| | | | | Exec summary: It's been a head-spinning 24 hours. There's only one huge story in the media world right now... so let's get to it... | | How does the most popular new TV show in America get canceled in a matter of hours? Turns out all it takes is a few hateful tweets by a star and a few conference calls by network executives.
ABC and Disney execs woke up to Roseanne Barr's racist and bizarre tweets on Tuesday morning. The execs determined this was "unsurvivable" for Barr. They decided within a couple of hours to cancel her show. | | Key facts for the morning-after news coverage:
-- The view inside Disney was that Tuesday was the third or fourth time when Barr's tweets had presented a problem for ABC... AND that this time was by far the worst yet...
-- Inside ABC, there's now a sense of PRIDE in how quickly this controversy was contained... but there's also some second-guessing about why the network got back in business with Barr to begin with...
-- Is the cancellation a rare case of morals over money, people over profits? Yes, to some degree... But if ABC had sanctioned Barr and kept the show on the fall schedule, advertisers likely would have shunned the show...
-- It's not just ABC that's pulling the plug: The outlets carrying "Roseanne" repeats, like Hulu and the Paramount Network, are pulling the show too...
-- In the popular press, from left to right to far right, there's very little sympathy for Barr. Josh Barro's Tuesday afternoon tweet is holding true: "I've been seeing a lot more 'well here comes the conservative backlash over the Roseanne cancellation' than actual conservative backlash over the cancellation..."
-- BUT Barr still has a fan base... There are untold millions of people who share her conspiratorial views, and Tuesday's chain of events may have reinforced those views... Right now she's BACK on Twitter, retweeting her fans... | | I guess Barr is not leaving Twitter, after all | | Barr's 11:03pm ET tweet: "Don't feel sorry for me, guys!! -- I just want to apologize to the hundreds of people, and wonderful writers (all liberal) and talented actors who lost their jobs on my show due to my stupid tweet. I will be on Joe Rogan's podcast friday."
Before and after that post, she retweeted fans who portrayed her as a victim of a liberal media double standard. One of the retweets claimed that "ABC is allowing the Trump haters to control their station." Some of the other tweets shared by Barr promoted kooky conspiracy theories... | | -- She's tweeting, but will Barr issue a formal statement?
-- What will ABC schedule Tuesdays at 8pm this fall in place of "Roseanne?"
-- Is there ANY possibility of a "Roseanne" sitcom without Barr? Some attempt to keep the cast and crew together in some way?
-- Will there be any measurable backlash from her fans?
-- Will President Trump comment at all? He ignored the controversy at his Tuesday night rally... | | Here's a look at what happened, hour by hour, from my story:
The ABC bosses woke up to Barr's overnight posts attacking Valerie Jarrett, Chelsea Clinton and George Soros. Clinton responded right away and refuted Barr's conspiratorial claims. At the same time, Barr's racist tweet about Jarrett was catching fire.
-- By 7am PT, ABCers were talking by email and phone... Channing Dungey, Ben Sherwood and Bob Iger were the key trio of execs...
-- 7:30am PT: Barr tweeted out an apology to Jarrett and said she was "leaving Twitter." But ABC had heard this before. The Q within ABC quickly became, "Is there a path forward?" In other words, would any apology by Barr or sanction by ABC be sufficient?
-- The answer was no. By 9am PT, it was clear to the virtually assembled execs that the sitcom would be canceled. "There was no way to come back from this," one of my sources said. The conversation turned to when and HOW to cancel the show.
-- A call was arranged with Barr, her publicist, and E.P. Tom Werner, whose production company Carsey-Werner owns the sitcom. I'm not clear on the exact time of the call. But ABC conveyed that "there was no way to come back from this..."
-- Meantime, some of Barr's colleagues were starting to speak out on social media...
-- Per the NYT, Tuesday happened to be the writing and producing staff's first day back at work for season two. An ABC source told me the staffers were just starting to arrive when the cancellation news hit at 10:48am PT...
