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Good morning. Here's the latest on the Public Media Bridge Fund, Shari Redstone, Gavin Newsom, Steve Hartman, Jimmy Kimmel, Taylor Swift, "Frankenstein," Flow, and much more...

BREAKING

Local TV giants set to merge

"Local broadcast television is edging toward one of the biggest consolidation waves in its history," TVREV's Tim Hanlon wrote last week. More proof came this morning: Nexstar, which is already the biggest owner of US TV stations, is trying to get even bigger, acquiring Tegna in a $6.2 billion deal including debt.

This morning's announcement definitely isn't the last word on the matter, since just last night the WSJ reported that Sinclair has also proposed a merger with Tegna. 

All of this "challenges decade-old limits on control of local media," Deadline's Dade Hayes writes, with the presumption that FCC chair Brendan Carr is poised to loosen the limits, known as the broadcast station ownership cap. I texted Carr for comment this morning and haven't heard back.

Tellingly, Nexstar CEO Perry A. Sook began his statement about the deal by praising President Trump: "The initiatives being pursued by the Trump administration offer local broadcasters the opportunity to expand reach, level the playing field, and compete more effectively with the Big Tech and legacy Big Media companies that have unchecked reach and vast financial resources. We believe Tegna represents the best option for Nexstar to act on this opportunity..."

 >> "Under any previous administration, such a combination would have been unthinkable," Craig Aaron of the public interest group Free Press wrote recently. "Under Donald Trump, it's just a question of how much of your independence and integrity you’re willing to sacrifice to get a deal done."

The view from Buffalo

Jim Heaney, a 25-year veteran of The Buffalo News who now runs the Investigative Post, described what a Nexstar-Tegna deal looks like on the local level yesterday.

In Buffalo, "we're facing the prospect of a merger involving the chain owners of Channels 2 and 4, who between them dominate the local TV news ratings," Heaney wrote. "Media consolidations are rarely a good thing, and the Buffalo market is likely to be ill-served... Competition is likely to take a hit and a downsizing of the joined operations is likely, although the stations would maintain separate newsrooms."

The local news mood music

Meantime, many local news sources continue to shrink or shut down altogether... A slow-motion disaster for communities that don't know what they don't know. I appreciated how the PBS "NewsHour" highlighted the closure of 23 rural papers in Arizona, Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming the other day. Local coverage is "really important to community identity," Teri Finneman told the "NewsHour."

ALSO NEW THIS MORNING

The 'Public Media Bridge Fund'

With federal funding to PBS and NPR stations about to dry up, half a dozen key foundations are coming together to support the most vulnerable stations, the ones that relied on taxpayer dollars for more than 30% of their budgets. The donors are "providing an emergency $26.5 million cash injection to stabilize the stations most at risk," the NYT's Ben Mullin reports. "The group is aiming to raise additional money for the fund and hopes to reach $50 million this year." You can learn more about the bridge fund here.

 >> The MacArthur Foundation is also committing $10 million "in direct support to public media stations, programs, and organizations."

IN OTHER NEWS...

'High schoolers could do a better job...'

Yesterday's Oval Office photo op with President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky underscored how the White House has remade the press corps to Trump's liking. Veteran correspondents privately grumbled as MAGA online personality Brian Glenn dominated the Q&A by complimenting Zelensky's suit and serving Trump easy set-ups for talking points.

"This display, especially in front of foreign leaders, is so embarrassing," a WH correspondent remarked to me. "Many of the questions aren't designed to get answers, but to create another confrontation or make Trump look good. That's not journalism. High schoolers could do a better job than some of these people."

At issue: The makeup of the press "pool," now controlled by Trump's aides. Here's our full story...

 >> Of note: Yesterday's WH meetings ran long, and Zelensky opted not to appear on Fox, disappointing Bret Baier, who had expected to have an exclusive interview. Zelensky instead spoke to cameras across the street from the WH, seemingly more focused on his domestic audience in Ukraine versus the US audience on Fox. 

Newsom punks MAGA media

Andrew Kirell writes: Gavin Newsom's press office keeps going viral after adopting a strategy of directly trolling and mimicking Trump's online behavior — from the all-caps rants to the bonkers AI images to the flurries of insults. The effort, clearly designed to hold a mirror up to MAGA and "bully the bullies," so to speak, has evidently gone over the heads of many conservative media personalities, baiting them into making Newsom's point about Trump’s behavior on their own.

Fox host Dana Perino has best demonstrated this phenomenon. During yesterday's episode of "The Five," she discussed Newsom's biting posts and remarked, "You have to stop it with the Twitter thing. If I were his wife, I would say, 'You are making a fool of yourself. Stop it.' He's got a big job as governor of California, but if he wants an even bigger job, he has to be a little more serious."

"Indeed," wrote NBC's Sahil Kapur, "can you imagine someone elected to a big political job persistently posting self-aggrandizing tweets while taunting and insulting rivals in all caps? 🤔"

Or more to the point, as Newsom's office giddily responded to the Perino clip: "ALMOST A WEEK IN AND THEY STILL DON'T GET IT." CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere has an excellent look at Newsom's attention-war tactics here...

