Media

1. The Economist evolves
2. Survivor and Paramount
3. Mixed Signals
4. Ellison’s ‘evasion’
5. Strategic deals

For a year, Paramount has been telegraphing a message to viewers and the Trump administration: Our programming was too liberal, and we are changing.

While President Donald Trump and other conservatives have greeted that message with skepticism, it has certainly been received by the network’s own talent, who are beginning to distance themselves from CBS.

Since Paramount decided to end Stephen Colbert’s show, the late night host has been in open revolt against his soon-to-be-ex-bosses, and took the opportunity last week to bash the network over its compliance with FCC guidelines regarding equal time for political candidates.

Other onscreen personalities have deliberately chosen to break with network leadership they no longer trust. Last week, Breaker reported that Anderson Cooper will also leave 60 Minutes after friction with CBS News, now led by new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. And in our newsletter this week, I write about how a well-known former Survivor contestant has frustrated CBS executives behind the scenes with her criticism of its pro-Trump contestants and the network’s overall drift to the right.

In a consolidated media landscape with shrinking budgets and declining employment options, some stars who dislike Paramount’s current messaging will almost certainly overlook their differences if it means an opportunity to work. And for Paramount, losing an expensive late-night comedian and irritating a few TV personalities may be the cost of doing business in a world where the biggest transactions hinge on the feelings of a mercurial and demanding world leader. (As of this writing, it looks like the strategy may be working in its quest for Warner Bros. Discovery.)

But as Liz Hoffman wrote last week, “there’s no predictable way to win in this form of capitalism.” The more Paramount stakes out an ideological position aimed at the center and the right, the more political opponents take notice. Netflix board member Susan Rice was an odd (and, to Netflix, unfortunate) messenger for this point, but the political pendulum swings hard these days — and corporate leaders will be expected to keep their receipts.

Also today: How The Economist is adapting, growth at the SF Standard, and why a local Hudson Valley Democrat is spending his own money on TV ads trying to provoke Trump.

After three years of busy Sunday nights, Semafor Media will be moving to Saturday mornings soon. It’s a decision we’re excited to talk about more in the coming weeks as we refocus the newsletter for a media news landscape that has changed since we initially launched in 2022. You’ll find us in your inbox next a little earlier, on Feb. 28. If you can’t wait that long, join us this Wednesday in Washington, DC, for our annual media summit, where we’ll hear from the FCC’s Brendan Carr, Axel Springer’s Mathias Döpfner, and many more. Sign up here.

The evolving Economist

The Economist is in the midst of a significant transition, we write this week, as the profitable but slow-moving weekly paper realizes it must adapt to the new personality-driven media landscape. The publication’s primary text-based readers have, on average, aged a decade over the last ten years, and web traffic continues to fall, executives told staff in a recent meeting. The magazine’s board has entrusted editor Zanny Minton Beddoes to do the job for another two years while helping turn the famously faceless organization into a new hub for stars, sinking significant resources into its video push, called Insider. This all comes as Lynn Forester de Rothschild continues to pursue a sale of her stake in the publication. The family has turned away some potential buyers, like Axel Springer, but according to one person familiar with the process, it’s drawing closer to a deal to sell.

‘Survivor’ contestant calls out Paramount

A prominent Survivor contestant is taking on the network that made her a star. In recent months, Eliza Orlins has shared posts criticizing some of the network’s programming decisions. And she’s gotten Paramount’s attention: The company requested a meeting with Orlins earlier this year and suggested she could be violating trademark rules and was harming other contestants with her posts.

Now, with the premiere of Survivor’s landmark 50th season on Wednesday, Orlins is hoping to draw fans’ attention to what she argues are the network’s attempts to placate the administration while taking its left-leaning viewers for granted.

In a video first shared with Semafor, Orlins calls out the network for refusing to condemn former contestant Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick’s prior antisemitic comments and making LaGrossa Kendrick a part of the promotional cycle for the new season, as well as its rightward pivot.

“When you look at who CBS is rehabilitating across its entire programming slate, from primetime entertainment to news, a picture emerges: They are choosing a side, and they are using your viewership to launder that choice,” she says in the video.

