Happy Monday! Here's the latest on President Biden, Bill O'Reilly, Bluesky, CNN, Dick Wolf, The Washington Post, and more. This morning there are a half dozen lead stories to choose from... |
Disney has struck a deal to "fold its Hulu + Live TV business into Fubo, creating a new venture that will be 70% owned by Disney and the rest by Fubo," Bloomberg's Michelle F. Davis, Lucas Shaw, and Christopher Palmeri scooped earlier this morning.
The press release just dropped. It says "all litigation between Fubo and Disney has been settled" – a reference to Fubo's lawsuit against
Venu Sports. This means Venu, the streaming joint venture between Disney, Fox Corp, and CNN's parent Warner Bros. Discovery, should be able to move forward soon.
The merger would also "create a much bigger player in the virtual multichannel video provider (vMVPD) space, one that can more aggressively take on the market leader YouTube TV," THR's Alex Weprin wrote. Fubo's languishing stock spiked more than 100% on the news...
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Tonight, the WWE dramatically moves to Netflix as its flagship show, "Monday Night Raw," begins streaming around the world. The $5 billion, ten-year deal is at the intersection of several major trends in media: Streamers needing fresh content, creators wanting global deals, advertisers seeking streaming inventory, and everyone placing a premium on live programming in a mostly on-demand world.
"Raw" is "our first foray into this big sports entertainment space," Netflix VP Brandon Riegg told The Athletic's James McNicholas, emphasizing the E in WWE, entertainment. Riegg likened the weekly wrestling matches to "telenovelas," providing a "steady drumbeat of content, entertainment and storytelling throughout the year."
Tonight's launch at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California is a reboot moment for the WWE for a company that needs one. The Washington Post helpfully published a "beginner's guide to wrestling" ahead of the Netflix debut. For more on what this launch means for the WWE, check out Yasmin Gagne's excellent piece for Fast Company...
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Perhaps no topic exemplifies America's competing political realities more than the January 6 attack. Every attempt to emphasize its importance is met by a counter-attempt "undermining, challenging and rewriting what happened," as soon-to-be WSJ reporter Olivia Beavers said on "Inside Politics" over the weekend.
Trump and his right-wing media allies' rewriting of the deadly riot has been hugely successful. But that's why "it was really important to have people like you and me there," Beavers told Manu Raju, "because we saw how horrendous that day was." She recalled clutching a pen in case she had to wield it as a weapon while Trump loyalists launched their assault on the Capitol. Reporters remember what happened – even so many try to make it forgotten...
>> Further reading: This is an excellent NYT story on "how Trump inverted the violent history" of 1/6...
>> "We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it," President Biden writes in a new Post op-ed...
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Biden's exit interview(s?) |
USA Today's Susan Page sat down with Biden on Sunday. "The 55-minute interview, which will publish on Wednesday, is the only sit-down Biden is giving a print publication as he prepares to leave office on Jan. 20," the paper says.
I anticipate at least one other "exit interview" by Biden, since USA Today is only touting a "print" exclusive, but I don't expect an end-of-term press conference. And that's notable because "it's a break with tradition," as Kristen Welker said on "Meet the Press." Panelist Jonathan Martin called it "remarkable." Biden has been holding smaller-scale Q&As with press, known as "gaggles," regularly, and the White House hasn't ruled out a formal presser yet, so let's see...
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O'Reilly's dispatch from Mar-a-Lago |
Here's a peek at the incoming president's media strategy: He let Bill O'Reilly hang out at his personal Mar-a-Lago office last Thursday night. O'Reilly wrote a column about it in an awkward third-person voice. "Trump well understands the vast power he now possesses," O'Reilly asserts. He says Trump "good-naturedly [cited] some examples of once enemies who are now currying favor. He does not gloat, but it's clear he is savoring his prominence..."
>> New and notable this morning: Marc Caputo (on his first day at Axios) has a Q&A with (rarely quoted) incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles...
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Bluesky overtakes Truth Social |
TheRighting's latest monthly analysis of ComScore data shows something striking: "The upstart Bluesky, which has been offering a progressive-friendly alternative to the more rightward-leaning X since early 2024, generated 5,352,000 unique visitors in November, surpassing Truth Social by just over 100,000 unique visitors." Howard Polskin shared the data with Reliable Sources readers first here. He also found continuing erosion in traffic to both right-wing and mainstream media sources...
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Jury selection begins today in a Florida courtroom after a US Navy veteran sued CNN for defamation over a 2021 segment. The network has vigorously denied the allegations brought by Zachary Young. "When all the facts come to light, we are confident we will have a verdict in our favor," a network spokesperson said.
