| | | | | Exec summary: Nancy Gibbs is stepping down at Time mag... Nina Garcia is stepping up at Elle... John Oliver is staying at HBO... Maggie and Glenn are writing a book... Hope Hicks has been promoted... Hillary Clinton has lots to say about the media... And the Sky deal is in doubt... | | | But I want to lead with something else... day one of Goldman Sachs' annual Communacopia media conference... because lots of newsy tidbits came out of the CEO Q&A's. I was especially interested in AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson's remarks about the pending AT&T-Time Warner deal. How will the wireless company take advantage of HBO, TNT, Warner Bros., CNN once the deal closes in the coming weeks? Here's what he said... | | AT&T's plans for Time Warner are taking shape | | -- Data: Stephenson's overarching message was about data. He said the "value accretion" from the deal "comes from taking an incredibly rich trove of data that exists in these communication companies, and taking advantage of that in the media company." He's talking about viewership data from DirecTV, phone streaming, etc... and using it to make TV shows and target ads...
-- Independence: "I know very little about running a media company," Stephenson said. He emphasized the differences between telecom and entertainment and said "it's really critical that we run this as a separate and independent company..."
-- Investment: More $$$ for HBO to buy more shows? Stephenson repeatedly talked up the importance of content spending. "Continuing to invest aggressively and even stepping up our investment in premium content is going to be a priority for us," he said. He also mentioned the need for a "more aggressive pace" with "direct to consumer" products a la HBO Now...
-- Advertising: Where's this newfound $$$ for investment going to come from? Stephenson said it'll come, at least in part, from increased ad revenues, "which then you use to reinvest more into content." He said Brian Lesser, who recently left GroupM to run AT&T's ad and analytics efforts, will play a key role in the ad efforts...
-- Bundling: As the WSJ explains here, "video streaming giveaways" have become "the latest front in the fight for cellular customers." AT&T is about to start offering free HBO subscriptions to more wireless customers. And "after we close the Time Warner deal, we have some stuff queued up," Stephenson said... | | CNN didn't come up in Stephenson's Q&A, but HBO, TNT and TBS did. He said the execs within Time Warner -- "the best of the industry, Richard Plepler, John Martin, and Kevin Tsujihara are really, really good, and they are really, really good at managing very creative talent" -- will have access to data they haven't had before. "I have kind of some high expectations on this," he said. How can this data "begin to influence their decision-making?"
"I don't think data replaces creativity; I don't think Steven Spielberg is replaced by Big Data," he cautioned, according to the Seeking Alpha transcript. But "I do think an executive in the media industry has an opportunity to think differently and use the data to influence their investment decisions, how much are you willing to pay for certain content, how much are you willing to invest to create certain content because you have this unique data?" | | Also at the conference...
-- Cablevision owner Altice says it's not in a hurry: "'We'll be patient,' Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei told investors as his company is rumored to be working on an offer to buy Charter Communications..." (Via THR)
-- Speaking of Charter: CEO Tom Rutledge waved off deal talk. "We have a great opportunity as a company, and we want to execute it," he said. Per the NYPost, he made a bold prediction: "We'll have more video customers three years from now than we do today..."
-- Comcast CEO Brian Roberts' message: "We came here to say things are great, and they are." Yes, Comcast may well shed 100,000+ subscribers in this quarter, partly for hurricane-related reasons, but for other reasons as well. Roberts said: Just because of a "90-day period, you should not change your strategy jerky-jerky..." | | More, more, more from Netflix | | Variety's headline about David Wells' presentation at the conference: "Could Netflix Spend $20 Million per Hour on a Series? CFO Says It's Conceivable." You might remember that Reed Hastings mused last year about what a "$20 million-an-hour" piece of TV would look like, given that "Game of Thrones" is in the $10 million-an-hour range.
"We can support that level of quality," Wells said Tuesday... And "you should expect us to continue to invest..." | | | Going back to Stephenson for a second: He said AT&T-TWX is "creating a media and communications, telecom and technology company that we think is going to be really, really unique." Unique, but then he said: "This is a trend in terms of industry that you are going to see more of." Content + distribution. So... Verizon + who? | | Nancy Gibbs stepping down | | | VF's Joe Pompeo broke the news Tuesday night: Nancy Gibbs is preparing to step down after four years as the EIC of Time mag. She'll remain on the job through the end of the year, as Tom Kludt reports here. Rich Battista and Alan Murray said in an internal memo that they "plan to move quickly to name a new editor-in-chief..." | | Jemele Hill called Trump a "white supremacist." ESPN says "she recognizes her actions were inappropriate" | | On Monday night, ESPN's Jemele Hill tweeted: "Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists." On Tuesday afternoon, amid an outcry from conservatives on social media, ESPN responded: Hill's comments "do not represent the position of ESPN. We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate."
