Dylan Byers

5 days ago | puck.news | Dylan Byers

When David Zaslav restructured Warner Bros. Discovery late last year, splitting his declining cable networks off from the growth-oriented streaming and studios business and the ever-prestigious HBO, the implications were self-evident. Officially, Zaz was “enhancing” WBD’s strategic flexibility and optimizing his TV business to drive free cashflow.

1 week ago | puck.news | Dylan Byers

Next week, the nation’s largest TV networks and streamers will treat their advertising partners to a showcase of their forthcoming content slates: new shows, returning shows, sporting events, etcetera. The upfronts—a once-opulent, multiday wine-and-dine affair across greater Midtown, from Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden to the Beacon Theatre and Hammerstein Ballroom—has become a bit more subdued in the post-Covid late-stage linear era.

1 week ago | puck.news | Dylan Byers

On Wednesday evening, as representatives for Paramount Global and President Trump wrapped their first day of mediation talks on the president’s $20 billion lawsuit against 60 Minutes—a source of profound anxiety for CBS News and, indeed, the industry at large—The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount’s front office had privately discussed settling the suit for around $15 million to $20 million.

2 weeks ago | puck.news | Dylan Byers

Greetings from Los Angeles and welcome back to In the Room. If you’re in town next week for Mike Milken’s Global Conference, drop a line. I’ll be at the summit and surrounding events all week and hope to see you there. Plus, don’t miss my partners Leigh Ann Caldwell and Julia Ioffe onstage, talking press freedom and U.S.-Russia relations, respectively.

2 weeks ago | puck.news | Dylan Byers

On Wednesday morning, representatives for Paramount Global and President Trump met with Daniel Weinstein, the preeminent civil mediator, to begin determining how much the $8 billion mediaco might pay to settle the president’s $20 billion lawsuit over a regrettable but benign editing blunder at CBS’s 60 Minutes.