By Nikki Finke | Category: Media | Monday February 1, 2010 @ 1:02pm PST
And while I'm in the mood to bitchslapThe New York Times, here's more: In October, Sunday's Business section ran a puff piece on Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal headlined "Sony's Version of Tracy and Hepburn". But Tim Arango failed to report that Lynton's and Pascal's 6-year "leadership display operating in sync" hit a big snag over the summer that's still not entirely smoothed out. As a result, the mogul duo are little like Tracy & Hepburn and a lot more like Martin & Lewis.
In the article, the two moguls tried to portray themselves as "checking their egos" at the door in order to work well together. But the truth is their rift began in mid-July when Peter Bart penned a Variety love letter to Amy Pascal -- headlined "Sony's Free Spirit Shows Steady Hand" -- and mentioned Michael Lynton only in passing. That, and the fact that Pascal gave an interview to Variety that was all "I, I, I" (and not "we, we, we"), did not sit well with Lynton. He accused her of engineering a professional slight. Amy proclaimed her innocence.
Fast forward to later in the summer when it was Pascal's turn to feel hurt. The Hollywood rumor mill was churning about all the top studio execs who might get axed (and ultimately did exit: Dick Cook, Oren Aviv, Marc Shmuger, David Linde, Kevin McCormick) and Amy's name found its way onto the list. When Lynton was asked whether Pascal was in trouble, he was noncommittal. And when he was asked why Pascal had no fresh franchises for ... Read More »
By NIKKI FINKE AND MIKE FLEMING | Category: DH update, Journalism | Monday February 1, 2010 @ 12:11am PST
UPDATE: The New York Times now says it's linking to our article.
How dishonorable that The New York Times doesn't properly credit us for our scoop last week, Summit Expressing "Very Preliminary" Interest In Miramax Name & Film Library, which was posted 3 full days ahead of the newspaper's story that went online Sunday. We were first to break the news that Disney was entertaining bids for the Miramax name and library, and that Summit was expressing preliminary interest, and that the price is around $800 million (although the feeling is its actual worth is closer to $500M because studio library values have taken a hit as DVD/video has flattened.) And yet the NYT intends to charge for content that's both late and borrowed. Sheesh!
If you think The New York Times television reporter Bill Carter's usual suck-up coverage of the small screen biz has been even more fawning than usual to The Powers And Entertainers That Be, this is why: Carter is doing another book.
He made the deal with Viking's Rick Kot during the summer and the 6-figure contract was recently signed. Though Carter is claiming it's not a sequel to his 1992's The Late Shift, he's been "telling everyone" since the summer "that he's having access to all the players he's writing about on the NBC contingent," according to one of my late night insiders, "including Jay Leno." I've learned he's been asking Letterman's people since the summer for access to Dave, but none has been forthcoming. Right now the book has a very flexible publishing date of Fall 2010, or well before the Comcast/GE/NBCU deal is expected to receive regulatory approval.
Carter is very touchy when folks like me accuse him of never having met a network boss whose knob he didn't shine. In response, he likes to claim that he can't find anyone with bonafides to go on the record with negative remarks. Yet in today's paper, Carter thinks it's fine to quote an agent and TV producer praising Zucker to the skies even though they sell to NBC. As a network insider explained to me about Carter, "The thing people dislike about him the most is what makes him most successful: that he gives people a good ... Read More »
By Nikki Finke | Category: Media | Thursday November 19, 2009 @ 3:56pm PST
UPDATE (includes Harpo letter): Both Broadcasting & Cable & Variety, followed by The New York Times and The Washington Post, and every other media outlet just came out today with news headlines reporting what I did first on November 5th: That Oprah Winfrey will end her long-running talk show in 2011. They say she'll air this on her program Friday. Here was my original scoop: THE END OF 'OPRAH' AS WE KNOW HER: Daytime Diva Giving Up Syndie Talk Show & Moving It To Her Cable Network In 2011. Before I recap the news from my story 14 days ago, here is the letter which Harpo Inc President Tim Bennett sent out to affiliates and others today:
Dear Friends:
Over the past several weeks, my team and I have had conversations with many of you to help address your questions about the future of "The Oprah Winfrey Show". Of course, the one question we couldn't answer was the one that only Oprah could. And tomorrow, she will do just that.
