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Super Bowl ads are a hot item

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ADVERTISING

Super Bowl ads a hot item

Fox says it has sold out all of its Super Bowl LVII ad space as of the end of January. The big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles takes place on Sunday. The Super Bowl is advertising’s biggest stage, with advertisers jockeying to get their products in front of the more than 100 million people that watch each year. Mark Evans, executive vice president of ad sales for Fox Sports, said a few ads went for more than $7 million for a 30-second spot. Most sold between $6 million and $7 million. Anheuser-Busch remains the biggest advertiser with three minutes of national airtime. The beverage giant gave up its deal to be the exclusive advertiser this year, so Heineken, Diageo, Remy Martin, and Molson Coors are also in the game. Other big categories advertising include packaged food like Doritos and M&Ms, movie studios and streaming services, automakers, and tech companies, Evans said. Out this year: crypto companies. Last year’s Super Bowl was dubbed the “Crypto Bowl” because four cryptocurrency companies — FTX, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and eToro — ran splashy commercials. But in November, FTX filed for bankruptcy and its founder was charged in a scheme to defraud investors. This year, two crypto advertisers had commercials “booked and done” and two others were “on the one-yard line,” Evans said. But once FTX news broke, those deals weren’t completed. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

MEDIA

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National Enquirer, which protected Trump, sold

The National Enquirer, the scandal-plagued tabloid that engaged in “catch-and-kill” practices to bury stories about Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, has been sold. VVIP is buying the National Examiner and another tabloid, the Globe, from magazine publisher a360 Media in an all-cash deal, though exact financial terms were not disclosed. In December 2018 the parent company of publications including the National Enquirer, Us Weekly, and In Touch admitted to engaging in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill” in order to help Donald Trump become president. Federal prosecutors revealed at the time that they had agreed not to prosecute American Media Inc. for secretly assisting Trump’s campaign by paying $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump. The company then intentionally suppressed McDougal’s story until after the election. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

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MOVIES

Seats in the middle of the theater will cost you more

Middle seats at many US movie theaters just got more expensive. AMC Theaters, the nation’s largest movie theater chain, on Monday unveiled a new pricing scheme in which seat location determines how much your movie ticket costs. Seats in the middle of the auditorium will cost a dollar or two more, while seats in the front row will be slightly cheaper. AMC said the pricing plan, dubbed “Sightline,” has already been rolled out in some locations and, by the end of the year, will be in place at all domestic AMC theaters during showings after 4 p.m. As movie theaters have attempted to recover from the pandemic, exhibitors have increasingly looked at more variable pricing methods. That’s included charging more for sought-after movies like “The Batman” in their first week of release. Last weekend, Paramount Pictures partnered with theater chains to offer slightly reduced ticket prices for the comedy “80 for Brady.” And last year, during a dry spell in theaters, tickets at most movie theaters were $3 for “National Cinema Day.” But in most circumstances, movie tickets are getting more expensive, especially when factoring in large-format screens and 3-D showings. The average 3-D premium format ticket for the biggest box-office hit in recent years, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” was about $16.50. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

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In this May 7, 2020 file photo, workers leave the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Logansport, Ind. Michael Conroy/Associated Press

MEAT

Tyson earnings plummet 70 percent

Tyson Foods is seeing profits suffer from a sudden spike in meat supplies with inflation-hit consumers buying less chicken, beef, and pork at the grocery store. The biggest US meat company said Monday that fiscal first-quarter earnings plunged 70 percent from a year ago and missed expectations. The earnings miss comes as prices for some meats have been tumbling from record levels and stockpiles swelled more than anticipated. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

FINANCE

Storied Rothschild bank to be taken private

The Rothschild family is planning to take its eponymous French bank private in a deal that values it about $4 billion, ending decades of public ownership for one of the most storied names in global finance. The family’s holding company, Concordia, is planning to file a tender offer for Rothschild & Co’s shares at €48 apiece, a premium of 19 percent over the closing price on Friday, according to a statement Monday. The holding company already owns 38.9 percent of the firm’s shares and 47.5 percent of the voting rights. The proposal comes three months after Evelyn de Rothschild, the former head of the British arm of the banking group, died at age 91. The Rothschild firm was founded by Mayer Amschel, who started out buying and selling old coins in a Frankfurt ghetto. In the early 1800s, he sent his five sons to establish bases of Rothschild in London, Paris, Naples, Vienna, and Frankfurt. Among its many other roles, the bank known today as Rothschild & Co. helped finance the Duke of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon in 1815 at the battle of Waterloo. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

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A staff walking near a Nissan logo at Nissan headquarters is seen though a window on May 12, 2022, in Yokohama near Tokyo. Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press

AUTOMOTIVE

Boards of Nissan and Renault approve equalizing stakes in each other

The boards of Renault and Nissan gave their approval Monday to equalize the stake each automaker holds in the other, bringing a better balance in the French-Japanese alliance. Under the decision, both companies will own 15 percent in the other. Up to now, Renault Group of France owned 43.4 percent of Nissan, while the Japanese automaker owned 15 percent of Renault. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

CLIMATE

More than 100,000 green energy jobs created since last summer

Between last August, when President Biden’s landmark climate bill became law, and the end of January, companies have announced more than 100,000 clean energy jobs in the United States, according to an analysis released Monday by the nonprofit advocacy group Climate Power. The group monitored press clippings and company announcements to estimate private-sector jobs across a range of sectors that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — including electric vehicle and battery manufacturing, wind and solar energy, and home energy efficiency. The group says its figure is likely a lowball estimate because it relied on public reports. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

INTERNATIONAL

US ready to impose high tariff on Russian aluminum

The United States is preparing to impose a 200 percent tariff on Russian-made aluminum as soon as this week to keep pressure on Moscow as the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine nears, according to people familiar with the situation. The move has been contemplated for months, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations. The people added that the United States is also targeting the Russian metal because Moscow has been dumping aluminum on the US market and harming American companies. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

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