| | | | | Exec summary: The NYT's new Weinstein exposé names names... Dylan Howard is denying harassment allegations... TheSkimm is eyeing a sale... Cineworld is buying Regal... Time will unveil Person of the Year on Wednesday... Scroll down for details... | | Hadas Gold emails: Two important pieces of news related to 21st Century Fox dropped on Tuesday, a few days after the WSJ reported that the talks between Fox and Disney had "re-engaged." The first, via CNBC's David Faber, is that the two companies are closing in on an estimated $60 billion deal that could be announced as soon as next week. Disney would buy Fox's movie studio, FX, National Geographic, Star, regional sports networks, and Fox's stakes in Sky and Hulu. Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox's broadcast division would stay within a news-and-sports-focused 21st Century Fox. The two companies declined to comment.
Shortly after the CNBC report, James Murdoch spoke at a UBS conference and dodged a Q on the deal, though as Variety reports he "obliquely" referred to the possibility when talking about how it's "feasible" for the Fox broadcast network to operate even if it was not connected to the studio... | | Imagine a Murdoch running Disney | | Gold adds: Then a few hours later the FT reported something that got a lot of tongues wagging: James Murdoch is being eyed as a possible successor to Bob Iger. Murdoch "has been suggested" -- by whom, the paper didn't say -- for the CEO spot, and in any case he's likely to take a "senior executive role with Disney if a sale is agreed." Three bylines on the story: Matthew Garrahan, Arash Massoudi and James Fontanella-Khan...
-- An open Q: "Would Disney, With Control of Hulu and Fox Studios, Have Formula for a Netflix Killer?" | | | Brian Lowry emails: There's a lot about Fox's play to shed part of its assets that confuses me, including the latest wrinkle, which would involve finding James Murdoch a senior position at Disney. While it's easy to see why he would covet such a job, the fact that Fox feels motivated to shed its entertainment unit -- thus becoming a much smaller company -- doesn't buttress the argument that the younger Murdoch should be put in line to assume stewardship of a massive one... | | | What's behind the Murdochs' sale talks? WSJ's Amol Sharma tweets: "Changes in media, and a family power-sharing setup that's showing cracks." Sharma, Joe Flint and Keach Hagey's new story says that concerns over Sky are a factor in the Murdochs' considerations. Also: "It's crowded when you have three people making decisions," an exec says... | | Comcast still in the hunt | | | Another detail in the WSJ story: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts met Rupert Murdoch "at the New York Athletic Club on Monday, people familiar with the situation say..." | | | Gannett chief content officer and USA Today editor in chief Joanne Lipman is stepping down at the end of the year... She shared the decision with staffers on Tuesday... She says she's choosing to concentrate on her forthcoming book "That's What She Said," which has led to "a flood of interest and opportunities," given the "heightened focus on sexual harassment..." | | | That's what Peter Kafka calls it. Hard to disagree. After acquiring Mashable for a measly $50 million, Ziff Davis plans to keep it running but wants to "refocus the company on tech and tech-lifestyle content," Kafka reports. "That will mean laying off about 50 of the site's employees and offering other Mashable employees jobs at other Ziff Davis publications." Founder Pete Cashmore is staying on... | | | TheStreet "laid off 10 editorial staffers last Thursday, its third round of layoffs in the past 14 months, after moves into video and branded content failed to turn around advertising revenues," Digiday's Max Willens reports. So it's going to "try to rely more heavily on paid products like subscriptions and events." Willens has detailed reporting from inside the company... Check it out... | | | HERE'S SOMETHING MORE HOPEFUL... | | Who's interested in buying TheSkimm? | | | Benjamin Mullin and Suzanne Vranica's WSJ scoop: "TheSkimm, the daily news digest that has taken off with younger women, is exploring a possible sale after being contacted by an interested buyer, according to people familiar with the matter. After receiving the inbound interest, theSkimm has been holding preliminary discussions with media companies to gauge their interest in investing or acquiring it outright." To date the startup has raised more than $16 million... It has more than 6 million subscribers... | | -- He was President Trump's chief strategist. Now Steve Bannon is back to being a SiriusXM radio host... (NYT)
-- News Corp CEO Robert Thompson says "YouTube is a toxic waste dump..." In other news, he indicates his recent meeting with Mark Zuckerberg was useful... (THR)
-- "In search of a challenger to the Google and Facebook 'duopoly,' Publicis, Omnicom and WPP plan to boost their ad spending with Amazon between 40% and 100% in 2018..." (WSJ)
-- "Google is pulling YouTube off the Fire TV and Echo Show as feud with Amazon grows..." (The Verge) | | Tom Kludt writes: The last year has brought more than a few reminders of how people who have long controlled the levers of power at media outlets -- and, for that matter, many traditional journalists -- are ill-prepared to handle insurgent right-wing voices. (Recall the "60 Minutes" interview with Mike Cernovich, Liz Spayd scolding a reporter for a lame tweet, etc.) This week's move by MSNBC might fall under the category. Sam Seder certainly thinks so. The channel is dropping him as a contributor as a result of Cernovich's pressure campaign.
