Raphael Stevens

Boeing’s losses on its Starliner spacecraft topped $2 billion and counting after a rough year.
Last summer, Boeing’s first crew flight went awry after part of the capsule’s propulsion system malfunctioned and NASA decided to return Starliner empty.
Since 2014, when NASA awarded Boeing with a nearly $5 billion fixed-price contract to develop Starliner, the company has recorded losses on the program almost every year.

Boeing spacecraft Starliner is seen from the window of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule “Endeavour” on July 3, 2024, while docked with the International Space Station during the crew flight test.

Boeing has lost more than $2 billion and counting on its Starliner spacecraft after a rough year in which the capsule’s first astronaut flight turned into a headache for NASA.
The Starliner program reported charges of $523 million for 2024 — its largest single-year loss to date — Boeing reported in a filing on Monday. The company noted that Starliner is under a fixed-price contract from NASA, so “there is ongoing risk that similar losses may have to be recognized in future periods.”

Since 2014, when NASA awarded Boeing with a nearly $5 billion fixed-price contract to develop Starliner, the company has recorded losses on the program almost every year.

Boeing’s program competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has flown 10 crew missions for NASA and counting on its Dragon capsules.

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Last summer, Boeing’s first crew flight went awry after part of the capsule’s propulsion system malfunctioned. While Starliner delivered astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station, NASA made the decision to bring Starliner back empty and use SpaceX to return the crew early this year — an agency choice that recently became politicized.
Neither Boeing nor NASA have provided details on how or when they plan to resolve the Starliner propulsion issue.
Boeing last week confirmed that Starliner Vice President Mark Nappi was leaving his role, Reuters reported, with the company’s ISS program manager John Mulholland named as his replacement. Mullholland previously led the Starliner program from 2011 to 2020.

Nearly four months ago, NASA said it was keeping “windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025,” but scheduled SpaceX to fly both its crews on missions launching in spring and late summer. NASA then specified that “the timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established.”
The agency has not given an update on Starliner since making those comments in October. More

Fox is planning to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service by the end of the year, said CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
Fox has so far been on the sidelines of streaming, with the exception of its free, ad-supported service Tubi.
The move comes after Fox and its partners dropped efforts to launch a joint venture sports streaming app called Venu.

A Fox News sign is seen on a television vehicle outside the News Corporation building in New York City, Nov. 8, 2017.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

Fox Corp. is finally getting into the direct-to-consumer streaming game.
The company known for its news and sports TV content said Tuesday it’s aiming to launch a subscription streaming service by the end of the year.

The streaming service is not meant to upend Fox’s place in the traditional bundle, CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on the company’s quarterly earnings call. Murdoch offered few details on the streaming service beyond the high-level announcement. He said the company is designing the app now, and further information will be released in the coming months.
Fox’s upcoming streaming option is expected to include both its sports and news content, Murdoch said.
Unlike its legacy media competitors, Fox has so far been on the sidelines of streaming, with the exception of the Fox Nation streaming app, which includes exclusive programming to the service and on-demand Fox News primetime shows, and its free, ad-supported service Tubi. Fox, which will broadcast the Super Bowl on Sunday, is also offering the NFL’s biggest game on Tubi for the first time ever.
However, the late move into subscription-based streaming comes after Fox, alongside Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, in January dropped efforts to launch a joint venture sports streaming app called Venu.
The three companies had planned to pool together all of their sports content and offer it on the Venu streaming service. However, following legal hurdles that delayed the original fall 2024 launch date, the companies called off their plans.