Now for the backlash to the backlash. Deadspin's headline: "ESPN Issues Craven Apology For Jemele Hill's Accurate Descriptions Of Donald Trump." NYT's Greg Howard tweeted: "espn threw jemele hill under the bus in order to appease the same pigs who bombard her with racism and sexism all day every single day."
--> Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson continued his anti-ESPN campaign on his Tuesday night show, dubbing the network "Endless Stupid Political Nagging." Clay Travis of Fox Sports joined him again to slam ESPN... | | -- "Two of the essential stars of the Trump administration," Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, "have agreed to do a Trump book for Random House," Joe Pompeo reports... (VF)
-- Nina Garcia will succeed Robbie Myers as the next EIC of Elle. "I am looking to amplify the DNA of the brand," she told the NYT's Matthew Schneier, who broke the news... (NYT)
-- There's been a "palpable, and perhaps permanent, turn against the tech industry" in the U.S., Ben Smith writes. He says "Tucker Carlson and Franklin Foer have found common ground..." and "Rupert Murdoch, never shy to use his media power to advance his commercial interests, is hard at work..." (BuzzFeed)
-- Robert Thomson, CEO of Murdoch's News Corp, has been an outspoken critic of Google, but he had something positive to say on Tuesday: "Google has indicated to us that they'll bring First Click Free to an end..." (The Australian) | | Hope Hicks rules the White House world | | Hadas Gold emails: Hope Hicks is now the official, not just "temporary," W.H. communications director, as Bloomberg first reported today. That makes her the youngest communications director in W.H. history. Plus, it means we now have a big female-powered White House communications shop with Hicks and press secretary Sarah Sanders.
-- Also appointed on Tuesday: Mercedes Schlapp, "senior advisor for strategic comms..." | | Wednesday night: Sean Spicer's first TV interview since leaving the W.H. | | | And it's with Jimmy Kimmel... | | Meanwhile, Anthony Scaramucci is... | | | ...Promoting something called "The Scaramucci Post." This popped up on Twitter Tuesday night... | | Senators likely to seek public testimony from Facebook | | | WSJ's Byron Tau and Deepa Seetharaman report: "The bipartisan leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday they are likely to call representatives from Facebook to Capitol Hill to publicly detail Russian activity on the company's platform during the 2016 election..." | | Zucker: "Facebook has not been forthcoming..." | | | CNN prez Jeff Zucker speaking at the Women in the World Summit on Monday: "Facebook has not been forthcoming about their role in the election and their feet need to be held to the fire more. I think it's outrageous that Facebook won't be more transparent about advertising they took from Russia... If all of us don't speak up more about that, then shame on us." | | John Oliver re-ups with HBO | | Frank Pallotta emails: John Oliver isn't going anywhere. On Tuesday HBO renewed "Last Week Tonight" for three more seasons. That means Oliver will be on the network through 2020, with each season consisting of 30 episodes. Read more...
-- The real story: Oliver stayed with HBO rather than seeking some other TV home...
-- Remember, HBO just renewed "Real Time with Bill Maher" through 2020 as well. Despite competition from the Netflixes of the world, most late-night hosts are locked into long-term contracts... | | -- UTA acquired the Greater Talent Network on Tuesday. "The business of live entertainment has never been bigger," Jay Sures says. "This deal gives their clients more access to more services, and gives UTA clients true expertise on the speaking circuit..." (Bloomberg)
-- Discovery, Viacom, A&E, AMC, and Scripps are "banding together" for a new sports-free streaming cable service... (WSJ)
-- A followup to Monday's news: The Russian news agency RT is "now under scrutiny as foreign agent..." (Yahoo)
-- Writing for The New Yorker, Thomas Beller describes why the shuttering of The Cambodia Daily was "devastating..." (TNY)
-- Correction: My apologies to Poynter's Kelly McBride! I misspelled her name last night... | | Recovering from Irma: Coverage notes | | -- My sense as a viewer is that CNN continued to cover Irma's aftermath much more extensively than its rivals on Tuesday. That's clearly true right now during prime time, with Anderson Cooper still on the ground in FL...
-- Nielsen is beginning to get back up and running... Some Saturday and Sunday #'s were shared with clients on Tuesday... As expected, it looks like The Weather Channel and CNN had the most eyeballs during the storm...