What happened? Cernovich called Seder out for an eight-year-old joke about Roman Polanski. Here's the full story by Kludt and Oliver Darcy...
-- Seder told Kludt: "I've been on [MSNBC] for 14 years; I've been paid by them for over two years. I've had thousands of tweets since 2009. There was context for those tweets. If they can't make that assessment, if making that assessment is a bridge too far, they have no value as a news organization..."
-- Cernovich told Darcy: "The left isn't going to stop going through our tweets so we aren't going to stop going through theirs..." | | Here's the important part | | | From Kludt and Darcy's story: MSNBC employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there's been dissent internally over the decision. The employees said cutting ties with Seder set a bad precedent and worried that it would incentivize far-right personalities to dig through the Twitter feeds of hosts, producers, and contributors looking for objectionable content... | | About all those Deutsche Bank stories... | | Oliver Darcy emails: Reuters, the WSJ, and Bloomberg all reported Tuesday that Robert Mueller had issued a subpoena to Deutsche Bank for Trump bank records. ABC News reported separately that Mueller had requested records from the German bank, but did not specify which ones. Trump's lawyer, however, disputed it: "We have confirmed that the news reports that the Special Counsel had subpoenaed financial records relating to the president are false. No subpoena has been issued or received. We have confirmed this with the bank and other sources."
WSJ issued a correction, specifying that the "subpoena concerns people or entities close to Mr. Trump," not the president directly. Reps for Reuters and Bloomberg, meanwhile, told me that they stood by their reporting and simply incorporated the White House's denial into their stories...
-- Rachel Maddow talking about "following the money" just now on MSNBC: "Why are some news outlets changing their stories about this today, and others are sticking with it, sticking with their original reporting?" | | Any subpoena involving Deutsche Bank records is a sign of an intensifying Mueller probe. The Q's are piling up. As Jake Tapper asked on "The Lead:" "Why have there been so many lies about these calls with the Russians?" The headline on CNN.com right now: "What Pence Knew."
The denials and diversions are piling up too. Fox's pro-Trump shows are casting doubt on Mueller/the FBI/the Russian threat/etc on an hourly basis. Joe Scarborough tweeted Tuesday night: "The concerted effort from Trump apologists in the media to smear Robert Mueller is nauseating..."
Proving his point, Sean Hannity called Mueller "the head of the snake" on Tuesday night, claiming "Mueller's credibility is in the gutter," calling him a "disgrace to the American justice system," and asserting that the country is "now on the brink of becoming a banana republic." Deep breaths, Sean...
-- CNN's next special report: "The Mystery of Michael Flynn" Friday at 9pm ET... | | | Time's new EIC Edward Felsenthal will reveal the "Person of the Year" on "Today" at 7:30am Wednesday... The story will go up on Time.com at the same time... And the mag comes out on Friday. Any chance it's President Trump, despite his tweet last month? (I know lots of folks think "POTY" is just a marketing stunt, but I like it because it's a jumping-off-point for conversations about the year...) | | -- No new updates on Brian Ross/ABC on Tuesday...
