Exec summary: A looming auction for SKY, Spotify's big move, NBC's "three-peat," ESPN's subscriber news, THR's list, plus much more...
"Hannity and Trump" | | Fox News has been simulcasting President Trump's campaign rallies for months now, but this is something new: A pre-game show hosted by Sean Hannity inside the arena.
Hannity hosted his show from Trump's rally site in Las Vegas on Thursday night, complete with special guests like Jeanine Pirro and Sara Carter. His hour really had the feel of a pep rally, both for the crowd and for the audience at home. There was cheering for Trump's priorities and booing for his enemies. Best or worst of all, there was the promise of a Trump interview at the end of the hour. "COMING UP," the on-screen banner said, "ONE-ON-ONE WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP."
Watching Hannity's show, I had to wonder, was this a Bill Shine production?
Warming up the crowd...
Keep in mind: Hannity has been locked in a day-by-day battle for first place against MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. So this pep rally may have given him a real boost. Hannity had a dedicated set at one end of the arena, just like Fox's Pete Hegseth did when Hegseth had a pre-rally interview with Trump earlier this month. I felt like Hegseth was the warm-up act. The twist, this time, was that Hannity's interview happened live...
Trump's performance
At the very end of Hannity's hour, 9:59 p.m., Trump walked up to the set. Hannity repeatedly thanked 10 p.m. host Laura Ingraham "for giving us extra time to interview the president." Trump waved to the crowd. Hannity gestured to the back and told him to "wave to the fake news media." I bet the Fox News crew back in the press pen really liked that.
Trump, ever the performer, grabbed a mic and asked if he should sit or stand for the chat. "Stand," he decided. He looked around and figured out which camera had the two-shot. All of a sudden, the two men looked like equals -- like co-hosts -- rather than interviewer and interviewee.
Rally headlines
-- Daniel Dale did some real-time fact-checking via his Twitter feed. His recap: "He was stunningly dishonest by the standard of any other politician but on quite good behaviour for himself, and especially on-message in pleading for midterm turnout..."
-- Joe Adalian in Las Vegas noted that one local TV station, the Sinclair-owned KSNV, pre-empted its usual programming to show Trump's rally...
-- The AP's Jon Lemire tweeted, "A man standing behind the POTUS pool press pen at the Las Vegas rally has taken to repeatedly yelling the word 'traitors' at the reporters here..."
-- Earlier, while speaking with Hannity, Trump said he had been "very accommodating" with Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford. He called it a "very sad" situation: "You say, 'Why didn't somebody call the FBI 36 years ago?'" Trump said, "Let her have her say and let's see how it all works out. But I don't think you can delay it any longer."
-- Headline of the day via CNN's Kaitlan Collins: "Aides quietly stunned by Trump's respectful handling of Kavanaugh accuser."
When will Ford testify?
Ford's lawyers say she is open to testifying -- but not on Monday. Negotiations are ongoing. One of Ford's attorneys was scheduled to be on CNN and MSNBC Thursday night, but they cancelled, citing "active efforts to reach agreement with the committee..."
>> Ari Fleischer on Hannity: "I think Brett is chomping at the bit [to] go before Judiciary and say this wasn't him..."
>> Maddow speaking with Lawrence O'Donnell: "I feel like anything is possible here. I really have no idea how this ends... It's a totally open road..."
Another reason you should tune into "Slow Burn"
This Friday NYT story -- about "the potential for an electoral disaster" for the GOP -- includes this revealing paragraph:
Some Trump W.H. aides "have started listening to 'Slow Burn,' a podcast about the events surrounding the Nixon and Clinton impeachments..."
The truth about the Trump-Holt interview
Trump's legal team knows that his May 2017 interview with NBC's Lester Holt made him more vulnerable to claims that he obstructed justice. So they have come up with a curious explanation: The interview was "edited" and that's why people are confused about what Trump meant. Jay Sekulow advanced this argument on "Cuomo Prime Time" on Wednesday night. Trump himself brought it up on Twitter a few weeks ago, claiming Holt "got caught fudging my tape on Russia." Huh? Here's what is really going on... I wrote about it here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE | | -- Thursday's must-read: Matthew Belloni's interview with Bob Iger... (THR)
-- Via Frank Pallotta, one of the takeaways from the interview: "Iger admitted that the theatrical roll out of the 'Star Wars' franchise may have been 'a little too much, too fast...'" (CNNMoney)
-- Fin Gomez is moving from Fox's W.H. unit to CBS's... and CBS politics reporter Kathryn Watson is joining the network's W.H. team as a reporter...
