Paramount Global and Skydance Media are making progress on a deal that would merge the media companies and buy out controlling shareholder Shari Redstone.

Paramount Global’s special committee and David Ellison’s Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance’s assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, according to people familiar with the matter.

The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance. The entertainment company will be valued at around $5 billion and merged with Paramount Global, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. Ellison and the private equity firms plan to raise roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity. Some of that — about $2 billion — will be used to pay Redstone, and another substantial portion will be used to pay down debt.

The buyers would ideally like to get a deal done in May, said the people. Three of the people said that Paramount Global was slow to open a data room to the Skydance consortium, which has slightly pushed back the timeline on a deal. The exclusivity window on merger talks ends May 3, but the Skydance consortium wants to extend it by two weeks, said the people.

Skydance plans to name Ellison as CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as the president, said two of the people. Current Paramount CEO Bob Bakish would depart the company, the people said.

Separately, Apollo and Sony have held preliminary discussions about teaming up for a deal that would buy out all Paramount Global shareholders at a premium, according to people familiar with the matter. The special committee hasn’t received concrete details on that offer and isn’t viewing it as a competitive bid to Skydance’s interest, two of the people said.

Still, the committee had more details on an initial offer made by Apollo, which it chose to ignore in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance. The special committee favored Skydance’s offer over Apollo’s in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, one of the people said.

Spokespeople for Apollo, the Paramount Global special committee, Paramount Global, and Skydance’s consortium declined to comment.

One significant hurdle that remains is Paramount Global’s renewal agreement with Charter Communications for CBS and its cable networks. That deal is relevant to the value of Paramount Global, which could take a hit if Charter drops the networks or agrees to a lower carriage rate, the people said.

The deadline for that agreement is April 30. Paramount Global reports first-quarter earnings one day earlier, on April 29.

Paramount Global is still dependent on its traditional TV business, which accounts for about two-thirds of the company’s total revenue.

There are signs Charter could prove to be a tough negotiator with Paramount Global: Last year the cable provider, the second-largest in the U.S., briefly stopped carrying Disney’s networks when renewal negotiations between those two companies faltered. (The parties reached a deal 10 days later.)

Paramount’s cable networks are far less popular than Disney’s ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness.

The timing of the renewal and the deal talks set up an awkward dynamic, where Bakish, who would ultimately leave the company under a Skydance merger, will control Paramount Global’s fate with Charter.

Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.

Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter. Several Paramount Global investors have also publicly written letters to the company’s board urging directors not to move forward with a Skydance deal, arguing it gives Redstone a massive premium for her controlling shares while leaving common shareholders out in the cold.

Under the terms of the deal, nearly 50% of the company will be owned by Skydance and its private equity partners, CNBC reported earlier this month. The rest of the company would be owned by common shareholders, and the company will continue to trade publicly.

“At Paramount, we’re always looking for ways to create shareholder value. And to be clear, that’s for all shareholders,” Bakish said during his company’s most recent earnings call in February.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says he’s hopeful the Federal Reserve can bring down inflation without causing a recession but wouldn’t rule out more troubling possibilities, such as stagflation.

In an interview with The Associated Press at a Chase branch opening in The Bronx, Dimon said he remained “cautious” about the U.S. economy and said inflation may be stickier for longer and that “stagflation is on the list of possible things” that could happen to the U.S. economy.

“You should be worried about (the possibility of stagflation),” Dimon said. Dimon did emphasize that he’s still “hopeful” for the U.S. economy to experience a soft landing, where growth slows but the economy avoids a recession even if inflation remains a little high, but he’s not certain that is the most likely outcome.

“I’m just a little more dubious than others that a (soft landing) is a given,” he said.

The Fed rapidly raised interest rates in 2022 and 2023 after inflation reached the highest level in four decades. Fed officials have indicated they expect to begin lowering rates at some point, but the timeline has been pushed back as inflation remains well above the central bank’s target rate of 2%.

Dimon spoke to the AP on a range of issues, including the independence of the Federal Reserve, the health of the U.S. consumer, the need for banks to open branches and the pressing geopolitical issues of the day.

