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Wednesday, January 7, 2026 |
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Happy Wednesday. Here's the latest on NFL ratings, CBS controversies, Semafor profits, Grok scandals, and more. But first... |
Warner Bros. Discovery is once again rejecting Paramount's entreaties and reaffirming its plan to merge with Netflix.
In a letter to shareholders this morning, the WBD board called Paramount's recently revised hostile takeover offer "inadequate" and overly risky. The board likened Paramount's proposal to an LBO, short for leveraged buyout, a much-maligned financial maneuver that relies on using mostly borrowed funds to buy a company.
Noting that Paramount is much smaller than WBD, the board said Paramount "intends to incur an extraordinary amount of incremental debt" through its arrangements with Middle Eastern financing partners. This structure "poses materially more risk for WBD and its shareholders," including the potential for the whole takeover plan to fall apart, compared with the "certainty of the Netflix merger," the board asserted.
"The new WBD response basically ignores Larry Ellison's latest equity backstop assurance," Sara Fischer pointed out. Instead, it focuses on the debt financing, "as well as costs incurred from walking from Netflix."
CNN's David Goldman and I have more on the state of play here. Paramount has yet to respond to the WBD filing...
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How Versant relates to all this |
As we wrote last month, the fight over WBD hinges on competing views about the value of WBD's cable assets, including CNN. The cable channels are being broken off into a new, publicly traded company called Discovery Global. Paramount values the so-called "stub" at just $1 per share, while the WBD board argues it's worth a lot more.
Enter Versant, which Comcast officially spun off earlier this week. Shares have fallen 20% in its first two days as a standalone company, leading "people close to Paramount" to argue that "the way Versant has traded (horribly) affirms the $1-per-share valuation" on Discovery Global, as Semafor’s Rohan Goswami tweeted yesterday. "It also makes it harder for Paramount to justify a big bump in their WBD bid."
Versant's market performance cries out for some context, however. CNBC's Alex Sherman noted, "Many indexes that own Comcast aren't allowed to own Versant, so there is forced selling in these early days of the stock's existence."
I'm told this is because Versant isn't in the Fortune 500, so Fortune 500-tracking index funds that automatically gained shares of the new company through the spinoff are obliged to sell them. A Versant exec told me they expect this to "shake out" and the stock price to settle in the coming weeks...
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Netflix says it's in talks with US and EU regulators |
So, while the media industry waits to see what Paramount will do next, WBD is full steam ahead. Netflix issued a statement this morning in support of the WBD board's commitment. The noteworthy paragraph: "Netflix has submitted its Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) filing and is engaging with competition authorities, including the U.S. Department of Justice and European Commission... As previously disclosed, the transaction is expected to close in 12-18 months from the date that Netflix and WBD originally entered into their merger agreement."
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A 'game of antitrust chicken' |
In an insightful new column, Puck's Eriq Gardner sees Netflix moving forward as the victor, and a landmark antitrust case emerging in the process. Gardner raises the "under-discussed, unlikely-but-still-conceivable possibility that the Trump administration goes much harder against Netflix than anyone is anticipating."
Citing the DOJ's recent case against Google, Gardner suggests Trump's regulators could demand limits on exclusivity, algorithmic transparency and even mandatory licensing ("think The Sopranos or Stranger Things appearing on a rival service like Peacock or Paramount+").
For now, Gardner says, "Netflix seems willing to tempt fate in Washington," as any potential case depends on whether the admin views a post-merger Netflix as a competitor with YouTube and TikTok, or "just" a paid long-form content streaming service.
As always, President Trump's predilections will matter enormously. In this piece for The Ankler, Claire Atkinson says Magid's Mike Bloxham is wondering if Trump will try to take US equity stakes in media companies, as the US has with Intel and others...
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Nick Reiner to be arraigned |
"Nick Reiner, the son of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, is set to be arraigned Wednesday on charges that he fatally stabbed his parents," NBC's Tim Stelloh writes. The judge may or may not allow a camera in the courtroom for the hearing. |
That very noisy CBS relaunch... |
"Before this week," Tim Miller commented on X, "I had not seen a single clip of the network nightly news on here since the David Muir dad jeans pic went viral like 7 years ago." Now X is full of Tony Dokoupil clips — with some cheering for his "CBS Evening News" relaunch and many others cringing.
As The AP's David Bauder wrote here, Dokoupil is earning attention, but "the jury is out on whether it’s the kind he needs."
Some high-profile CBS News staffers were aghast last night when Dokoupil's brief mention of the Jan. 6 anniversary was a both-sides mess. He said, "President Trump today accused Democrats of failing to prevent the attack on the Capitol while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the president of 'whitewashing' it."
Very Fox-y, right? The clip ricocheted around social media and was ridiculed by media types. As Status reported last night, the rebooted newscast is becoming "a source of embarrassment and growing alarm inside the network's newsroom."
Perhaps this is all part of the Bari Weiss plan. "Trump is getting exactly what his rich buddy paid for," The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell remarked.
Or perhaps the Venezuela-heavy show (with Dokoupil in Miami) simply didn't have time to cover the anniversary well. For reference, here's one way to do it well, via Anderson Cooper's program last night, in a segment titled "WHITEWASHING JANUARY 6." Here's another, on Page One of today's NYT: "Trump Intensifies His Assault on Facts of Jan. 6."
