 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.
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