Inflation has been stubbornly elevated so far this year, and a report Thursday showing growth slowed in the first three months of this year fanned fears of “stagflation,” which occurs when the economy is weak, or in recession, yet prices keep moving higher. It’s a particularly miserable combination of economic circumstances, with high unemployment occurring along with rising costs. Typically, a sluggish economy brings down inflation.

Stagflation last occurred in the 1970s, when conditions were far worse than today. In 1975, for example, inflation topped 10% while the unemployment rate peaked at 9%. Inflation is now 3.5% and unemployment just 3.8%, near a half-century low. If stagflation did occur, Dimon said he believes it would not be as bad as it was in the 1970s.

Fears of stagflation eased Friday after a government report showed consumer spending stayed strong in March, suggesting the economy will keep expanding at a solid pace in the coming months.

Dimon also emphasized the need for the Federal Reserve to remain independent, following a report by The Wall Street Journal this week that said advisors for former President Trump were considering ways to curb the independence of the Fed should again be elected. The steps could include making the Fed’s chairman removable by the president or requiring the president to be consulted on any changes to interest rates.

“I don’t know what these people are thinking, or how they think they are going to go about this,” Dimon said, saying that any changes would likely require legislation.

Chase was opening its 17th “community center” branch on Friday. These are larger branches that are designed for low-to-moderate income areas. They are designed with multipurpose areas that do workshops and financial literacy work for communities in need.

Glennys Arias, 43, lives in the Bronx and works as an Uber driver. She’s been banking with Chase for six months and said she typically comes to use the ATM, for check cashing, and to check on her credit.

She said the branch has met her needs and she hadn’t heard about the expansion or upcoming classes or events. “I didn’t know about any of that, but I’d come for that,” she said, of the programming.

In off-the-cuff remarks, Dimon noted the steady stream of customers.

“I love the fact that so many people are walking in here. So many people are nervous about how they’ll be treated when they walk into a bank branch.”

The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.

Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations. According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age. Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.

“Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the ‘average’ Millennial experience,” wrote the study’s authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. “There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.”

The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds. Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.

At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs. As they put it, “The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.”

The millennials who “went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,” ended up with “higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,” according to the report.

A Versace store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif. Eric Thayer / Bloomberg via Getty Images

There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances. In what’s known as “the great wealth transfer,” baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years. Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children. High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.

Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.

“The great wealth transfer, which we’ve all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,” said John Mathews, head of UBS’ Private Wealth Management division. “The average age of the world’s billionaires is almost 69 right now. So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.”

Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years. Wealth displays on social media by millennial “nepo babies” could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.

A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they “sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others.” According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.

The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth. For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs. A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made.

Yet inherited wealth could become more common. A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years. And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.

A pedestrian carries a Victoria’s Secret shopping bag while waiting to cross a street in New York.Demetrius Freeman / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.

Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials. The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million. He says the “vast majority” of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.

“I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,” he said. “The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.”

Inherited wealth has become Orrigo’s specialty. He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.

The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.

“My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,” Orrigo said.

Intel’s long-awaited turnaround looks farther away than ever after the company reported dismal first-quarter earnings. Investors pushed the shares down 10% on Friday to their lowest level of the year.

Although Intel’s revenue is no longer shrinking and the company remains the biggest maker of processors that power PCs and laptops, sales in the first quarter trailed estimates. Intel also gave a soft forecast for the second quarter, suggesting weak demand.

It was a tough showing for CEO Pat Gelsinger, who’s early in his fourth year at the helm.

But Intel’s problems are decades in the making.

Before Gelsinger returned to the company in 2021, the company, once synonymous with “Silicon Valley,” had lost its edge in semiconductor manufacturing to overseas rivals like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Now, in a high-risk quest, it’s spending billions per quarter to regain ground.

“Job number one was to accelerate our efforts to close the technology gap that was created by over a decade of underinvestment,” Gelsinger told investors on Thursday. He said the company is still on track to catch up by 2026.

