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He's widely recognised as one of the greatest footballers in history.
He's won the prestigious Ballon d'Or award five times.
He's the all-time leading goal scorer in professional football.
And, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he's the first active footballer in history to achieve billionaire status.
Guess who we're talking about yet?
That's right.
Good Bad Billionaire is exploring the life and fortune of football icon Cristiano Ronaldo.
That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.
Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Coming up on World Business Report.
India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, files for what could be a record-breaking stock market debut.
Plus, we hear how water breaks during the Football World Cup, are becoming advertising gold mines and Toy Story is back for a fifth film.
Can Disney ever afford to say goodbye to its billion-dollar franchise?
That's all to come after the latest world news.
BBC News with Fiona MacDonald.
American officials say Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have agreed a ceasefire following intense Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon that killed at least 47 people since Thursday.
Lebanese media and rescue officials have reported several Israeli attacks since the deal was said to have come into effect.
Police in Britain say at least one person has died after two passenger trains collided north of London.
Several people are said to have been injured.
A major HIV funding programme is being shut down in South Africa by the United States government.
The White House said the decision was made after what it says are failures to address its concerns about the treatment of white South Africans.
The Italian Prime Minister strongly repudiated President Trump's assertion.
She begged to have her photo taken with them at this week's G7 summit in France.
Giorgia Meloni said it was an appalling and fabricated claim.
African and Caribbean nations have demanded formal apologies from countries that benefited from transatlantic slavery, as well as debt relief and compensation.
The demands are part of a 19-point reparation plan endorsed at the end of a three-day conference in the Ghanaian capital.
Norway's government is imposing a near-complete ban on primary school children using generative AI tools in the classroom.
The Prime Minister said, using AI increases the risk that young children skip important steps in their education.
Football, and in the first of today's matches at the Men's World Cup, the hosts, United States, have beaten Australia 2-0 in Group D.
A little later, Scotland take on the reigning African champions, Morocco.
And history has been made at one of London's most famous green spaces, St James's Park, close to Buckingham Palace.
Four pelican chicks have hatched.
All previous St James's pelicans had been bred elsewhere.
BBC News.
India's richest man bets big.
Ten years ago, Jio began its journey with an audacious dream to remove digital inequality from India.
People are spending more on mobile phones and mobile data in terms of time and money.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Vishala Sripadma.
On the way, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani files for a blockbuster IPO float.
It could be a record listing for the country.
Plus, Toy Story returns for a fifth outing.
But behind Buzz and Woody lies a billion-dollar franchise Disney simply can't stop playing with.
Now, if you use a mobile phone in India, chances are Jio has made some inroad into your household.
In less than a decade, the company has gone from a new entrant to a dominant force.
India's telecoms market, and now it's gearing up for a stock market listing that could make it one of the biggest telecom companies in the world.
Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who chairs Reliance Industries, the group behind Jio, spoke about how the business transformed the industry in India.
Ten years ago, Jio began its journey with an audacious dream to remove digital inequality from India.
At that time, voice was costly.
Data was expensive.
Speeds were poor.
Jio made voice free, made high-speed data affordable.
And Jio made digital life possible for every Indian.
So Mukesh Ambani there talking about Jio and its successes.
So how do they get so big so quickly?
Well, Neil Shah is the co-founder of Counterpoint Research.
India market, it's a home to almost 1.4 billion population.
And Jio has become the largest telco in India.
60 to 70% of the population is below 30 years old.
So it's the youngest population.
And the most, I would say, attractive population to global companies who want to enter India.
And if you look at over the last five to six years since the pandemic, actually the consumption of mobile has gone up considerably.
So it's an extended arm.
And I would say people are spending more on mobile phones and mobile data in terms of time and money.
And would you say, India is in a growth phase relative to say, Europe or the United States where perhaps, despite there constantly being change in technology, it's perhaps a bit more saturated in terms of markets.
Absolutely.
If you look at India, as I said, it's a young market and it is quite under-penetrated when it comes to technology.
And consumption in terms of data is one of the highest in the world.
At the same time, if you look at the scale, sheer scale of the economy is huge.
And also in terms of the middle class, it's the largest middle class in the world.
And that is growing and the per capita income is growing.
So the consumption patterns are increasingly favorable for this market.
And what is it about Jio?
Because clearly lots of other companies have been competing in this space.
