What's Next: The Sky Wars Finale: Bob Iger and Rupert Murdoch are considering upping their bid for Sky Broadcasting before the end of the week, three sources familiar with the men's thinking tell me. The Disney and Fox chiefs have until Thursday to best Comcast's $34 billion offer for the European broadcaster.
What they're thinking:
• At worst, a new bid would drive up the price of Sky for Comcast's Brian Roberts, exacting a small measure of revenge on him for driving up the price of Fox.
• At best, Sky would give Disney more than 23 million paying subscribers in Europe, bolstering its global direct-to-consumer efforts.
The question is whether Iger mounts the bid directly or leaves the effort to Rupert. Disney reports earnings Tuesday, Fox reports earnings Wednesday. The deadline for a bid is close of business Thursday. | | | PACIFIC
The Agenda Good Morning. Over the weekend, CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl defended his company amid the investigation in sexual misconduct accusations: "I'm not saying we're perfect -- no large company is -- and there's always room for improvement," he said. "But a lot of us have been here a long time precisely because CBS Entertainment is such a fulfilling place to work." What NBC is reading: David Usborne's new piece in Esquire, which says the Matt Lauer scandal has "raised unsettling questions about the network's leadership, its boys'-club culture, and how it covered the #MeToo moment." | | Stream Kings
Bob Iger's Sarandos
Ricky Strauss, the ascendant Disney executive in charge of Disney's forthcoming streaming channel, is poised to become one of the most important men in Hollywood as the company ramps up its effort to compete with Apple, Amazon and Netflix.
NYT's Brooks Barnes reports:
• "Strauss ... was recently given ... creative oversight of the service's programming. He has the power to 'greenlight' new episodic series and movies and will develop, according to Disney, the service's 'strategic content vision.'"
• "Known for his personal stylishness and diplomatic manner, Mr. Strauss also understands how to navigate Disney's disparate kingdoms, which include Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel, all of which are already making content for the service."
What's Next: "Mr. Strauss will need to court other top filmmakers, writers and stars to make content for the service — at a time when Apple, Amazon and Netflix are going after talent with wheelbarrows full of money."
Remember ... Disney will have at least three separate streaming services: This one, which will be aimed at families; ESPN+, for sports; and Hulu, which will target older audiences. | | | What Parents are Reading
"The Wild West of children's entertainment" by Axios' Kim Hart and Sara Fischer. "An explosion of new digital options for kids' entertainment has pulled children's attention away from live TV to instant, on-demand programming, bringing with it new challenges for producers, policymakers and parents." | | | Editorial Judgment
Apple takes on InfoWars
Apple's decision to remove all episodes of Alex Jones' InfoWars podcasts seems to have started a trend, as Facebook and other tech firms moved shortly afterward to clamp down on the conspiracy theorist.
The policy shifts highlight tech platforms' struggle to balance editorial values with free speech:
• Apple removed Jones' podcasts over the weekend after determining the conspiracy theorist had run afoul of its hate speech guidelines.
• Hours later, Facebook, which had placed Jones on a 30-day ban after defending its decision to keep his content on its platform, announced they had banned four of Jones' pages over their "repeated violations of community standards."
• Spotify also announced Monday that it would remove every episode of Jones' show from its platform. YouTube, which removed one of Jones' videos back in April, has yet to make a similar announcement.
How It's Playing:
• BuzzFeed's John Paczkowski and Charlie Warzel: "Apple's decision to remove all episodes of Jones' popular show ... is one of the largest enforcement actions intended to curb conspiratorial news content by a technology company to date."
• NYT's Kevin Roose: "Facebook follows Apple in banning Infowars, giving up the game after weeks of sanctimonious lectures about free speech. This was always about being too scared to go first."
Bonus: Facebook's new headache: WSJ's Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman and AnnaMaria Andriotis report that Facebook "asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about customers." | | The Smart Market
Why Cook wants India
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Saritha Rai say India has become central to Apple's growth strategy:
• "Lost in the hoopla around Apple's $1 trillion capitalization has been its serious trouble in the world's second-largest smartphone market, where it ranks 11th. The company accounts for 1% of India's phone sales and sold fewer than 1 million phones there during the first half of 2018."
• "During a weeklong trip to India two years ago ... Tim Cook told just about every employee, politician, and Bollywood star he saw that the country was central to his plans. ... Behind the scenes ... he's been working to remold Apple's failing India strategy, according to current and former Apple employees."
The Challenge: "For years, Indian consumers have complained that Siri can't process their requests in local languages, they have no access to Apple Pay, and Apple Maps can't give them turn-by-turn directions or identify points of interest." | | Awards Season
New rules of comedy
"This year's crop of Emmy comedy series nominees has moved far beyond the stock elements of old-time sitcoms and become more inventive in form, character-driven, and droll rather than jokey," THR's Caryn James reports:
• "The category includes two brilliant comic dramas, FX's Atlanta and HBO's Barry. Half the nominees are bingeable streaming series with prickly but endearing heroines: Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Netflix's GLOW and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt."
• "[The] major snubs all rely on the creaky sitcom form that wraps up episodes with a neat button,
and all are from the networks."
The Big Picture: "Together, these nominees suggest a new golden age of edgy comedies that raise potent social questions without easy answers and speak to today's anxious social mood. ... Emmy voters have obviously turned a corner and are prizing artistic innovation." | | At the Movies
MoviePass shifts gears
In its latest bid to avoid disaster, MoviePass has decided to limit customers to three movies a month, a radical drop from one movie a day. The price, which was originally going to be increased to $14.95 a month, will stay at $9.95.
Will this save MoviePass? Anyone's guess.
Where there at: "The stock plunged from $39 last October to just 8 cents last month," my colleague Jill Disis reports. "The company approved a reverse split -- a cosmetic change that boosted the stock 250-fold, back up to $21. Since then it's fallen all the way back to 7 cents."
Woof. | | What Next: The Dick Cavett interview in Sunday's New York Times .... Best Graf: "One night in the 1970s ... the phone rang in [Cavett's] renowned summer house ... It was Mr. Cavett's wife, the actress Carrie Nye, who was at their place in the city. 'Darling?' she said. 'This ain't 'darling,' said [Muhammad] Ali, who had been invited for an impromptu visit and given the master bedroom. 'This is the three-time heavyweight champion of the world, and I'm lying in your bed, watching your TV.'"
See you tomorrow. | | | | | |
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