| | | | | Exec summary: P&G reduces "wasteful" digital ad spending, Megyn Kelly interviews Putin, Twitter commits to getting "healthy," Hasan Minhaj gets a Netflix talk show, and much more... | | | Weinstein Co. deal is back on | | | Four days ago: "BANKRUPTCY!" Now: "An agreement." The beleaguered Weinstein Co. board has struck a $500 million deal to sell most of the studio's assets to the investor group led by Maria Contreras-Sweet, the investors said Thursday night. The deal is not yet official... There will be a 40-day closing process... But the current plan calls for the investor group to acquire 90 to 95% of the studio's assets and form a new company, essentially wiping away the Harvey Weinstein stain. Existing Weinstein Co. employees will be offered new jobs. My story has more details here... | | | Lawyers for both sides hashed out the agreement in a conference room at New York A.G. Eric Schneiderman's office in lower Manhattan on Thursday. Schneiderman sued Weinstein Co. two weeks ago, which obviously complicated the deal talks. But in recent days the A.G.'s office played a mediating role... Bringing the two sides together... And helping them get to a deal... | | | Schneiderman just issued a statement: "As part of these negotiations, we are pleased to have received express commitments from the parties that the new company will create a real, well-funded victims compensation fund, implement HR policies that will protect all employees, and will not unjustly reward bad actors. We will work with the parties in the weeks ahead to ensure that the parties honor and memorialize these commitments prior to closing. Our lawsuit remains active and investigation remains ongoing at this time." In other words, the suit against Harvey and Bob continues... | | P&G shifting digital $$'s | | | P&G CMO Marc Pritchard made some news on Thursday: | | Procter & Gamble "slashed spending on digital advertising by more than $200 million last year, after a recent push for more transparency had revealed such spending to be largely wasteful," the WSJ reports. The reductions impacted YouTube and other digital players. "P&G said it hasn't reduced its overall spending, but has shifted those digital dollars into other areas..."
-- Elsewhere: WPP founder Martin Sorrell says "2017 for us was not a pretty year..." (Reuters) | | | YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST... | | John Moody, the longtime Fox News exec who wrote a controversial column about the US Olympic committee last month, is no longer with Fox News, three people familiar with the matter told Oliver Darcy on Thursday. A Fox News spokesperson confirmed: "John Moody has retired from Fox News."
A source said Moody had planned on retiring before his recent column drew outrage. He was at Fox News on launch day and he played a key role in the network's growth... Here's the full story Darcy and I wrote... | | Fox using OJ to tackle "Idol" | | This is an old-school network TV scheduling stunt...
Brian Lowry emails: Fox will air "O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession?" directly opposite the March 11 premiere of ABC's "American Idol." It appears to be a transparent move to undermine ABC's premiere of Fox's former show. This is the kind of aggressive, in-your-face move for which Fox was famous in the old days...
Notably, the OJ tapes are culled from the 2006 special and book "If I Did It," which Fox ultimately backed out of airing; in fact, at the time Rupert Murdoch called it an "ill-considered project" and apologized to the Brown and Goldman families. The difference this time is that Simpson won't profit off of the special, and according to network sources, the families have been notified and didn't object. (Fox is also covering its flank by airing limited commercials and domestic abuse PSAs.) More... | | This Facebook experiment is OVER | | | Julia Waldow emails: After four months of testing, Facebook's Explore Feed trial is officially folding, News Feed boss Adam Mosseri announced in a blog post on Thursday. The Explore Feed tested out a separate feed for "pages," including posts from news outlets, but public response showed "people don't want two separate feeds," Mosseri said... | | | --> Context: In the six countries where Facebook ran this test, news organizations said "they were blindsided," the NYT notes. They also "complained that it had led to a surprising rise in misinformation." Mosseri's blog post admitted that "we didn't communicate the test clearly..." | | 🎧 This week's "Reliable" pod | | CNN's KFILE did it again this week: An inquiry by the investigative team led a political appointee at the Department of Interior to resign. The team found inflammatory comments in her social media history.
So I asked the KFILE team to come on this week's pod to tell the behind-the-scenes story. Andrew Kaczynski, Chris Massie and Nathan McDermott described the team's investigative methods... Which involve dead ends, smart sleuth work and video games...
