Newsmax I.P.O. Mysteries, Sephora vs. TikTok, Artcession Signals
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Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon medley of Puck’s best new reporting.
First up today, Dylan Byers uncovers the latest drama inside CBS after the company’s stunning loss of the rights to distribute Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!—a baffling case of Hollywood naïveté that has placed CBS News and Stations head Wendy McMahon squarely in the hot seat, and added yet another wrinkle to the still-unconsummated Paramount-Skydance
merger.
Plus, below the fold: Leigh Ann Caldwell digs into Donald Trump’s reality-altering proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy. William D. Cohan runs the numbers on Newsmax’s chaotic I.P.O. flash crash. Rachel Strugatz chronicles an e-commerce war between LVMH and TikTok. Exclusively for Inner Circle members, Marion Maneker dissects Clare
McAndrew’s annual assessment on the (somewhat grim) state of art dealing. And on The Powers That Be, Leigh Ann joins Peter Hamby to assess Elon Musk’s waning influence inside the West Wing.
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Dylan Byers
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Early last year, Sony approached CBS with a low-nine-figure offer to buy back the distribution rights
for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, the still-popular primetime twin bill that continues to generate more than half a billion dollars in annual revenue for its stakeholders. Wendy McMahon, CBS News and Stations president and C.E.O., balked at the offer—and in October, Sony responded by suing CBS over the distribution rights. Last week, after a favorable ruling for Sony, the company now appears likely to maintain full and irrevocable control over distribution of the
assets—without having to pay so much as a penny to CBS. McMahon, of course, has spent most of her tenure at CBS mired in cascading controversies, and this latest drama has, once again, put her in hot water with her bosses—and potentially sealed her fate if the Paramount-Skydance merger is completed.
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Leigh Ann Caldwell
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At a recent meeting with top Senate Republicans, Donald Trump proposed a once-unfathomable idea: to raise the tax rate
on the wealthiest Americans, ostensibly as a way to offset other, more populist tax cuts he promised on the campaign trail. Some Republican deficit hawks are open to the idea, and some have even argued for it. But whether Trump is serious—or merely indulging in a Bannon-esque fever dream—remains unclear. Is Trump really interested in raising taxes on the rich? Of course, backing such a policy is anathema to everything the party has stood for over the past century. Still, in the
Trump era, stranger things have happened than lawmakers getting comfortable with a policy they once reviled…
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William D. Cohan
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Despite the obvious red flags, Newsmax, a Fox News wannabe and competitor, seemed destined to become a meme stock. On
March 31, after its first day of trading, the stock closed at $83.51, up 735 percent. Newsmax founder Christopher Ruddy’s shares were suddenly worth $3.2 billion, making him the newest member of Trump’s billionaire boy’s club. The next day, the Newsmax shares were up another 180 percent, closing at $233, for a 2,230 percent gain in two days. But then, as quickly as it rose, the stock crashed back to earth. Bill digs into the details… and walks away with a stunning modern fable
of investor euphoria (and financial engineering) run amok.
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Rachel Strugatz
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Boy Smells 2.0 is Sephora’s newest pet project, one of a handful of mid-priced indie fragrance brands that the
LVMH-owned retailer is throwing its weight behind in what’s been described to Rachel as an all-out “fragrance war” against TikTok and Ulta Beauty. Sephora’s objectives are clear: The company must grow its fragrance business, which has always comprised a small fraction of its overall revenue, to give customers a reason to choose Sephora over its rivals. While Ulta has long been Sephora’s biggest U.S. competitor, the explosive growth of TikTok Shop over the past 18 months has made the situation
more acute. If TikTok is sold to a new owner, could they leverage the powerful built-in e-commerce platform to upend the fragrance business as we know it?
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Marion Maneker
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In this Inner Circle–exclusive dispatch, Marion sifts through Clare McAndrew’s annual dissertation on the art market
(formally the Art Basel & UBS Global Art Market Report) to illuminate the shifting fortunes of art dealers in 2025, particularly in the midst of the current downturn in art sales that has now dragged on for nearly two and a half years. Drawing on responses from 1,600 galleries across the globe, McAndrew offers a panoramic, data-rich, and sober portrait of an industry under strain: Costs are climbing, sales are stalling, and inventory lingers. In short, it’s hard out there…
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Peter Hamby
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Leigh Ann Caldwell
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Leigh Ann Caldwell joins Peter to discuss the prospect of Republicans doing the unthinkable: raising taxes on the rich,
just as key provisions of Trump’s 2017 tax bill are set to expire. Indeed, a tax hike spearheaded by the G.O.P. would mark a dramatic departure from a century of party orthodoxy. But will it actually happen? Then, they break down the fading star power of Elon within MAGAworld.
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