| | | | | Charles Osgood's final "Sunday Morning" show | | Up on West 57th Street, CBSers worked late into the night on Friday on a special edition of "CBS Sunday Morning" -- a celebration of Charles Osgood and his incredible career.
Osgood's sign-off really is the end of a television news era. "There's nobody like him, and there's no show like this show," CBS News president David Rhodes told me by phone.
So this Sunday morning will feature some surprise cameos... Stories about Osgood's childhood, music career, TV career, bow tie collection, and more... And a message from the man himself. After the broadcast, CBS is hosting a brunch for Osgood and his staffers.
-- According to CBS News PR: "Osgood's bow tie will be donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, where it will become part of its permanent collection..."
-- TVNewser notes that Osgood is leaving the show on a "high note..." Here's the ratings info... | | | What makes the broadcast stand out | | Garden and Gun's Amanda Heckert said it really well: "CBS Sunday Morning" "has become its own kind of church — a weekly devotion with quirky, charming, and revealing segments that often reaffirm a faith in humanity. The pastor at the pulpit has been Osgood, his sonorous drawl a constant and a comfort these past twenty-two years."
Osgood will be back on "Sunday Morning" from time to time. And Rand Morrison will remain as E.P. No word yet on who will succeed Osgood... | | | Dylan Byers writes: Debate moderator Lester Holt is carrying the weight of the nation... It is an immense responsibility, and opportunity, for a man who once seemed destined to spend his career as NBC's quiet journeyman, working in the shadow of Brian Williams with no guarantee of his own time in the spotlight. But it is a responsibility Holt deserves and is extremely well-equipped to handle, several of his current and former colleagues say. Here's Dylan's full profile, featuring Tom Brokaw and other NBCers... | | | Notice: Holt has been off NBC since Tuesday night. He's in "study mode," as a network source said. Savannah Guthrie filled in on Wed/Thur/Fri. She will also anchor the "Nightly News" from Hofstra on Monday night... | | | Debate prep, "Reliable Sources" style | | I'm camping out at Hofstra this weekend... Hosting "Reliable Sources" from campus on Sunday morning... Featuring an exclusive interview with Commission on Presidential Debates executive director Janet Brown... Plus Jim Lehrer, Ann Compton, Dylan Byers, John Avlon, Frank Sesno, and Eleanor Clift. Join us Sunday, 11am ET, CNN...
-- Plus: Seth Meyers! Here's a preview of the interview... When I asked the late night host about his colleague Jimmy Fallon's treatment of Donald Trump... | | | Keep scrolling for more campaign news... | | | Strangest story of the day: | | | This guy was working for Apple and The Verge at the same time | | Heather Kelly writes: "Often a new job in technology is announced with a tweet about some 'personal news,' followed by a flood of congratulations. Verge reporter Chris Ziegler took a more subtle approach. The Verge on Friday said it discovered Ziegler had taken a job at Apple in July, but he never informed the tech publication or quit his job. Instead, Ziegler stopped filing articles and communicating with his bosses altogether."
--> "During that period, in the dark and concerned for Chris, we made every effort to contact him and to offer him help if needed," said Nilay Patel, The Verge's editor-in-chief, in a blog post.
So let's get this straight. As Kelly writes: "For months he was technically an employee at both companies, a news outlet that writes about technology and one of the biggest technology companies in the world."
Credit to The Verge for conducting an "internal review" and disclosing this strange situation. Apple isn't saying anything... And neither is Ziegler... | | | A glimpse at the future: Snapchat's spectacles | | Coolest thing I saw today: these secret Snapchat sunglasses.
They've been in the works for years, "but a leaked video is the first glimpse at what the product will look like," BI's Biz Carson reports. "Apparently called 'Spectacles,' the glasses appear to have a small camera on their frame... At the beginning of the video, a ring around the camera flashes lights, apparently to signal it is recording. The rest of the video weaves through images people might want to record, like a kid's birthday party, before it closes on a shot of grandparents watching the film on their phones... "
The video says these glasses come from "Snap Inc." The new name for Snapchat?
-- How BI says it got ahold of this video: "BI obtained the footage after a tipster sent us a link on YouTube. Snapchat exerted a copyright claim and took it down after Business Insider reached out. We captured the footage for news purposes before it was taken down..." | | An important piece by Frank Pallotta: The NFL is the biggest ratings powerhouse on TV, but so far this season even the mighty football league has found itself watching its ratings fall. Through the first two weeks of the regular season, the league's premiere game, NBC's "Sunday Night Football," is down 12% in viewership compared to last year; ESPN's big game, "Monday Night Football," is also down 12%; and CBS' first "Thursday Night Football" game fell a whopping 26%.
