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Monday, May 15, 2023

Still here and going strong! Vice Media files for bankruptcy, The Messenger launches, John Durham fails to live up to right-wing media hype, E.U. approves Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal, "Succession" mirrors reality, and more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

The Uncomfortable Upfronts

CNN Photo Illustration/Charles Guerin/Abaca/Sipa USA

It's an upfront season unlike any other in recent memory.

Each year, media companies trot out their biggest stars as part of glitzy presentations aimed at impressing clients and securing lucrative deals to sell billions of dollars in advertisements.

But the ongoing writers strike, the first major work stoppage in Hollywood in 15 years, has sent ad sales executives scrambling to find alternative hosts for this year's event, promising a much different affair.

NBCU kicked off the annual tradition, offering a glimpse of what can be expected as other companies hold presentations throughout the week. On Monday, outside Radio City Music Hall, "more than 200 writers marched in front of the venue's various entrances," THR's Alex Weprin reported.

But it was not just the presence of demonstrators outside the venue that marked a difference from previous years. As Weprin noted, "The strike was also present during the presentation itself, where the usual parade of actors and stars was replaced by a cavalcade of NBC News anchors."

In place of the usual star-studded stage for NBCU was "Ted," the foul-mouthed animated teddy bear appearing on a huge screen, as well as a roster of news anchors, including Willie Geist, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Stephanie Ruhle, who were enlisted to introduce network programming.

"We also want to acknowledge the writers strike," NBCU TV and streaming chairman Mark Lazarus said. "We are grateful for the contribution writers make to our company, and respect their right to demonstrate."

Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, and YouTube are set to host events later in the week. Expect to see the strike impact those upfronts in similar ways. Variety's Jennifer Maas reported that WBD, CNN's parent company, had "asked talent not to appear in-person at their Wednesday upfronts presentation, so as not to put those individuals in a position where they need to cross the Writers Guild of America's picket line."

Media companies are also facing tough headwinds unrelated to the strike. The advertising market has been weak since last year, a reality that has forced companies to slash budgets and rethink their larger strategies.

"There are certainly additional elements of fluidity this year, like the WGA strike, that are top of mind for advertisers and make flexibility even more critical in this year's negotiations," Amy Leifer, chief advertising sales officer at DirecTV acknowledged to CNBC. "Even if there is a halt of scripted TV production due to the writer's strike, we know that viewers are still going to consume TV content."

OFF THE WIRE

Here is the full calendar of upfront events. (Variety)
"Streaming remains a prime topic of discussion, especially as ad-supported tiers have taken on more importance in the face of slowing subscriber growth," Lillian Rizzo and Alex Sherman point out. (CNBC)
"A prolonged shortage of first-run content could be an excuse for buyers to hold back spending and drive down pricing," Stephen Battaglio notes. (LAT)
NBCU execs joked about how the company's ad sales chief, Linda Yaccarino, had departed days earlier for Twitter. (Deadline)
Disney EVP of brand solutions Lisa Valentino said the company will deliver its presentation from "the biggest stage we've ever built—maybe that's ever been built for an upfront." (Adage)
Fox Corporation's presentation featured Michael Strahan, Gordon Ramsey, Rob Gronkowski, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez. (THR)
Fox News Media presented during Fox Corporation's upfront Monday afternoon, but for obvious reasons chose not to focus on its prime time right-wing talk programming. (Deadline)
Anti-Fox groups used billboard trucks to protest in front of the company's upfront presentation, urging buyers to stop spending their money with Rupert Murdoch's company. (Mediaite)
Meanwhile, Paramount's decision to forgo a traditional upfront presentation is looking better and better by the day. (THR)

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Jae C. Hong/AP

The Value of Vice: It's official: The embattled Vice Media Group on early Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Once adored by the media industry and valued at billions of dollars, a group of creditors have made a bid to acquire "substantially all of the company's assets" for a mere $225 million — a shocking reversal of fortune for a company that was thought at one point to represent the future of the industry. The sales process should take about two to three months to complete, but should not interrupt operations. "This accelerated court-supervised sale process will strengthen the company and position Vice for long-term growth," co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala said in a statement. CNN's Hanna Ziady has more here.

