Pitaro’s ESPN Pivot, Gucci Musical Chairs, Harris’s Fire Sale

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

First up today, Matt Belloni reveals how liberal-leaning Hollywood is positively sprinting through the five stages of grief, as C.E.O.s and industry executives salivate over the prospect of an M&A-friendly business environment and other silver linings in a second Trump administration.

Plus, below the fold: Dylan Byers punctures the media fantasy that the highly lucrative #Resistance marketplace will quickly reestablish itself. Tara Palmeri reveals how the Harris campaign is scrambling to stave off its multimillion-dollar post-election debts. John Ourand evaluates Jimmy Pitaro’s vision for an apolitical ESPN. And Lauren Sherman chronicles the latest drama at Dior, Gucci’s new comms strategy, and much more.

Meanwhile, in Puck’s podcast universe: Dylan returns to The Grill Room with never-Trump media darling Tim Miller to assess how the industry failed to anticipate this new reality. On The Town, Matt rings up Axios’s Sara Fischer to discuss the business implications of Trump 2.0. On Fashion People, Lauren is joined by renaissance man Mark Bozek for a sprawling career retrospective and to hear what it was like directing the new Bill Cunningham documentary. And on The Powers That Be, Eriq Gardner joins Peter Hamby to forecast how Trump will reshape—or dismantle—key agencies like the F.T.C. and F.C.C.

MATTHEW BELLONI

Unlike in Trump’s first term, when entertainment became ground zero for the #Resistance, it feels like the industry—at least the business side of it—is gonna try to make nice to avoid issues with M&A and regulation, which is both sad and a reality of doing business when the president has become so openly vindictive, transactional, and unchecked.

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DYLAN BYERS

With Trump 2.0 upon us, a number of D.C. media people are cautiously wondering if the highly lucrative, gung-ho cri de coeur, green-room-and-book-deal #resistance marketplace of his last term will return to town with the 47th president. Alas, Trump may not have changed, but the industry sure has.

TARA PALMERI

The Harris financial juggernaut, which raised well over $1 billion, is still soliciting cash and has begun seeking buyers for its email lists in order to stave off its debts—raising uncomfortable questions about where and how all that money was spent in the first place.

JOHN OURAND

During his six years in Bristol, chairman Jimmy Pitaro has carefully pivoted ESPN away from a network that condones political expression to a business-friendly safe space for sports. And he’s not changing his tune now.