>>> Listen to the pod via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn <<< | | -- A follow-up to last year: Megyn Kelly landed another interview with Vladimir Putin... The first clip was released on "NBC Nightly News" on Thursday... I hear this interview was in the works for more than two months... (NBC)
-- America's largest radio station operator, iHeartMedia, is "preparing to file for bankruptcy as soon as this weekend..." (WSJ)
-- Nancy Gibbs is heading to Harvard: She "has been named a visiting member of the faculty at Harvard Kennedy School and to the Edward R. Murrow Chair of Press, Politics, and Public Policy..." (Shorenstein) | | Just a few of today's surprises | | | Another day, another list of at least a dozen shocking stories and scandals... Here are just some of them... | | -- WashPost: "President Trump whiplashed Washington through 24 hours of chaos and confusion..." His "sudden policy changes" re: trade and guns "left some senior aides and Republican lawmakers wondering whether the White House had come unmoored..."
-- NBC and CNN report that national security adviser H.R. McMaster's departure is likely in the near future...
-- At the moment, A.G. Jeff Sessions "still has his job," CNN notes...
-- NYT: "Trump Is 'Losing a Limb' With the Departure of Hope Hicks"
-- Politico: "Trump ignored 'bright line' on discussing Russia with Hicks"
-- CNN exclusive: "FBI counterintel investigating Ivanka Trump business deal"
-- NBC exclusive: "Mueller eyes charges against Russians who stole, spread Democrats' emails"
-- The pricey furniture order for HUD secretary Ben Carson's private dining room has been cancelled after CNN exposed the $$$... | | | It's titled "Trump's Chaos Theory for the Oval Office Is Taking Its Toll." Mark Landler and Maggie Haberman report that Trump "is isolated and angry..." | | "This is a non-exhaustive list" | | | CNN produced this handy map "of the feuds and frustrations splitting the Trump White House." Notice the small print at the bottom: "This is a non-exhaustive list..." | | | Re: Trump's statement that he will impose stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the NYT says "supporters of the tariffs have begun broadcasting televised ads in recent days during programs that Mr. Trump has been known to watch. One such ad ran on Fox News minutes before the president's Twitter post on Thursday morning..." | | Tell me: How do you keep up? | | | Really, I'd like to know. How do you keep up with the flood of stories about DC dysfunction? Do you tune in or tune out? Do you have certain sites or services that keep you informed? I'm thinking about this topic for Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." Because this week has been especially newsy... So send me an email with your view... | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Vox's Laura McGann critiques the media's coverage of Hope Hicks: "The media undermined Hicks with sexist language right up until her last day" (Vox)
-- Podcasts and voice assistants are teaming up under Gimlet Media... (WSJ)
-- THR discusses the pay gap between CEOs and employees in big media, using Snap's Evan Spiegel as an example... (THR)
-- Gizmodo takes us for a ride with a "night stringer," driving around NYC in search of "accidents, crimes, disasters of all sizes in the hopes of selling their footage to media outlets faster than their competitors..." (Gizmodo) | | Who's going to buy Time mag? | | | Notice anything missing in this slide from Meredith's investors day? Alex Weprin did. On Twitter he pointed out that the list of "premium national media brands" (magazines) left out Time and Entertainment Weekly, two of the biggest titles that Meredith acquired by buying Time Inc. This is the latest indication of an impending sale. Meredith has confirmed that it's undertaking a "portfolio review," per Keith Kelly's latest story. Meredith says "there's no timetable" for the review yet.... | | | ESPN's sales process for FiveThirtyEight "is expected to conclude in the coming weeks," according to Ben Mullin's new WSJ story. He says "the final contenders include ABC News, The Athletic website and The Atlantic..." | | Time's Up legal defense fund takes on 1,000 cases | | | Choe Melas emails with her latest: Tina Tchen, co-founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, tells me they have taken on 1,000 cases. So far a total of 1,600 individuals have requested subsidized legal aid. The group has raised $21 million but Tchen says it's not enough. Check out my interview with Tchen -- and how she plans to keep the momentum going after awards season comes to a close this weekend... | | | Brian Lowry emails: "Frontline" and the BBC have collaborated on "Weinstein," recapping allegations against Harvey Weinstein, in a documentary timed to precede the Academy Awards. Premiering Friday, it's a solid but somewhat hurried documentary that likely cries out for a sequel... | | | For the record, part three | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Congrats to the NYT and Droga5 on being named "campaign of the year" finalists for AdAge's Creativity Awards, for their campaign "The Truth Is Hard..." (AdAge)
-- BuzzFeed's latest stab at diversification: It's bringing its "Tasty" brand to Walmart, with a new line of kitchen products... (Recode)
-- The Daily Beast's Thursday night exclusive: "Secret Documents From Russia's Election Trolls Leak" (Beast) | | A suspected Russian troll in the U.S. tries to erase her past | | | Donie O'Sullivan emails: We went to Seattle this week after an independent Russian TV channel reported a former employee of the Internet Research Agency, the troll group that was charged by Mueller, had moved there. She didn't want to speak to us, but her story, much of which she had previously posted publicly on social media, is intriguing... | | Twitter wants to get "healthy" | | In a tweetstorm on Thursday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey fessed up -- he talked about the abuse, manipulation and misinformation that flows through the site and said "we aren't proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough." He says Twitter is seeking help from experts to determine "what health means for Twitter." So what would a "healthy Twitter" even look like? That's what Wired tried to figure out...
