Greetings again from sunny Montauk, where I’m enjoying the BofA Securities media conference and monitoring the somewhat hilarious kabuki theater of a Paramount shareholder meeting that did not discuss the company’s pending deal to be sold. Today, we’re beginning a new era of What I’m Hearing+, our Tuesday franchise extension of my What I’m Hearing email, where I’ll introduce our featured author and then get out of their way. In this edition, Eriq Gardner has the inside track on a couple of Hollywood’s most impactful legal fights…

🎧 Also, don’t miss the premiere of Impolitic, Puck’s newest podcast from our chief political columnist, John Heilemann, featuring debut guest Andrew Weissmann, the former Enron prosecutor and Mueller lieutenant, about Trump’s sentencing and appeal. New episodes drop Tuesdays and Fridays, sign up here or here.

Now, here’s Eriq on the $20 billion NFL Sunday Ticket fight and a close look at Netflix’s surprise settlement with Linda Fairstein over Ava DuVernay’s docudrama. Plus updates on the ScarJo-ChatGPT dustup, the Times-OpenAI battle, and the final Paramount-Skydance deal points.

Let’s get started...

• Paramount’s regulatory gauntlet: Now that we’ve entered the final stretch of the deal saga, it’s fair to ask how regulators might respond to a merger between Paramount Global and Skydance. That was today’s hot topic on The Powers That Be podcast, featuring me and Dylan Byers (listen here.) In my view, Shari Redstone won’t...