Of course, even with these declines, the NFL is still bigger than most everything else on TV. But any erosion in the ratings has to worry both TV networks and advertisers... Even if, as is suspected, it's being caused by a temporary "lack of big games and prominent names..." Read more from Frank here... | | | A more positive picture: "Thursday Night Football" | | | CBS's second "Thursday Night Football" game of the season was up 4% year-over-year. And the Twitter audience was up week-to-week: The stream averaged 327,000 viewers per minute, versus 243,000 during the first week of the live stream... | | | Twitter moving closer to a sale | | Twitter stock rocketed up 21% on Friday after CNBC's David Faber reported that the company may soon get a formal takeover offer. Google? Salesforce? Some other suitor? While "no sale is imminent," per CNBC, conversations are "picking up momentum..."
More: The FT reported that Twitter has retained Goldman Sachs to advise it on a possible sale. Paul La Monica notes that "Twitter CFO Anthony Noto used to work for GS..." | | | Who's going to succeed Dauman and Dooley? | | | "Viacom is considering three internal candidates," Bloomberg reports, naming "Wade Davis, chief financial officer; Robert Bakish, the head of Viacom's international TV networks; and Scott Mills, who oversees human resources." Remember, Tom Dooley will be gone in mid November... | | Per Bloomberg's sources, Viacom is also "weighing the sale of all or part of its 50% stake in the Epix premium movie channel." The stake could be worth $900 million-$1 billion. A few months ago Lions Gate signaled that its 31% stake may also be up for sale...
-- Even more change afoot: Rob Moore, the vice chairman of Paramount, is on the way out, per the NYT... | | "Gannett is ready to turn the page and look for other acquisition targets besides Tronc," the NYPost reported Thursday night, and one possibility is the newspaper company A.H. Belo, the owner of the Dallas Morning News. Gannett already owns the TV stations formerly owned by Belo.
A.H. Belo's market cap is about $150 million. The company is looking to sell, according to The Post. And "Gannett has scheduled a special board meeting next week." Belo stock jumped 13% Friday on the news... | | -- Best story of the day: By Poynter's Kristen Hare: The Honolulu Civil Beat "now has a 72-year-old intern..." (Poynter)
-- A good weekend read from Ryan Chittum in the new Traffic magazine: "The internet helped the media build bigger audiences than ever. Why aren't those readers worth anything?" (Traffic)
-- Facebook's "video ad debacle:" Some Wall Street analysts say it's "much ado about nothing," Barrons reports... (Barrons)
-- Via TheWrap's Brian Flood, here's how much $$$ the Murdochs are making this year... (TheWrap)
-- The Guardian's Jason Wilson profiles Tomi Lahren, The Blaze host "seen by many as the new Ann Coulter..." (The Guardian) | | | Charges dropped against Vice News reporter | | | Vice News news: "The Harris County District Attorney's Office dropped trespassing charges against Vice News reporter Alex Thompson on Friday, after he was arrested at an event held for Donald Trump at Houston's Omni Westside Hotel on September 17..." | | | "The media" is suffering from record low levels of trust, according to Gallup. It's troubling, for sure. But the WashPost's Paul Farhi says the term "the media" is now "so imprecise and generic that it has lost any meaning." "The media" is "essentially shorthand for anything you read, saw or heard today that you disagreed with or didn't like... Fact is, there really is no such thing as 'the media.' It's an invention, a tool, an all-purpose smear by people who can't be bothered to make distinctions." Read the rest of his open letter... | | | Clinton campaign's message to Holt | | | Clinton comms director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters Friday that the campaign has not "communicated directly with the moderator." But the campaign's message is clear: It wants Holt to step in and fact-check Trump when warranted. WashPost's Abby Phillip has details about Palmieri's comments here... | | | Clinton sets a record for Funny or Die | | | "Hillary Clinton's appearance on Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis is a bona fide hit," THR's Natalie Jarvey reports. The video -- you can watch it here -- "broke Funny or Die records after it appeared online on Sept. 22." It was viewed "more than 30 million times in its first 24 hours, the highest first-day viewership in Funny or Die history..." | | | "Profoundly sad day" for Glenn Beck | | | Tom Kludt reports: There was considerable disappointment Friday among conservatives opposed to Donald Trump following Ted Cruz's endorsement of the Republican nominee. But nobody took it harder than Glenn Beck. "Profoundly sad day for me," Beck wrote on his Facebook page. "Disappointment does not begin to describe. Maybe it is time to go to the mountains for a while." Read more from Tom here... | | Via Lisa France:
-- The weather is about to get a bit brisker, so what better time to chill? Here's some of what's streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu in October...
-- There is a new girl in Adam Levine's life. "The Voice" coach and wife Behati Prinsloo have welcomed their first child...
-- Kid Rock may be a Trump supporter, but Hillary Clinton has earned an endorsement of sorts from the rocker... | | Tell us what you think... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. See you Sunday from Hofstra! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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