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NBC may be chopping an hour from its nightly prime time schedule, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The plan would eliminate the 10 pm to 11 pm hour, which would be given back to local stations to program at their discretion. However, the report also says that the network’s late-night schedule would likely be moved back to 10:30 pm or 11 pm, giving “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon a head start on its competition at ABC and CBS. NBCUniversal Television and Streaming chairman Mark Lazarus have already eliminated programming in the 1:30 am to 2 am time slot and handed that back to affiliates. The WSJ notes that NBC could save tens of millions of dollars in content costs through the move.
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| Sean Hannity |
Sean Hannity leads a long lineup of Fox News personalities who have been called for a deposition in the ongoing defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems against the network in Delaware Superior Court. Also slated to appear are Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs. The New York Times reports that others set to join that list are Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace, with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch both possibilities in the coming weeks. The suit charges Fox with pushing false claims of voter fraud. A Fox News spokesman claimed that the First Amendment protected the company from the suit and that making the Murdochs a focus of the investigation would constitute “a fruitless fishing expedition.”
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| Anna Bateson |
Guardian Media Group names Anna Bateson as its chief executive. Bateson previously held the interim CEO spot at GMG for several months in 2019-20 and also served as chief customer officer. She replaces Keith Underwood, who has held the role of interim chief executive since the resignation of Annette Thomas in June 2021. Most recently, Bateson was CEO of Josh Wood Colour, an e-commerce beauty brand. Before coming to the Guardian in 2016, she was director of global consumer marketing at YouTube. “Her deep understanding and experience of the Guardian and of digital media and marketing, combined with her significant leadership experience, mean she is very well placed to lead the Guardian into the future,” said GMG board chairman Charles Gurassa. GMG had a rare cash surplus last year, largely due to increased revenues from digital audiences.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her site for $155M... C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has named Kenneth Weinstein, former head of the conservative Hudson Institute, as ombudsman for CBS News.