--> Meanwhile, a particularly heinous Twitter hoax: "Officials from Twitter are going to Capitol Hill to explain how impostors could carry off a hoax to undermine the credibility of The Miami Herald and post fake tweets aimed at inflaming the public after the mass shooting at a Parkland high school." The fake tweets impersonated the Herald and one of its reporters. "The Twitter officials were summoned by the office of Sen. Bill Nelson..." | | Julia Waldow emails: Some highlights from Pew's new survey of social media use in 2018: "Some 78% of 18- to 24-year-olds use Snapchat, and a sizable majority of these users (71%) visit the platform multiple times per day. Similarly, 71% of Americans in this age group now use Instagram and close to half (45%) are Twitter users."
-- More: "Facebook remains the most widely used social media platform by a relatively healthy margin: some 68% of U.S. adults are now Facebook users. Other than the video-sharing platform YouTube, none of the other sites or apps measured in this survey are used by more than 40% of Americans." | | | For the record, part four | | | -- Just a few days ago, he had a piece in USA Today. Now InfoWars's DC bureau chief Jerome Corsi has been "kicked off YouTube for life..." (Gizmodo)
-- Hulu has nabbed the naming rights for the theater at MSG... (THR)
-- Correction: I misspelled Ta-Nehisi Coates' name last night while linking to his column about writing Captain America... (The Atlantic) | | | The March issue of VF is arriving on newsstands... And the mag is preparing for its annual Oscars party... with new EIC Radhika Jones in charge. In her first editor's note, she acknowledges Graydon Carter and says the March issue "bears both our fingerprints, though the pages that follow will give you a hint of the new look to come." She adds: "It's a privilege and an absolute pleasure to be entrusted with this job...." | | "Avengers" moving up to April 27 | | WSJ's Ben Fritz tweeted: "Disney/Marvel is starting summer movie season a week earlier."
Details via Deadline: "We've just hit March, and a date change for Disney/Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War means the sequel is officially less than two months away. The pic's release has been moved up a week to April 27..." | | T-minus three days til the Oscars | | Changing face of Academy adds suspense to the best picture race | | Brian Lowry emails: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expanded its membership by roughly 20% over the past two years, seeking enhanced representation by women and people of color after the #OscarsSoWhite campaign. The change in profile, though, has also made the group harder to read in advance of this year's Oscars, somewhat mirroring the way revised voting procedures a few years appeared to alter choices made by its TV counterpart that presents the Emmys, with "Game of Thrones" among the beneficiaries.
Read Lowry's full story here... | | More from Brian Lowry: At first blush, it's hard to imagine that Ryan Seacrest brings enough to the party as a host of E!'s red carpet Oscar preshow to keep him on board, with the potential awkwardness -- including stars who are waffling on whether to speak to him -- that could ensue from the sexual-harassment allegation against him. But the relationship is somewhat complicated by the fact that Seacrest is also a producer with broad ties to the network, including "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and its various spinoffs...
--> Stelter's counterpoint: The red carpet shows are Seacrest shows through and through!
--> Kelly Ripa on Thursday's "Live:" "I cannot wait to see you there" at the Oscars... "You are a privilege to work with and I adore you. I know what a professional, great person you are, and I feel very, very blessed to work with you each and every day..." | | | For the record, part five | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Because she's Oprah Winfrey, the media mogul gave her "A Wrinkle In Time" co-star Mindy Kaling a baby gift that had to be delivered by U-Haul...
-- Bobby Brown says he does not think drugs killed Whitney Houston...
-- An unreleased Amy Winehouse demo recording has surfaced... | | Minhaj to host weekly talk show on Netflix | | | Brian Lowry emails: Add Hasan Minhaj to the list of talent that "The Daily Show" has developed and had poached by other networks and services. On Thursday Netflix announced that he will be hosting a new show on the service. He joins a pretty stellar roster of "Daily" alumni, including Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and Samantha Bee... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
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