It's almost time for a SKY auction
"Sky's fate is likely to be decided in a one-day auction between Comcast and 21st Century Fox," CNNMoney's Charles Riley reports. "The UK Takeover Panel announced Thursday it would hold an auction for the European broadcaster on Saturday if there's no resolution to the long-running takeover battle by close of business on Friday." Tick tock, tick tock!
-- REMINDER: "Comcast is the current higher bidder for Sky, having offered £14.75 ($19.30) per share — or about $34 billion in total — in July." Fox is offering £14 ($18.30) per share for the 61% of Sky it doesn't already own... More here...
US v. AT&T update
Trump's name is being invoked again in US v. AT&T.
With the government now appealing Judge Richard Leon's ruling, AT&T is reminding the court "that Trump said during his campaign that he would block the merger and that he didn't like one of its networks -- CNN," Hadas Gold reports. The reminder came in the opening paragraphs of a brief filed on Thursday. Here's Gold's full story...
Spotify's big move
On Thursday Spotify announced that some artists can now bypass distributors by uploading their music straight to the platform, "instead of through a label or digital aggregator." The initiative is still in beta... The Verge has details here...
NBC News touts its "three-peat"
The impending start of the new TV season means the end of the 2017-18 season. NBC News prez Noah Oppenheim emailed staff on Thursday to congratulate "everyone on NBC News' first-place finish this season across all of our shows: TODAY, Nightly News with Lester Holt, Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, and Dateline NBC." Not only that," Oppenheim wrote, "it's our third season in a row that all four shows are #1, the first time we have ever had a consecutive three-season winning streak."
NBC will be running an ad in Times Square on Friday + an ad in the NYT on Monday: | |
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
By Julia Waldow:
-- Take a look at the first editions of these nine American newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal...(Business Insider)
-- Jordan Peele will be hosting and narrating the revival of "The Twilight Zone" for CBS All Access, stepping into the "on-camera role originated by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling..." (Variety)
-- THR's cover story this week: Marisa Guthrie profiles LeBron James...(THR)
Disney says ESPN+ has 1 million subscribers
Jill Disis emails: Disney says that ESPN+, its new streaming service, has topped 1 million paying subscribers in its first five months on the market.
The company hyped this one up a lot on Thursday, and for good reason -- the $4.99-a-month service is Disney's first big foray into streaming.
This was the first time Disney had ever said anything about how many subscribers there are for ESPN+, which features a lot of sporting events that aren't broadcast on the ESPN TV channels. As recently as August, Disney CEO Bob Iger was telling investors only that the service was exceeding expectations. Thursday's figure finally puts that optimism in context...
Some caveats...
Jill Disis adds: Now, I should point out that it isn't exactly clear how many of those 1 million subscribers ESPN attracted from scratch. At least some of them came from ESPN Insider and the network's magazine. Insider members were recently told their subscriptions would be rolled into ESPN+.
ESPN declined to comment on that #. That being said, the network says the "vast majority" of the 1 million are new subscribers, and that merging the two was about "simplifying and clarifying" the company's offerings for fans.
In any case, investors like what they see so far. Disney's stock popped after today's announcement and closed up about 1.7%...
| | Olivier Knox on this week's "Reliable" podcast
White House Correspondents Association president Olivier Knox was my guest on this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast. With daily press briefings seemingly now a thing of the past, Knox described his lobbying efforts with the W.H. and the "symbolic" importance of the briefings. He said access to the president is either "feast or famine." Knox also discussed government secrecy around ongoing military action around the world... Check out the pod via Apple, Stitcher, or TuneIn...