But before she speaks to her loyal viewers, we wanted to share her decision first with you our valued partners for more than two decades.
Tomorrow, Oprah will announce live on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that she has decided to end what is arguably one of the most popular, influential
Amazing that the "Advertising Hall of Achievement" is honoring Ben Silverman as one of its "Newest Stars". Check out the full page ad in The New York Times on Page A11 today. It seems that just a few months into his new venture with Barry Diller, Silverman is already "significantly impacting the advertising industry". Madison Avenue and IAC can only hope that he doesn't "significantly impact" them the way he significantly impacted NBC. (Chimes, anyone?)
EXCLUSIVE: David Carr steps down and Melena Ryzik steps in as the new lead writer starting December 1st of The New York Times' "Carpetbagger" awards season blog covering the Oscar, Golden Globes, Sundance Film Festival, and other movie campaigns. She is a general assignment culture reporter who chronicles NYC life for The New York Times' "UrbanEye", which is a video series and daily email events guide. Ryzik will also continue the Carpetbagger video series, which Carr launched on NYTimes.com. (Remember this one? NYT's David Carr May Have Lost His Mind) Additional reporting for the blog will come from several other NYT journalists, including LA-based Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes. The UrbanEye video series will go on hiatus during Carpetbagger season; the UrbanEye e-mails will continue. So, after four seasons on the Red Carpet, David Carr who originated the blog now retires his tuxedo. These days, the media columnist and general assignment reporter primarily blogs for the NYT's "Media Decoder".
So now the question is whether the "Carpetbagger" blog can be franchised. Its name was not only a play on Carr's but also captured the notion of a NYC elitist coming to Los Angeles to poke fun at the film folks. His first year, Carr had a naive take on all thing Hollywood. But by the last year, he was as jaded as the rest of us. What never ... Read More »
I'm receiving word that Tina Daunt who wrote the "Cause Celebre" column about Hollywood politics is included in a new wave of layoffs by the Los Angeles Times, which has already bought out or fired so many people that it's a wonder the paper comes out every morning. But, so far, almost all of the LAT's entertainment and media coverage has stayed intact. Meanwhile, The New York Times announced yesterday it plans to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs — about 8% of the total — by year’s end, offering buyouts to union and non-union employees, and resorting to layoffs if it cannot get enough people to leave voluntarily. This follows a previous buyout/layoff there in the spring of 2008. In that round, about 15 to 20 journalists were cut.
Disney CEO Bob Iger likes to keep corporate secrets. (Witness the Marvel-Disney deal. And the Dick Cook bloodletting.) So Hollywood is now desperately trying to sleuth out who'll be in charge of Disney's moviemaking. Pixar's John Lasseter, DreamWorks' Stacey Snider, Marvel's Kevin Feige are all names in play. However, I can report that Iger is telling Hollywood that he's already chosen Cook's replacement yet won't announce it for a few weeks. Still, last night, several of my sources heard that Disney Channels Worldwide president Rich Ross is being fitted with the glass slipper. They tell me Ross is likely to succeed Cook in some form, like a modified job without Cook's lofty title of Walt Disney Studios chief.
First, I have no unofficial or official confirmation of this. But Bob Iger and Tom Skaggs love this guy who manages the global kids' TV business -- a total of 94 kid-driven, family-inclusive entertainment channels and feeds available in 163 countries and 32 languages. Also, Disney's culture is so infamously cult-like and cut-throat that the Mouse House mostly promotes from within because its insiders distrust outsiders. And each other.
Those insiders who dislike Ross say he's an "incredible political maneuverer and quite a back-stabber" who's "into retribution". ("There are likely ... Read More »
Here's the memo from The New York Times topper Bill Keller:
To the Staff:
After much deliberation, and a fair amount of not-even-in-the-ballpark speculation from Times-obsessed kibbitzers, we have a new culture editor to replace Sam Sifton. He is, I'm delighted to announce, Jon Landman.