Investors remain skeptical. Intel is the worst-performing tech stock in the S&P 500 this year, down 37%. Meanwhile, the two best-performing stocks in the index are chipmaker Nvidia and Super Micro Computer, which has been boosted by surging demand for Nvidia-based artificial intelligence servers.

Intel, long the most valuable U.S. chipmaker, is now one-sixteenth the size of Nvidia by market cap. It’s also smaller than Qualcomm, Broadcom, Texas Instruments, and AMD. For decades, it was the largest semiconductor company in the world by sales, but suffered seven straight quarters of revenue declines recently, and was passed by Nvidia last year.

Gelsinger is betting on a risky business model change. Not only will Intel make its own branded processors, but it will act as a factory for other chip companies that outsource their manufacturing — a group of companies that includes Nvidia, Apple, and Qualcomm. Its success acquiring customers will depend on Intel regaining “process leadership,” as the company calls it.

Other semiconductor companies would like an alternative to TSMC so they don’t have to rely on a single supplier. U.S. political leaders including President Biden call Intel an American chip champion and say the company is strategically an important part of the U.S. processor supply chain.

“Intel is a big, iconic semiconductor company which has been the leader for many years,” said Nicholas Brathwaite, managing partner at Celesta Capital, which invests in semiconductor companies. “And I think it’s a company that is worth trying to save, and they have to come back to competitiveness.”

But the chipmaker isn’t doing itself any favors.

“I think everyone has been hearing them say the next quarter will be better for two, three years now,” said Counterpoint analyst Akshara Bassi.

Intel has fumbled the ball for years. It missed the mobile chip boom with the unveiling of the iPhone in 2007. It’s also been largely on the sidelines of the AI craze while companies like Meta, Microsoft and Google order as many Nvidia chips as they can.

Here’s how Intel ended up where it is today.

The iPhone could have had an Intel chip inside. When Apple developed the first iPhone, then-CEO Steve Jobs visited former Intel CEO Paul Otellini, according to Walter Isaacson’s 2011 biography “Steve Jobs.”

They discussed whether Intel should power the iPhone, which had not been released yet, Jobs and Otellini told Isaacson. When the iPhone was first revealed, it was marketed as a phone that ran the Apple Mac operating system. It would’ve made sense to use Intel chips, which ran on the best desktops at the time, including Apple’s Macs.

Jobs said that Apple passed on Intel’s chips because the company was “slow” and Apple didn’t want the same chips to be sold to its competitors. Otellini said that while the tie-up would have made sense, the two companies couldn’t agree on a price or who owned the intellectual property, according to Isaacson.

The deal never happened. Instead, Apple went with Samsung chips when the iPhone launched in 2007. Apple bought PA Semi in 2008 and introduced its first homegrown iPhone chip in 2010.

Within five years, Apple started shipping hundreds of millions of iPhones. Overall smartphone shipments — including Android phones designed to compete with Apple — surpassed PC shipments in 2010.

Nearly every modern smartphone uses an Arm-based chip instead of Intel’s x86 technology which was created for PCs in 1981 and is still in use.

Arm chips built by Apple and Qualcomm consume less power than Intel’s processors, making them more desirable for small devices like smartphones that run on batteries.

A customers looks at an iPhone 15s at the Apple store in Palo Alto, Calif., on Sept. 22, 2023. Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images file

Arm-based chips quickly improved due to the enormous manufacturing volumes and the demands of an industry that needs new chips every year with faster performance and fresh features. Apple started placing huge orders with TSMC to build its iPhone chips, starting with the A8 in 2014. The tech giant’s orders provided the cash to annually upgrade the manufacturing equipment at TSMC, which eventually surpassed Intel.

By the end of the decade, some benchmarks had the fastest phone processors rivaling Intel’s PC chips for some tasks while consuming far less power. Around 2017, mobile chips from Apple and Qualcomm started adding AI parts to their chips called neural processing units, another advancement over Intel’s PC processors. The first Intel-based laptop with an NPU shipped late last year.

Intel has since lost share in its core PC chip business to chips that grew out of the mobile revolution.