-- Via Julia Waldow: Here are some stories about how local newsrooms hunkered down to cover the hurricane... (Poynter)
-- Have you heard of "Colleagues Helping Colleagues?" It's an emergency fund that helps public media employees rebuild their lives after disasters... (Poynter) | | | Sandra Gonzalez was backstage at the "Hand in Hand" telethon for hurricane victims. The hour-long special was shown on 15 networks Tuesday night. "At the close of the show, Billy Crystal put the total raised at more than $14 million, with that number expected to climb," since it's airing on a tape delay on the west coast. Read her full report here... | | ICYMI, Heather Kelly and CNN's team in Cupertino has a complete recap of Apple's product reveals. I'm personally more excited about the Apple Watch upgrades than the iPhone X or the Apple TV 4K box. Jamie bought me the watch for my birthday last week, but we decided to return it... knowing the new "Series 3" watch was about to be announced... so she's going to get me the new one 😃
-- Related: Joshua Benton's must read for media insiders: "These are today's key Apple updates for publishers" | | Most impressive part: the building? | | Samuel Burke emails from the event: There was major sticker shock over the new iPhone, but the even bigger price tag really on display here was the new $5 billion "Apple Park" HQ. There's been a lot written about it, but when you walk up and see the building for the first time, it's surreal. It actually looks like a flying saucer has landed on earth. Unlike anything I've ever seen before. And it's really Apple flexing some muscle to show its might -- not just in the tech world, but in the all the businesses its ecosystem now touches...
Also: Security like you've never seen in your life. Even more than when I've met heads of state. The campus isn't actually finished yet... So Apple made sure that no pesky members of the media wandered out of sight... | | | And tweeted this photo from the event: | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "AMC has put in development a drama based on Wesley Lowery's bestselling nonfiction book 'They Can't Kill Us All...'" (Deadline)
-- Via Hadas Gold: Kid Rock denied the Detroit Free Press press credentials to his concert after the paper published a critical column... (Free Press)
-- Rebecca Baker, deputy head of news at the NY Daily News, is the 101st president of the Society of Professional Journalists... (NYDN)
-- Simon Dumenco's latest: "When it comes to the media economy, I'll take sad, proactive realism over hysterical fatalism -- and/or delusional growth-chasing -- any day." (AdAge)
-- I missed this on Monday: Felix Gillette's look at The Hill's plans for a "web-based makeover" with lots more video... (Bloomberg) | | Hillary Clinton calls Fox a "dedicated propaganda channel" -- and says Dems need to compete | | In "What Happened" and in interviews, Hillary Clinton is explicitly saying the media playing field was tipped in Donald Trump's favor during the campaign. "Empty podiums." Too little policy coverage. "Reality TV."
What stands out most to me are Clinton's proposed solutions. She thinks there should be a lot more liberal-leaning shows and publications to counteract a right-wing media apparatus that she calls "propaganda."
"The other side has dedicated propaganda channels. That's what I call Fox News. It has outlets like Breitbart and crazy Infowars and things like that," she said on the liberal "Pod Save America" podcast. She called Sinclair a "new threat" too.
"I don't understand why people who share our views aren't more willing to invest in media that can be competitive," she said to Dems. "Because what you've got is a right wing advocacy propaganda, and you've got a kind of mainstream media that engages in false equivalency. And it's tough, if you are a Democrat, trying to navigate through that." So that's why she endorsed Verrit... Here's my full story about Clinton's media critiques... | | HRC's book is #1 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble's bestseller lists, as Frank Pallotta reports here. Take a look at its Amazon page, and you'll see hundreds of mean-spirited one-star reviews... I spotted tweets from writer/publisher Jason Pinter, who concluded that this must've been a coordinated effort by anti-Clinton types...
-- Related: Clinton held an hours-long book signing at B&N Union Square on Tuesday... with pizza delivered to fans who waited in line... The above photo is via Gabriel Debenedetti, who was there... | | Tuesday's other book launch | | Katy Tur's new book about the Trump campaign, "Unbelievable," is #3 on Amazon right now, aided by promotional appearances on "Today" and "Morning Joe..."
--> Journos surmised that this @realDonaldTrump was a response to her TV hits: "Fascinating to watch people writing books and major articles about me and yet they know nothing about me & have zero access. #FAKE NEWS!" | | Yet another setback for Murdoch's Sky deal | | Will Rupert Murdoch's dream takeover of Sky ever come true? Hadas Gold emails: The UK's culture secretary Karen Bradley said Tuesday that she intends to order an "extensive review" of 21st Century Fox's planned $15 billion takeover of Sky because of concerns about their "genuine commitment to broadcasting standards" and the increased influence it would give the Murdoch family in British media. Our colleague Charles Riley has a full report here.
-- Bottom line: Fox News, which is lifting up the company's profits in the U.S., is dragging down this deal in the UK...