The trial is expected to last two weeks. As a CNN employee, any of my coverage or commentary of the case could wind up admitted as evidence, so I will link to external sources instead, with a disclaimer that I'm not vouching for their accuracy or viewpoint because I'm not in the courtroom. Here are walk-up pieces by David Folkenflik of NPR and Eriq Gardner of Puck...
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Also coming up this week... |
In D.C., Trump's Electoral College victory gets certified today despite the snowstorm. The state funeral for Jimmy Carter takes place on Thursday. SCOTUS hears oral arguments in the TikTok case on Friday.
In Las Vegas, CES is in full swing, with media briefings Monday ahead of Tuesday's official show open. The tech conference is also a key meeting ground for entertainment and ad execs.
In L.A., it's a busy week of self-congratulation: Directors Guild nominations come out Tuesday and Wednesday, NAACP Image Awards noms also come out Tuesday, SAG Award noms come Wednesday, Writers Guild noms come Thursday, and the Critics Choice Awards are on Sunday.
And in NYC "Today" bids farewell to Hoda Kotb on Friday.
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Three Bezos-world headlines |
One: On Friday, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from The Washington Post after it nixed her cartoon depicting Post owner Jeff Bezos and other moguls bending a knee to Trump. The Post's opinion editor David Shipley said his only bias "was against repetition" because "we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column – this one a satire – for publication." But former Post vet Lois Romano wrote on X that Shipley's comment made no sense because "you always run cartoons expressing the same sentiment as columns."
Two: The Post's talent exodus continued as political reporting star Josh Dawsey (who is on book leave, and whose most recent byline was about tech moguls like Bezos courting Trump) defected to the Wall Street Journal and Leigh Ann Caldwell leapt to Puck. Oliver Darcy reported last night that "dozens" of layoffs are expected at the Post this week.
Three: Amazon Prime Video announced a forthcoming documentary about Melania Trump. The project is being directed by Brett Ratner, who was "forced out of Hollywood at the peak of the #MeToo movement," Ben Smith notes. Smith says Amazon "ignored my question on whether Melania Trump is getting paid for her participation."
>> Mother Jones writer
Julianne McShane suggests all these stories are linked. I'll be talking more about this with Jim Acosta on CNN later this morning...
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>> "A woman who worked as a hairstylist for Fox Sports alleges in a lawsuit that former host Skip Bayless made repeated, unwanted advances toward her — including an offer of $1.5 million to have sex with him." Bayless has not yet responded. (AP)
>> Vogue editor Anna Wintour was one of the Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients on Saturday... (BBC)
>> "Disney's 'Mufasa: The Lion King' continued its reign at the top of the international box office pride this weekend with an additional $53.5 million from 52 material markets." (Deadline)
>> Meantime, "Moana 2" has now grossed $960 million "as it prepares to join the billion-dollar box office club." (THR)
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>> YouTube CEO Neal Mohan "is launching a suite of AI-infused products to drive the next leg of YouTube's growth," but Mohan is "at pains to stress the importance of creators to its new strategy," Stephen Morris reports. (FT)
>> "How Donald Trump's Tech Picks Orbit Elon Musk:" Amrith Ramkumar and Adrienne Tong's interactive piece shows the connections. (WSJ)
>> A new example of how generative AI can go awry: A book app called Fable "used AI to 'roast' its users" but the end-of-year summary feature "went anti-woke instead," Kate Knibbs writes. (WIRED)
>> Sam Altman says of Elon Musk: "I think he’ll do all sorts of bad s---. I think he’ll continue to sue us and drop lawsuits and make new lawsuits and whatever else." (Bloomberg)
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The Golden Globes are... good again? Host Nikki Glaser is waking up to rave reviews, "reminding audiences once again of the importance of above-average hosting," THR's Daniel Fienberg writes. If you missed her ten-minute opener, here's the video. CNN's Alli Rosenbloom and Dan Heching have a roundup of the best moments here.
As for the winners, the NYT's Brooks Barnes says Golden Globe voters "did little to clear up a blurry awards picture," giving little-seen films like 'The Brutalist' and 'Emilia Pérez' roughly equal treatment and snubbing some perceived Oscar front-runners, including 'Anora.'" Oscar voters will start picking nominees on Wednesday...
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Dick Wolf's half-hour drama plan |
Dick Wolf, who currently has nine scripted hour-long series across several broadcast networks, is preparing to debut "his first streaming show, a series about a police force in Long Beach," on Thursday, the NYT's John Koblin reports.
Wolf's "On Call" on Amazon Prime Video is a drama with 30 episodes — which is both a throwback to network TV past ("Dragnet" was only 30 minutes in the 50s) and an acknowledgment of digital age attention spans. "Going into streaming, my hope is we are going to become the half-hour production company," Wolf says. Read on...
>> Also new this week: "The Pitt," a "network-style medical drama starring Noah Wyle from 'ER,'" debuts on Max on Thursday," Koblin notes...
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