-- Dungey's one-sentence statement: "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show." On CNN, I admitted to Wolf Blitzer that I was surprised. When we started the hour, he asked me if ABC might fire her, and I basically said "no way..."
-- As the WashPost's Margaret Sullivan said on Twitter: "What?! Doing the right thing is so rare now that it has the power to stun..."
Here's my full tick-tock story... | | Now 200+ people involved in the making of "Roseanne" are out of work. One of my ABC sources pointedly blamed Barr, saying "that's the collateral damage that Roseanne has to live with."
>> Werner said in a statement that he said he hoped "Roseanne seeks the help she so clearly needs..."
>> The NYT's John Koblin spoke with Bruce Rasmussen, an E.P. on the show, who said "we were gut-punched. It was really depressing that that one stupid sentence that she sent out destroyed a whole bunch of peoples' jobs." | | Brian Lowry emails: It's not gloating in any way to point out that the pitfalls of ABC's "Roseanne" revival were evident before the show's premiere, given its star's penchant for outlandish, unpredictable utterances, especially via social media. Put another way: If ABC executives -- who were too quick to take credit for greenlighting the show as a response to Trump's America, as they did in the NYT -- are shocked that they were put in an untenable position, they shouldn't be...
>> Read Lowry's full analysis here...
>> Lowry also wrote about the significance of Channing Dungey's position... | | -- Matt Belloni said it really well on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon: "It's almost as if they knew this would happen someday."
-- ICM dropped Barr as a client shortly after the show's cancellation...
-- ABC is suspending its for-your-consideration Emmys campaign on behalf of the show, THR reports...
-- James Poniewozik's lead in Wednesday's NYT: "There is, it turns out, a line..."
-- My two cents from "AC360:" There should be more shows on TV that appeal to red state America... But the stars of those shows can't be promoting racist, hateful conspiracy theories on Twitter... | | Honestly, canceling "Roseanne" is the easy part | | | Don Lemon zoomed out on "CNN Tonight" and asked the bigger question: "What is America going to do about the normalization of racism?" | | -- At Code Conference on Tuesday, James Murdoch said "it's time to do something new" but didn't say what that might be... (THR)
-- Recode has other highlights from Murdoch's on-stage interview here... He said half of all Hulu subscribers pay for the ad-free version... (Recode)
-- Former WPP CEO Martin Sorrell "has agreed to take the helm at Derriston Capital, a listed shell company he plans to use to acquire marketing and advertising businesses..." (WSJ) | | Another Russian journalist shot and killed | | | "Prominent Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, a critic of Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria, has been shot and killed in Kiev, Ukraine officials said late Tuesday," CNN reports. Local media said Babchenko was shot in the back, at his home... | | CBS v. Redstone developments | | Via the NYT: "Shari Redstone, the CBS Corporation's main shareholder, moved on Tuesday to quell a rebellion at the media company, filing a lawsuit that accused the CBS board of directors of improperly trying to strip her of control."
We'll see what the Delaware court decides... In the meantime, get caught up here... | | CNN responds to letter from Morgan Freeman's lawyers | | Morgan Freeman's attorneys sent CNN a 10-page letter accusing the network "of defaming their client by running a story accusing the star of misconduct," TheWrap's Tony Maglio reports. "At a minimum, CNN immediately needs to issue a retraction and apologize to Mr. Freeman," the letter stated.
A CNN spokesman responded by pointing out that Freeman already issued two apologetic statements.
