The newly promoted Comcast co-C.E.O. pulled in a shocking $71.8 million in compensation in 2025, per a new filing, despite the company’s stock price plummeting 20 percent during the year and losing more than $1 billion on Peacock alone.

For those keeping media C.E.O. salary score (me)…

Ari Emanuel, TKO: $67.3 million
David Ellison, Paramount Skydance: $63.2 million (from August to December)
Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, Netflix: $53.9 million and $53.2 million, respectively
Bob Iger, Disney: $45.8 million

David Zaslav’s 2025 pay will be revealed later this week. Start the countdown…

Runner-up: Graham King, the Michael producer, whose nine-year, hurdle-plagued crusade to make a Michael Jackson biopic finally pays off with a $219 million opening and a certain greenlight on a sequel.

Ancillary winners: Joe Drake, the former Lionsgate film chief, who brought the project in when other studios (including Sony, which has the M.J. music) passed because it was radioactive, and Adam Fogelson, the current studio chief, who got the call in late 2024 that the entire third act had to be reshot and still managed to land the troubled plane.

Honorable mention: Gotta be Michael Glantz, the CAA agent for Wolf Blitzer, who went viral for calmly eating his burrata salad during the WHCD chaos. (In his defense, he’s got a very bad back, and the salad was decent!)

“We should come together—and be best.”
—Jimmy Kimmel, invoking the first lady’s slogan in his monologue tonight after her call that he be fired for joking last week that she had “a glow like an expectant widow.”

Runner-up, on R.F.K. Jr. being whisked from the WHCD room as wife Cheryl Hines looked on: “He cut out of there like he saw a raccoon penis on the side of the road!”

Second runner-up, on Glantz going viral: “Get that agent an agent!”

Now a little news…

CAA, still reeling from its recent arbitration loss to the defectors at Range Media Partners, just picked up a win that could be costly and embarrassing for the Range guys. In a new ruling, the judge found that Range and its co-founder and C.E.O., Pete Micelli, failed to turn over scores of material subject to a subpoena.

Back in 2024, Range and Micelli were ordered to produce documents in connection with the formation of the company. (Remember, CAA and the four defecting agents are brawling over the cancellation of their equity in the agency when they abruptly left.) Range and Micelli then showed up at the arbitration last March with zero documents, only 300 pages of objections. Range and Micelli “willfully failed to bring those documents as ordered … and as such, willfully disobeyed this court’s order,” the judge found.

Range later agreed to hand over about 80,000 pages of documents responsive to 11 or 12 requests, and those materials were used during the now-concluded arbitration. That’s why Range lawyers at Gibson Dunn maintain that anything not already turned over is immaterial—mostly schedules and inconsequential emails. But CAA, repped by Paul Hastings, believes the additional documents show Micelli and others were conspiring to harvest CAA secrets for the new company in 2019, well before they gave notice to CAA in 2020. If the judge finds Range or Micelli in contempt, he could impose stiff fines, or even provide fodder to revisit the arbitration panel’s ruling, which CAA is already appealing. (A tentative decision threatened $3 million in penalties, but that number was not in the final ruling.) “We are pleased that a Los Angeles Superior Court has now called Micelli and Range before it to account for their conduct,” CAA attorney Elena Baca told me today in a statement. “They must explain why damning documents that were ordered to be produced in CAA’s arbitration with Jack Whigham, Dave Bugliari, Mick Sullivan, and Michael Cooper are just now surfacing. The court’s order of today has made clear: The court believes Micelli and Range disobeyed its order.”

The judge set a July 8 hearing, during which Micelli and the others will likely be forced to testify. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s order,” Range attorney Ilissa Samplin told me today. “Range participated fully and faithfully in the arbitration process. We look forward to presenting the evidence of Range’s compliance in July.”

