CBSNN

We'd better get used to that acronym.

Netflix and Paramount-Skydance, as you might recall, had been in competition for taking over Warner Brothers-Discovery, the parent company of CNN, whose ratings have slipped dramatically since Trump returned to power in early 2025 - most likely because of Scott Jennings and Jake Tapper.  Both companies expressed a desire to take over Warner Brothers-Discovery and CNN and seek to improve its stand in the increasingly irrelevant cable-news sweepstakes.  Then Netflix capitulated and withdrew its bid for Warner Brothers-Discovery.

So?  So, David Ellison and his father David - the benefactors of both Donald Trump - own Paramount-Skydance.  Paramount-Skydance owns CBS, which is run by Ellison beneficiary Bari Weiss.  

This news came out a day before Trump decided to blow up Iran.  So of course not too many people noticed.  But I did, and I credit former New York TV newswoman Sheila Stainback for bringing the news to my attention.  Note the word "former."  Sheila Stainback, who used to be an anchorwoman on the ten o'clock newscast on WPIX-TV in New York, quit the news business and turned to acting.  I learned about this news from her because I follow her on both Instagram and Threads.

These days, of course, a former TV journalist has more credibility than current TV journalists, and even non-journalists like actress Andrea Thompson, who was a CNN Headline News "anchor" for nine months, have more credibility than noted non-journalist Bari Weiss, who will likely become the editor-in-chief for the entire CBS-CNN news enterprise.  Given her inability to know the difference between reporting and editorializing (why else would CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil verbally salute Marco Rubio on the air?), the potential for misinformation across two massive platforms (CBS News also includes the CBS News 24/7 streaming channel) should be spectacularly gargantuan.

The combined news outlets will control, I have been led to understand, roughly two-thirds of  news reporting on legacy media.  And with a war between the U.S. and Israel and Iran well underway - which has led to the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - you can expect the Ellisons, one of the country's most wealthy Jewish families, and that yenteh Weiss to slant the news in favor of Trump and Netanyahu, two septuagenarians who cling to power to avoid going to prison, and frame the narrative to present the two globally isolated leaders as being quite noble.  I don't mean to be anti-Semitic in my characterizations of Weiss and the Ellisons, because, quite frankly, painting Trump and Netanyahu as the good guys in a war against a Muslim theocracy that is as wretched and as murderous as people say is not only a good way to rouse MAGA and Christian nationalists anticipating the Second Coming; it's also good for business.  They would have covered the Troubles in Ulster with a bias toward the British if they'd thought they could make a profit from it.

Also, you can expect more favorable coverage of Trump's tariff policy and immigration policy, less coverage at all of the Epstein files, and plenty of shady deals in the Middle East. Oh yeah, did I happen to mention that the Ellisons are being supported by significant investment from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, including the Qatar Investment Authority?  Everyone involved in this merger, like every defense contractor involved in this new war, is poised to make lots of money while the American people are poised to eat lots of crap.  After all, the only people that get hurt in situations like these are the innocent.

I haven't been able to write or report for the hyperlocal news site I worked for until this past June, which suits me just fine, and I don't care if I never work as a straight reporter ever again.  I'm comfortable mouthing off right here.  And I am pleased to join my fellow Fourth Estate alum Sheila Stainback into early retirement. 

Hostility To Free Speech

This business deal in the media is so convoluted - most likely by design - that I had to consult AI to understand it.

The bottom line is this: Paramount, which recently merged with Skydance with the blessing of federal non-regulators and owns CBS, is pursuing a hostile, all-cash bid in December 2025 to buy all of Warner Brothers-Discovery (WBD), for $30 per share, to prevent Netflix's offer for WBD's studio and streaming assets.  The deal not only has the support of Donald Trump but also his son-in-law Jared Kushner; the Plastic Man is providing funding for the possible Paramount/Skydance deal from interests in the Middle East, as well as support from MBS - I don't mean the Mutual Broadcasting System, which went off the air over a quarter century ago.   

Paramount claims that the acquisition of  WBD would mean "more content, better linear networks (CBS and CNN), and significant cost savings," while a Netflix takeover of WBD would mostly focus on streaming.  Paramount, by contrast, is apparently promising miracles.

When a media conglomerate promises miracles, just remember - Jesus is the only person who can promise a miracle and deliver.

