Greetings from somewhere over America, and welcome back to In the Room. Knicks in six! So they can close in the Garden. Speaking of, shame on the Times for omitting David Zaslav and Mark Shapiro from their “famous faces” of Game 3.

In tonight’s edition, news and notes on the latest developments at West 57th Street, and what’s actually going on with David Ellison’s search for a new executive to manage the Bari Weiss drama at CBS News and, eventually, CNN.

🎙️ Plus, on the latest episode of The Grill Room, Fox One C.E.O. Pete Distad joined me to explain how the streamer plans to leverage its World Cup rights to attract and retain new subscribers. We also reflected on the broader challenges and opportunities facing the sports media ecosystem. Follow The Grill Room on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you prefer to listen.

📣 Reminder: The Wednesday issue of In the Room will be exclusive to Puck’s Inner Circle tier starting next week, with my June 17 send. Don’t forget to upgrade your subscription for access to all of Puck’s most exclusive insider reporting, plus access to our sister publication, Air Mail. It is well worth it, and you can afford it. Join here.

Also mentioned in this issue: Ari Emanuel, Jimmy Pitaro, Joe Kahn, Jon Miller, Mark Thompson, Scott Galloway, Andy Rooney, Ben Sherwood, David Rhodes, George Cheeks, Cesar Conde, Carolyn Ryan, Adam Rubenstein, Charles Forelle, Letitia James, Marc Lacey, Nick Bilton, Noah Oppenheim, Pat McAfee, Rob Bonta, Scott Pelley, Tom Cibrowski, Tucker Brown, and many more.

Open Tab

CAA’s creator play: Creative Artists Agency and Jon Miller’s Integrated Media, an investment vehicle supported by TPG, are launching a new company to acquire and invest in YouTube and podcast talent, per Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw. The company, Compound Creative Holdings, will start with $250 million in funding and will be led by Tucker Brown, an investment banker who raised funds for Dude Perfect and MeidasTouch, among others. (Usual disclosure: TPG is an investor in Puck.)
McAfee money: Jimmy Pitaro is currently in negotiations with Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro to extend Pat McAfee’s contract with ESPN, per The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand. The negotiations, confirmed by sources familiar, are likely to net McAfee more than $60 million a year and would expand his presence across ESPN programming, as my partner John Ourand noted yesterday. While the number is eye-popping, it’s worth remembering the minor caveat that the figure includes production costs for McAfee’s weekday show, which he licenses to the network.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Strange Times: I was amused to see Lachlan Cartwright’s latest tea-leaf reading on the Joe Kahn succession sweepstakes at The New York Times, which identified six—six!—potential successors, not including the managing editors and obvious heirs apparent, Carolyn Ryan and Marc Lacey. The report similarly amused Times insiders, including some of those mentioned, largely because most of the names were batshit crazy. Moreover, as one Times veteran noted, Carolyn is in many ways already in charge.
Great Scott!: Scott Galloway revealed on the Pivot podcast that Bari Weiss courted him for an Andy Rooney–style role at 60 Minutes. He says the conversations never went anywhere—and that he certainly wouldn’t pick them back up now.
And finally…: David Zaslav and top CNN executives and talent honored the network’s late founder, Ted Turner, in Atlanta today. In light of Paramount’s impending takeover of the network and its merger with CBS News, the most notable remarks came from Ted’s own grandson, John R. Seydel III. “Grandpa built CNN as an act of defiance, because he believed fearless, 24/7, independent journalism was oxygen for democracy,” Seydel said. “He would see what’s happening right now—larger and larger acquisitions, 60 Minutes hollowed, Dan Rather and hundreds of journalists writing letters calling for editorial independence to be preserved—and, by golly, he would be the first to speak up, … especially now, as the very network he built is facing similar threats.”

On that note, the main event…

The Bari Matchmaking Sweepstakes

By all accounts, Bari Weiss could use some help running CBS News. But hiring the right executive with the right skills will be tricky, especially when the usual suspects are probably too cautious, myopic, or smart to join the gang.

Dylan Byers

On Monday evening, CBS television chairman George Cheeks and new 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton met for dinner in the backroom of Come Prima, the discreet and clubby trattoria on the Upper East Side. The introductory bread-breaking session was, by all accounts, quite amicable—George likes Nick, Nick likes George, etcetera—but it also underscored their company’s rather unorthodox org structure. Nick reports to Bari, who reports directly to David Ellison. George, who had jurisdiction over past newsroom leaders, now only oversees Bari’s counterpart, CBS News president Tom Cibrowski.

