Legendary Entertainment buys out Wanda Group's remaining 60% equity stake in the studio; Legendary board will be evenly split between management and Apollo (Lucas Manfredi/The Wrap)

Mediagazer: Legendary Entertainment buys out Wanda Group's remaining 60% equity stake in the studio; Legendary board will be evenly split between management and Apollo (Lucas Manfredi/The Wrap)

Top News:

The Wrap:

Legendary Entertainment buys out Wanda Group's remaining 60% equity stake in the studio; Legendary board will be evenly split between management and Apollo— As part of the move, the “Dune” and “Godzilla” studio's board will be evenly split between management and private equity firm Apollo …
Discussion: Variety, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, @mtfiii and @xpangler

Discussion:

Thomas Buckley /
Bloomberg: Apollo-Backed Legendary Entertainment Buys Out Wanda Group Stake

Samantha Masunaga /
Los Angeles Times: Legendary buys out China's Wanda ownership stake

Jill Goldsmith /
Deadline: Legendary Entertainment Buys Out Wanda's Remaining Ownership Stake In New Era For Studio

Alex Weprin /
The Hollywood Reporter: Legendary Entertainment Buys Out Wanda, With An Eye Toward M&A

Michael T Ford III /
@mtfiii: Legendary Entertainment Buys Out Wanda, With An Eye Toward M&A The ‘Dune’ and ‘Godzilla’ studio had been owned by Wanda since 2016, with Apollo joining as a minority investor in 2022. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ ...

Semafor:

Yashica Olden, who was Condé Nast's first head of diversity, equity, and inclusion, quietly left in June 2024, after internal tensions over the Israel-Hamas war— The Scoop — Condé Nast's high-profile head of diversity quietly stepped down in June amid bitter internal tensions …

Discussion:
New York Post, @jessesingal, @semaforben and @maxwelltani

Discussion:

Ariel Zilber /
New York Post: Jewish staffers at Condé Nast accuse ex-DEI chief of antisemitism: report

Jesse Singal /
@jessesingal: Who woulda thunk it https://t.co/...

Press Gazette:

Filing: the UK's PA Media Group reports 2023 revenue up 6% YoY to £112.1M and operating profit up 53% YoY to £8.3M, as it grows through revenue diversification— PA Media Group has grown its revenues every year since 2016 helped by a series of acquisitions.

Financial Times:

An interview with IAC chair Barry Diller on his Paramount bid being “more of a duty than a desire”, why Hollywood's hold on entertainment is “gone”, and more— IAC chair hits out at Trump and warns of power shift to Big Tech in film and TV

Discussion:
Business Insider, @jonthn_wheatley, @arogdc and @tonytassell

Discussion:

Theron Mohamed /
Business Insider: Media mogul Barry Diller slams fellow billionaires who back Trump for economic reasons: they 'don't need another nickel'

Jonathan Wheatley /
@jonthn_wheatley: Finding it hard to concentrate beyond the third para para: Forbes estimates his net worth is $4.6bn, allowing him luxuries such as a big boat...as well as the funds to clone his late dog — a Jack Russell mix called Shannon — five times over. https://www.ft.com/... via @ft

Alex Rogers /
@arogdc: As media companies have consolidated and tech companies have moved on to Tinsel Town turf, “you can't even find the whites of the eyes of the person who makes the decision,” says Barry Diller. https://www.ft.com/... -@MattGarrahan

New York Times:

A look at Pod Save America, which gets 20M monthly downloads, and its parent company Crooked Media, as both have grown into institutions in liberal politics— The hosts of the political podcast have outlasted the wave of anti-Trump #Resistance that made it popular. That's where things get complicated.

Discussion:
@bernstein and Fox News

Discussion:

Joe Bernstein /
@bernstein: For @NYTStyles, I profiled @PodSaveAmerica, which has outlived the Resistance moment that made it huge, and, by helping its ever-loyal Democratic audience process its emotions, turned into something genuinely influential https://www.nytimes.com/...

Variety:

Sources: Disney plans to simulcast six broadcasts of Monday Night Football, typically a mainstay of ESPN, on the ABC broadcast network— Disney is taking a strategy that lent it a boost during the recent Hollywood labor strikes and working to apply it to its normal course of business.

Discussion:

Luke Bouma /
Cord Cutters News: ABC Expands “Monday Night Football” Simulcasts, Bringing More NFL Action to Network Television

Brad Pareso /
Adweek: ABC Adds 6 More MNF Simulcasts for 2024 Inside Radio: Trump's Call For FCC License Revocations Should Be ‘A Wake-Up Call For All Broadcasters.’