OFF THE WIRE

Hats off to Vice News' Jason Koebler for reporting on his own company's bankruptcy: "No [Vice Media Group] corporate or news executive reviewed this story before it was published." (Vice)
"The bankruptcy is a moment of humility for Vice, which a decade ago appeared destined to sell for an eye-watering sum or make its debut on the public markets," Lauren Hirsch and Benjamin Mullin write. (NYT)
"Major TV companies and high-profile private investment groups were eager to pump money into the millennial-focused brand during its rise in the mid-2010s," Sara Fischer points out. "Massive investments will be wiped out with the bankruptcy." (Axios)
The big picture: "Vice is the latest casualty in a media industry decimated by a downturn in digital advertising and changing appetite for news," Mary Yang notes. (NPR)

THE BUSINESS

CNN Photo Illustration/The Messenger

The Messenger's Moment: After a slow but steady drumbeat of hype, Jimmy Finkelstein's The Messenger launched on Monday, revealing itself to effectively be something of a content farm. The outlet published dozens and dozens of stories, ranging from an interview with Donald Trump to a story on Ariana Grande. Most notably, however, the stories appeared to be chasing cheap clicks. As Semafor's Max Tani noted, one story published was comprised of a single-sentence accompanied by a tweet. Vox's Peter Kafka also took notice of the disparity between what The Messenger is billings itself as ("Our talented journalists are committed to demystifying the onslaught of misinformation and delivering impartial and objective news") and what it actually delivered. Insider's Lucia Moses has more on the launch. And The Wrap's Rosemary Rossi has more on the criticism it is fielding.

IN THE INDUSTRY

👀 Days after the widely criticized town hall with Donald Trump, CNN prime time on Friday averaged only 335,000 total viewers, drawing a smaller audience in the 8-11pm window than even the right-wing channel Newsmax. While it's unclear if the viewership decline was connected to the town hall, it marked a rare ratings defeat. (Mediaite)
"American journalism faces a confluence of challenges that present the most profound threat to the free press in more than a century": A.G. Sulzberger writes about journalism's "essential value." (CJR)
The Philadelphia Inquirer was forced to close its office on Monday after an apparent cyberattack. "That means the Inquirer's journalists won't be in the office on Tuesday as they cover a key election: Philadelphia's Democratic primary for the mayoral race," Sean Lyngaas reports. (CNN)
CNBC's David Faber has scored an interview with Elon Musk, which will air Tuesday at 6pm. Musk, however, says he is "not doing an interview with CNBC" as an "organization," but is "doing an interview with David Faber at Ari Emanuel's recommendation." (Twitter)
The NFL "has struck a one-year deal with NBCUniversal's Peacock to carry a playoff game exclusively on the streaming service this coming season," Joe Flint and Jessica Toonkel report. (WSJ)

MEDIA MOVES

Insider hired Samantha Rollins as deputy editor of entertainment. (Twitter)
The WSJ hired Jack Gillum as a data reporter. (Twitter)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Julia Nikhinson/Reuters

The Durham Debacle: For years, Donald Trump and right-wing media hyped special counsel John Durham's investigation. The probe, they claimed, would expose massive deep-state corruption inside the FBI that would send crooked bureaucrats to jail and reveal the "crime of the century." It was far worse than Watergate, the MAGA loyalists were promised. Fast forward to Monday when Durham's report was released. While it did sharply criticize the FBI and the origins of the Russia-Trump probe, Durham's report concluded without sending a single person to prison, falling far short of the inflated expectations set in the Trump-friendly press. In fact, after millions of dollars were spent on the years-long investigation, Durham only ultimately secured the conviction of a low-level FBI lawyer who avoided serving jail time.

🔎 Zooming in: Right-wing media are, of course, boosting Durham's criticism of the FBI, pretending that the special counsel delivered on what they had long promised. But that is, without question, not the case. In fact, the whole saga once again shows that the hyping of a probe or outcome often proves to be a far more effective political and propaganda tool than the actual results.

