| | | | | Is 21st Century Fox for sale? | | David Faber's incredible scoop on Monday -- "21st Century Fox has been holding talks to sell most of the company to Walt Disney Co." -- has insiders asking: If not Disney, then who? If Rupert Murdoch and his sons have decided that this is the market top, and Fox is for sale, who are the other potential buyers? Verizon?
-- Was Monday's story the Murdochs' way of saying "CALL US?"
-- Or maybe it's the other way around, and Bob Iger is thinking, "If not Fox, what else can we buy?"
-- The WSJ (owned by Murdoch, but filled with fiercely independent reporters) says that Disney approached Fox about a deal...
-- $FOXA stock jumped 10% on Monday... $DIS closed up 2%... | | According to Faber, in the sell-to-Disney scenario, the Murdochs would keep the Fox broadcast network, its owned-and-operated stations, Fox News, Fox Business, and Fox Sports. Like lots of other people, I immediately wondered if the Murdochs would reunite those news + sports assets with News Corp, the family's publishing company...
--> So what would Disney be buying? Dylan Byers writes: "Disney would get control of major entertainment brands" -- 20th Century Fox Studio, FX, National Geographic, and international brands like Star and Sky... | | Key lines from Faber's story | | -- "The talks have taken place over the last few weeks..."
-- "The two sides are not currently talking at this very moment, but given the on again, off again nature of the talks, they could be revisited..."
-- "For Fox, the willingness to engage in sale talks with Disney stems from a growing belief among its senior management that scale in media is of immediate importance and there is not a path to gain that scale in entertainment through acquisition." Read more... | | Netflix, Netflix, Netflix... | | | Disney is up against giants like Apple, Google, and Netflix. (And AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, etc.) The company wants/needs more content for its forthcoming direct-to-consumer streaming services. Those products will put the company head-to-head with Netflix in a whole new way. "In that regard, Fox's entertainment assets could be a major boon to Disney, not just because of what control of those assets would give Disney, but because of what it could take away from Netflix," Byers writes... | | From the aforementioned story by Keach Hagey and Joe Flint: "Disney is serious about bolstering its laggard TV operations" and Rupert "is open to a surprising restructuring of his empire. Disney approached Fox in recent weeks..."
--> Hagey tweeted: "Key takeaway from Disney-Fox talks: the Murdochs are not quite as bent on family control as everyone thought..." | | | "For decades, James and Lachlan have been primed to take over the behemoth media company their father built from a single newspaper," Sarah Ellison writes for VF. "What's striking is how quickly, after all that buildup, his sons seem to have thrown up their hands." She quotes a former exec saying: "This is not a day of glory for the boys. This is total surrender." | | | Brian Lowry emails: For Disney, the idea of beefing up its content and reuniting some of its Marvel properties -- Fox controls the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises -- makes a fair amount of sense. Fox's thinking, however, is more puzzling, seeking to shrink the company three years after it sought to expand dramatically through its failed attempt to acquire Time Warner. In some ways, the initial CNBC report appears misleading, including the assertion that the assets being discussed would account for "most" of the company. Yet even if the reported talks fail to produce a deal, they throw into question Fox's faith in the management of its entertainment assets, and potentially the appetite of the Murdoch heirs to compete aggressively in that business... | | | Claire Atkinson's story for NBC notes: "If a deal were to happen, Disney would gain control of Hulu... leaving Comcast and Time Warner holding minor positions in the site... Disney already owns most of a streaming technology platform called BamTech, which streams ESPN content..." | | -- THR's reaction: "For Disney, the benefits are obvious..."
-- Derek Thompson tweeted: "A 'Disneyflix' with Lucasfilm + Marvel + Pixar + Disney Animation + Disney Channel + ABC + 20c Fox + FX would be ... attractive..."
-- Brian Steinberg tweeted: "This Disney-21cf haggle sounds like a back and forth over the value of John Landgraf and a possible bid for Sky..."
-- Flashback: James Murdoch on an earnings call in May: "The scale and health of our sports and news broadcasting businesses continue to be a differentiator for us..." | | | Fox will release its earnings Wednesday afternoon... and Disney's turn will be on Thursday afternoon... | | TWO MORE STORIES ABOUT DISNEY AND FOX... | | A show of solidarity with the LA Times | | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: WashPost blogger Alyssa Rosenberg says she's not going to review or write about Disney films in advance, as a show of support for the LA Times. As you'll recall, the Times was barred from viewing Disney films after writing a story that looked into the company's business practices in Anaheim... | | -- Via Maxwell Tani: Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr is also protesting Disney screenings...