Like the appointment of Sam as our new restaurant critic, this is one of those no-brainers that nonetheless requires some explaining because of the broader implications for the newsroom.
After more than four years overseeing the integration of the print and Web newsrooms and the spectacular flowering of journalistic innovation that accompanied it, Jon yearns to get back to running coverage, to refresh his roots. I doubt anyone will question that Jon brings to the Culture Department a strenuous intelligence, an inspiring vision, a gift for getting the very best from people and -- no small thing as our competitive landscape shifts -- a keen appreciation of what culture journalism can be on the Web. He spent a transitional year presiding over the department, implementing a sweeping overhaul of the department and grooming new leadership -- including Sam Sifton -- before he moved to the digital job. We interviewed a number of candidates, and were happily reminded in the process of the wealth of talent in our midst. But we're pretty sure the other candidates would agree that Jon Landman will be an extraordinary culture editor. That's the no-brainer part of the announcement.
While we're on the subject of Culture, we would like to tip our hats to Amy Virshup,
By Nikki Finke | Category: NY Times | Wednesday August 5, 2009 @ 10:59am PST
Sam Sifton, the paper's Culture Editor who infamously cooked for Nora Ephron in the pages of The New York Times recently, is leaving that job to become -- what else? -- the new Restaurant Critic. (He'd been editor of the Dining section This means that the Culture section overseeing film, TV, and arts reporting and criticism is without a leader. Noted NYT top editor Bill Keller: "It is eccentric because we are stealing one of our finest editors from one of our most important departments. This is certain to be a cause of anguish and anxiety in Culture, where Sam has run things with great skill, imagination, energy and good humor. Everyone understands that Sam the Culture Editor will be as hard an act to follow as Frank the Restaurant Critic. We've set ourselves the task of finding a new Culture Editor who will give us a lift, too. And we expect the anguish and anxiety to be short-lived."
"What you missed is that she was on The New York Times payroll [from 2006-2008] as a contributing columnist -- but not identified as such in any of Julia articles. Here's an example: look at the author's identification at the end -- (just search her name on Times web site for more). The TV critic, Alessandra Stanley, threw her and the movie a promotional party. Food critic Frank Bruni has a cameo in the movie. Freelance Times food writer (and former staffer) Amanda Hesser has a speaking role. Can't wait to read the film's Times review!
Especially after Culture Editor Sam Sifton (whose department overseas the movie critics) cooked for her.
Everyone in Hollywood is talking about this. But I can't do a better job than this emailer to DHD does by explaining the inexplicable. (At last count, 15 mentions of Nora Ephron in The New York Times online and in the paper in just the past 30 days, including a piece written by the Culture Editor himself. And I recall that, when critics savaged her last Bewitched, Sony's Amy Pascal told journalists that "the media hates Nora".) Except to say I wish The Hurt Locker was receiving this much attention:
Does Nora Ephron own a large stake in The New York Times? In the weeks preceding the release of her new film about Julia Child, there has been a continuous parade of articles about the movie, the director, and the movie's subject. Consider today's (Sunday, August 2) paper:
1. A front page article on television reality cooking shows.
2. A front of the Arts & Leisure section on Ephron's depictions of happy marriages in her movies.
3. A front of the Sunday Magazine article on Julia Child's influence on American cooking.
4. A Maureen Dowd interview with Ephron on the op ed page.
The article about DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com by NYT media columnist David Carr for Friday is online. It claims I'm "thuggish". So thug this: I'll be back to work on Monday.
UPDATE: Interesting commentary on the piece by FAIR (Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting) here.
2ND UPDATE: The article has several errors. This is the most glaring: When I began my website in March 2006, I had not "run low on money and options" as Carr claims. Just the opposite. I had been an award-winning columnist with LA Weekly for four years. 2002 is when my career hit the skids, the year I sued Disney, News Corp, and the New York Post to fight for a journalist's freedom to write accurately about the business and advertising partners of Big Media.
