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Happy Monday and welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon
compendium of Puck’s best new reporting.

Today, we lead with Bill Cohan’s timely, end-of-year conversation with Puck’s newest partner, Kim Masters, in which they dissect the biggest issues bedeviling Hollywood insiders and casual observers, alike: the spinco phenomenon, the potential outcomes for David Ellison’s Paramount, and the latest in the succession
speculation at Disney. 

Plus, below the fold: Dylan Byers delivers a bracing personnel update from The Washington Post’s H.R. department. On The Town, Matt Belloni and Lucas Shaw present their third annual Townie Awards, chronicling Hollywood’s biggest moves, deals, and fails from the past year. On The Varsity, John Ourand
gets on the horn with wily ESPN veteran Scott Van Pelt to discuss the unsettled state of sports media. And on Impolitic, John Heilemann enlists Will Leitch and Pablo Torre to reflect on Caitlin Clark and the rise of the WNBA, the perfect-for-streaming Paris Olympics, the descent of woke activism in sports, and much more. 

As 2024 comes to a close, it seems like everyone in Hollywood—from corner-office
dwellers to the studio rank and file—is chewing their nails down to the quick while considering what the massive, industry-wide structural changes of the past year presage for the year ahead. In this incisive conversation between Bill and Puck’s newest partner, the legendary entertainment journalist Kim Masters, they discuss everything from the long-term implications of conglomerates like Comcast and WBD spinning off their linear channels, to the early clues suggesting David Ellison’s Paramount
endgame, to whether streaming and theater exhibition can ever happily co-exist again. 

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In the two months since the presidential election, as a disillusioned Washington Post
staff countenances Will Lewis’s convoluted (if necessary) restructuring of the newsroom, several of the company’s best-known journalists have decided that it’s finally time to consider their options. The coup de grâce seems to have been the surprising news that their beloved colleague Matea Gold would be decamping to the Times after being passed over for the top editor job—and that Lewis would appoint acting executive editor Matt Murray to that position permanently. As
Dylan notes, corporate transformations inevitably involve staff churn, but these exits have exacerbated fears surrounding Lewis’s grand plan for revitalizing the newsroom. “You tell me, is that normal turnover?” one Post source asked Dylan. “In this environment where people cling to bad jobs? I don’t think so.” 

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It’s podcasting’s most exclusive event of the year: the third annual Townie Awards! Join Matt
and Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw as they recount the biggest moves, deals, and fails from 2024, while also bestowing such honors as the Most Annoying Media Narrative, Sneaky Successes, Publicist Fails, Larry David Spite Store of the Year, and many more in Part 1 of this year’s “ceremony.”

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ESPN institution and fellow Maryland Terrapin Scott Van Pelt joins John for a rollicking
conversation about the state of the sports media industry. He shares his thoughts on colleagues Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee, whether he wants a role in the network’s NBA programming, his love for postgame coverage, how he’s reinvented late night SportsCenter, what makes someone a needle-mover, and much more.

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John is joined by Deadspin founder, New York magazine columnist, and rising-star
novelist Will Leitch, and Pablo Torre, host of the endlessly entertaining podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out, to discuss the year in sports and sports culture. The guys discuss Caitlin Clark and the rise of the WNBA; the remarkably hitch-free, thoroughly engrossing, perfect-for-streaming Paris Olympics; how America turned to sports for refuge from the tribal toxicity of the presidential campaign; and why athletes who once embraced woke activism were suddenly more than happy to shut up and
dribble. They also dunk repeatedly on Aaron Rodgers—and who’s gonna quarrel with that?

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