"Fahrenheit 11/9" arrives in theaters on Friday
Brian Lowry emails: Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 11/9" is, in a sense, the culmination of his filmmaking career, bringing together elements from his other movies -- "Roger & Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- in a effort to explain Trump's election. It's a passionate but at times unfocused movie -- one, it should be noted, that indicts establishment Democrats and media outlets that ate up live Trump campaign rallies almost as much as the president himself.
Read Lowry's full review here... As he says, the film is rather disjointed, but definitely provocative...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
By Julia Waldow:
-- The Whistle's Dror Sharon and PolitiFact's Manuela Tobias are this year's International Fact-Checking Network fellows... (Poynter)
-- Podcast companies such as Gimlet Media and Wondery are experimenting with scripted shows... Here's a recap... (Digiday)
-- The digital publishing platform Minute Media is acquiring Mental Floss... (Venture Beat)
-- ICYMI: Mark O'Connell dives into "the deliberate awfulness of social media" for the New Yorker... (The New Yorker)
THR 100: Moonves out, Farrow in
Last week the editors of THR decided to take Les Moonves off the mag's annual THR 100 list. And who was added to the list? Ronan Farrow.
"Everybody just looked and said it makes sense, replacing one guy with the guy who caused him to be replaced," THR editor Matthew Belloni told Oliver Darcy.
"Other members of the Hollywood elite were also knocked off the 2018 list in light of the #MeToo movement," Darcy wrote here. "Amazon entertainment chief Roy Price, former Pixar chief executive John Lasseter, and the director and producer Brett Ratner were all included in last year's list, but excluded this year..."
Ups and downs
More changes on this year's list, per Darcy's story: "The Murdochs have plummeted from the top 10 to No. 14 after they sold most of Fox to Disney this year. CBS' controlling shareholder Shari Redstone is up in the top five after Moonves' exit, and LeBron James is making his debut on the list..."
Five Disney execs on the list
Brian Lowry adds: I'm generally not a fan of power lists -- especially those that mix executives and creative talent -- but Steven Zeitchik had a couple of interesting Twitter observations about the THR list, including the number of Disney executives (five) to make the cut, and where the highest-ranked actor (Dwayne Johnson) rates, at #38.
Zeitchik tweeted: "Highest-ranked creative person (actor/writer/director) is Oprah at No. 18 and Ryan Murphy at 19. Lin-Manuel is 87..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Smart NYT piece about an all-too-common mistake: "The big secret of celebrity wealth (is that no one knows anything)" (NYT) | | Lowry didn't like "Life Itself"
Brian Lowry emails: If the woman weeping next to me at the screening is any indication, the reaction to "Life Itself" is going to be polarizing. "This is Us" creator Dan Fogelman's movie basically demonstrates the difference between that show -- which can spread out the character beats -- and cramming all that melodrama into a single movie. The reviews have been generally brutal coming out of a festival debut (it's at 15% on RottenTomatoes), making my pan of the film relatively benign by comparison...
Hulu reviving "Veronica Mars"
Hulu has ordered a new eight-episode season of "Veronica Mars" starring Kristen Bell. "The announcement comes coupled with news that Hulu will be streaming all the old episodes of the now cult-classic show that originally ran from 2004 to 2007," Lisa Respers France writes...
Making "Walking Dead" live forever
I missed this yesterday, and it's an important one: Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw has new info about how AMC Networks wants to keep "The Walking Dead" alive. AMC "plans to produce multiple movies and new TV shows based on the graphic novels that spawned the series," he says, citing sources. "AMC has talked to several large media companies about partnering on the projects, which collectively could cost several hundred million dollars..."
--> Key graf: AMC is "looking for ways to expand the series into a franchise that lives on in many forms, like 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek,' and not overextend a property that's already showing signs of fatigue..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Maroon 5 as the Super Bowl halftime show? Some fans are disappointed by the idea... After all, the game is being held in Atlanta, home of the founders of Southern fried hip hop...
-- Heather Locklear posted about addiction as she mourned the loss of her friend...
-- Demi Lovato's mother says she found out about her daughter's overdose after a flurry of concerned texts from friends who read about it on the internet. Dianna De La Garza has broken her silence about that terrible day and how her famous daughter is doing now...
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