Channels with Peter Kafka

Netflix shocked the world last year by winning a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. This week it shocked us by walking away.In this emergency bonus episode, CNBC’s Alex Sherman walks us through the whiplash: Why Netflix chose not to counter Paramount, what the market blowback signaled, and how much of this was about price versus the very real prospect of a long, ugly regulatory and political slog.Then we spin it forward: what a Paramount/WBD mash-up means in practice (translation: overlap, “synergies,” and a lot of job anxiety)? What happens to crown-jewel assets like HBO and CNN? And why this isn’t just another media merger, but a power shift. We don’t really know what David and Larry Ellison have planned for their newly acquired media empire — but we do know that they are now very big players.
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Brian Stelter puts its clearly: "All M&A runs through the Oval Office right now.” So how much does Trump matter in the Netflix/Paramount battle for Warner Bros. Discovery — and what does he want out of it?

Stelter, CNN’s chief media analyst and author of the newsletter Reliable Sources, walks us through the information vacuum around the deal, Trump’s habit of inserting himself as a would-be kingmaker, and the harder-to-prove question haunting every newsroom: not just what Trump says out loud, but what companies do (or don’t do) because they’re afraid to become his next target.

Then we broaden out: Brendan Carr’s FCC and broadcast pressure, the Nexstar/TEGNA fight, and what’s going on in Murdochland when Trump can sue the Wall Street Journal and still break bread with Rupert Murdoch. Plus: the state of CNN — and what it’s like to work at a network that may have a new owner sooner than later. 
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Janice Min and Reed Duchscher are both building new media companies in LA. But their perspectives are quite different: Min runs The Ankler, the trade pub that mostly focuses on the fate of Big Media companies like Paramount and Netflix; Duchscher runs Night, a talent agency focused on digital talent like Kai Cenat and Hassan Piker (he’s best known for his work with Mr. Beast).So it’s not totally shocking that my conversation with Min is a pretty downbeat chat about the state of the industry — LA, she says, currently has “a Detroit Vibe”. And that my chat with Duchscher is more upbeat — he just raised $70 million to build out his business.But there’s still a lot of overlap in these two conversations, because both of these CEOs are trying to build businesses that can stand up to industry changes. Min, for instance, is getting ready to live in a world where consolidation means a smaller pool of advertisers for her publication. And Duchscher is trying to navigate platforms like YouTube, which is simultaneously asking his clients to make long-form videos that can work on TV, and clips built for YouTube shorts, its TikTok knock off.
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If Joe Weisenthal didn’t exist, the internet would have to invent him. Because Joe Weisenthal is built for the internet — more specifically, an internet personality: Knows a lot, curious about even more, often right, happy to be wrong, always has something to say about anything.That persona/personality did wonders for Joe in the early days of Business Insider — which, not coincidentally, were also the early days of Twitter, where Joe really took off. Then he took his talents to Bloomberg, and since then has turned himself into a successful business/finance podcaster: Along with co-host Tracy Alloway, they’ve turned “Odd Lots” from a project no one at Bloomberg paid attention to into a genuine hit.Discussed here: Why Joe is still at Bloomberg, instead of doing the indie media route that could make him a gazillion dollars; what makes a perfect podcast guest; and Joe’s semi-secret country music ambitions. Plus, something smart you can say about tariffs, if you’re in a place where people are talking about tariffs.Bonus content! This pod also includes a conversation with filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough, who wanted to make a movie about OpenAI’s Sam Altman, but couldn’t. So he made a fake Sam Altman instead, which is why his movie is called Deepfaking Sam Altman.
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Jeff Bezos used to be the savior of The Washington Post. He bought it for $250 million in 2013, and then invested money and energy into turning it around — and it worked.Now the Amazon founder is decimating the Post’s staff, and his managers are telling the ones who are left that things have to change.So what happened, and what happens next? Erik Wemple is the right person to ask: He spent years covering media at the Post, and now he’s at the New York Times, where he’s covering the collapse of his old home.
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