 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.
 |
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.
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
Trump Media & Technology Group is discussing a spin-off of the Truth Social platform following the expected closing of its $6B merger deal with TAE Technologies... Condé Nast sells off Them, the digital LGBTQ-focused platform it launched in 2017, to Equalpride, publisher of Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness and Pride.com... CBS News has parted ways with longevity influencer Peter Attia, one of the 19 contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss brought on as part of her plan to present a wider variety of voices on the platform. 
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
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.