Before Jio entered in 2016, India had almost 14 mobile operators to cover a million people.
At that time,
And when Jio entered, actually most of them actually had to exit market because the sheer scale of Jio's network.
Jio came with a fully new architecture 4G network and had a huge scale in terms of economies because of the network and the architecture, and that allowed Jio to actually take the market share away and The total number of operators are now down to almost three.
Clearly, India has been looking into semiconductors.
It's trying to position itself.
It would seem to be another destination for companies that want to go and get their chips made, for example, in this sort of era of AI infrastructure.
Do you think it's going to attract foreign investment and foreign companies?
It definitely will.
If you look at when Jio went into the second phase after 2020, it attracted almost 32 billion worth of investments from Google, Meta Middle East.
So everyone has invested in Jio and it has become a huge player because of that funding.
But now it has more bigger ambitions in a sense where it wants to go into satellite connectivity.
It is becoming a full-fledged data center player as well.
And that is why you will see a lot of foreign investment coming in because of the sheer scale and the business model which Jio brings today.
What does this mean for ordinary consumers in India?
Paint us an idea of how Jio sits in the Indian market.
So there are different conglomerates, like how Samsung or SK or Hyundai is to Korea.
Similarly, Jio, Tata, these are to India.
They are penetrated in retail, they're penetrated in telecom, they're penetrated in connectivity, they're penetrated in content and commerce.
So they're covering almost everything.
So that's why I call it the Call it a super operator.
And Jio has a good mind share as well as good wallet share among the Indian consumers.
So that was Neil Shah speaking to me earlier on on the potential listing of Jio on the stock market in India.
Joining me now is Susan Schmidt, Portfolio Manager at Exchange Capital Resources in Chicago, our markets guest today.
Hi, Susan.
Hello.
So it's interesting, this geo listing, because it really is showing how investors might be looking towards India now for these sort of big market listings.
Absolutely.
India is very much, has been, a developing market in investors' minds.
And they're considering India again and again, much more so as we see the Indian economy, the Indian middle class, really develop and come into an economic force.
So investors internationally, as they explore different markets looking for the next up and coming, are really focused on India.
We've seen that with the great appreciation in the overall Indian stock market over the last several years.
As companies emerge and they get bigger and more stable, you're starting to see much bigger listings like this.
So, I mean, I hate the phrase litmus test, but do you think this might be the case with Jio?
I think it is a marker in the development of the Indian stock markets, Indian companies moving out onto international exchanges.
And I think investors are looking at this saying, all right, let's see what the sustainability of the stock is in the market.
The liquidity is the viability, with not just Indian investors but international investors looking to diversify their portfolios.
So I think in some ways it is very much a movement down the timeline, as investors are looking to see how developed is this and how supportive can the markets be around this type of company.
Now, Susan, it's been roughly about a week, hasn't it, since the SpaceX IPO.
That's all we spoke about for about a month, I think.
The stock is up about 37%.
It is.
It is.
Yes, it's been a wild ride.
With the SpaceX coming out, such a huge valuation.
It's the largest IPO valuation in the U.S. market, certainly, and worldwide.
And so making a big splash.
We had a lot of news and anticipation of this event.
It offered out at $135 per share.
It's ending up now about 37% above that, but it did spike much higher.
It was over well over 200 at one point, as investors have been scrambling to get some shares in this.
It's certainly embraced by the investment community, particularly the retail, because it does have such brand recognition.
Still questionable.
And we wait to see what the profitability will be like in long term.
But certainly something that investors, institutional and retail are interested in.
And we've heard a lot about these shareholders that have surpassed the billion dollar mark.
Yes, so very interesting.
And many shareholders are now millionaires and multimillionaires.
Are those that the employees who've worked for SpaceX over the years coming into suddenly, this huge amount of money potentially adding on to their net worth in a surprise event, probably for someone who joined the company 10 years ago with no idea that this valuation was in the offing.
So definitely interesting.
We've seen other... millionaires, billionaires even come out of this.
We've seen their CEO, their CIO, the head of operations and the finance guy, old now.
Net worth north of a billion dollars, just based on the stock price.
Now, remember that that's based on the stock that they own, that they've been given as employees.
That's not necessarily liquid.
So it's not been converted to cash yet.
But valuation is very large.
