David Ellison appears on CNBC. (Screen grab via SnapStream/CNBC)
Early Thursday morning, on the sunny Paramount lot in Los Angeles, David Ellison sat for an interview with CNBC. The newly minted media mogul, dressed in a navy blazer worn over a dark T-shirt, granted the interview after astonishing the political and media worlds by defeating Netflix in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets. As the sit-down commenced, he seemed eager to talk about the movie business, how he wishes to use technology to “transform” it, and why he believes that merging the two media giants will not only be good for Hollywood, but good for consumers.
What Ellison did not address on his own, though, was the elephant in the room: CNN, the prized news asset that played an outsized role in the war over WBD’s assets. Indeed, since making the winning offer for the David Zaslav-led empire, Ellison had been absolutely mum about the future of the globally recognized news brand. When Paramount issued a press release on Friday officially announcing it would acquire the entertainment conglomerate, it mentioned the studios, the sports assets, but conspicuously left out the company’s plans for news. The only mention of the Mark Thompson-led network was found at…
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"CBS Mornings." (Screen grab via SnapStream/CBS)
CBS’ Morning Show Shakeup: Another top producer is exiting CBS News. On Thursday, “CBS Mornings” Executive Producer Shawna Thomas informed colleagues that she will be departing, stunning staffers on the show and underscoring that Bari Weiss and Tom Cibrowski’s overhaul of the program is now fully underway. Officially, Thomas said in a memo that she is simply “tired” and ready to move on. But her exit…
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