Apple stopped using Intel in its PCs in 2020. Macs now use Arm-based chips, and some of the first mainstream Windows laptops with Arm-based chips are coming out later this year. Low-cost laptops running Google ChromeOS are increasingly using Arm, too.

“Intel lost a big chunk of their market share because of Apple, which is about 10% of the market,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said.

Intel made efforts to break into smartphones. It released an x86-based mobile chip called Atom that was used in the 2012 Asus Zenphone. But it never sold well and the product line was dead by 2015.

Intel’s mobile stumble set the stage for a lost decade.

Processors get faster with more transistors. Each one allows them to do more calculations. The original Intel microprocessor from 1971, the 4004, had about 2,000 transistors. Now Intel’s chips have billions of transistors.

Semiconductor companies fit more transistors on chips by shrinking them. The size of the transistor represents the “process node.” Smaller numbers are better.

The original 4004 used a 10-micrometer process. Now, TSMC’s best chips use a 3-nanometer process. Intel is currently at 7-nanometers. Nanometers are 1,000 times smaller than micrometers.

Engineers, especially at Intel, took pride in regularly delivering smaller transistors. Brathwaite, who worked at Intel in the 1980s, said Intel’s process engineers were the company’s “crown jewels.” People in the technology industry relied on “Moore’s Law,” coined by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, that said the amount of computing power would double and become cheaper at predictable intervals, roughly every two years.

Moore’s Law meant that Intel’s software partners, like Microsoft, could count on the next generation of PCs or servers being more powerful than the current generation.

The expectation of continuous improvement at Intel was so strong that it even had a nickname: “tick-tock development.” Every two years, Intel would release a chip on a new process (tick) and in the subsequent year, it would refine its design and technology (tock).

In 2015, under CEO Brian Krzanich, it became clear that Intel’s 10nm process was delayed, and that the company would continue shipping its most important PC and server processors using its 14nm process for longer than the normal two years. The tick-tock process had added an extra tock by the time the 14nm chips shipped in 2017. Intel officials today say that the issue was underinvestment, specifically on EUV lithography machines made by ASML, which TSMC enthusiastically embraced.

The delays compounded at Intel. The company missed its deadlines for the next process, 7nm — eventually revealing the issue in a bullet point in the small print in a 2020 earnings release, causing the stock to plunge, and clearing the way for Gelsinger, a former Intel engineer, to take over.

While Intel was struggling to keep its legendary pace, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel’s historic rival for server and PC chips, took advantage.

AMD is a “fabless” chip designer. It designs its chips in California, and has TSMC or GlobalFoundries manufacture them. TSMC didn’t have the same issues with 10nm or 7nm, and that meant that AMD’s chips were competitive or better than Intel’s in the latter half of the decade, especially for certain tasks.

AMD, which barely had market share in server CPUs a decade ago, started taking Intel’s business in that area. AMD made over 20% of server CPUs sold in 2022, and shipments grew 62% that year, according to an estimate from CounterPoint Research last year. AMD surpassed Intel’s market cap the same year.

Graphics processor units, or GPUs, were originally designed to play sophisticated computer games. But computer scientists knew they were also ideal for running the kind of parallel calculations that AI algorithms require.

The broader business community caught on after OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, helping Nvidia triple sales over the past year. Companies are spending money on pricey servers again.

AI-oriented GPU-based servers sometimes pair as many as eight Nvidia GPUs to one Intel CPU. In older servers, the Intel CPU was almost always the most expensive and important part. In a GPU-based server, it’s Nvidia’s chips.

Nvidia recently announced a version of its latest “Blackwell” GPU that cuts Intel out entirely. Two Nvidia B100 GPUs are paired with one Arm-based processor.

Almost all Nvidia GPUs used for AI are made by TSMC in Taiwan, using leading-edge techniques to produce the most advanced chip.

NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang displays products on-stage during the annual Nvidia GTC Artificial Intelligence Conference in San Jose, Calif., on March 18.Josh Edelson / AFP via Getty Images file

Intel doesn’t have a GPU competitor to Nvidia’s AI accelerators, but it has an AI chip called Gaudi 3. Intel started focusing on AI for servers in 2018 when it bought Habana Labs, whose technology became the basis for the Gaudi chips. The chip is manufactured on a 5nm process, which Intel doesn’t have, so the company relies on an external foundry.