The Comer Charade: Republican Rep. James Comer also has egg on his face over another GOP probe. The House Oversight Committee chair disclosed on Maria Bartiromo's show that he apparently lost track of his informant in an investigation into the Biden family. "Well, unfortunately, we can't track down the informant," Comer told Bartiromo. "We're hopeful that the informant is still there." Right-wing media outlets have, predictably, been amplifying Comer's investigation into the Biden family. But for good reason, credible mainstream news organizations have appeared more skeptical. "This is what happens when you have an internet meme and a Fox News narrative that comes up against actual reality," Charlie Sykes said on "Morning Joe" Monday. That's precisely right.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

In an interview with Lachlan Cartwright, Elizabeth Ailes, widow of late Fox News founder Roger Ailes, rails against the Murdoch family: "karma is a b*tch." (Daily Beast)
The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh attacks single moms the day after Mother's Day: "One of the reasons why we should not be throwing parades for single moms is that many of them choose to be this way. They choose to be single moms. The majority of divorces are initiated by women." (MMFA)
Fox News host Harris Faulkner declared President Biden "doesn't mean it" when he says "God bless our troops." (Mediaite)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Jae C. Hong/AP

Activating Activision: Microsoft scored a big win on Monday when E.U. regulators approved its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. "While the merger could harm competition in some respects, particularly in the fast-growing market for cloud gaming services, concessions by Microsoft were enough to mitigate antitrust concerns stemming from the deal," CNN's Brian Fung reported. That doesn't mean, however, that it is smooth sailing from here on out. The deal still faces regulatory hurdles in the U.S. and U.K. Read Fung's full story here.

TOO MANY TABS

The fallout from Elon Musk silencing dissidents in Turkey continues: "Musk didn't just do Turkey's bidding," writes Nitish Pahwa. "Censoring for strongmen is now a pattern." (Slate)
"I don't want to hear Elon Musk talking about free speech ever again," Enes Kanter Freedom said in a "CNN This Morning" interview. (CNN)
Musk can't throw out a 2018 settlement with the SEC that required some of his Twitter posts be approved beforehand, a federal appeals court affirmed Monday. (Axios)
Switching gears: A former ByteDance employee claimed in a lawsuit that China has "supreme access" to all company data, even information stored inside the U.S. (CNN)
Echoing Google, the Amazon.com search bar will be imbued with A.I. tools. (Bloomberg)
A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing submitted by Google stipulates that A.I. should not be considered an "inventor," the latest ethical query in a deluge catalyzed by the technology's advent. (Axios)
Dataminr, an "official partner" of Twitter, helped the U.S. Marshals surveil abortion protests after Roe v. Wade was overturned. (Intercept)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/HBO

'Succession' Stunner: The most recent episode of HBO's "Succession" may have hit too close to home for some people. The episode documented election night at the fictional ATN News, eerily resembling the unethical behavior that took place at Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election. I'll try to stay spoiler free, but it was certainly an episode that left many viewers wondering whether life was imitating art or vice versa. "Indeed," CNN's Brian Lowry wrote, "series creator Jesse Armstrong ... almost seems to have been reading the leaked emails and texts from the Fox-Dominion lawsuit, which revealed the behind-the-scenes apprehensions as network officials wrestled with the fallout from their election coverage while worrying about being outflanked by upstart competitors on the right." Read Lowry's full piece.

► Armstrong talked to Kara Swisher in the official post-show podcast: "We use real-life analogs, and we think about them a lot, but we hopefully don't slavishly follow the jumping off point for what we want to do in this fictional world."

► Jake Tapper spoke to Eric Schultz and Ben Ginsberg about the episode and how it mirrored reality.

► Tom Nichols' piece: "What I learned from my guest role on 'Succession.'"

OFF STAGE

The head of the Cannes Film Festival is rejecting the idea the event is a "festival for rapists" after Johnny Depp backlash. (Variety)
Scott Roxborough and Mia Galuppo have a helpful list of all of the hot films set to debut at Cannes. (THR)
The Peabody Awards has canceled this year's in-person ceremony amid the writers strike. (The Wrap)
"Avatar: The Way of Water" will make its streaming debut on both Disney+ and Max on June 7. (The Verge)
Justine Bateman is sounding the alarm over the potential use of A.I. in Hollywood: "It's replacing human expression." (KTLA)
The 14th and final season of "Archer," FX's longest-running animated series, will premiere on Aug. 30. (The Wrap)
FX dropped the trailer for "The Bear" season two. (YouTube)
"The Last of Us" is the latest hit show to be delayed by the ongoing WGA strike. (GQ)
Jamie Foxx and his daughter, Corrine Foxx, will host Fox's upcoming "We Are Family," a music-centered game show. (The Wrap)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow.