ScarJo’s A.I. Endgame, Will to Power, CNN’s Ratings Woes

Happy Memorial Day! Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s latest reporting.

First up today, William D. Cohan envisions David Zaslav’s internal monologue as the WBD chief rolls into a jam-packed summer: the NBA rights imbroglio, the exigencies of the Paramount Global deal, the Spulu launch, and much more.

Plus, below the fold: Marion Maneker profiles a potential Gagosian heir apparent. Matthew Belloni dives into the ScarJo-OpenAI. legal scuffle. On The Town, Matt and Eriq Gardner dissect the D.O.J.’s monopoly lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. And on The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly and Peter Hamby reunite to ponder Will Lewis’s new revenue model at The Washington Post and the latest CNN ratings dip.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

News and notes on the imagined internal monologue of David Zaslav as he contemplates a busy summer agenda: the NBA sitch, the exigencies of the Paramount Global deal, and the $39 billion in debt.

MARION MANEKER

The hiring of Brooke Lampley has raised eyebrows in the art world. Is Gagosian, now in his late 70s, looking to sell or put a succession plan in place? Or is this just a mirage, with the hard-charging micromanager selling to the very end, like Castelli?

MATTHEW BELLONI

A grab bag of the latest Hollywood chatter: David Zaslav’s NBA imbroglio, the D.O.J.’s Live Nation legal hammer, Chris Winfrey’s eye-popping windfall, the best Cannes sighting, and so much more.

MATTHEW BELLONI

Matt is joined by Eriq Gardner to discuss the U.S. government’s monopoly lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. They briefly go through the history of the Ticketmaster–Live Nation merger, why concert prices won’t go down even if the two companies split, what a broken-up Ticketmaster–Live Nation would look like, and more.