-- Politico national security reporter Ali Watkins is jumping to the NYT...
-- Conservative sports radio host Clay Travis visited the W.H. on Tuesday, posed for a photo with Sarah Sanders, and gave an interview to Breitbart...
-- Just days before its scheduled release, John Travolta's "Gotti" biopic has been dropped by Lionsgate... The producers need a new distributor, EW reports...
-- Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen is handing the reins to Erik Carlson so that Ergen can "devote more attention to the company's emerging wireless business..." | | Extraordinary new NYT story about Weinstein | | | Jodi Kantor tweets: "We spent weeks investigating the complicity machine that Harvey Weinstein built. We've got his emails, the penile injections he made assistants procure, his threats, the powerful agents who knew and did nothing." The result: This 8,000-word story on Wednesday's front page. It's the product of "nearly 200 interviews." Five bylines: Megan Twohey, Kantor, Susan Dominus, Jim Rutenberg, Steve Eder. Read it all here... | | | -- Rutenberg tweeted: "Emails, interviews and docs "show Weinstein relied on scared employees, willfully blind agents and friendly press -- National Enquirer chief above all --- to keep his alleged abuse quiet." Speaking of the Enquirer... | | American Media stands by Dylan Howard after AP story | | American Media Inc. chief content officer Dylan Howard oversees the National Enquirer and Us Weekly. Years ago, when he was based in L.A., he "described his sexual partners in the newsroom, discussed female employees' sex lives and forced women to watch or listen to pornographic material, former employees told The Associated Press." He called the claims "baseless" when contacted by the AP.
After the story hit on Tuesday, American Media expressed support for him: "In the wake of these baseless allegations, he has the full support of AMI and its executives..." | | FIRST LOOK: Megyn Kelly's guest column for THR | | | "Men who see women as designed for their pleasure are far too great in number," Megyn Kelly writes in a guest column for THR, coming out Wednesday morning. She writes: "Stopping harassment and abuse is going to require vast societal change. Because women are being sexualized and demeaned not just by a few errant bosses but by a male-dominated system that remains stacked against them. And too many men and women are committed to perpetuating it." | | | THR's 2017 Women in Entertainment breakfast will be held at Milk Studios... Kantor and Twohey will be there, Angelina Jolie will deliver a keynote speech, Jennifer Lawrence will receive the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, and Amy Pascal will receive the Equity in Entertainment Award... | | Danny Masterson off "The Ranch" amid rape allegations | | | Lisa Respers France emails: Danny Masterson is off the Netflix series "The Ranch" amid rape allegations. The LAPD has been investigating rape claims against the actor for months, as Yashar Ali first reported last month. The former "That '70s Show" star has maintained his innocence. On Tuesday he expressed his disappointment with Netflix's decision to write him off the show... | | Tuesday's other developments | | -- Terry Crews is suing Adam Venit for sexual assault and battery... WME is named in the suit as well...
-- Fallout from Suki Kim's John Hockenberry story: WNYC CEO Laura Walker "apologized Tuesday to victims who experienced harassment and bullying on the production of 'The Takeaway' and acknowledged her own failure to protect WNYC employees and contributors," Current reports...
-- Chloe Melas writes: Dustin Hoffman and John Oliver got into a heated discussion Monday night when Oliver brought up recent allegations of sexual harassment against the actor...
-- Lisa Respers France emails: Anthony Rapp, whose allegations against Kevin Spacey helped kick off that scandal, says he's "gratified" by the response he's received since coming forward...
-- Because the "Today" show was IN the news last week, the show's ratings spiked, TheWrap reports...
-- Here's John Koblin and Michael Grynbaum's latest. Grynbaum's summary: "An author assigned to write an official history of '60 Minutes' was replaced after he asked questions about how women were treated behind-the-scenes..." | | "You know how the media are always carrying on about how Democrats are so woefully out of touch with red America? Of course you do... And I acknowledge there's some truth to it. But here's the other side of the coin, which no one ever, ever, I mean ever talks about: Republicans are totally out of touch with blue America."