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'CBS needs him to succeed' |
"I definitely think it's way too early to make a judgement on how he’s going to be and I wish him all the luck in the world," veteran news exec (and former Cronkite producer) Tom Bettag said to Bauder.
"CBS needs him to succeed. It was a lousy start and some missed opportunities, but that should not be the final judgment."
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NY Mag's never-before-seen Epstein pics |
Andrew Kirell writes: Long before Christopher Anderson took the warts-and-all pics that accompanied Vanity Fair's bombshell Susie Wiles profile, he took similarly unvarnished shots of Jeffrey Epstein for a NY Mag story that never ran.
Anderson found those long-lost pics on a hard drive yesterday and posted them here with the disturbing backstory: In 2015, NY Mag hired him to take pics of Epstein to accompany a Michael Wolff profile — the one Vicky Ward later reported was killed over "fact-checking" issues. Epstein cut Anderson a $20k check to own the photos after publication.
Once Epstein "decided to pull out of the story," he "started calling me to demand the pictures," Anderson recalled. "I reiterated that the pictures were not his until after publication. Then the threats started." Anderson said Epstein's bodyguard, "a massive guy in a long black overcoat and black, leather gloves," came to his studio to personally intimidate him into handing over the pics. "It worked," Anderson said.
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>> The lead story almost everywhere right now: "US seizes Venezuela-linked oil tanker in Atlantic." (CNN)
>> Trump is "'discussing a range of options' to acquire Greenland," and is "making clear that using the US military is not off the table." (CNN)
>> Yesterday Trump used "part of a meandering speech to House Republicans to beg photographers to make him look thin," Leigh Kimmins reports. (Daily Beast)
>> Remember the golden phone announced by Trump's family business last year? It "remains nowhere to be found," Michael Liedtke points out. (AP)
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Days after exiting the FBI, Dan Bongino is right back where he wants to be: In the "trending" tab on X, getting lots of attention, thanks to hyperbolic things he's saying.
Yesterday, Bongino vowed to go on the offensive against his right-wing critics — aka "life-losers" — he claims are trying to "hijack" the MAGA movement. He spent much of the day feuding with Matt Gaetz, calling the OAN host a "suckling little doggie" and a "piece of shit" with a "phony face."
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>> A big moment for Semafor: The news outlet "has raised $30 million in new financing that values the company at $330 million after its first profitable year," Isabella Simonetti reports. (WSJ)
>> Fresh off its Air Mail acquisition, Puck says it now has more than 100,000 paying subscribers. (The Rebooting)
>> Lachlan Cartwright has a rundown of potential replacements for Will Welch atop GQ. (Breaker)
>> Check this out: "NFL has best regular-season average viewership since 1989," Austin Karp reports. (Sports Business Journal)
>> Staying on the sports theme, NBCUniversal is "officially sold out of advertising inventory for the 2026 Winter Olympics," per Alex Weprin. (THR)
>> Mark Silverman is stepping down as Fox Sports president. He will be succeeded by Brad Zager. (X)
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Grok's 'undressing' scandal somehow getting worse... |
"Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok is facing a backlash from governments around the world after a recent surge in sexualized images of women and children generated without consent by the artificial intelligence-powered tool," the AP's Kelvin Chan reports.
Among the people speaking out about the scandal: One of Musk's exes, Ashley St. Clair, who has repeatedly been sexualized by Grok, WaPo's Tatum Hunter reports.
Britain’s tech minister, Liz Kendall, said yesterday that the imagery is "absolutely appalling" and "X needs to deal with this urgently." In Germany, media minister Wolfram Weimer called what's taking place on X the "industrialization of sexual harassment." Though xAI and Musk have said they're working on it, it's hard to see what progress is being made...
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A win for news orgs suing ChatGPT's maker |
OpenAI "will have to turn over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT logs in a consolidated AI copyright case after it failed to convince a federal judge to throw out a magistrate judge's order the company said insufficiently weighed privacy concerns," Bloomberg Law’s Kyle Jahner reports. ArsTechnica's Ashley Belanger has more here...
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>> HarperCollins said it will start translating romance novels under its famous Harlequin label in France using AI, reducing or eliminating the pay for the team of human contract translators who previously did this work,” Matthew Gault reports. (404 Media)
>> Meta is "delaying the international expansion of its Ray-Ban Display glasses due to inventory constraints and 'unprecedented' demand in the U.S.," Samantha Subin reports. (CNBC)
>> Threads "is developing in-message games." (TechCrunch)
>> Universal Music Group says it's working with Nvidia on "responsible AI for music discovery, creation, and engagement." (Variety)
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This week's announcement about the dissolution of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has a lot of people asking about the future of PBS and NPR. Those national brands aren't going anywhere. And local stations aren't giving up their spots on the airwaves, either, though some are under serious financial strain.
NPR issued a statement reassuring listeners yesterday: "While the structures that surround us may change, the need for public media has never been greater, and our commitment to serving the public with free, reliable, and independent journalism is unwavering. NPR, local stations, and national organizations who believe in a free and independent press, supported by audiences in every corner of the nation, will continue to provide rigorous, trustworthy reporting. We will continue this work with resolve and creativity, powered by the public trust that has sustained us this far."
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