I'm told that Mumbai's Reliance folks are making the rounds of New York media this week -- they wanted a meeting with The New York Times, for instance, and hit up Fortune for a puff piece -- in advance of the announcement that DreamWorks 2.0 has secured its lender financing covering at least 3 years of film production. With Reliance Big Entertainment kicking in $300M of credit for a matching amount in equity funding, and distribution partner Disney lending up to $175M, and JP Morgan Chase leading the loan syndication with several other banks for a total $325M-$350M, Steven Spielberg's and Stacey Snider's will become a Hollywood buyer soon enough. For background see my, DreamWorks About To Announce Debt Financing.
UPDATED with comment from sources close to Emmerich. (See below)
EXCLUSIVE: Hollywood is known as feud central, so I have new information about an old feud that briefly resurfaced today in a The New York Times story about New Line -- and that is about to become even more public because of a soon to be released book. Michael Cieply's NYT piece recalls how New Line chief Toby Emmerich wrote the screenplay for Frequency, and "that exercise got him sued by Laurie Perlman, a onetime [CAA] agent now married to the former Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin; Ms. Perlman contended that she hadn’t been properly included as a producer of Frequency. The suit was eventually dismissed, according to court records filed in the Santa Monica branch of Los Angeles Superior Court.)" But there is so much more to this feud as I discovered when I was leaked today a chapter from Perlman's forthcoming memoir God, The Universe, And Where I Fit In.
Chapter 13, entitled "My Last Stand", dumps on Toby Emmerich and Howard Koch Jr because of what she says she endured on the Frequency film. I've been asked not to reprint the chapter but to just paraphrase and excerpt it:
Before she began work on the project Frequency, Perlman hadn’t produced a film in 7 years, "and I was now looked on by many executives as a pesky fly that still manages to buzz and bother you in autumn". So she tried finding "young, promising talent" whose careers were ready to explode. "One of ... Read More »
It make sense considering David Geffen counts several New York Times marquee journalists like Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd as his close pals. What are friends for? Fortune magazine first broke the news, which I've now confirmed, that Geffen offered to buy a 19% stake in the NYT Co held by hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, but no deal was struck. I reported Geffen lost interest in buying the Los Angeles Times.
Back by popular demand, my pal Bernie Weinraub's play The Accomplices ("the true story of a man's fight to save the Jews") is back in Los Angeles and playing at the Odyssey Theatre from April 25th to June 14th in association with The Israeli Leadership Council. Weinraub was The New York Times' Hollywood correspondent.
Geez. It took the Los Angeles Times four reporters to say absolutely nothing new today about the William Morris-Endeavor merger story. Not even one fresh development. This, despite the fact that the paper is more than 5 weeks late printing a word about the deal, and more than two weeks behind The New York Times. Patrick Goldstein's brief LAT blog post doesn't count: it was timed to the NYT story, and acknowledged I broke the news back on February 17th, yet still managed to say less than nothing. Both trades have weighed in superficially. But the most clueless blogging was by error-prone Sharon Waxman who wrote that talks between the two agencies weren't even happening.
It's taken The New York Times since February 17th to write a story about my first scoop that the Endeavor/William Morris merger talks were for real. (Nor did the paper give me credit.) Too bad tomorrow's article has no news but a lot of stuff wrong. Then again, I don't recall seeing any of the other showbiz media even trying to match my postings. Stay tuned and I'll tell you more, like how desperation makes strange bedfellows in the tenpercentery biz. In the meantime, what should the new agency -- if this deal ever happens -- be called?
By Nikki Finke | Category: NY Times | Thursday January 8, 2009 @ 10:52pm PST
This isn't a spoof by some wannabe from Kansas. It was posted on The New York Times website. I'm embarrassed for David Carr and bewildered why he'd do it.
Action Comedy TV: Showrunner Matt Nix 
SAG National Board Approves Joint Bargaining … 
BBC Drama Unfreezes Development Money; … 
Lionsgate Board Rejects Icahn's $6/Share 
Is Betting On Box Office Good For Films? 