--Michael Tomasky's latest for The Daily Beast... | | | "Our entire newsroom needs a jolt of a new reality," "CBS Evening News" E.P. Steve Capus says. "Our output is being consumed a lot of different ways and if we think about it too narrowly, we're missing a big segment of the audience." Enter Jeff Glor, who took over the "Evening News" on Monday. Glor "has a mandate to lead the flagship evening newscast into the digital future," Stephen Battaglio writes in Wednesday's LA Times... | | Russia labels Voice of America and 8 other U.S. media "foreign agents" | | | "It's the latest move in an escalating dispute between Moscow and Washington over media organizations operating in the two countries," Jethro Mullen writes... | | | For the record, part three | | | Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails:
-- This is a powerful read by Rebecca Carroll, the only black journalist working on Charlie Rose's show in the 90s, about how her experience "went beyond sexism..." (Esquire)
-- Several contributors to Forbes, Fast Company, HuffPost and other publications have accepted payments in exchange for positive coverage of brands... (The Outline)
-- Another good one from The Outline: a dystopian story on MechanicalTurkPoems, an "anthropological experiment" that unveils the condition of online clickworkers through creative writing... (The Outline)
-- Kristen Hare chats with Jay Rosen about the Membership Puzzle Project, looking to figure out how to save the business of journalism through the membership model. Important takeaway: subscriptions imply "give us money," while memberships mean "join the cause..." (Poynter)
-- It's not a pivot to video, it's a "pivot to nowhere," Sahil Patel writes... (Digiday)
-- ICYMI: YouTube says it is adding 10,000 staffers in 2018, a 25% workforce increase, to help eliminate abusive content from the platform... (CNNMoney) | | California wildfires prompt TV production shutdowns | | | Sandra Gonzalez writes: Raging wildfires in Southern California have caused at least two television series to temporarily shut down production for safety reasons. HBO's "Westworld" and CBS's "S.W.A.T." suspended filming on Tuesday as multiple wildfires burn in and around Los Angeles County... | | "European movie theater operator Cineworld Group is buying American firm Regal Entertainment for $3.6 billion," CNNMoney's Alanna Petroff reports...
-- In other theatrical news: Cinemark is introducing Movie Club, "a monthly plan that lets people buy a movie ticket a month for a discounted price of $8.99" and "roll over unused tickets every month," Paul R. La Monica reports... | | | "John Mayer is on the mend following an emergency appendectomy," Sandra Gonzalez reports... | | "The Post" reviews coming on Wednesday... | | | Have you seen "The Post" yet? I'm waiting til later in the month! But you'll start to see reviews on Wednesday morning... That's when the review embargo lifts... | | Spielberg says he's never seen anything like this | | | Brian Lowry emails: The Hollywood Reporter's takeout on "The Post" emphasizes the feminist aspect of the film, with publisher Katharine Graham (played by Meryl Streep) having to overcome doubts about her leadership amid the Pentagon Papers controversy. But this quote from director Steven Spielberg stood out from a media perspective, when asked what people who share his values are scared of: "That we've lost the majority of good listeners, that our conversations have turned into skirmishes. We live in an area where we don't know a lot of red-state voters. Well, I know a lot because I have friends and family in other parts of this country, and so at dinner-table conversations outside of California, I'm completely mute or I get into these huge rows. The gray and the blue have become the blue and the red. And it is as vast a chasm as our nation faced before the Civil War. I've never seen anything like it." | | Kimmel at home with his infant son this week | | Lisa Respers France writes: Jimmy Kimmel is off work this week as he helps care for his infant son. On Monday Billy had his second "successful heart surgery," according to ABC...
-- Guest hosts include Chris Pratt, Tracee Ellis Ross, Neil Patrick Harris and Melissa McCarthy... | | | That's what Billy Bush told Stephen Colbert on Monday night... Here's Brian Lowry's recap in case you missed it... Per the early overnights, TVNewser says the episode was Colbert's highest-rated Monday night broadcast "since August 14..." That's the day Anthony Scaramucci was on... | | | 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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