And with that as well, don't forget Elon Musk, now a trillionaire based on this new valuation.
It's incredible, these numbers that are coming out just from that IPO alone.
Something that markets have been digesting and investors have been digesting is the US brokered peace agreement with Iran.
There are signs that shipping activity through the Strait of Hormuz is recovering.
What kind of impact has this had on the price of fuel so far?
Well, we've seen oil prices start to decline as investors and economies have gotten more optimistic that oil will start flowing more freely.
We've seen this agreement and the ceasefire and now potentially a memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US, hoping that the Strait of Hormuz will increase traffic flow.
Iran will allow free shipping.
We have a window of 60 days because of this memorandum where Iran has said they will open up the Strait and allow for free shipping back and forth.
We've seen 20 ships that have been confirmed they've gone through based on their own tracking devices.
There probably have been quite a few more that have not turned on their trackers as they've moved through this trade.
And so, with that, investors are very hopeful that this will release supply.
Thank you so much for joining us.
We're anticipating good things and the market has dropped the price of oil by about 10 over the course of the week, but it still remains to be seen.
Nothing's finalised yet.
Okay, Susan, we'll be keeping an eye on that.
Susan Schmidt, Portfolio Manager at Exchange Capital Resources in Chicago.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Now, if you've been watching the Football World Cup, something you might have picked up on is the amount of water breaks, or hydration breaks as they call them.
Fans have been heard booing them in the stands.
It's been a bit of a goldmine for the broadcasters.
The three-minute stoppage, which is for the players to get some water and cool off in the heat, has allowed for extra adverts to be shown.
And there's been lots of them, hence the booing from the fans.
Well, the BBC's senior sports reporter, Daniel Austin, has been looking at the numbers.
So the hydration breaks that FIFA have introduced are a big opportunity for the broadcasters that pay a lot of money to FIFA to show the tournament, to make money in a way that they've never been able to do so before.
So they already make a lot of money from advertising before matches or a half time.
But this is brand new.
So the fact that there is a designated break of three minutes in each half two minutes and 10 of which, if broadcasters want to, they are allowed to show adverts, just means that they're able to go to their partners and say well, we've got a whole new window here, where people are maybe even more engaged than a halftime or before kickoff, in which you can sell your wares.
So that means that they're able to make an awful lot more money than they would have been before.
We'll be right back.
In some places, it might be for a shorter amount of time and it might only be split screen.
But experts that we in BBC Sports have spoken to estimate that, for example, in the US alone, a single slot in a Fox Sports World Cup broadcast is worth between 200000 and 300000 for 30 seconds.
Wow.
So that's big money then, big numbers involved.
It's huge money.
And if you do the maths, there are 832 possible additional 30 second slots given by these hydration breaks.
What that means is the experts estimate that Fox alone so one broadcaster in one nation could be making a quarter of a billion more dollars just from hydration break ads on top of everything else.
So significant sums and effectively creating an entirely new revenue stream then for broadcasters.
But how are fans feeling about it?
Do they say it disrupts the flow of the game for them?
Has there been much backlash?
The response generally has been pretty overwhelmingly negative, both from fans and people involved in the matches players and coaches too.
What we've seen so far is the teams use it as a kind of tactical break.
So they might tweak things.
It's a sort of mini halftime.
Not only are they refueling, but they might adapt the way that they're playing in some way.
And what that means is that the momentum of games can completely change.
So it's not just a case that this is a simple bit of extra revenue.
There is quite a bit of backlash but crucially, supporters in America and people watching at home in America are very used to games in professional sports being in quarters.
And they are very used to sets of adverts that last for a really long time.
So the backlash domestically is nowhere near as big as maybe internationally.
Yes, and to that point, it does feel like a more American style model.
Do you think this will be a permanent fixture, or will fans and potentially players throw a span in the works if it is disrupting the flow of the game?
I think it's hard to imagine FIFA and the broadcasters saying well, we found a way to make some extra money here.
Let's not do that again.
That's quite a rare instance that you would find any organisation that wants to make money doing that.
FIFA at the moment doesn't gain financially directly, immediately from this, because they are not the ones that sell the ads on TV.
But what they can do when they're negotiating the next tranche of broadcast rights with partners all around the world is say well, we introduced these breaks last time and it was worth X amount more to you.
And that means that we are going to charge you a higher price.