Out of the three partners, Fox was the only one without another option to offer its sports content outside of the cable TV bundle. Warner Bros. Discovery offers its live sports content on streamer Max. Disney’s ESPN has its ESPN+ app and is developing a separate direct-to-consumer ESPN streamer. The company is targeting an August launch of ESPN “Flagship,” the unofficial name of the all-inclusive ESPN service.
Fox’s Murdoch referred to the end of Venu as the company’s “only disappointment in sports.”
Fox has focused its strategy on sports and news content after selling its entertainment assets to Disney in 2019. The company has reported stable viewership and advertising revenue, even during the recent ad market slump. Live sports and news remain the highest-rated content in the traditional TV bundle, even as consumers cut the cord for streaming alternatives.
“We’re huge supporters of the traditional cable bundle, and we always will be,” Murdoch said on Tuesday’s call. “But having said that, we do want to reach consumers wherever they are, and there’s a large population, obviously, that are now outside of the traditional cable bundle.”
He said the company’s subscriber expectations “will be modest, and we’re going to price the service accordingly.” He added Fox doesn’t intend to convert any traditional cable TV customers into streaming customers with the app.
Murdoch said the company doesn’t “expect to have any exclusive rights costs or additional incremental rights costs” and will simply package its existing content. This means the costs of creating and distributing the platform will be “relatively low,” especially when compared with competitors.
In addition to shelling out billions for original entertainment programming, media companies have been spending big on exclusive sports media rights for their streaming platforms. In many cases, exclusive live sports have helped to drive subscriber and ad revenue growth for streamers.
On Tuesday, Murdoch also noted the recent rise of so-called skinny packages from traditional pay TV distributors, saying it bodes well for Fox’s portfolio since those packages most often consist of mainly sports and news content.
“We’re very pleased with this trend of the bundle. It’s financially, economically positive for us,” said Murdoch on Tuesday. “We would hope that this bundle will be attractive to the cordless customers — the cord-cutters and cord-nevers.” More

McDonald’s is bringing Uncle O’Grimacey back to promote the Shamrock Shake.
The chain has been reviving its McDonaldland characters after the success of its Grimace Birthday Meal.
McDonald’s sales have slowed in recent months.

McDonald’s Shamrock Shake
Source: McDonald’s

McDonald’s is leaning on customers’ nostalgia for its McDonaldland characters to spur sales of its Shamrock Shake.
The company said Tuesday that Grimace will reunite with his Irish uncle, Uncle O’Grimacey, unretiring the mascot after decades out of the spotlight. McDonald’s originally created Uncle O’Grimacey in 1975 to promote the Shamrock Shake, but he hasn’t been seen since the mid-1980s.

The Shamrock Shake, a seasonal staple for more than 50 years, returns to U.S. restaurants annually before St. Patrick’s Day. The milkshake comes back on Feb. 10. This year, 25 cents of every Shamrock Shake sale will go toward the Ronald McDonald House Charities.
That same day the shake relaunches, the fast-food giant is expected to report its fourth-quarter results. McDonald’s sales have struggled to bounce back since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked its Quarter Pounder burgers to a fatal E. coli outbreak in October, even after the health agency declared the crisis over. A viral moment, like the return of Uncle O’Grimacey, could boost traffic to its restaurants and lift sales out of their slump.
Uncle O’Grimacey’s reappearance marks the third time since the viral Grimace Birthday Meal that the chain has used its retro mascots in marketing. The company named its beverage-focused spinoff brand CosMc’s, after the McDonald’s-loving alien that appeared in ads decades ago. And when McDonald’s launched its “Best Burger” initiative to spread the word about changes to its cheeseburgers and Big Macs, the company sent the Hamburglar on a cross-country tour.
But Grimace remains the star. His birthday meal, complete with a purple milkshake, helped McDonald’s quarterly U.S. same-store sales climb more than 10% in the spring of 2023.
And Grimace has held onto the public’s adoration. Last year, he became a good luck charm for the New York Mets during the professional baseball team’s most recent season. After Grimace threw out the first pitch before a June game, the Mets went on a winning streak, which led the mascot to appear at games through the team’s playoff push.
Uncle O’Grimacey disappeared after the company dialed back its use of the McDonaldland mascots. However, a rumor circulated the internet in recent years, saying that Uncle O’Grimacey wasn’t used publicly after an actor playing the mascot in Philadelphia made comments in support of the Irish Republican Army; there’s no evidence to suggest that the incident actually happened.

