HBO’s Max Halo, Wall Street Fantasies, CNN’s New Frontier

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

Today, we lead with Dylan Byers’ inside account of WBD chief David Zaslav’s bid to coax Mark Thompson, the august NYT and BBC vet, into taking the reins at CNN. Plus, notes on the network’s gutsy integration into HBO’s Max.

Then, below the fold: Jonathan Handel shrewdly diagrams the strike negotiations’ state of play. Bill Cohan appraises the potential Amazon-ESPN marriage, and details an anti-Trump Wall Street fantasy. Matt Belloni reveals the surprising consumer response to Zaz’s rebranded Max streamer. And on The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly and Peter Hamby chew over Mark Thompson’s CV and how he could overhaul the adrift network.

DYLAN BYERS

As Zaslav works to convince NYT and BBC vet Mark Thompson to take over CNN, the D.T.C. braintrust at Hudson Yards is testing the limits of the post-cable future with a plan to finally begin live-streaming the network’s primetime talent on Max.

JONATHAN HANDEL

An in-depth look at the studio/streamers’ counteroffer, and what it reveals about the duration of the strike.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

News and notes on the hottest topics among the Meadow Club crowd as the dealmaking begins to heat up: ESPN’s potential dance partner, the hottest document making its way around town, and an around-the-corner A.I. idea.

MATTHEW BELLONI

A look at how David Zaslav’s rebranded streamer is doing with consumers in the latest iteration of Puck’s Official Streaming Service Hierarchy.