Lachlan Murdoch has had a lot to prove and the stakes just got quite a bit higher as Murdoch senior is set to depart the Fox and News Corp. boards, formalizing a transition underway for years.
06.09.2023 - 23:51 / deadline.com
Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish said the Disney-Charter carriage dispute took a “notable” financial toll on many pay-TV stakeholders, but he touted his efforts to “modernize” the company’s distribution relationships for the streaming era.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Tech Conference, Bakish said last Friday was “obviously a notable day for the industry.” That was the first trading day after 18 Disney cable networks and eight ABC stations went dark on Charter’s Spectrum TV service. It brought a collective $15 billion hit to the market value of a number of programmers and operators, Bakish estimated, as the carriage impasse “was interpreted as a negative” by investors. Nevertheless, he continued, “all companies are not of the same point of view” when it comes to co-ordinating their efforts across linear TV, streaming and other lines of business.
While there has been considerable angst about whether Charter, the No. 2 U.S. cable operator, will actually follow through on its threat to “move on” from the video business, Bakish said he has long been focused on future-proofing Paramount. He took the reins as Viacom’s CEO four years before its 2019 merger with CBS, inheriting a distribution mess from predecessor Philippe Dauman, whose infamously inflexible negotiating style alienated the company from a number of major distributors.
“We started thinking about the transformation of our company going back seven years, probably,” Bakish recalled, with an emphasis on “working with distributors in that regard to modernize the way we do business.” Echoing comments earlier in the day on the same stage by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Bakish said the carriage dispute “didn’t surprise us” given the inherent balancing act
Lachlan Murdoch has had a lot to prove and the stakes just got quite a bit higher as Murdoch senior is set to depart the Fox and News Corp. boards, formalizing a transition underway for years.
has been using her popular TikTok account to dish about her failed first marriage and the accuracy of Martin Scorsese’s Hollywood film.Some onscreen story elements were embellished for dramatic effect, of course, but one is remarkably spot-on.In a recent post that’s so far been liked more than 5,700 times, the therapist and marriage counselor confirmed that an odd detail of the Leonardo DiCaprio drama is totally true — Macaluso really drinks her red wine through a straw.During a scene in the Oscar-nominated film, DiCaprio, as Belfort, and Robbie are sitting at a table in a restaurant when she calls to the waiter and asks, “Can I get a straw please?”“I don’t want to ruin my veneers and it works,” Macaluso, 55, says in the TikTok video. “It keeps them white.”In a previous post, Macaluso, who shares two children with her ex-husband, admitted to being terrified in the early 2010s that the trauma of her relationship was being put up on the big screen.
Linear TV viewership made somewhat of a comeback in August after dropping to an all-time low in July, Nielsen reported in its latest monthly state of TV report, The Gauge.
Michaela Zee Bob Odenkirk is reflecting on his time as a writer on “Saturday Night Live.” In a recent interview on comedian Tig Notaro’s podcast “Don’t Ask Tig,” the “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” actor recalled a discussion he had with his 24-year-old son Nate, who wants to pursue a career as a comedy writer. Odenkirk, who joined “SNL” at 25 years old, then shared his own insecurities writing professionally at a young age, saying, “I was unsure of myself. It was hard.
Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Of all the stories and sides of Leonard Bernstein that Bradley Cooper decided to leave out of “Maestro,” the most infamous is surely the “Radical Chic” episode. In 1970, a New York magazine cover story, written by Tom Wolfe and entitled “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s,” spent 20,000 words describing, in delectable you-are-there detail, a party thrown by Lenny and his wife, Felicia, at their Park Avenue apartment to raise funds for the Black Panthers.
Stars like Emily Blunt and Chris Evans have carefully created the public persona of being kind and gracious people — through prior roles, interviews, and chat show appearances. Doubtless, it is not just good PR — they are genuinely lovely people.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Mipcom, the Cannes-set international TV showcase, will pay tribute to Arthur Essebag, the well-known French TV host and founder of Satisfaction Group. Essebag will receive the international format awards at a gala ceremony on Oct. 15.
Pete Davidson‘s mom, Amy Waters Davidson, is honoring her late husband on Instagram.
Christopher Lloyd Guest Columnist When you arrive at home on a Tuesday evening and have to double-check your own address because there is a line of valet parkers in front, one of whom hands you a ticket, and when you proceed into your home of find a crowd of well-dressed people, most of whom you do not know, and an orangutan sitting on your chair at the head of the table — when all of this happens and you’re not really that surprised, there is a better than average chance that you are married to Arleen Sorkin. The occasion on that Tuesday was a hastily arranged fundraiser for a South African human (and animal) rights organization, and the orangutan was by no means the only luminary I was surprised to find sitting in my chair over the three decades I spent with my big-hearted wife. Wasn’t it only six months earlier that I’d opened my door to find Fayard Nicholas (seated) and his brother Harold (mopping his brow) — the legendary Nicholas brothers tap dancing team, then in their 80s, who, Arleen had decided, needed a fundraiser.
Dumb Money” drew parallels between the battle between Reddit investors and Wall Street tycoons over GameStop and the actors and writers strikes that are roiling Hollywood at the Toronto Film Festival premiere. “We just watched a film about the system being rigged.
EXCLUSIVE: Chris Pine’s directorial debut Poolman is set to make its world premiere Monday night at the Toronto Film Festival. Pine won’t be in attendance, choosing to stand in solidarity with his fellow actors amid the SAG-AFTRA strike. The film’s producer, Stacey Sher, says that not only is Pine proud to do so, she thinks the character at the center of his story would be on the same page.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will commemorate the life and service of Queen Elizabeth II with private prayers and a moment of reflection on the first anniversary of her death. The King and Queen, who are staying at their Balmoral estate in Aberdeenshire, will attend nearby Crathie Kirk for the poignant event at the church where the late Queen worshipped.
EXCLUSIVE: The writers have turned up to the theme parks.
Charter is locked in a distribution battle with Disney as the second-largest US cable company negotiates with the media conglomerate over how much its channels are worth and how to package them.“I apologize that our consumers have been put in the middle here, but we felt it was worth it,” Winfrey said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference. “It was the right time and that we had to say ‘enough is enough’ or else we’re going to have to move on to a different model.”ESPN, ABC and other Disney channels disappeared from Charter’s Spectrum cable service on Aug.
With its carriage fight with Charter about to enter its second week, Disney issued a statement blasting the Spectrum TV owner’s “indifference” to customers and a Wall Street investment bank predicted a compromise by the ESPN parent.
Charter CEO Chris Winfrey indicated that little progress has been made in the week-long carriage fight with Disney and he said a leaner, ESPN-free TV bundle “could stick” with price-sensitive Spectrum customers.
Jimmy Buffett‘s daughter is breaking her silence after his death.
“I don’t know that much in particular about this dispute, but it feels like this is a moment,” said Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav about the current showdown between big cable provider Charter and the Disney.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Paramount+ saw its first price increase this year with the launch of Paramount+ With Showtime, and Paramount CEO Bob Bakish says it won’t be the streamer’s last. The goal is to hike the cost of Paramount+ With Showtime once again at some point in the next two years. “Our plan is to raise price again, this isn’t our only price increase.
BreAnna Bell The trailer for OWN’s forthcoming docuseries, “Rebuilding Black Wall Street,” featuring host Morris Chestnut has been revealed. Premiering on Sept.