Sullivan and Finer on their podcast pivot

On this week’s episode of Mixed Signals, Ben and Max are joined by former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer to discuss their leap from the Situation Room to the podcast studio. They talk about launching The Long Game, what they learned about media while shaping US foreign policy, and how the war in Ukraine became as much an information battle as a military one. Plus, they discuss AI-generated propaganda, reactions to the Munich Security Conference, and whether Democrats ever figured out how to explain foreign policy to the American middle class.

Democrats push Ellison

Democratic senators unhappy with Paramount CEO David Ellison’s refusal to testify about his efforts to buy Warner Bros. Discovery ratcheted up the pressure this week, Semafor’s Rohan Goswami scooped. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and five other senators accused Ellison Thursday of a “pattern of evasion” and asked the billionaire to preserve all communications with Trump, his family members, lobbyists, and Justice Department staff, according to a letter viewed by Semafor.

Democrats can’t currently hold up the sale of Warner Bros. But the letter hints at what might happen — in the Warner deal and, more broadly, to other companies that have benefitted from aligning with the Trump administration — if Democrats retake the Senate in November. The senators suggested they would investigate any deal that Paramount struck for Warner, which, even if agreed to, likely wouldn’t close until well after the midterm elections later this year.

Quality over quantity

In 2025, “media dealmaking was about quality, not quantity,” KPMG wrote in its annual media M&A report, with a few marquee deals more than compensating for an overall decrease in merger activity. Topping the list was Netflix’s $82.7 billion offer for Warner Bros. Discovery — a number that could soar yet higher now that Paramount has wedged its way back into talks — though Charter’s $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox and the $55 billion take-private of game publisher Electronic Arts also added to 2025’s tally, which was more than double 2024’s.

“In a world where consumer attention is fragmented, premium sports rights and immersive gaming environments offer some of the last remaining ‘must have’ content categories,” KPMG analysts wrote. That centrality of sports as monoculture, a Max Tani obsession, has also been borne out by the strong Winter Olympics ratings NBC has been trumpeting.

— Graph Massara

Semafor will host its annual Trust in Media Summit in Washington, DC on February 25, convening the industry’s most influential leaders for timely conversations on media credibility and the shifting dynamics of media power.

Semafor editors and reporters will be joined by leading voices in media, including: Brendan Carr, Chairman, FCC; Matt Murray, Executive Editor, Washington Post; Kristen Welker, Moderator, Meet the Press and Anchor, Meet the Press NOW; Mathias Döpfner, CEO, Axel Springer; Jacqui Heinrich, Senior White House Correspondent and Anchor of The Sunday Briefing on FOX News Channel; Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, President & CEO, Knight Foundation; Deborah Turness, Former CEO, BBC News; and Hamish McKenzie, Co-Founder & Chief Writing Officer, Substack. Request an invitation to join the conversation as it happens live.

Feb. 25, 2025 | Washington, DC | Request Invite

Puck: Matt Belloni spends 40 minutes grilling Netflix’s Ted Sarandos in excruciating detail about what his company will and won’t do if it prevails in its bid for Warner Bros.

New York Magazine: Charlotte Klein tracks the downfall of “embittered Brit” Will Lewis.

Nieman Lab: Confusion over the veracity of The Atlantic’s fictional account of a child dying of measles apparently extended to The Atlantic’s own comms staff, Laura Hazard Owen reports.

WNYC: On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone gets into a revealing exchange with the head of the conservative advocacy group behind the Trump-era FCC’s legal theories.

• The San Francisco Standard is continuing to staff up. In a note to staff on Friday first shared with Semafor, the company announced it was hiring former Guardian US editor John Mulholland to oversee news coverage as its managing editor. Mulholland is the digital outlet’s second major hire for the Standard in a few months; earlier this year, the company hired former Politico magazine editor Elizabeth Ralph to run its opinion section. The Bay Area-based media company has also begun scaling its sponsored events business, and last week, it announced it had received a Lenfest Grant to build an AI-powered news app.
• In a mark of how much midterm politics revolve around the president, a congressional Democratic hopeful running in the Hudson Valley is trying to provoke Trump by taking the unusual step of purchasing television ad space far outside his district. Peter Chatzky, a tech company founder and deputy mayor in Briarcliff Manor hoping to win the Democratic nomination in New York’s 17th District, purchased ad space on Fox News in West Palm Beach, Florida, timed with President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Mar-a-Lago. The 30-second TV spot dubs Trump a “sleazeball developer” and touts Chatzky’s opposition to a Trump golf course. Chatzky’s aggressive spending and investment in his own campaign has