Hollywood’s NBA Showdown, Gucci Murmurs, Harris’s Heat Check

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide featuring Puck’s best new reporting.

First up today, Dylan Byers breaks the news that veteran broadcaster Norah O’Donnell is leaving her anchor perch at CBS Evening News, after a remarkable 12-year run at the network, for a more freewheeling, Barbara Walters-style interview tentpole gig.

Plus, below the fold: Matt Belloni assembles a Studio J-style roundtable of Puck talent to explore every angle of David Zaslav’s legal showdown with the NBA. Lauren Sherman fact-checks the feverish midsummer speculation surrounding Jonathan Anderson and Gucci. Matt reveals Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscars adieu. Peter Hamby carefully examines the Democrats’ Kamala Harris sugar high. John Ourand foreshadows the epic Comcast-TNT carriage fee showdown. On Somebody’s Gotta Win, Tara Palmeri and G.O.P. strategist Matthew Bartlett anticipate Trump’s Harris attack strategy and discuss his bizarre speech at the Turning Point summit. And on The Powers That Be, Tara and Peter trade notes on the messaging battle to define J.D. Vance.

DYLAN BYERS

O’Donnell is leaving her anchor perch at ‘CBS Evening News’ for a Barbara Walters-style interview tentpole role—a more freewheeling gig for her, sure, but also the latest sign that an era keeps on ending in the network news business.

MATTHEW BELLONI

A Studio J-style expert roundtable on how Warner Discovery’s David Zaslav bungled the negotiation, why he sued, what it really means for WBD’s debt and revenue, and what the company might be able to win in a subsequent negotiation or eventual arbitration.

LAUREN SHERMAN

Feverish late summer speculation that Anderson is leaving Loewe for Gucci has reignited fantasies in Paris (and Milan) of a Sabato de Sarno hot swap. It’s fake news, for now… but captures an inescapable truth.

MATTHEW BELLONI

Alas, after four hosting gigs, Jimmy Kimmel has informed the Academy that he won’t return for the 2025 show. And Mulaney passed, too.