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Thursday, September 4, 2025 |
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Good morning! Scroll down for the latest on Andy Beshear, Bari Weiss, C-SPAN, Chris Ruddy, James Gunn, "South Park," The Daily Mail, and much more... |
The most valuable asset in the media industry is back. Tonight, the new NFL season opens with the Cowboys playing the reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles on NBC and Peacock. Tomorrow, in a big sign of the TV streaming times, YouTube will exclusively stream the Chiefs versus the Chargers from São Paulo, Brazil. It's "the first exclusive NFL game to be streamed live and for free in its entirety on YouTube."
The phrase "any given Sunday" still has emotional power, but the NFL is now so dominant that "Every Day Is Sunday," which is the title of NYT reporter Ken Belson's forthcoming book about the league's rise to prominence. In the book, Belson quotes one of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's colleagues saying, "Roger doesn't view the other leagues as competition. He wants to be mentioned with Disney and the Vatican, these massive institutions."
And he has succeeded. (I have already preordered Belson's book, which comes out in October.) For more on the new season, The Athletic's Richard Deitsch and Andrew Marchand summed up "the biggest NFL media storylines," and CNN's Andy Scholes has "5 things to know ahead of kickoff."
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Along with the YouTube milestone, the new NFL season is historic for another media-related reason: "Following the launches of ESPN’s long-awaited flagship streaming service and Fox One two weeks ago, this season will mark the first in NFL history in which every game is available over-the-top," without any cable or satellite subscription, analysts at MoffettNathanson noted this morning.
>> All About Cookies analyzed each team's schedule and found that "17% of all NFL matchups will require fans to pay a fee," whether to Amazon, Netflix or other partners. The vast majority of games will still be available via broadcast, but the paid trend will continue. Overall, "high costs for fans" is "the NFL's biggest perceived problem," according to data from CivicScience/SBJ Sports Consumer Insights.
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RedZone will have (limited) ads now |
Scott Hanson usually starts Sunday's RedZone broadcasts by proclaiming that "seven hours of commercial-free football starts now!" But not anymore. There will be ads, though just a small number of them, shown in a double-box format during the broadcasts this season. Hanson confirmed the plans in a hit on "The Pat McAfee Show" and reassured fans that "we will not miss a touchdown." For the NFL, the ad opportunity is irresistible, right? Sportico's Jacob Feldman has details here.
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Super Bowl ads have already sold out* |
*This claim always comes with an asterisk, since ad spending plans change closer to the event, but NBCUniversal said yesterday that it "has sold out all ad inventory for Super Bowl 60," Adweek's Bill Bradley reported. NBCU has "also sold out 90% of its NFL inventory outside of the Super Bowl."
>> The NFL "remains the pin holding up the linear TV model which affects advertising decisions across the country," the ad experts at Medium Buying remarked this morning. "This also makes the NFL the most important support structure for local broadcast journalism in America."
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Turning from football to Trump... |
This morning's new cover of The Economist is a handy segue: |
Online, that cover story is titled, "Donald Trump is unpopular. Why is it so hard to stand up to him?"
We wrote yesterday about Trump's "blame AI" remark, so this was notable overnight, via Deadline's Ted Johnson: "Trump's Truth Social account this evening is a flow of AI or doctored videos, including one where Chris Christie and JB Pritzker are sumo wrestling. And the president again says that they may revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship." The official @WhiteHouse X account repeated the Rosie threat.
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Ellison nears deal with The Free Press |
David Ellison's deal to acquire The Free Press and install Bari Weiss at CBS News is "on the 1-yard line," Puck's Dylan Byers reports, citing a source. The deal is expected to include an unspecified newsroom role for Weiss. Oliver Darcy's reaction: "Ellison vowed not to politicize Paramount — yet his first big move at CBS News is a major bet on Bari Weiss, one of the most polarizing figures in media." Here is Darcy's full Status column.
Weiss is many things — a shrewd entrepreneur, a well-read columnist — but her limited background in hard news will undoubtedly ruffle feathers within CBS News. And/but that's the point: Ellison wants disruption and change. From a business standpoint, CBS News needs a direct-to-consumer subscription model, and The Free Press has one...
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'Disrespectful to call it a hoax' |
The "odd couple keeping Epstein in the headlines," Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, were on "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" together last night, pressing the DOJ to release everything it has about the Epstein probe. "It's disrespectful to call it a hoax," the way Trump keeps doing, Massie said. "This is not a hoax, not at all. And it's not going to go away."
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Great advice from VP Vance |
"If the media you consumed told you that Donald Trump was on his death bed because he didn't do a press conference for 3 days, imagine what else they're lying to you about," VP JD Vance wrote on X yesterday. His post was disingenuous in some ways, but as CNN's Aaron Blake remarked, "This is actually great advice. The 'media' that said Trump was dead or dying was social media, not mainstream outlets. And social media *is* rife with lies."
WaPo's Natalie Allison called the VP's message a strong endorsement "to read newspapers and other established news media, which did not report the false claims that conspiracy theorists on social media peddled!"
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Chris Ruddy got lots of press for this yesterday: Newsmax "filed an antitrust lawsuit against Fox News, accusing the Rupert Murdoch-owned broadcaster of illegally blocking competition in the right-wing pay-TV market." In an interview with CNN's Liam Reilly, Ruddy said, "Fox leverages this market power to coerce distributors into not carrying or into marginalizing other right-leaning news channels, including Newsmax."
But Newsmax has relatively wide distribution. It hasn't been marginalized. Newsmax simply hasn't been able to convert the available audience into devoted viewers. That's one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of this legal action. Yes, Fox plays hardball, but it's going to be very hard for Newsmax to prove illegality. An antitrust expert told the NYT that the case "looks pretty weak."
>> Fox ridiculed the lawsuit in a statement, saying that "Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers." I used to say Newsmax has one-tenth the audience of Fox at any given time of day, but lately the gap has grown even wider, and at some hours, it's more like one-twentieth...
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SiriusXM picks up Beshear's podcast |
David Bauder's AP headline this morning: "Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear goes national with podcast, the hot format for aspiring politicians." The potential 2028 presidential candidate's podcast will air on Sirius starting next week, and he will also be featured on "a regular call-in show."
>> Beshear says people "feel like the news hits them minute after minute after minute. And it can feel like chaos. It can feel like the world is out of control. With this podcast, we're trying to help Americans process what we're going through."
>> In other Sirius news, Scott Greenstein said of Howard Stern and the Stern crew, "We'd love them to stay," but "it certainly has to make sense" financially.
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>> A big win for C-SPAN: It has struck distribution deals with YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV. (Deadline)
>> This morning, The Daily Mail is naming Greta Lawn to a new role, president for North America, that reflects its growth goals in the market. (Press Gazette)
>> Semafor "is doubling down on live journalism" and looking to "challenge the primacy of the World Economic Forum in Davos." (Adweek)
>> "Gunnar Wiedenfels, CFO of Warner Bros. Discovery and designated CEO of the company's planned network spinoff entity, says buyers are already interested in its 20% stake in its soon-to-be sibling," Dade Hayes reports. (Deadline)
>> The WBD split is the first example in this new WSJ story: "The year's buzziest deals are corporate breakups." (WSJ)
>> CNN is televising the 40th anniversary of the Farm Aid music festival on Saturday, Sept. 20. ( |
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