Marvel Still Looking For Captain America 
'Sopranos' Creator To Film Rock Drama 
LIVE-SNARKING THE 82ND OSCARS... 
'ALICE' IS A MONSTER! $116.3M Blows Past … 
Oscar Not-So-Thriller: Diller Mogul Picnic 
'Precious' Sweeps 25th Indie Spirit Awards 
Howard Stern Won't Be Next 'Idol' Judge 
Justin Theroux Readying 'Zoolander 2' For … 
Mickey Rourke Wooed For Two Big Roles, … 
CBS Reups Les Moonves Through 2015 
And while I'm in the mood to bitchslap The New York Times, here's more: In October, Sunday's Business section ran a puff piece on Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal headlined "Sony's Version of Tracy and Hepburn". But Tim Arango failed to report that Lynton's and Pascal's 6-year "leadership display operating in sync" hit a big snag over the summer that's still not entirely smoothed out. As a result, the mogul duo are little like Tracy & Hepburn and a lot more like Martin & Lewis.
He made the deal with Viking's Rick Kot during the summer and the 6-figure contract was recently signed. Though Carter is claiming it's 
UPDATE (includes Harpo letter): Both Broadcasting & Cable & Variety, followed by The New York Times and The Washington Post, and every other media outlet just came out today with news headlines reporting what I did first on November 5th: That Oprah Winfrey will end her long-running talk show in 2011. They say she'll air this on her program Friday. Here was my original scoop: 
EXCLUSIVE: David Carr steps down and Melena Ryzik steps in as the new lead writer starting December 1st of The New York Times' "Carpetbagger" awards season blog covering the Oscar, Golden Globes, Sundance Film Festival, and other movie campaigns. She is a general assignment culture reporter who chronicles NYC life for The New York Times' "UrbanEye", which is a video series and daily email events guide. Ryzik will also continue the Carpetbagger video series, which Carr launched on NYTimes.com. (Remember this one? 
So now the question is whether the "Carpetbagger" blog can be franchised. Its name was not only a play on Carr's but also captured the notion of a NYC elitist coming to Los Angeles to poke fun at the film folks. His first year, Carr had a naive take on all thing Hollywood. But by the last year, he was as jaded as the rest of us. What never ... 
I'm receiving word that Tina Daunt who wrote the "Cause Celebre" column about Hollywood politics is included in a new wave of layoffs by the Los Angeles Times, which has already bought out or fired so many people that it's a wonder the paper comes out every morning. But, so far, almost all of the LAT's entertainment and media coverage has stayed intact. Meanwhile, The New York Times announced yesterday it plans to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs — about 8% of the total — by year’s end, offering buyouts to union and non-union employees, and resorting to layoffs if it cannot get enough people to leave voluntarily. This follows a previous buyout/layoff there in the spring of 2008. In that round, about 15 to 20 journalists were cut. 
Disney CEO Bob Iger likes to keep corporate secrets. (Witness the Marvel-Disney deal. And the Dick Cook bloodletting.) So Hollywood is now desperately trying to sleuth out who'll be in charge of Disney's moviemaking. Pixar's John Lasseter, DreamWorks' Stacey Snider, Marvel's Kevin Feige are all names in play. However, I can report that Iger is telling Hollywood that he's already chosen Cook's replacement yet won't announce it for a few weeks. 
Still, last night, several of my sources heard that Disney Channels Worldwide president Rich Ross is being fitted with the glass slipper. They tell me Ross is likely to succeed Cook in some form, like a modified job without Cook's lofty title of Walt Disney Studios chief.
(At last count, 15 mentions of Nora Ephron in The New York Times online and in the paper in just the past 30 days, including a piece written by the Culture Editor himself. And I recall that, when critics savaged her last Bewitched, Sony's Amy Pascal told journalists that "the media hates Nora".) Except to say I wish The Hurt Locker was receiving this much attention:
In addition, last week there was an article about 
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