Good morning,

It was yet another amazing week: Matt Belloni broke the news that Taylor Sheridan was fleeing the Ellison-plex; Eriq Gardner uncovered Brian Roberts’s legal path toward a WBD conquest; Julia Alexander scrutinized David Zaslav’s sports portfolio economics; Bill Cohan envisioned a Comcast-WBD union; Lauren Sherman previewed the Armani sale process; Rachel Strugatz ran the numbers on Hailey Bieber’s beauty play; Sarah Shapiro revealed Gigi Hadid’s fashion side hustle; John Ourand spoke to the NFL’s money man; Ian Krietzberg covered Sam Altman’s for-profit pivot; Marion Maneker captured an art market vibe shift, and Julie Brener Davich inspected the Marie Antoinette collectible space.

Meanwhile, Leigh Ann Caldwell gathered all the shutdown micro-dramas; Abby Livingston investigated the Democrats’ Maine headache; and Peter Hamby read the party’s own version of the Flight 93 essay.

Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.

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Lauren Sherman breaks down the Armani investment dynamic.
and…
Rachel Strugatz digs into Rhode’s P&L.
meanwhile…
Sarah Shapiro explains how Gigi Hadid built a legit fashion business.

Marion Maneker identifies a Paris vibe shift and shares a conversation with Nicolas Party.
and…
Julie Davich plumbs the depths of the Marie Antoinette market.

Matt Belloni breaks the news of Taylor Sheridan’s move to NBCU—and then answers all the market’s burning questions on the topic.
and…
Eriq Gardner charts Brian Roberts’s legal path toward a WBD conquest.

Ian Krietzberg meets Miami’s new robocop.

Dylan Byers penetrates the Bari Weiss bunker.
and…
Julia Alexander inspects the value of Zaz’s sports portfolio.
meanwhile…
John Ourand hears from Hans Shroeder, the NFL’s media guru.

Bill Cohan effectively runs the WBD sales process for Zaz’s board.

Leigh Ann Caldwell explores all the dish from the shutdown.
and…
Abby Livingston weighs in on the Democrats’ Maine nightmare.
and…
Peter Hamby presents the gory details of the party’s ’24 autopsy.

Ashley Baker chats up the true gatekeeper at the Hôtel du Cap.
and…
Judd Apatow shares some of his pet peeves.
meanwhile…
Marina Hyde conducts a Sam Altman personality test.

Dylan and YouTube C.E.O. Neal Mohan chop it up on The Grill Room.
and…
Ourand probes Amazon Prime sports chief Jay Marine about his new strategy on The Varsity.
and…
Lauren and CFDA C.E.O. Steven Kolb exchange war stories on Fashion People.
and…
John Heilemann and conservative legal scholar J. Michael Luttig discuss Trump’s desire for lifetime appointment on Impolitic.
and…
Matt and Andrew Ross Sorkin discuss Big Tech’s Hollywood curiosities on The Town.
and…
Matt and Peter get into the Taylor Sheridan nitty-gritty on The Powers That Be.

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Last Saturday afternoon, my partner Matt Belloni sent a note on Slack to a few colleagues with a small request: He wanted to move up the publication of What I’m Hearing, his seminal entertainment industry newsletter, from Monday to Sunday, for just this week. He’d gotten his hands on an interesting piece of news, and he simply didn’t think it was going to hold the extra 24 hours. Naturally, we were happy to oblige—as loyal readers know, Puck already publishes a number of its franchises on Sunday. (This company was built around a Stakhanovite work ethic.) Plus, we pride ourselves on offering subscribers access to the inaccessible.

Over the phone, Matt subsequently shared what he’d discovered: Taylor Sheridan, the most consequential showrunner of our time, would be leaving Paramount after his deals expired for NBCU. The Yellowstone creator would be freed up for film work in March of next year. His TV work would move over to NBCU in 2029. Matt was correct: This was monster news that touched so many corners of Puck’s cinematic universe.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Open enrollment begins today – and in the midst of a worsening affordability crisis, millions of families who buy insurance on the individual marketplace are facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums and could even lose their coverage if Congress lets the health care tax credit expire. 

But it’s not too late. We stand ready to work with Congress and the Administration to extend the health care tax credit that allows families to afford coverage. Together, we can make health care more affordable.

In the final years of Shari Redstone’s stewardship of Paramount, Sheridan’s I.P. remained one of the few bright spots in the company’s portfolio—even if Yellowstone, itself, still streamed on rival Peacock as the relic of some poorly aging money grab deal from a previous era of the streaming wars. Under Ellison rule, the new owners had spent billions on UFC and South Park rights, and yet Sheridan had apparently received notes from management to mind his show budgets.

Moreover, the defection to NBCU offered an unmistakable signal about parentco Comcast’s ambitions. After all, Brian Roberts would be plunking down a major investment in premium entertainment content just as he was spinning off his cable assets, making a multibillion-dollar annual commitment to the NBA, and ostensibly hanging around the hoop for at least a piece of Warner Bros. Discovery. The various second-order impacts were significant and suggestive about how the next age of media consolidation will play out.

On Sunday evening, Taylor Sheridan Is Leaving Paramount coursed through the entertainment business within nanoseconds after What I’m Hearing arrived in inboxes. It also helped frame an exciting cottage industry of subsequent work within Puck. Less than 48 hours later, our partner Eriq Gardner published a typically excellent story articulating Roberts’s legal path toward a deal with WBD, Iger’s Shutdown Timing & Roberts’s WBD Opening. The following day, the intrepid Bill Cohan placed the Sheridan deal in the context of Comcast’s recent contribution to Trump’s massive and controversial East Wing reno project. Perhaps signing the Yellowstone creator had the added benefit of signaling to the White House that the soon-to-be-former corporate owner of MSNBC wasn’t really platforming content for woke America any longer? The Brian Roberts–WBD Bull Case takes a three-dimensional view of the chess board.

The following day, as you may have heard, Puck closed its deal to acquire Air Mail, the extraordinary media company founded by the legendary editor Graydon Carter. There will be subsequent updates in the coming weeks and months about how Puck subscribers can access Air Mail’s excellent columns and features through their account. And, you may even see the occasional disclosure about new investors who happened to roll into our capital structure via the deal, and obviously have absolutely zero influence on our coverage or business, but nevertheless may cameo in our digital pages. (To wit: Ironically and even somewhat hilariously, the aforementioned WBD C.E.O. David Zaslav is now a de minimis investor in Puck via the Air Mail transaction. We’ll note this for readers when it’s relevant.)

I couldn’t be more proud of the team and excited about welcoming our new colleagues. But my heart really swelled in the hours after the paperwork was filed in Delaware. Rather than pop champagne or run off to a closing dinner, many of my partners hunkered down and got back to the work of building this great company. Matt, for his part, published a fabulous coda to his growing Yellowstone oeuvre: Taylor Sheridan Burning Questions and Smoking Guns. After all, it’s one of the great sprawling stories of our time, and precisely what you should always expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon

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