Disney Smoke Signals, FTX Money Trails, Actors’ Strike Agita

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

Today, we lead with Matt Belloni’s market-moving scoop that Bob Iger has engaged former heirs apparent Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs as strategic consultants for Disney. Could Iger’s successor emerge from this brain trust?

Plus, below the fold: Bill Cohan details S.B.F.’s stunning legal break and John Ray’s latest revelations. Dylan Byers charts the talent migration from Hudson Yards to 30 Rock. Matt and Jonathan Handel dig into the polarizing guild-approved interim strike agreements. And on The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly and Peter Hamby chew over the Twitter-to-X catastrophe before turning to a bizarre D.C. media curiosity.

MATTHEW BELLONI

Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs have both been engaged individually to consult with Iger, ESPN chief Jimmy Pitaro, and others at Disney.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

A talmudic reading of FTX C.E.O. John Ray’s latest report.

DYLAN BYERS

NBC and MSNBC are just as vulnerable as CNN to the inexorable decline of the linear television business. But for many in Hudson Yards, it seems, the grass is greener over at 30 Rock.

MATTHEW BELLONI & JONATHAN HANDEL

As SAG-AFTRA grants more than 100 exceptions to the ongoing strike and the C.E.O.s mull returning to the bargaining table, some question whether they hurt more than help. As usual, the devil is in the details.