$15 million
Additional fee that Michael director Antoine Fuqua, who was already paid $10 million, scored from the Jackson estate when legal issues required reshooting the third act. [Bloomberg]

10.4 billion
Global viewing hours for Paramount+ in 2025, up 22 percent year over year, per internal company slides presented last week. Pluto TV, its free streamer, grew viewing hours 21 percent, to 9.5 billion. [Business Insider]

1.2 trillion
Hours of audio streamed on Spotify since its launch 20 years ago, enough time for Artemis II to travel around the moon and back more than 5 billion times. [Spotify]

20 percent
Share of hours watched on Netflix that came from book-based titles, racking up 9 billion global views in 2025. [Netflix]

$81,000
Monthly fee The Onion’s parent will pay to lease Alex Jones’s Infowars.com from a court-appointed receiver, as it plans for a comedy and satire platform. [NYT]

Now here’s Kim…

“I wish the attorney general in California would get off his ass,” one unhappy Warner Bros. Discovery executive told me recently. Or, this person continued, maybe European regulators would slow things down enough to test Larry Ellison’s endurance, or “maybe it’s the midterms” that could somehow turn things around. Is there a chance that the war will lead to trouble with the financing? What about a strongly worded letter?

Yes, the opposition to Paramount’s impending acquisition of Warner Bros. is grasping at several straws, though some might have more tensile strength than you might expect. I haven’t seen this level of broad opposition to a deal—in Hollywood and beyond—in all my years covering this industry. Okay, when Sony acquired Columbia Pictures in 1989 and Matsushita took over MCA in 1990, there was some panic that the Japanese were buying up American culture. But the industry wasn’t in dire straits then, and the fate of a very flawed but essential 24-hour news channel wasn’t on the line, with Pete Hegseth publicly licking his chops in anticipation of the Ellisons’ takeover.

Most industry insiders I canvassed glumly admitted that they don’t believe the $110 billion deal can be stopped. And yet, I’ve been wondering whether the Ellisons’ over-the-top embrace of the Trump administration could be a mistake. Yes, they want fast regulatory approval from the feds, but haven’t they gotten that locked up by now? Was it necessary to host a private dinner honoring Trump on the eve of the benighted White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekend? They only had to wait a few weeks to be front and center with Trump at their UFC event on the White House lawn.

That coziness has given Democrats a bit of a toehold. The day of that private dinner, Rep. Jamie Raskin appeared at a protest, where he said the evening was “designed to cement the Ellisons to the president in their years-running corrupt merger scheme.” Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted: “Ellison and the information oligarchs should enjoy it while they can because when Democrats win power we are going to break these anti-consumer, anti-free speech media conglomerates into pieces.” Maybe not all publicity is good publicity.

Former F.T.C. commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, a Biden appointee who departed last year after Trump attempted to fire him (illegally, at least until the Supreme Court majority says otherwise), told me that the cancellation of Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Disney’s subsequent suspension of Jimmy Kimmel primed people outside Washington and Hollywood “to understand that what they watch at home at night can be controlled by these centimillionaires and billionaires. That’s kind of radicalizing. You saw it with Ted Cruz throwing a flag on the Kimmel thing.” As I write, the first lady and her husband have once again called for Kimmel’s cancellation because everyone seems to be doubling down on everything these days.

Then there’s the prospect of Bari Weiss remaking CNN after her overhaul of CBS News. Interfering with the 60 Minutes CECOT report sent a chilling message, and Weiss is now reportedly preparing to revamp the show. It takes a special kind of confidence to have a go at America’s number one news program for more than 50 years—especially after having only taken matters from bad to worse at ailing CBS News. Even if Weiss limits her meddling, it’s a valid question whether she can hold on to her remaining talent. When, and if, she brings that confidence to remaking CNN, her every move will be leaked and Democrats will be lying in wait.

Despite the blowback, the Ellisons are projecting inevitability. In early March, Andy Gordon, Paramount Skydance’s C.O.O. and chief strategy officer, told investors, “There’s no statutory impediments to close in the United States, [and] as an example of our progress, Germany and Slovenia have already given their approval to proceed.” Not quite—the nod came from those countries’ foreign direct-investment authorities and was unrelated to a broader regulatory review.