Mike Snider /
USA Today: ‘Threats against free speech’: FCC chair condemns Trump's call for CBS to lose license

Matthew Keys /
The Desk: ABC to simulcast more “Monday Night Football” games

Andrew Bucholtz /
Awful Announcing: Somehow, six more Monday Night Football simulcasts returned to ABC

Lucas Manfredi /
The Wrap: ‘Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,’ ‘Scamanda’ Docuseries, ‘Press Your Luck’ Delayed to 2025 on ABC

Rick Porter /
The Hollywood Reporter: ABC Bulks Up ‘Monday Night Football’ Slate

Semafor:

Q&A with ATTN co-founder and co-CEO Matthew Segal on the current social ecosystem, vertical video optimization, trying to be the “HBO of short-form”, and more— The News — Born in 2014, the media company ATTN is the product of the Facebook video age …

The Guardian:

The BBC launches an independent review of its workplace culture after scandals around presenters like Huw Edwards; DG Tim Davie says no one is “indispensable”— Tim Davie says corporation is committed to change after series of scandals including that surrounding Huw Edwards

Discussion:
Deadline and The Guardian

Discussion:

Max Goldbart /
Deadline: BBC Boss Bans The Word “Talent”

Press Gazette:

The Evening Standard reports revenue down 15% YoY to £26.8m in the FY ending October 1, 2023 and a loss of £20.6M, its highest loss since going free in 2009— The Evening Standard has reported its highest losses since going free in 2009, for the year before it decided to drop its daily print edition.

Discussion:
The Guardian and @baekdal

Discussion:

Thomas Baekdal /
@baekdal: Ouch... [image]

New Yorker:

A profile of Bang Si-hyuk, a South Korean music producer and chairman of Hybe Corporation who is taking his formula for creating K-pop idols like BTS to the US— Chairman Bang, the man behind BTS, is bringing his formula for creating K-pop idols to America. — Scooter Braun was in a tailspin.

Discussion:
@cfnchng, @christataetae, @thelionmutters, @intrnl_mnologue, @sugatheartist and @themarkrussell

Discussion:

Cat-Cat /
@cfnchng: It's a LONG read but eye opening. You'll def feel icky for playing into this machine but we all need the reminder that at the end of the day, it is a business. You might get a subscribe popup but just click away. it doesn't hide the article. https://www.newyorker.com/...

Christia /
@christataetae: Whether you like Bang or not, highly recommend you read. Very much gives an insight into the business, what our guys are dealing with and how fans are..."managed." https://www.newyorker.com/... @thelionmutters: Loved this article by the @NewYorker because it equally exposes the artificiality of K-pop but also why it works and what is great about it. This was a great piece to read. https://www.newyorker.com/... @intrnl_mnologue: Hybe is heavily invested not in music but in perfecting the formula to exploit the parasocial relationship between fans and idols. This is one reason i got turned off by kpop, because it isn't about music, but a business approach to get fans to spend more https://www.newyorker.com/...

Paula /
@sugatheartist: The article titled “The K-Pop King” mainly focuses on praising the talents of Bang Shi Hyuk and 🛴 and their journey together. I'll mention parts I didn't see discussed on Twitter. https://www.newyorker.com/...

Vulture:

The gap between TV show seasons is growing, with an 18-month break the new normal, thanks to the streaming production model and TV shows becoming spectacles— Eighteen-month gaps between seasons are the new normal. Here's why. — By Josef Adalian, Remember Stranger Things?

Discussion:
Forbes, @sidhubaba, TVNewsCheck, Screen Rant, Just Jared and Gizmodo

Discussion:

Siddhartha Mahanta /
@sidhubaba: feels like a real problem, but curious what people who have thrived / are thriving in both mediums might say https://www.vulture.com/... [image]

Jason Zinoman /
TVNewsCheck: ‘Saturday Night Live’ And The Underappreciated Influence Of Carol Burnett

Ben Protheroe /
Screen Rant: 10 Uplifting TV Shows To Help You Get Through A Hard Time

Financial Times:

A Venezuelan rights group says the country has cancelled 40+ passports, mostly of journalists and activists, since Nicolás Maduro claimed a re-election victory— Move part of campaign of repression since President Nicolás Maduro claimed re-election win, say rights groups

Discussion:
@kenroth, The Art Newspaper and Reuters

Discussion:

Kenneth Roth /