 Tom Steyer |
Fox News is being accused of breach of contract by billionaire political activist and donor Tom Steyer over the network’s Oct. 31 decision to pull a 60-second TV spot that calls for President Trump’s impeachment. The spot, bankrolled by Steyer, was part of what Politico reports was an ad buy of over $10 million. The spot accused the President of bringing the U.S. “to the brink of war with North Korea” as well as potentially obstructing justice by firing former FBI director James Comey in the midst of the Federal probe into possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russian political operatives. The decision to pull the spot was called “baseless and unethical” in a memo sent to Fox News president Jack Abernethy by Brad Deutsch, a lawyer for Streyer, on Nov. 3. In a statement, Abernethy said that the spot was pulled due to the “strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers.” But he may have been most influenced by one high-profile Fox News fan. “Wacky & totally unhinged Tom Steyer, who has been fighting me and my Make America Great Again agenda from beginning, never wins elections!” Trump tweeted soon after the ad aired on "Fox & Friends," a program that is a Presidential favorite.
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CNN has announced plans that it says will help to turn the digital side of its operations into a bigger moneymaker. Starting as soon as the second quarter of next year, the network will offer premium subscriptions that will give users access to special content on such topic-specific verticals as CNN Politics and CNN Money, as well as a less specialized package that provides content from across CNN’s sites. Establishing direct-to-consumer subscriptions would reduce CNN’s reliance on ads that run before videos as a source of revenue. While CNN expects its digital properties to bring in $370 million this year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the new initiatives are part of what the company says is a five-year plan to develop additional revenue streams, and raise digital revenue to $1 billion annually by 2022.
 Jillian D'Onfro |
CNBC Digital is adding two reporters, Alex Sherman and Jillian D’Onfro, to its technology team. Sherman comes to CNBC from Bloomberg News, where he covered telecom and media. In his new post, he will be on the mergers and acquisitions beat, focusing on tech and the Silicon Valley venture capital world. D’Onfro spent three years at Business Insider as senior technology reporter, covering the tech industry with a concentration on Google, Facebook and startups. At CNBC, she will cover companies such as Alphabet/Google as well as writing human-interest features.
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
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.
