Welcome to Wednesday! Here's the latest on Comcast, Dr. Oz, Sally Buzbee, Ronan Farrow, and more. Plus: Lessons from Apple's top podcasts lists... |
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Comcast just jump-started a new season of major change across the television industry. And no one quite knows what will happen next.
This morning the media giant confirmed that it is spinning off most of its cable channels, including MSNBC and CNBC, into a separate publicly traded company. "SpinCo" (it doesn't have a real name yet) will have the same sort of ownership structure as Comcast, but will have its own management team, led by NBCUniversal Media Group chairman Mark Lazarus, who will be CEO of the new venture.
Comcast execs are rejecting assertions that the spinoff is a way to shed assets that are losing value in the streaming age. They're portraying the spinoff as a growth opportunity for an industry in transition. The WSJ's Amol Sharma, who broke the news last night, said "the new cable venture would likely need greater scale to thrive, media executives say. Comcast's leadership sees the potential for it to consolidate other networks across the dial over time."
We'll see whether "SpinCo" attracts sellers, buyers, or both.
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Here are the key points from Comcast president Mike Cavanagh's internal memo:
>> It's not just cable: "Complementary digital assets including Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and Sports Engine" are also heading into SpinCo."
>> "The transaction will be structured as a tax-free spin to existing shareholders. Brian Roberts will own the same economic and voting interests as he does currently at Comcast, though he will not serve on the SpinCo board or management team."
>> The transaction "will take approximately a year."
>> Most of NBCUniversal – the broadcast network, the studio, the theme parks, etc – will remain intact, and will "be on a new growth trajectory."
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The spinoff will cleave MSNBC and CNBC away from the core news-gathering operation of NBC News. In recent years NBC has tried to bring its broadcast and cable news operations closer together, but now they are being peeled back apart. That's why I'm hearing from lots of understandably anxious journalists at NBCUniversal right now. I'm told the C-suite believes this will be a relatively easy breakup – although there are some complicated cases involving, say, MSNBC anchors who also report for NBC News. "SpinCo" has time to figure out the details since the transaction will take about a year to complete.
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Tom Rogers, who played a pivotal role in the creation of both CNBC and MSNBC, said on "Squawk Box" this morning that he's bullish about the spin. Rogers, a paid CNBC contributor, said "my first thought was, ‘The kids are going to be all right.' I think this is a very good move" because the cable channels "can get the kind of resources they need to expand their franchises." Up until now, "it's been pretty clear that these channels have been treated just as cable channels," but "SpinCo" may open up investment opportunities.
"I don't look at this as a way for Comcast to simply dump problem assets because the cable bundle is continuing to face cord-cutting. I look at it much more as an opportunity for some really strong media franchises to be able to broaden themselves," Rogers added.
On the same CNBC show one hour later, Lightshed Partners co-founder Rich Greenfield sang a very different tune.
"This is a very clear, direct statement by Comcast" that "they are exiting the cable network business," Greenfield (a longtime cable biz bear) said. "This is them saying 'We don't want to be in this business. This is no longer a growth business.' It's going to be around for a long time, but it is just no longer a growth business."
Greenfield said he guesses that Lazarus and "SpinCo" will "be on the hunt" for other cable channels – maybe "pieces of Warner Bros. Discovery" or "pieces of Paramount" – to gain more leverage in negotiations with distributors.
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That's how CNN's Kristen Holmes described it last night. She said Trump picking Dr. Mehmet Oz to oversee Medicare and Medicaid is a prime example. Trump wants "effective communicators," she told Kaitlan Collins: He "wants to look up at Fox, wants to look up at the TV screen, and see his cabinet picks out there defending him." He wants people who look and play the part, even as their qualifications and history of questionable and fabricated claims raise serious concerns.
>> Stephen Colbert asked last night: "Everyone with a TV show gets a call. Where's my job offer? Where?"
>> Murdoch's New York Post editorial board is out this morning with an op-ed urging Trump "ditch this dreadful duo"i Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz...
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New FCC chair's priorities |
"I think the status quo, particularly when it comes to legacy media, needs to change," incoming FCC chairman Brendan Carr said on Fox News yesterday. He said conservative complaints about "60 Minutes" are "likely to arise" while the FCC reviews Skydance's acquisition of Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS. And he said "that 'tech censorship' is his number one priority," THR's Alex Weprin reports. For now, it's a question of bark versus bite – and the latter won't be felt until next year...
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The Trump campaign issued an unusual statement this morning, preemptively saying it will not comment on forthcoming work from author Michael Wolff. "As a group, we have decided not to respond to his bad faith inquiries, and we encourage others to completely disregard whatever nonsense he eventually publishes. Consider this our blanket response to whatever he writes," read the statement signed by 15 staffers.
While its unclear what reporting the campaign is referring to, in recent weeks Wolff told The Daily Beast that Jeffrey Epstein had showed off photos of Trump with "topless young women" sitting in his lap, an allegation the Trump camp called an "outlandish false smear."
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>> We need "a new way of talking about parties and ideologies, because there’s really nothing conservative about what Trump is doing," Matt Bai argues. (Post)
>> "Two weeks after winning the presidency, Donald Trump has yet to hold a press conference," Irie Sentner notes. (Politico)
>> This morning Joe Scarborough shared a little bit of color from his Trump face-to-face... (Mediaite)
>> "Trump Media is facing what some financial experts are calling an identity crisis that has undermined its worth," Drew Harwell reports. (Post)
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'Surveilled' debuts today |
Ronan Farrow's newest documentary should be of particular interest to journalists. "Surveilled," premiering on HBO and Max today, is about the growing commercial spyware industry and its victims.
Smartphone spyware like Pegasus has been employed "in Western democracies over and over again," Farrow said on "The Lead with Jake Tapper" earlier this week. "So part of the message of this film is it could happen here." With Trump "coming in with campaign promises including mass deportation," surveillance tech "could really transform the way that those promises are executed in a way that civil liberties experts and privacy law experts tell me everyone should be afraid of."
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