-- So is the AV Club...
-- And Flavorwire: "We will not cover any Disney releases, nor those of subsidiaries Marvel or Lucasfilm." Not just reviews -- no coverage at all...
Read Frank Pallotta's full story here... | | Fox News pull's Steyer's pro-impeachment ad, citing negative viewer reaction | | "Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money." That's the official explanation from Fox News... about why the network will no longer air Tom Steyer's ad calling for President Trump's impeachment...
-- Oliver Darcy writes: Television networks have wide latitude about the commercials they air. Ads with totally false claims are occasionally rejected. But Fox's decision -- shelving an ad because viewers complained -- is highly unusual...
-- The obvious Q: Was POTUS one of the viewers who complained?!
-- Darcy's story notes that the ad has been running on CNN, MSNBC, and "some local broadcast TV stations, including ones owned by Fox's parent company..."
-- Let's be honest: Fox's decision drew even more attention to Steyer and his ad campaign. He tweeted on Monday: "Fox News trying to silence the 1.7 million who have already signed our impeachment petition." Then he promoted a link to the petition... | | -- Hadas Gold's latest: "U.K. regulator says Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson breached impartiality rules..." (CNNMoney)
-- The testimony transcript is out: "Carter Page raised idea of Trump going to Russia to other campaign foreign policy advisers..." (CNN)
-- WSJ's deep dive: "Roy Price's alleged trail of drinking and sexual harassment challenges Amazon's culture." Check out the lead... (WSJ)
-- "American Idol" will premiere on ABC on March 11... (TheWrap) | | | Jodi Kantor after reading Ronan Farrow's latest: "Tonight, the bravery of the women who broke the silence about Weinstein is clearer than ever." | | No recap will do this story justice. Please click here and read Ronan Farrow's latest story for The New Yorker. Title: "Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies." It involves David Boies, Ben Wallace, Rose McGowan, Dylan Howard, Jodi Kantor, David Carr, Anthony Bourdain, and more. Farrow's conclusion is that Weinstein tried to bury his past by "hiring undercover ex-Mossad agents" to track his accusers and the reporters who wanted to interview them...
-- Farrow tweeted that this was the "craziest story I've ever reported, and a rare professional experience that made me fear for my safety (even including time in Afghanistan)..."
-- Jodi Kantor tweeted: "This is why all of us... absolutely had to prevail and publish. Great Ronan scoop." | | This is Farrow's third bombshell for The New Yorker. (He dropped a hint about the story on Sunday's "Reliable Sources.") So on Monday night I asked him if he is still doing more reporting about the Weinstein scandal. I received an appropriately coy two word reply: "I am."
-- Anthony Bourdain tweeted: "The quality, tenacity and depth of @RonanFarrow work on this story is beyond my wildest imagining. Absolutely incredible" | | NYT says it is "pursuing appropriate remedies" | | | This just in: Statement from the NYT regarding the descriptions of David Boies in Farrow's story: "We learned today that the law firm of Boies Schiller and Flexner secretly worked to stop our reporting on Harvey Weinstein at the same time as the firm's lawyers were representing us in other matters. We consider this intolerable conduct, a grave betrayal of trust, and a breach of the basic professional standards that all lawyers are required to observe. It is inexcusable, and we will be pursuing appropriate remedies." | | Weinstein booted from the TV Academy | | "Harvey Weinstein has been banned for life from yet another Hollywood organization," Sandra Gonzalez writes. "The board for the Television Academy -- an organization with more than 22,000 voting members from across the TV industry and helps award the Emmys -- on Monday voted to permanently expel the movie and TV mogul from the organization..."
-- More: The academy also says it's expediting "an already-begun detailed review and revision of our Television Academy membership codes of conduct..."
-- Context: He's already been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and banned from the Producers Guild... | | Monday's other developments | | -- Via Deadline: "Ridley Scott's 'All the Money in the World,' the movie about the true-life kidnapping of John Paul Getty's grandson that stars Kevin Spacey as the billionaire industrialist, has been pulled from the prestige closing-night slot at AFI Fest..."