"The unfounded accusations made by Mr. Freeman's lawyer are disappointing and are difficult to reconcile with Mr. Freeman's own public statements in the aftermath of the story," the network said. "CNN stands by its reporting and will respond forcefully to any attempt by Mr. Freeman or his representatives to intimidate us from covering this important public issue." | | -- What?! "Marketing firm Didit is close to acquiring Gawker.com and if successful intends to relaunch the blog, known for publishing irreverent articles that were sometimes controversial, with a new editorial policy to only post content it considers to be positive..." (WSJ)
-- Andrew Lincoln is "poised" to leave "The Walking Dead" at the end of the show's ninth season... (Deadline)
-- Brian Karem's latest: "All Presidents Lie. So Why Are Trump's Lies Different?" Here's his answer... (Playboy) | | The NBA Playoffs notched big ratings... | | | Frank Pallotta emails: The Western Conference Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets were a big hit for TNT Monday night. Game 7 between the two teams averaged a huge 14.8 million viewers... and the overall series averaged 9.4 million viewers, a 45% bump from last year... | | ...And the NBA Finals are going to be huge | | | Brian Lowry emails: There have been some snarky tweets about the repetitiveness of the NBA Finals, with Golden State v. Cleveland for the fourth consecutive year. But I suspect that clash-of-titans factor might actually benefit the ratings -- assuming the series is competitive -- than new blood might have. We'll know more after Game 1 tips off Thursday... | | "News Flash! The election was 447 days ago. The sitting U.S. President is still harping on an election and calling for an investigation into his former opponent? This should not be normalized."
--Brooke Baldwin on CNN Tuesday afternoon... | | Tom Friedman's new warning | | Remember Tom Friedman's stark anti-Trump column -- "code red" -- from last February? He's out with another warning in Wednesday's NYT.
"Again, this is Code Red," he writes: "American democracy is truly threatened today -- by the man sitting in the Oval Office and the lawmakers giving him a free pass..." | | "Donald Trump is no longer hiding his impeachment strategy" | | | That's the headline on this piece by VF's Abigail Tracy. She writes: "While Mueller quietly builds what appears to be a legal case against members of the president's campaign, Trump is already fighting any potential charges in the only arena where they will truly matter: the media..." | | | While everyone awaits the judge's ruling... | | Time Warner's rivals file a joint brief | | Hadas Gold emails: In a joint filing on Tuesday evening, CBS, 21st Century Fox, Univision, Viacom, and Disney jointly filed a brief in the AT&T and Time Warner antitrust case. The issue at hand is the arbitration offer Turner gave to distributors after the lawsuit was filed. It's meant to help mediate disputes between a distributor and Turner -- but RCN and the American Cable Association filed a brief asking a judge, as a possible "remedy" to antitrust concerns, to make the arbitration process more open, namely allowing a distributor to have information regarding Turner's other contracts.
But the five companies asked the judge to not make the arbitration process so that a competing distributor would provide to AT&T with detailed information about their contracts with AT&T because "these licensing agreements contain extraordinarily sensitive information that is central to the Content Companies' respective business strategies, including, among other things, pricing, carriage, and other business terms." | | Letterman and Stern, streaming | | Brian Lowry emails: David Letterman's final installment of his Netflix talk show "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction" features Howard Stern. The two engage in a mildly newsworthy conversation about Trump as a guest on their shows, but the real insight comes from their discussion about how miserable they were -- in terms of their personal relationships -- in their driving pursuit of success...
The episode will debut on Thursday. Read more here... | | "From #MeToo to #TooSoon" | | Megan Thomas emails: In a guest column for THR, documentarian Barry Avrich writes about John Lasseter's possible return to Disney/Pixar and "Hollywood's infuriating journey from #MeToo to #TooSoon."
Avrich: "Having just completed The Reckoning, the first post-#MeToo documentary, I am of the opinion that bringing back some of these disgraced players, wherever they lie on the bad behavior spectrum, is putting women on the losing end of the equation again. It makes their stories and pain irrelevant. The paradox is that Hollywood took the first step in making changes in the face of a widening scandal, and now it's considering bringing back some of the bad guys #TooSoon." Read the rest... | | | HEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS LETTER? Email your feedback and thoughts to brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thank you! | | | | | | |
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