Intel says it expects $500 million in Gaudi 3 sales this year, mostly in the second half. For comparison, AMD expects about $2 billion in annual AI chip revenue. Meanwhile, analysts polled by FactSet expect Nvidia’s data center business — its AI GPUs — to account for $57 billion in sales during the second half of the year.

Still, Intel sees an opportunity and has recently been talking up a different AI story — that it could eventually be the American producer of AI chips, maybe even for Nvidia.

The U.S. government is subsidizing a massive Intel fab outside of Columbus, Ohio, as part of $8.5 billion in loans and grants toward U.S. chipmaking. Gelsinger said last month that the plant will offer leading-edge manufacturing when it comes online in 2028, and will make AI chips — perhaps those of Intel’s rivals, Gelsinger said on a call with reporters in March.

Intel has faced its old failures since Gelsinger took the helm in 2021, and is actively trying to catch up to TSMC through a process that Intel calls “four nodes in five years.”

It hasn’t been easy. Gelsinger referred to its goal to regain leadership as a “death march” in 2022.

Now, the march is starting to reach its destination, and Intel said on Thursday that it’s still on track to catch up by 2026. At that point, TSMC will be shipping 2nm chips. Intel said it will begin producing its “18A” process, equivalent to 2nm, by 2025.

It hasn’t been cheap, either. Intel reported a $2.5 billion operating loss in its foundry division on $4.4 billion in mostly internal sales. The sums represent the vast investments Intel is making in facilities and tools to make more advanced chips.

“Setup costs are high and that’s why there’s so much cash burn,” said Bassi, the CounterPoint analyst. “Running a foundry is a capital-intensive business. That’s why most of the competitors are fabless, they are more than happy to outsource it to TSMC.”

Intel last month reported a $7 billion operating loss in its foundry in 2023.

“We have a lot of these investments to catch up flowing through the P&L,” Gelsinger told CNBC’s Jon Fortt on Thursday. “But basically, what we expect in ’24 is the trough.”

Not many companies have officially signed up to use Intel’s fabs. Microsoft has said it will use them to manufacture its server chips. Intel says it’s already booked $15 billion in contracts with external companies for the service.

Intel will help its own business and enable better performance in its products if it regains the lead in making the smallest transistors. If that happens, Intel will be back, as Gelsinger is fond of saying.

On Thursday, Gelsinger said demand was high for this year’s forthcoming server chips using Intel 3, or its 3nm process, and that it could win customers who had defected to competitors.

“We’re rebuilding customer trust,” the CEO said on Thursday. “They’re looking at us now saying ‘Oh, Intel is back.’”

NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock plans to raise prices for its ad-free service by $2 to $13.99 a month ahead of this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris as competition for online viewership intensifies.

Peacock’s ad-supported option will also increase by $2, to $7.99 a month. The annual price for ad-free will cost $139.99, while the version with ads will be $79.99.

The price changes will take effect for new subscribers starting July 18, one week ahead of the 2024 opening ceremony. Existing customers will see the new pricing on or after Aug. 17.

Even with the latest increases, Peacock still stands on the lower end of streaming platform price ranges. Netflix’s top-tier subscription now costs $22.99 a month, while ad-free Hulu is $17.99 and premium Max (formerly HBO Max) is $19.99. Peacock’s newest prices will match those of Disney+ once the changes take effect.

Peacock currently has 34 million subscribers, giving it about 1.3% of the total TV market according to Nielsen data. That compares with 1.2% for Max, 1.9% for Disney+ — and 7.7% for Netflix.

Overall streaming viewership continues to climb, rising 12% in March year-on-year according to Nielsen, and now commands nearly 40% of all TV consumption. Yet the platforms are still aggressively fighting for viewers. The latest casualty of that battle is Bob Bakish, who is stepping down as CEO of Paramount as that company continues to push its Paramount+ service, with mixed results.