-- Kate Aurthur's latest: Spacey's behavior on the set of "House of Cards" "wasn't a secret..."
-- Ben Affleck to the AP: "I'm looking at my own behavior and addressing that and making sure I'm part of the solution..."
-- Julia Carpenter's latest for CNNMoney: "How to talk about sexual harassment with colleagues" | | Megan Thomas emails: Interesting read from Vulture, with more former employees saying they didn't know about Weinstein's alleged criminal acts: "The Truth About Mir-anon, The Secret Support Group for Ex Weinstein Employees."
Key quote: "Six former Miramax and TWC executives who have participated in Mir-Anon gatherings talked about the experience to Vulture, describing themselves as closely bonded by a shared 'trench warfare' experience. That is, the experience of working at a mini-major studio where daily humiliation, screaming tantrums, and relentless pressure from the Weinstein brothers could be counterbalanced by the glamour and prestige of the Oscar benediction the brothers courted so assiduously..." | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Karen K. Ho and Jon Allsop interviewed a wide range of media reporters about how the media covers its own "Weinsteins..." (CJR)
-- Another bombshell from the Paradise Papers: Apple has $128 billion in profits safely parked in the island of Jersey, a tax haven in the English Channel... (NYT)
-- Julia Wick, former EIC of LAist, explains what's at stake now that the Gothamist network of sites and DNAInfo are no longer active... (CityLab) | | "Another week, another mass shooting..." | | | There is a repetitiveness to the coverage of mass shootings -- a "we've been here before" feeling that readers and viewers and writers and anchors all share. George Stephanopoulos tried to break through it on Monday's "GMA." "Here we are again," he said. "Another week, another mass shooting in America. We have seen them in offices and schools, we've seen them in concerts and movie theaters, Walmarts and Starbucks. This time the killer and his gun entered a small church in a small town in Texas..." | | Holt flew from South Korea to Texas | | | NBC's Lester Holt was in Seoul, South Korea, preparing for Trump's arrival, when the news broke on Sunday. The network flew him back to the states overnight. He was in Texas by midday... and anchored "NBC Nightly News" from Sutherland Springs. ABC's David Muir and CBS's Jeff Glor also anchored from the crime scene on Monday evening... | | | The editorial in Tuesday's USA Today: "In one sense, Trump is absolutely right that 'this is a mental health problem at the highest level.' For the nation's top leaders to watch innocent people mowed down, and refuse to do anything to stop it, is indeed absolutely crazy." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Ruth Ben-Ghiat's latest: "By parroting Trump's apparent preexisting beliefs and playing to his worst instincts, Fox News is creating a critical vacuum around the president, a sycophantic echo chamber that is unlikely to help him make important, world-changing decisions. And, in the end, the real credibility at risk is not Mueller's but that of Fox News..." (NBC)
-- James Comey has switched his Twitter handle from pseudonym "Reinhold Niebuhr" to his real name... (Twitter) | | Slate's look at "the year in push alerts" | | What a century this year has been! Check out Slate's look at the year in push alerts...
Editor Julia Turner tells me: "We've animated every single push notification the NYT has sent since Trump's election, and asked writers and commentators to weigh in on how the cadence of the news has changed, and changed us..." | | Lowry reviews HBO's doc about Rolling Stone | | Brian Lowry emails: "Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge" is an at-times fascinating two-part documentary about the magazine's journalism and its influence through the years on music and politics. But this HBO project (produced in conjunction with Rolling Stone, and counting Jann Wenner among its producers) also has the feel of a licensed product, which is notable given Wenner's recent falling out with Joe Hagan.
Read Lowry's full review here... | | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | | The Kellyanne Conway interview | | The Trump-Murdoch alliance | | | David Folkenflik on Sunday's program: With Trump, Rupert Murdoch has achieved "what he's always wanted in this country," a "direct line to the person at the top of the pyramid of government. He's got a flawed president in his mind, but one he's going to stick with as long as he can..." | | What happens when local news withers away | | | Errol Louis pointed out that cuts in local news coverage are "almost imperceptible" sometimes, but have lasting consequences. "This is a problem that people have tried to wish away," he said. "People thought there would be technological solutions. None of that has panned out so far." Watch our segment here... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... I appreciate every message. The feedback helps us craft the next day's newsletter! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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