Good morning, I say this all the time, of course, but this really was a mother lode week at Puck as David Zaslav split his test-tube baby mediaco in twain, at long last, and my partners offered genre-defining reportage and analysis of this critical inflection point in multiple industries: Matt Belloni provided a brilliant two-part analysis on the Hollywood reverberations; Bill Cohan dove into the $17.5 billion bridge loan and the imminent tender offer; Dylan Byers reported live from the CNN triage unit; John Ourand detailed the downstream implications for TNT Sports; and Julia Alexander previewed a Zaz-Gunnar Wiedenfels showdown. (More below…) Elsewhere, Lauren Sherman prophesied about the future of Mayhoola and Kering and enjoyed a well-deserved victory lap over a late-stage magazine coronation. Rachel Strugatz investigated a Shiseido acquisition gone awry, while Sarah Shapiro ran the numbers on Abercrombie’s recent rough patch. Marion Maneker reassessed the Robert Indiana market, and Julie Davich spotlighted the hottest lots at the New York design auctions. Eriq Gardner foreshadowed Elon Musk’s next big purchase. And John Heilemann probed the origins of Sam Altman’s ambitions. Meanwhile, Leigh Ann Caldwell sat down with the ascendant Sen. Brian Schatz and conveyed the Democrats’ Fetterman fears; Julia Ioffe explored Pete Hegseth’s latest headache; and Abby Livingston scrutinized Mike Johnson’s legislative blood sacrifice. 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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AMC and AMC+ presents the acclaimed noir thriller DARK WINDS. The series stars Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten and Deanna Allison, along with a new guest star roster toplined by Jenna Elfman and Bruce Greenwood. Based on the iconic Leaphorn & Chee book series by Tony Hillerman, the series is created by Graham Roland with John Wirth serving as showrunner, and is executive produced by Roland, Wirth, McClarnon, Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, Chris Eyre, Tina Elmo, Jim Chory, Vince Gerardis and Anne Hillerman. FOR YOUR EMMY® CONSIDERATION Episodes available to stream now on www.amcnfyc.com Code: Xb8duofl

Lauren Sherman digs into the Vanity Fair succession, the Kering rumor mill, and Mayhoola’s future ambitions. and… Rachel Strugatz chronicles the decline of Drunk Elephant. meanwhile… Sarah Shapiro dissects Abercrombie’s post-resurrection growing pains.

Marion Maneker charts the Robert Indiana revival and checks in on the gallery-auction dynamic. and… Julie Davich pores over the catalogues for New York design week.

Matt Belloni explains how the WBD experiment went wrong and considers the Mike and Pam of it all. and… Julia Alexander evaluates Netflix’s ad-tier migration and draws up the Zaz-Gunnar prenup.

Eriq Gardner foreshadows Elon Musk’s plan to take over the airwaves. and… John Heilemann assesses Sam Altman’s persuasive powers in Washington.

Dylan Byers presages CNN’s fate under a new regime. and… John Ourand envisions the afterlife of TNT Sports, and breaks some news on an NFL defection.

Bill Cohan peers under the hood of WBD’s plan to retire a big chunk of its debt.

Leigh Ann Caldwell chats up Sen. Brian Schatz about the future of his party. and… Julia Ioffe delves into Papa Musk’s Moscow misadventure and Pete Hegseth’s fresh drama. meanwhile… Abby Livingston has the latest on the Big Beautiful Bill’s new red lines.

Dylan and Julia Alexander debate the merits of Zazonomics on The Grill Room. and… John Ourand and LightShed’s Rich Greenfield game out Shari Redstone’s dwindling options for Paramount on The Varsity. and… Lauren catches up with her buds at 831 Stories on Fashion People. and… John Heilemann and A.I. chronicler Karen Hao get into the Altman of it all on Impolitic. and… Matt discusses Emmy campaign politics with Debra Birnbaum on The Town. and… Julia Alexander and Eriq parse the latest on the Baldoni-Lively morass on The Powers That Be.