So if this is a way for FIFA to charge a higher price, I don't imagine that they will back away from that.
But in other competitions, for example the Premier League, the UEFA Euro, the UEFA Champions League, it's much less likely because there's a more engaged, a more mature, a more traditionalist audience for those competitions, where people would be much less likely to accept it.
And in fact, UEFA already have given a statement to BBC Sport today to say that they have no intention of implementing these breaks as mandatory in the way that FIFA have for the World Cup.
So that was the BBC's Daniel Austin.
And not long to wait now for that Scotland match, Scotland versus Morocco, about 12 minutes or so.
Let's head over to the Mediterranean now, to another great footballing nation of Italy, because the city of Venice has been making headlines today.
It could soon become a lot more expensive for tourists that only intend to spend the day there whilst visiting Italy.
The city's new mayor is suggesting an entry fee of up to 50 euros on peak days, which is five times the current maximum charge.
Now, it's the latest effort to curb overtourism.
But locals have mixed feelings about it.
Well, Francesca is the owner of Sulla Luna in Venice.
It's a bookshop and bistro.
And she says that taxing tourists on a daily basis can sometimes create more chaos.
I understand the intention behind it.
Overtourism is a problem for Venice, but I don't think this is the solution at all.
It makes the residents very uncomfortable because we feel like we live in a museum and not in an alive community.
Arriving to Venice and see all these people asking you, who are you?
Why are you here?
You have to demonstrate that you are a resident. is something that is really upset.
And do you find that these people that arrive for the day to visit Venice, are they important for your trade in your business?
I think the kind of tourism that is one day and they go is not the best tourist for any city.
The problem is that until they keep Building hotels and hostels on the mainland, they will support this kind of tourism.
So ultimately, the mayor would like to reduce visitor numbers, because a lot of people that live and work in Venice complain about the high numbers of tourists.
Do you think that will impact businesses like yours and on the kind of nature and character of Venice itself?
When my father was a child, there were 150000 inhabitants and the city was already a tourist destination point of interest.
But it was also a city with everything you need.
In the last 70 years, the population is now a third that it was in 70 years ago.
So we have a big problem because people are going away from Venice.
And I think it is a political choice.
Presumably the aim here is to encourage people to stay in Venice the night and to avoid the day trippers.
Do you think this sort of scheme helps local residents?
Do you think, or are they missing the real issues that affect people like yourself?
I feel disappointed and I don't think it's a good idea for the city.
I think we can find better solutions to balance the residents' life and the tourists' needs in a way that make everybody happy.
But it's not about my business or the business in in the city.
It's about do we want to have, do you want venice to be a real city with a alive community and a population of residents, or do we want to make it a museum?
That was Francesca in Venice speaking to me a little earlier on.
Finally, to infinity and beyond once again.
Toy Story 5 lands in cinemas on Friday.
Here's a sneak peek from the latest trailer.
Jesse, hello?
Is it as bad out there for toys as they say it is?
We're finding more abandoned toys each day.
We're down!
Tech's invaded our house, too.
I don't know, Jesse.
Toys are for play, but tech is for everything.
Well, Tom Hanks spoke to reporters at the premiere and he is, of course, the voice of Woody that we heard there.
He says he trusts the process behind the brand.
I haven't really read the full through script after Toy Story 2.
Right.
Because I just said, I trust you guys implicitly.
What am I going to do, give notes on what I think?
No, it's not going to happen.
Well, it's been 30 years since the first Toy Story hit cinemas and the franchise is obviously still going strong.
But if you look at the numbers it might leave some clues as to why it's still around.
Now the films have taken around $3 billion at the box office worldwide but...
If you add in toys, clothing, theme parks, rides and also other merchandise.
And Disney says Toy Story has generated around $16 billion in revenue.
Quite something.
Well, Simon Gallagher is from SPG Global, an entertainment consulting and investments company, and joins me now.
Hi, Simon.
Hi, how are you?
Not too bad.
So Simon, in your view, how has the Toy Story franchise become so successful?
Why is it so good?
Well, a fantastic team behind it, obviously Disney, Pixar, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen.
So very credentialed, wonderful entertainment industry icons.
But also it's about universal themes that live on and are told well through the movies.
Friendship, growing up belonging change loss, all those sorts of things which resonate for the entire movie going audience, not just for kids or adults.