Paramount doesn't want to control WBD to provide more and better content.  It wants to take over as many media outlets and make them as Trump-friendly as possible.  Larry Ellison, who runs Paramount, and his son David want to turn CNN into a mouthpiece for Trump (although, to be honest, many CNN anchors appear to be auditioning to be Trump mouthpieces already) and do to CNN what Bari Weiss is doing to CBS News - make it an outlet for government-friendly spin, lightweight features, and whatever Weiss calls "the fucking news."  Now she might get to perform the act of fucking CNN.  And with so many broadcast and entertainment media under one umbrella, the Ellison family can and would make sure that nothing that could actually inform or enlighten folks gets through.

The good news is that there is still freedom of the press in These States.  The bad news is that the corporate media - already vacuous and intellectually bankrupt - is seeing to it that only a handful of rich people actually own the press.  Freedom of speech?   You can speak out, good luck if anyone hears you.  Heck, you can write a letter to the editor of whatever newspapers and magazines are still putting out print editions, but that doesn't mean it will be published.  And if you speak out against the Saudis through a possible Ellison-owned media establishment - well, goo luck, you're going to need it. 

Knowyour rights in These States/  just be extremely careful how to use them.

CNN - CNN+ = 0

CNN+ is dead.

CNN's subscription streaming service went off the Internet two days ago after only a month online.  Its end marks the biggest failure in streaming to date and probably one of the biggest flops in all of television - broadcast, cable, streaming - of all time.

What went wrong?  It all boils down to bad timing, a bad business model, and a change of strategy after the merger of  WarnerMedia, which owned CNN, and Discovery, Inc. to become Warner Brothers-Discovery.  CNN+ gained about 150,000 subscribers in its short lifespan, a respectable start for a new streaming service but not enough, considering projected trends of growth, to make it profitable in the foreseeable future.  And as the pandemic recedes - "recedes," not "ends" - fewer people see a need to stream things all the time . . . which is why Netflix actually lost subscribers in the first quarter of 2022.  Also, the new management of the newly formed company is mostly made up of Discovery Inc. veterans who had nothing to do with CNN.  CNN+ wasn't their project, and they had no connection or attachment to it.  So CNN+'s days were numbered and the number was very small.

I sort of had a feeling that CNN+ was going to fail when I saw samples of its programming.  For example, as previously noted on this blog, foreign policy expert Fareed Zakaria interviewed celebrities on CNN+ - not unlike Dan Rather's celebrity interviews on AXS TV, so the novelty of a serious newsman talking to pop stars and the like wasn't exactly fresh.  (How far back do you want to go?  Edward R. Murrow pioneered the "hard-newsman-interviewing-celebs" concept with "Person To Person.")  One of Zakaria's subjects was Billy Joel, whose latest album is, last time I checked, 29 years old as of this writing.  (Zakaria showed an excerpt of his interview with Joel on his Sunday cable show, in which Joel talked about how he originally wrote "Movin' Out" to a melody that turned out to have been from Neil Sedaka's "Laughter In the Rain."  Yeah, I knew about that.  Hardly anything fascinatingly revealing.)   

Other CNN+ programs included a show about parenting with Anderson Cooper, a book-review show hosted by Jake Tapper, and a show hosted by Eva Longoria about discovering the wonders of Mexico.  (Only anti-Hispanic prejudice could explain why her show wasn't a companion on CNN to Stanley Tucci's very similar series about discovering the wonders of Italy.)  The biggest draws of exclusive talent for CNN+ were MSNBC refugee Kasie Hunt and Fox News outcast Chris Wallace hosting their own news programs.  I can just imagine CNN brass saying, "Now there's an idea that can't miss!"  (Well, George Lucas probably said the same thing about a Star Wars TV special for the 1978 Christmas season.)

Folks like Hunt and Wallace will probably get their own shows on CNN, with Wallace rumored to be under consideration for the 9 PM Eastern slot currently occupied by an expansion of Anderson Cooper's prime-time broadcast.  (AC has also been on in the afternoon covering the war in Ukraine, likely because CNN has decided that what we need is more of Anderson Cooper.)  Hopefully, they'll move Eva Longoria's series to the cable channel.  The enormous sums of money to promote and broadcast CNN+, however, prove that while you may have a solid product, it doesn't guarantee success for a new product that's merely a variation of the existing one.

Ask anyone who ever owned a Pinto-based Ford Mustang II.