Shari Redstone speaks

The NYT's James B. Stewart talked with Shari Redstone during the protracted Paramount merger review process "with the understanding that nothing discussed could be used until after the merger closed, since anything she said might derail its approval." Now that the deal is done and David Ellison is in charge, Stewart is out with a highly personal story about Redstone and the "emotional roller coaster she experienced" (even as she netted hundreds of millions of dollars through the deal). 

 >> Re: Trump's "60 Minutes" lawsuit: "This case was never as black-and-white as people assumed."

 >> "I believed it was always in Paramount’s best interest to settle," she said. "We may not like the world we live in, but a board has to do what’s in the best interest of shareholders."

 >> Re: Trump's claim that he has a PSA deal with Ellison: "I hope it isn't true," she said.

Newsmax pays Dominion

Nearly five years after the pro-Trump campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election, lawsuits from victims of the lies are still holding the smear artists accountable. Yesterday, Newsmax disclosed that it has agreed to pay Dominion $67 million to avert a trial in Delaware.

 >> Newsmax shares actually rallied 15% on the news... perhaps because the total sum was lower than some investors had feared. Dominion extracted $787.5 million out of Fox back in 2023. Why is Dominion settling for so much less from Newsmax? The companies won't say. Newsmax's TV ratings, however, are roughly one-tenth of Fox's numbers.

 >> Newsmax spun the settlement by blaming Delaware, saying the court there "would not provide a fair trial."

 >> It's not over: Newsmax is now in the clear, but CNN's Marshall Cohen is tracking another half a dozen Dominion and Smartmatic suits that are still ongoing...

Today's 💯 reads! 

 >> "CBS correspondent Steve Hartman quietly spent years documenting grief that families couldn't leave behind." Al Tompkins highlights Hartman's award-winning "side project" that "revealed bedrooms left untouched after school shootings and the parents who can't let them go." (Poynter)

 >> Tom Kludt's latest is about the NFL broadcast boot camp "where today's players become tomorrow's pundits." (Vanity Fair)

 >> For THR's latest cover story, Maer Roshan interviewed co-producers Monica Lewinsky and Amanda Knox about tomorrow's launch of "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox" on Hulu. (THR)

Today in tech

 >> "Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into both Meta AI Studio and Character.AI for 'potentially engaging in deceptive trade practices and misleadingly marketing themselves as mental health tools,'" Rebecca Bellan reports. (TechCrunch)

 >> AI is "quickly becoming commonplace" in the ad-making biz, with many brands appreciating that the tech "can sharply lower production costs," Emmett Lindner writes. (NYT)

 >> "Google's generative AI filmmaking program Flow has reached a milestone," with creators producing "over 100 million AI videos in the program," Katelyn Chedraoui reports. (CNET)

 >> Just announced: Francesca Barber is Politico's new EVP for AI & Innovation. (Politico)

 >> Matthew Gault says "a critical piece of tech infrastructure that lets people talk to the government has been disabled." Thanks to a backend change to the site where you can submit public comments, "it became harder to tell the government how you feel about pending rules and regulations..." (404 Media)

FTC puts BOTS Act to work

The Federal Trade Commission has sued ticket reseller Key Investment Group "for evading purchasing limits to buy up thousands of tickets to live events including Taylor Swift's Eras tour and resell them at a markup," Reuters reports. The FTC is applying the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, but Key has denied violating that 2016 law. Details here...

Paramount's content arms race 

The new Paramount seems to make a big content announcement every other day. Yesterday, I forgot to link to this one: The Duffer Brothers are reportedly leaving Netflix to reunite with Cindy Holland. And there's this via THR's Borys Kit: Paramount "is in talks to make an output movie deal with Legendary Pictures, the producers of the Dune and Monsterverse movie franchises." 

Kimmel calls out 'alleged insiders'

Jimmy Kimmel says "the idea that Stephen Colbert's show was losing $40 million a year is beyond nonsensical." In an unrelated Emmy-campaign-season interview with Variety's Clayton Davis, Kimmel said "these alleged insiders ... seem to only be focused on advertising revenue and have completely forgotten about affiliate fees," which are bolstered by late-night programming. His point doubles as a defense of his own ABC show, of course. He has lots more to say here...

Entertainment odds and ends

 >> Speaking of Kimmel... He is working with former NASA engineer turned social media creator Mark Rober on "a new Netflix kids and family competition show." (TheWrap)

 >> "The latest series of 'Love Island' will not be investigated by media watchdog Ofcom despite more than 14,000 complaints about issues including bullying and concerns for contestants' mental health." Here's why. (BBC)

 >> "Guillermo del Toro's passion project reboot of 'Frankenstein' is going to get a theatrical release," after all. "The move follows fan outcry over the film previously being announced having its global premiere on Netflix." (THR)

 >> While there's "lots of chatter out there about Taylor Swift playing the Sphere in Vegas, at least for now, a rep for the venue tells me not true," Matt Belloni reports. The rep said, "While we love and respect Taylor Swift, we are not in conversations with her team about a residency at Sphere." (X)

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.