Peter Kafka

I talked to analyst Rich Greenfield about the last days of TV. But also the Larry and David Ellison Paramount era, which he thinks will include a dose of Trump-friendly mixed martial arts.

Excerpt: www.businessinsider.com/tv-cable-dyi...

Whole deal: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...

Josh that's not true. Ombudsman reports to President of cbs. docs.fcc.gov/public/attac...

It's a very concerning deal but this part is wrong. Ombudsman will report to President of Paramount. Not Trump. Cc @mattnovack.bsky.social

Trump made Paramount pay. Is this the new normal? Want to do business in the United States? Pay up. More specifically: Pay Donald Trump. That's a reasonable lesson from the Paramount-Skydance deal.

Lots of speculation re: Paramount/Skydance/Trump. Some things we don't know. Others we won't know for a while.

What we do know: On Tuesday, Trump got $16mm from Paramount for a suit he filed as a private citizen.

On Thursday, Trump's FCC blessed the deal.

www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump...

But cowardly scolds? No thanks.

Hah just realized the guy who said I was lying about late night thriving has blocked me.

Excerpt at BI: www.businessinsider.com/murdoch-trum...

Murdoch's WSJ is not backing down from Trump's libel suit - it just published another piece tying him to the Epstein files. But that doesn't mean Murdoch won't settle eventually. Talked to NPR's @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social about this on this week's Channels pod.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

‘Like Dogs in Here’ — Videos Expose ICE Lock-up Inside 26 Federal Plaza An analysis of ICE data by THE CITY shows that dozens of people have packed into locked rooms and increasingly held for days inside a Manhattan building the feds say isn’t a detention site.

Congressional reps have been denied access to the 10th Floor at Federal Plaza on the grounds that it's not a detention facility. Videos, testimony and data reviewed by @thecity.nyc show dozens held there for days, sleeping on the floor, subsisting on cookies, and using an open toilet stall

It's Iike Twitter in the old days, minus so much of the good stuff

You got me. Late night is thriving and I'm a part of the massive conspiracy that's trying to keep people from hearing the truth.

I mean, Conan took his TV fame and turned it into a very lucrative podcast deal, but I don't see how that's a useful playbook for Paramount.

Could Colbert go off on his own and do something cool and also maybe lucrative? For sure. I hope he does.

Late night is dying. How would you adapt?

Murdoch stood up to Trump. Did Paramount fold? A shocking change in late-night TV. A salacious story about Jeffrey Epstein. What do they have in common? Donald Trump.

I wrote about Paramount/Colbert and WSJ/Epstein and the Donald Trump threat that now factors into so many media decisions.

www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump...

Netflix Q1: Sure, we make a lot of shows in the US but really, we make them all over the world.

Netflix Q2: USA USA USA

www.businessinsider.com/netflix-dona...

while I'm scolding ppl, this article is currently 20x more popular than our scoop from an hour ago about ICE's new facial recognition app, which is perhaps the most powerful/concern face rec database/tool widely deployed. happy to use current events to start a convo www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

Apple is poised to win the rights to stream F1 races in the US. ESPN is bowing out. Apple had a box-office hit with "F1," the car-racing movie. Now it looks poised to win the US streaming rights for F1 races. ESPN streams them now.

Scoop: If you like F1 racing and want to watch it in the US next year, you will probably have to pay Apple, which is on the verge of buying those rights (currently owned by ESPN).

www.businessinsider.com/apple-f1-str...

Amazon is backing a new movie about OpenAI and Sam Altman. It sounds a lot like 'The Social Network' and Mark Zuckerberg. Amazon's "Artificial" film about OpenAI and Sam Altman is set to debut next year. It sounds a lot like "The Social Network." Should Altman be worried?

"The Social Network" told a fictional but persuasive version of the Mark Zuckerberg /Facebook origin story.

Get ready for "Artificial," which seems like it could do the same for Sam Altman and OpenAI.

www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-o...

Everyone knows the best to effect change in the world is to complain about news stories on social media. It's a proud and longstanding tradition. Who can forget the brave commenters who critiqued coverage of the March on Selma?

Linda Yaccarino could never repair the Musk-sized hole in Twitter's ad business. Only Musk could do that, and he didn't want to bother.

But when Tesla started tanking because of Musk-inflicted damage, he at least tried to do something about it.

By me: www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-li...

By 2025 standards it's a major win for Paramount: They only have to pay Trump a $16 million ransom to settle his frivolous suit.

"The settlement does not include a statement of apology or regret."

100%.

Also I literally said this to my kid today: "I wish it wasn't real so I could buy a hat."

Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Who Threatened Police Joins Justice Dept.

Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter joins Justice Dept.

NYT: “His selection meant that a man who had urged violence against police officers was now responsible for the department’s official effort to exact revenge against those who had tried to hold the rioters accountable.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/u...

My hunch is that very few Bluesky people will want to boast about reading Emily Sundberg's Feed Me substack - but that a bunch of you do.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Wow. Trump has abandoned his lawsuit against the Des Moines Register – at the same time that CBS News appears poised to settle a similar Trump lawsuit. Both suits hinged on the same legal theory, which many experts described as far-fetched.

Thx Dave

Great great podcast ep from
@pkafka.bsky.social
interviewing temporarily-out-in-the-cold Apple blogger
@gruber.foo
podcastindex.org/podcast/4877...

!

It's almost like the people who insisted TikTok was a national security threat a year ago don't seem very concerned about it now.

www.businessinsider.com/trump-tiktok...

Scott Frank wrote lots of successful movies, and makes hit shows for Netflix. If he were starting out today, he says he'd do video games instead. Netflix's "Dept. Q" is a hit. Scott Frank is behind it. But if he were to start all over, he tells BI's Peter Kafka he'd pick a different industry.

Excerpts here: www.businessinsider.com/netflix-dept...