While traditional media companies represent the main players in the streaming race, it is a traditional tech company that now dominates: YouTube, which is owned by Google-parent Alphabet, attracts the largest share among streaming platforms, with some 10% of the entire market alone.

Sreaming platforms continue to raise prices even in the face of ‘subscription fatigue,’ a phenomenon that other players have begun capitalizing on with the introduction of advertising-based video-on-demand (AVOD) channels like Pluto TV and Tubi.

“Because we know that subscription fatigue is setting in, people will only pay so much for subscriptions,’ Pluto TV CEO Tom Ryan said in a speech last fall. ‘You need the ability to actually expand your bundle for free.”

While the service is not yet profitable, Peacock continues to add users at a steady clip. It received an outsized bump in users thanks to the NFL playoff game it showed last season, most of whom have stayed with the service, executives said on Peacock-parent Comcast’s most recent earnings call. Peacock is also set to exclusively stream the 2024 NFL season’s kickoff game September 6 in Brazil.

Streaming platforms have also sought to protect their revenues from password sharing. While Peacock has not done so, many apps continue to announce new limits on the practice. In March, Max, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, said it would start limiting individual account access in 2025, following on the heels of similar announcements by Netflix and Disney+.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and NBC News.

The Biden administration plans to require that all new cars and trucks come with pedestrian-collision avoidance systems that include automatic emergency braking technology by the end of the decade.

In an interview, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the requirement is designed to reduce pedestrian deaths, which have been on the rise in the post-Covid 19 era.

‘So many Americans [are] losing their lives on our roadways,’ Buttigieg said. ‘We think we really have a responsibility to get this technology to be standard across the U.S. fleet.’

The new standards will require all cars to avoid contact at up to 62 mph and mandate that they must be able to detect pedestrians in the dark. They will also require braking at up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected.  

The Transportation Department projects the rule could save 360 lives a year and prevent 24,000 injuries.

Automatic emergency braking ‘prevents collisions. And collisions kill people — it’s that simple,’ Buttigieg said. 

Luminar demonstrates the object detection and collision avoidance capabilities of its system at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 5, 2022. Charles Sykes / AP for Luminar Technologies

In a statement, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group representing auto manufacturers, said it hadn’t seen the new rule, so it couldn’t comment directly.

It said that technologies like automatic emergency braking have proven ‘game changing’ and that automakers have voluntarily committed to install them on new vehicles.

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, drivers killed more than 7,500 pedestrians in 2022, the most since 1981 — with total deaths having about doubled over the past decade.

The pedestrian fatality rate, at 2.2 per billion vehicle miles traveled, is also higher than pre-pandemic levels, though it began to decline in the first half of 2023.

Research has shown that since the coronavirus pandemic, speeding and other risky driving behaviors have increased, while public transit ridership has declined, causing an increase in road deaths.

In addition, the pandemic delayed sales of newer vehicles, which tend to be safer and feature the latest accident-prevention technologies.

At the same time, more consumers are buying light trucks, including SUVs, which tend to be less safe.

Consumers have somewhat proven resistant to the proposed required technology, according to J.D. Power survey data.

‘Drivers have reported a lot of issues with it activating when it shouldn’t,’ said Kathleen Rizk, J.D. Power’s senior director for user experience benchmarking and technology. They also find that it’s too sensitive or that it doesn’t react the same way they would, she said.

‘The perception is they’re losing control,’ Rizk said, referring to the technological interventions built into modern passenger vehicles.

Buttigieg acknowledged the technology is still being perfected — one reason the requirement won’t take effect until the end of 2029.

‘We’re allowing a few years for this technology to be refined,’ he said, adding that hiccups in some examples of the safety features can be unhelpful.

‘We need to make sure that these technologies are refined and developed,’ he said.

Buttigieg estimated the requirement will add $82 to the cost of a new vehicle, a price well worth the lives saved, he said.

‘If there’s a technology that is this lifesaving … we don’t want [it] to be only available to those who can afford it as a bell and whistle,’ he said. ‘We want to make sure every car rolling off the line has this capability.’