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Merck on Tuesday issued full-year 2025 revenue guidance that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
The company said that sales range reflects a decision to halt shipments of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, into China beginning in February through and going through at least mid-2025.
Merck reported fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it saw strong sales from its top-selling cancer drug Keytruda, other oncology medicines and the company’s recently launched cardiovascular treatment. 

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Merck on Tuesday issued full-year 2025 revenue guidance that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, as the company temporarily paused shipments of a key vaccine into China. 
Shares of Merck fell more than 7% in premarket trading Tuesday.

The pharmaceutical giant anticipates 2025 sales of $64.1 billion to $65.6 billion, lower than the $67.31 billion that analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected. In a release, the company said that sales range reflects a decision to halt shipments of Gardasil into China beginning in February through and going through at least mid-2025. 
Gardasil is a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. Investors have been unsettled over the past year by trouble with sales of that blockbuster shot in China, as the country makes up the majority of the product’s international revenue. 
The company believes the pause will allow for a “more rapid reduction of excess inventory” and help support the financial position of its partner in China, a spokesperson said in an email. Merck expects 2% to 4% growth in Gardasil sales, with no further shipments of Gardasil to China at the low end and less than $1 billion in revenue from the country at the high end, the spokesperson said.
Investors will be listening for more details on the Gardasil decision when the company holds an earnings call at 9 a.m. ET.
Sales of the shot will likely be critical to Merck’s efforts to offset losses from its top-selling cancer therapy Keytruda, which will lose exclusivity in 2028. Merck is hoping that Gardasil’s expanded approval for men ages 9 to 26 in China will eventually help boost uptake of the shot.

The Merck spokesperson said “it is important to note that GARDASIL market dynamics in China do not in any way diminish the confidence Merck has in its business.”
Merck expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.88 to $9.03 per share, which is generally in line with what analysts were expecting. The outlook reflects a charge of roughly 9 cents per share related to Merck’s license agreement with privately held drugmaker LaNoVa. 
Sales of Keytruda, other oncology medicines and the company’s recently launched cardiovascular treatment helped Merck beat expectations for the fourth quarter of 2024. 
Here’s what Merck reported for the fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: 

Earnings per share: $1.72 adjusted vs. $1.62 expected
Revenue: $15.62 billion vs. $15.49 billion expected

The company posted a net income of $3.74 billion, or $1.48 per share, for the quarter. That compares with a net loss of $1.23 billion, or 48 cents per share, during the year-earlier period. 
Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $1.72 per share for the fourth quarter. Both adjusted and non-adjusted earnings reflect a charge of 23 cents per share related to Merck’s recent licensing agreements, including a deal to develop an experimental obesity pill from a Chinese drugmaker. 
Merck raked in $15.62 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 7% from the same period a year ago.

Pharmaceutical division

Merck’s pharmaceutical unit, which develops a wide range of drugs, booked $14.04 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter. That’s up 7% from the same period a year ago.
Keytruda recorded $7.84 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 19% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected sales of $7.63 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates. 
That increase was driven by higher uptake of Keytruda for earlier-stage cancers and strong demand for the drug for metastatic cancers, which spread to other parts of the body.
Gardasil raked in $1.55 billion in sales, down 17% from the fourth quarter of 2023. That’s slightly below the $1.58 billion that analysts were expecting, according to StreetAccount estimates. 
Merck’s Type 2 diabetes treatment, Januvia, also saw sales fall to $487 million during the quarter, down 38% from the same period a year ago. The company said the decline was primarily due to lower pricing in the U.S., supply constraints in China and ongoing competition from cheaper generic drugs in international markets.
That came below analysts’ estimate of $500 million for the period, according to StreetAccount. 
Januvia is one of 10 drugs that was subject to Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for older Americans. New negotiated prices for that first round of drugs go into effect in 2026.
Merck’s animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted nearly $1.4 billion in sales, up 9% from the same period a year ago. The company said higher pricing for products across the portfolio drove that increase. More