-- The broadcasting standards review came as somewhat of a surprise. In an August letter to Ofcom, the British broadcasting authority, Bradley expressed concerns about both the sexual harassment allegations at Fox News and how the network handled the Seth Rich case. In a follow-up letter to Bradley, Ofcom told Bradley that while the sexual harassment allegations were alarming, Fox took the appropriate steps... and the Rich case didn't raise any issues "that would warrant us opening a UK investigation into compliance with broadcasting standards." (So Bradley essentially overruled Ofcom...) | | | Gold adds: Fox said it was "disappointed" by Tuesday's announcement, adding it did not believe that Bradley had grounds to question its broadcasting standards. It urged her to make a final decision quickly. There's not much more the Murdochs can do. Bloomberg's Chris Hughes says "the chances of the deal happening have diminished." Odds of success? "50:50, at best." | | | For the record, part four | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- This annual study finds that progress for representation of women in broadcast TV -- both behind and on-camera -- was slow during the 2016-2017 season... There was more progress at streaming services... (Variety)
-- Amazon is developing a docu-series that will follow the University of Michigan football team -- 11-time national champions -- through the 2017 season... (Variety)
-- Viacom has laid off 20 employees from Spike, TV Land, and CMT as the Paramount Network gets ready to launch... (THR)
-- Interesting read: How "Black Mirror" predicted the rise of new Apple technology... (THR) | | Time's event for "Firsts" | | An Phung emails: One hour before announcing her departure from Time, Nancy Gibbs kicked off the mag's "Firsts: Women Who Are Changing the World" event at its lower Manhattan HQ, where guests gathered to celebrate female trailblazers. A panel of four women, each of whom were featured in one of the 46 interview videos Time unveiled earlier this month, regaled the audience with stories of their climb to the top. Gibbs, who herself is the first women to sit at the top of Time's masthead, played moderator to the panel, which featured Sylvia Earle, Carla Hayden, Maya Lin, and Kathryn Smith...
-- Fun fact: The portraits of the 46 women and the 12 cover photos for the magazine were shot entirely on an iPhone... | | Louis C.K. skirts Q's about "rumors" | | Megan Thomas emails: Louis C.K. is OK talking about his new, very dark comedy, "I Love You, Daddy" -- he directed the film and plays a television writer whose 17-year-old daughter is seduced by a 70-something filmmaker and rumored pedophile -- but in a new interview with the NYT's Cara Buckley, he wouldn't address accusations about his own alleged sexual misconduct toward female comics.
"If you actually participate in a rumor, you make it bigger and you make it real." So it's not real? "No," he responded. "They're rumors, that's all that is." | | "Star Wars: Episode IX" has a new director and a new release date | | | Frank Pallotta emails: The biggest brand in the galaxy has a new director, and it's an old one. On Tuesday morning Disney said J.J. Abrams would direct "Star Wars: Episode IX," finishing the trilogy he started with 2015's smash, "The Force Awakens." Then on Tuesday afternoon the company said that the film will shift from a May to December 2019 release… so hey, another Christmas with the Skywalkers... | | Brian Lowry emails: Hosting the Emmys has become an opportunity for Stephen Colbert to take a kind of victory lap, in "what a difference a year (and election) makes" fashion. Not only is he now the late-night ratings leader in total audience, but he's nominated in the variety series category, after having been conspicuously overlooked in his first season.
Colbert discusses it in a Variety profile, but the turnaround seems to be twofold -- a sharper voice thanks to Trump's election, and a better-run ship with Chris Licht coming on as executive producer. And there's this point from Variety's Brian Steinberg: "No late-night host on broadcast has launched as sustained a campaign against a sitting U.S. president as Colbert."
Read Lowry's full column here... | | | Another one from Lowry: The latest edition of "American Horror Story," subtitled "Cult," incorporated the presidential election and partisan divide as its jumping-off point, and at least ratings-wise, the stunt appeared to work: Per FX, the Sept. 5 premiere amassed 6.9 million viewers on a live-plus-3-day basis, and just over 9 million counting linear and non-linear platforms -- ranking behind only "The Walking Dead" for basic cable dramas. ("Basic" cable, incidentally, omits "Game of Thrones" from the conversation...) | | | For the record, part five | | | | -- Sandra Gonzalez reports: "Lady Gaga is hoping her forthcoming Netflix documentary will raise awareness of chronic illness, as she herself battles with fibromyalgia..." | | -- Lisa Respers France emails: Angelina Jolie turned the Toronto International Film Festival into a family affair when she walked the red carpet of her new film with her six children. Jolie produced and directed the Netflix film "First They Killed My Father..."
-- One more from Lisa: Billie Lourd says she auditioned for the character of Rey in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." She got another, smaller role but was able to act opposite her mother, the late Carrie Fisher... | | | Email reliablesources@cnn.com... we 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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