|
PREVIEW VERSION
|
|
|
|
|
Jon Kelly
|
|
Good morning,
Thanks for reading The Backstory, your weekend review of the best new work at Puck. On behalf of our entire company, we hope that you, your family, and friends are coping as best you can amid these horrific wildfires. We encourage you to make a donation to the rebuilding effort.
Despite the harrowing national disaster, it was an otherwise remarkable week at Puck: Matt Belloni broke the news of an NBCU exit; Eriq Gardner analyzed the latest theater of Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni warfare while Rachel Strugatz contemplated the business implications; Dylan Byers reported on a game of D.C. media musical chairs; Lauren Sherman scooped Hermès’s plan to
move ever further upmarket; Sarah Shapiro dug into the fashion commerce wars; Bill Cohan previewed a year of dealmaking; John Ourand investigated Jim Dolan’s latest headache; and Marion Maneker pondered the impact of the art lost to the fires. Meanwhile, Peter Hamby presaged Trump’s lame-duckitis, and Tara Palmeri got the latest readout from Mar-a-Lago.
|
|
|
Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around
for the backstory on how it all came together.
|
|
|
A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
|
Understand what’s influencing your customers’ trust in AI. Only 42% of customers trust
businesses to use AI ethically, down from 58% in 2023. Our seventh annual report shares insights from over 16,000 consumers and business buyers on how to bridge the trust gap in an era of rising customer expectations and more powerful technologies.
Download the report
|
|
|
Lauren Sherman has the
exclusive on Hermès’s couture ambitions.
and…
Marion Maneker combs through proprietary data to entirely reframe the past six months of auction activity.
|
|
|
|
FASHION
|
|
Lauren
captures the state of Kylie’s shmata enterprise.
and…
Rachel Strugatz examines the descent of Blake Lively’s haircare line.
meanwhile…
Sarah Shapiro explores the latest theater of the $24 billion creator marketing wars.
|
|
|
|
ART
|
|
Marion Maneker
postulates the forthcoming art insurance negotiations in L.A.
|
|
|
|
HOLLYWOOD
|
|
Matt Belloni
predicts Biden’s new agent and relays a big change atop Peacock.
and…
Eriq Gardner
offers a new reading of Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit.
|
|
|
|
WALL STREET
|
|
Bill Cohan
foreshadows the tectonic shifts coming to the M&A market.
|
|
|
|
MEDIA
|
|
Dylan Byers
digests the latest hunger wails from The Washington Post.
and…
John Ourand imagines the Norby Williamson
reinvention and hypothesizes about the future of a Knicks-adjacent negotiation.
|
|
|
|
WASHINGTON
|
|
Tara Palmeri
identifies the voices in Trump’s ear regarding a TikTok deal.
and…
Peter Hamby explains the president-elect’s time crunch.
|
|
|
|
PODCASTS
|
|
|
|
|
|
EverWonder’s Ian Orefice brings Dylan behind the scenes of Netflix’s Christmas NFL games on
The Grill Room.
|
|
|
|
|
John and CFP executive director Rich Clark discuss year one of the new 12-team tournament on
The Varsity.
|
|
|
|
|
John Heilemann and James Fallows assess Jimmy Carter’s
place in history on Impolitic.
|
|
|
|
|
Matt and Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw review the new, for-profit Golden Globes on
The Town.
|
|
|
|
|
Tara and former Trump appointee Matthew Bartlett parse the Greenland of it all on
Somebody’s Gotta Win.
|
|
|
|
|
Uber-designer Christopher Kane charts his next act with Lauren on
Fashion People.
|
|
|
|
|
Peter and Dylan praise the local media’s coverage of the horrendous fires on
The Powers That Be.
|
|
|
A hallmark of tragedies is that you almost certainly recall where
you were—what you were doing, or thinking, or some meaningless gesture that you were performing—when you suddenly and irrevocably realized that the world had changed. Perhaps you were watching Katie Couric on Today on the morning of 9/11, as I was, or sitting on your sofa chatting about quotidian details with your spouse when you learned that Tom Hanks had contracted a bizarre new illness, Covid-19, while filming Baz Luhrmann’s
Elvis in Australia.
I could tell you my whereabouts during the onslaught of Katrina, the financial crisis, the Indian Ocean tsunami, Deepwater Horizon, or Fukushima. And that’s what I was thinking, in part, when I began following the dystopian surge of the Los Angeles fires on Tuesday evening from my office. It was about the scariest natural disaster imaginable, and yet it was somehow
occurring on familiar terrain, in proximity to so many loved ones, partners, colleagues, and friends.
I know that I’m given to occasional bouts of hyperbole, but rarely are they so justified. This week, my partners throughout Los Angeles were forced to evacuate, shelter in place, bring in loved ones, and reassure friends and children that the city would get through this. What’s more: miraculously, and undeterred, they
produced some of the best work imaginable, both about the tragedy at hand and not. And it’s worth resurfacing their incredible contributions, composed so heroically, because it is a testament to their craft and determination.
|
|
|
A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
|
|
|
In his two-part
25 Surefire, 100 Percent Probable Hollywood Predictions for 2025, Matt Belloni offered his searing analysis on topics as varied as the future of NBCU to potential
Murdoch M&A. While expanding her industry-leading Line Sheet franchise to five days a week, Lauren Sherman broke the news of Hermès’s surprisingly retro, but certainly calculated, decision to move into couture. Hermès Goes Up, Up, Up Market is precisely the sort of market-making fashion industry intelligence that only Lauren can
deliver.
Briefly in town at an inopportune moment, Tara Palmeri escaped to San Diego and filed a brilliant dispatch, Trump’s TikTok Buyers Club, on the latest rumblings from Mar-a-Lago—in particular, the new svengalis in Trump’s ear advising him to
rescue the social media platform from its imminent ban. Dylan Byers filed a dispatch on the ongoing saga at The Washington Post before packing up his family and hitting the road. A Matter of Life & Jeff is just his latest entry in the canon.
None of it would have ever seen the light of day without the dedication of Gaby Grossman, Puck’s director of editorial operations, and a born-and-bred Angeleno who spent the week caring for friends and family. Or Pete Keeley, who copy edited every piece from inside the city, providing useful information for his colleagues. Ditto Danny Karel, our unflappable deputy editor. And Bellinda Alvarez, who runs our
West Coast sales operation.
Meanwhile, Dylan joined our partner Peter Hamby on an unforgettable episode of The Powers That Be to discuss the media’s coverage of the fire and the various second-order effects. (Peter and I will wade even deeper into the
topic on a special PTB: Media Monday episode on Monday.) And in Art in the Apocalypse, Marion Maneker delicately explored some of the consequences in his market.
Normally, I conclude this weekly note by imploring you to make time for at least one piece of my peerless colleagues’ work. In addition to that, this hazy Saturday, I behoove you to take a moment to donate to those who are living through this biblical horror. I suggest this option, but there
are many worthy options.
Indeed, the fires and their
aftermath—the heartache, investigations, lawsuits, political implications, and environmental imprint—are the true story of our time. Let’s help the people who need it most.
|
|
|
Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.
You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with . To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click
here.
|
Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10006
|
|
|
|
_01JH86E68QH7XHB1PA00EH4A54.png "salesforce")
