) (Noam Galai via Getty Images) The year was 2020. During an unprecedented time, the sports card market saw an unexpected rise. As the hobby adapted to a changing world, NFTs began to thrive. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets stored on the blockchain that verify ownership and authenticity—essentially, a way to prove that a digital item is truly one-of-a-kind. Between January and July 2020, five digital sports cards sold for $36,000 or more. The highest? A Kobe Bryant 1/1 Logoman NFT . Coming in second? A Zion Williamson 1/1 Logoman RPA —oof. Unlike traditional digital files, NFTs can't be duplicated in a meaningful way—even if someone takes a screenshot, they don't own the underlying asset. At the time, the concept was still new to many, often met with skepticism and confusion. Questions like, 'If I screenshot your NFT, doesn't that make it mine?' were common. Advertisement But as the world began returning to normal, the hype seemed to fade. While not disappearing entirely, sports card NFTs quickly became more of an afterthought than the next big thing. Fast forward to March 2025, and the sports card NFT market seems to have a pulse—one that's gone largely unnoticed by most. Panini, a major player in the trading card world, now runs a blockchain-based NFT marketplace featuring exclusive digital pack drops. Collectors can buy, rip, and resell cards instantly on the platform. Each week, Panini highlights the top five sales—and the numbers might surprise you. Topping the list this week? A LeBron James Gold Prizm /10 that sold for a staggering $27,750. In fact, three of the top five NFT sales were LeBron cards, totaling nearly $40,000 combined. The other two? A Victor Wembanyama Gold Kaboom /10 that went for $6,000 and a Jayden Daniels Gold Kaboom /10 that sold for $3,500. Just this morning, Panini launched its 2024 Obsidian Football digital packs —and they sold out within minutes. The rapid sellout has sparked debate once again: is this just another hype-driven fad, or is the digital card space here to stay? These Obsidian packs are loaded with sought-after case hits like Kabooms, Colorblasts, Stained Glass, Downtowns, and more. Many of these rare pulls have already started hitting the NFT marketplace . A Caleb Williams Green Horizontal Kaboom 1/1 recently sold for $3,500, while a Jayden Daniels Blue Obsidian Rookie /25 went for $175, and a Brock Bowers Kaboom /25 changed hands for just $60. Advertisement As the dust settles, it'll be interesting to see how these exclusive digital cards are valued over time. The bigger question looms: is this surge in digital pack demand a healthy evolution of the hobby—or just another flash-in-the-pan get-rich-quick scheme? Your collection deserves a community. Download Mantel today.