The E.U. isn’t likely to block the deal but still may not be in a rush to move it along. “The E.U. is not Trump-friendly or Ellison-friendly, but I think those instincts will affect the timing more than the up-or-down decision,” Blair Levin, policy advisor to New Street Research, told me. “The E.U. is still a ‘rule of law’ kind of bureaucracy.” The process “could affect the deal’s economics because it would likely extend beyond the September 30, 2026, deadline, when ticking fees begin accruing for WBD shareholders.”

At home, California A.G. Rob Bonta appears ready to challenge the deal, which he has already said raises “red flags everywhere.” A slew of other states that are production hubs might also join. “Not only can a Rob Bonta or [New York A.G.] Tish James jump in, but they have a range of arguments,” Alvaro said, “and all you need is one to stick.”

A Paramount source insists that nothing—literally no power on Earth—can stop this deal. But an antitrust lawyer who’s been connected to another recent high-profile battle told me, “In normal times the fact that the D.O.J. approves a deal is a hurdle for the states. But that’s not true now.” In fact, the very appearance that the fix looks like it’s in at the federal level could actually be wielded as a weapon against the deal before a state court—though how effectively remains to be seen.

The state A.G.s aren’t the only ones who are unhappy about the WarnerMount deal. According to a WBD source, C.F.O. and green-eyeshade man Gunnar Wiedenfels was so distraught when the Ellisons finally prevailed in their bid for the company that one insider thought he may have shed actual human tears. After all, the deal doomed David Zaslav’s plan to spin off the cable channels into a new company that Wiedenfels was set to run. Said this person: “He wants to be a C.E.O. He’d been counting on it. He and David Zaslav didn’t necessarily want to become rich, retired men.” Wiedenfels may get a consolation prize, as many observers expect him to be a key player in the slashing of debt when and if the deal goes through. It doesn’t appear that Paramount Skydance has anyone to match his experience.

Agent-world also thinks it knows who emerges as the monarch of streaming, giving the advantage to HBO’s Casey Bloys over Netflix vet and Ellison hire Cindy Holland. Both have proved brilliant at prestige programming, but Bloys has had a long and successful run, and he’s also made it abundantly clear that he will report to Ellison, period. He’s also been overseeing HBO Max originals (The Pitt), international programming, acquisitions, and so on. “It would be a crime to take him out,” said one industry observer. “He’s just too good.”

Another WBD veteran told me he thinks he knows what Zaslav is planning to do when (if) the deal closes—and what he isn’t doing. “Some of the people around him have, as the drumbeats about his compensation have gotten louder, advised Zaslav to counter the narrative by setting up a foundation.” this person told me. Seems like he might have about 800 million reasons to consider that idea but according to this source, Zaslav passed: “I don’t think we should hold our breath to see a Zaslav Foundation. He’s probably saving some of his money to put in a fund—to raid another company and destroy it.” Ouch, but can you really blame people for being bitter? A source close to Zaslav said he hasn’t made any decisions regarding his future yet. (Standard disclosure: Zaslav became a de minimis investor in Puck as a result of our acquisition of Air Mail.)

No big deal, just an F.C.C. filing revealing “indirect foreign ownership of equity in Paramount will be approximately 49.5 percent.” Seriously, why are you concerned? The Ellisons and RedBird will have 100 percent control. Why would they listen to the investors who own nearly half the company? The Saudis, Qataris, and Emiratis will have zero influence here, got it? Got it?? [THR]

Letterboxd is for sale, so Elon will probably buy it and make it terrible. [Semafor]

Unsealed depositions reveal how Disney dealt with its Ron DeSantis problem in Florida. [Florida Politics]

Whip out your tiny violins to play a eulogy for Saudi Arabia’s first big-budget megaflop, Desert Warrior. [Vulture]

Come for the Linda McMahon profile, stay for the Werner Herzog quotes about WWE. [New Yorker]

If you’re waiting seven years to join Raya, maybe you shouldn’t be on Raya. [Wired]

Young people care about Scary Movie, and Spielberg’s Disclosure Day has an awareness problem, according to the latest early film tracking chart from The Quorum…

Have a great week,

Matt

Maya Tribbitt contributed research for this issue.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or your own awareness problem? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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