And clearly the franchise around it has really helped its financial success.
So toys, merchandise, and also other branding as well.
Absolutely.
Look, the films have made about 3 billion worldwide in terms of box office and the projections, in terms of the merchandise sales, is somewhere near three times that, at about 9 billion.
So absolutely, it's not just about going and seeing them.
It's about what happens at Christmas times and on birthdays, where they're continuing to generate income from the movie.
And what it's managed to do is sustain relevance.
Now, Tom Hanks is no spring chicken.
He's been around for a long time, and yet he's still the voice of Woody.
Absolutely.
Woody and Buzz have become part of popular culture in the same way Mickey Mouse or Harry Potter have.
And so that's gone not just for one generation, but across two or maybe even three generations.
People first went and saw the original Toy Story in 1995 and now taking their own kids.
So it stopped being just a movie franchise, become part of that cultural furniture.
And also distribution is very important here with any type of film like this.
Pixar and the Walt Disney Company clearly did very well in shaping that success through its marketing and its distribution.
Absolutely.
And we'll continue on.
We'll see them.
There'll be the theatrical release.
There'll be a transactional window.
That will happen about 15 to 30 days after the first film debuts here in the US today.
And then, 100 days after that, you'll start to see the film being available on Disney, which is obviously driving revenue through the subscriptions to Disney shareholders.
And how does the revenue divide and sort of divvy up in terms of returns?
So clearly the companies behind the brand do very well from it.
But what about the stars like Tim Allen and also Tom Hanks and the stars that we're familiar with?
Yeah.
It's funny.
I was thinking of your soundbite before we went on air and Tom Hanks saying he very rarely read the full script after the second one.
I'm not surprised.
I wouldn't be reading the script either if they were offering me 5 10 million to come and – be in an audio booth and read through the script for them.
So it's certainly very lucrative for them.
But look, they're both iconic talents, Tim and Tom, and they deserve the rewards that they're receiving because they've made this brand and this franchise very successful over now three decades.
And where does it go from now?
Do you think there's six ones in the making?
Well, we certainly saw more than five Rocky movies and Fast and the Furious movies.
So I think absolutely with the animation, the animation keeps getting better and better.
And I think they've been very clever in the way that they're unearthing stories that are really important to audiences right now.
And this is the challenge of technology for not just for kids, but for everyone.
OK, Simon, thank you very much for joining us.
Simon Gallagher there.
Susan Schmidt is still with us.
Susan, are you going to go and see Toy Story?
Well, I just might because it is multi-generational.
And I did see the first one in 1995.
Now I have some nieces and nephews to take with me.
So the story does live on.
That's part of the strength of this franchise for Disney.
And also why they felt so confident coming out again.
The last Toy Story movie was in 2019.
Pixar needs to show that they still have blockbuster hits, and Toy Story 5 is certainly one of those that they are hoping to bring forth to the market.
Investors are looking at this as a positive for Disney stock overall.
And I'm curious, how do your nieces and nephews know about Toy Story?
Is that because you tell them about it?
It's the beauty of streaming and access to prior films that are out.
They hear about it and, as we said, it's part of the cultural furniture.
That's a great way to describe it.
And that it just has become one of those ubiquitous brands out there where they've seen the characters, the toys, the merchandising.
Don't forget that we're beyond the big screen now in some of these events, that this is much more than just a film.
There's revenue attached to all sorts of avenues around this and things that relate to the movie, and i think that continues.
Yeah, and do you get them toys around it or do you take them to the theme parks?
I can't believe they're theme parks around it.
You can do a lot of things around it and I think it all depends on how you want to engage, how creative it gets and how much the kids identify with it.
With this franchise, kids continually identify, and that seems to be one of the bonuses.
Okay, Susan, it's clearly making somebody a lot of money.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
That's it from World Business Report.
Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
And you'll also get the daily edition of World Business Express, which brings you the latest money and work news every weekday.
He's widely recognised as one of the greatest footballers in history.
He's won the prestigious Ballon d'Or award five times.
He's the all-time leading goal scorer in professional football.
And, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he's the first active footballer in history to achieve billionaire status.
Guess who we're talking about yet?
That's right.
Good Bad Billionaire is exploring the life and fortune of football icon Cristiano Ronaldo.
That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.
Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