Indeed, it’s a governance structure that somehow makes everyone and no one accountable all at once. Tom has no real sway over Bari, Nick, or deputies Adam Rubenstein and Charles Forelle—a team, I’m told, that has become notably reclusive amid the enduring shitstorm surrounding Weiss’s tenure. Still, there are occasions when all these stakeholders have to work together, such as during the four-hour conclave preceding Scott Pelley’s recent firing. Anyway, amid the trauma bonds forged by this era of CBS News, it’s a good thing for everyone to know one another.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Of course, this org chart stands to get significantly more complex after Paramount closes its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would bring CNN—that other once-august news network I occasionally write about—into the Paramount Skydance portfolio. Back in mid-May, I reported that David and the Paramount brass were discussing hiring a seasoned executive to help Bari manage CBS News and, eventually, CNN. At the time, David called me to dispute the report: “Bari is a singular talent, and she is the person we have empowered to run our newsroom,” he said. “Any reports that suggest otherwise are false.”

My reporting was not false then, and it certainly isn’t now. David continues to support Bari’s broad editorial influence over the news division (she is a singular talent!), as I reported then, but he and his deputies maintain that she was given too broad a mandate for someone with scant experience in television and corporate media stewardship. They are now actively planning to bring in a high-level figure who can help lead operations—a remit that’s likely to extend beyond mere P&L management to also include influence on linear programming, talent development, and broad strategy—while also attempting to respect Bari. The recent 60 Minutes clusterfuck has only hastened the demand for such stability. (A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment for this piece.)

Earlier this week, Axios re-reported that Paramount leaders had held preliminary conversations with several candidates for Bari’s “business-side counterpart.” To this, Axios added a roster of all-too-familiar names that it suggested were “under consideration”: NBCU News Group chairman Cesar Conde, CNN C.E.O. Mark Thompson, former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, Daily Beast C.E.O. and former ABC News president Ben Sherwood, and Sky News executive chairman and former CBS News president David Rhodes. The Axios article’s main point was that Bari would continue to “oversee all news editorial across both CBS News and CNN”—an apparent rebuke of my earlier suggestion, as well as a total misread of the aforementioned players. With the exception of Cesar, these folks are veteran producers and newsroom leaders themselves, and none of them would agree to hole up in a corporate office eating a tuna melt over an Excel doc while Bari and her deputies called the shots.

Either way, this isn’t actually the candidate pool. Conde has never met with David or anyone else at Paramount Skydance about this position, and sources close to him think it’s implausible that he would consider taking a smaller role at a smaller news organization, let alone a role in partnership with someone else. Oppenheim has met with David, but, as I reported last week, the two mainly discussed film and television deals between Paramount and Prologue, Noah’s independent production studio. Paramount executives reached out to Sherwood and Rhodes about potential roles last year, but neither has engaged with the company or its news division since.

Finally, Thompson actually has met with David, as I reported last month—meetings between merger partners can occur if they’re regulated—but there’s no sign yet that he’s a frontrunner for the role. It’s unlikely that someone of Thompson’s seniority would campaign for a role if he weren’t likely to receive it. (Recall how Zaz pulled him from retirement to take over CNN.) Indeed, Mark, who served as C.E.O. of The New York Times Company alongside an editorial partner and chafed at that limited purview, agreed to come to CNN only on the condition that he could serve as both C.E.O. and editor-in-chief—the first time the titles had effectively been collapsed. (Though, yes, Jeff Zucker was a fully omnipotent ruler during his historically successful reign.)

In truth, given the flurry of deal heat, David probably doesn’t yet know exactly which person he needs to hire and for exactly what role. And while he isn’t going to negotiate against himself by making any drastic personnel moves right now, he’s presumably less oblivious about the headwinds as he tries to finesse his WBD merger past Trump, Rob Bonta, Letitia James, the U.K., and the E.U.

In all likelihood, David will announce this new executive after the merger closes, at which point, as I’ve also reported, Paramount will map out its plan for combining and synergizing backend operations at CBS News and CNN. Like the Axios article, this new person’s title will likely aim to reinforce Bari’s broad editorial mandate. But it may belie the true extent of the role. In any case, it’ll be one more executive on an already mystifyingly complicated org chart. By then, of course, David may have decided that he’d rather deputize these distractions to George.

Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman and a rotating cast of industry insiders take you deep behind the scenes of this multitrillion-dollar biz, from creative director switcheroos to M&A drama, D.T.C. downfalls, and magazine mishaps. Fashion People is an extension of Line Sheet, Lauren’s private email for Puck, where she tracks what’s happening beyond the press releases in fashion, beauty, and media. New episodes publish every Tuesday and Friday.

A professional-grade rundown on the business of sports from John Ourand, the industry’s preeminent journalist, covering the leagues, players, agencies, media deals, and the egos fueling it all. Plus, the latest intel from Eriq Gardner on the sports legal beat.

Netflix v. Texas

ERIQ GARDNER

America’s Birthday Jitters

PETER HAMBY

Net-a-Porter’s Hail Mary

MALIQUE MORRIS

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10006