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On Monday morning, shortly after 7 a.m., I was sitting at the kitchen island and trying to enjoy the quiet afterglow of the weekend. My sons were still asleep, my wife was off on a business trip, and the aroma emanating from the Moccamaster filled the room. I was ripping through the endless scroll of morning newsletters—most regurgitating the same news, alas—when an announcement came through from the corporate communications office at Warner Bros. Discovery. At long last, after three years languishing in the public markets, C.E.O. David Zaslav had decided to sever his leveraged buyout media test-tube baby into separate entities—one dedicated to the declining cable businesses and the other coalescing around the far smaller, if growing, streaming and studio units. Within a nanosecond, my partner Bill Cohan had forwarded the same note to a group of us at Puck as we contemplated the news in real time. Zaz, as many dutiful readers well know, has been a subject of intense fascination at Puck. Indeed, the transformative 2022 deal that created Warner Bros. Discovery was initially announced a year earlier, shortly after Puck raised its Series A financing. I remember my partner Matt Belloni scrutinizing the deal when our company was still in beta—without a website, brand identity, or even a name.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

AMC and AMC+ presents the acclaimed noir thriller DARK WINDS. The series stars Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten and Deanna Allison, along with a new guest star roster toplined by Jenna Elfman and Bruce Greenwood. Based on the iconic Leaphorn & Chee book series by Tony Hillerman, the series is created by Graham Roland with John Wirth serving as showrunner, and is executive produced by Roland, Wirth, McClarnon, Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, Chris Eyre, Tina Elmo, Jim Chory, Vince Gerardis and Anne Hillerman. FOR YOUR EMMY® CONSIDERATION Episodes available to stream now on www.amcnfyc.com Code: Xb8duofl

In recent years, Zaz has emerged as a Zelig-like figure in Hollywood—a Jack Welch acolyte who had rolled up a series of underloved cable channels into Discovery Communications, then bought his way into the big leagues by shouldering $55 billion in debt for the right to oversee the historic WarnerMedia assets. Upon taking the helm of the newly christened WBD, he swiftly killed off CNN+, nuked a Batgirl and a Looney Tunes movie, and further enraged the creative community by greenlighting a Nick Pileggi–Robert De Niro vanity project. The challenges posed by his ego would become a leitmotif of his reign—hosting a glamorous party at the Hotel du Cap during Hollywood’s summer of labor unrest, for instance, or proclaiming that his company didn’t need the NBA shortly before TNT’s exclusive negotiating window commenced. But the real headache for Zaz was WBD’s inescapable financial reality. While he and his ascetic C.F.O. Gunnar Wiedenfels brilliantly slashed the company’s debt load by tens of billions, EBITDA stagnated. Investors seemed to wait for the critical inflection point of cost reduction and resurgent profit, but they ran out of patience as the inexorable decline of cable hastened and the advertising market softened. It’s certainly possible, too, that the relentless culture of cost-cutting impeded innovation. And, it’s worth noting, it’s also quite possible that his plan was flawed from the outset. Comcast is already preparing to cleave off its own cable assets. Presumably, Disney and Paramount are next. Success or failure aside, Zaz’s relevance across industries is undeniable, and the week’s editorial plans were hatched shortly after Bill’s email came across the transom. Understandably, we decided to flood the zone. In a pair of masterstrokes, Matt contextualized the Zaz era in Hollywood with David Zaslav Has Admitted Defeat and Is Warner Bros. Ready for Its Close-Up?. Bill Cohan scrutinized WBD’s new $17.5 billion credit facility in his must-read piece, Zaz’s Financial Alchemy & The GunnarCo Perimeter. Julia Alexander presaged the post-nuptial squabbles in The Zaz-Gunnar Sports Showdown, while John Ourand focused on the implications for TNT Sports in Top Gunnar. Naturally, Dylan Byers chronicled the impact on Ted Turner’s ole baby in CNN Prepares for the Afterlife. Yes, we’re in on the joke here—it’s possible that we’ve slightly overindulged ourselves and our readers on this topic. And yet, on a fundamental level, Zaz and his WBD adventure have become a true harbinger of these uncertain times in media, entertainment, sports, politics, and finance—the very worlds that Puck seeks to unite. His saga has been one of the great stories of our time, and precisely what you should expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend, Jon

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