The Morning Fix: Resentment time as Forbes’ rich list comes out! Sun Valley schmooze. Hulu’s new do. Reruns of ‘Glee’ and ‘Modern Family’ head to cable
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After the coffee. Before getting pumped for the return of ‘Rescue Me.’
They made how much? Yes, it’s time for everyone’s favorite issue of Forbes -- the one with all the big-star salaries in it. Besides the usual look at which celebrities have the biggest wallets, the issue also goes behind the scenes of the industry with a variety of stories -- how TNT is going after the broadcast networks as well as what that ‘Twilight’ franchise is really worth. Go read it and then start yapping to your agent about not being on the list.
Sun Valley time again. The media industry, along with other moguls, politicians, sports stars and a world leader or two, is preparing to descend on Sun Valley, Idaho, for investment bank Allen & Co.’s annual big-shot conference next week. The usual suspects -- heads of Disney, News Corp., Google, Time Warner, Viacom, Apple, Facebook and Comcast -- are expected. There will be rafting and bike trips mixed in with sessions and presentations. Reporters desperate to get any news out of the schmooze will linger like vultures. Allen & Co. has a love-hate relationship with the press when it comes to this event. They like the attention but don’t want the press actually to have access to anyone. Reporters huddle outside buildings like paparazzi outside Lindsay Lohan’s house. And, if necessary, they will go through garbage to see what Barry Diller’s eating. Months after the event, some deal will happen, and word will surface that its origins were from the conference when one mogul accidentally dipped his chocolate into another mogul’s peanut butter. Allen & Co. keeps making it tougher for the press to get any morsels out of the event. They hire tons of retired and off-duty police and, last year, made the bar off-limits to the press. No booze for the press? Now that’s cruel and unusual punishment. Details on this year’s get-together from Bloomberg.
Hulu’s new do. ‘Could it be? Yes, it could. Something’s comin’, something good. If I can wait! Something’s comin’, I don’t know what it is. But it is gonna be great!’ Why are we singing ‘West Side Story’ lyrics? Because today just may be the day Hulu unveils its pay service, and we’re so excited we just can’t hold back our anticipation! Here’s a sneak from the Los Angeles Times and Monday’s news from Bloomberg about a little promo that Hulu put together for people buying new Samsung televisions.
YouTube aftershocks. Variety looks at YouTube’s court victory over Viacom regarding how the video site polices itself and what it could mean for Hollywood. At a time when the White House says it is going to get serious in the fight against piracy, particularly overseas, the battle lines have just gotten murkier.
On pins and needles. The New York Post returns to its favorite subject -- what will happen to NBC Universal executives after Comcast Corp. closes its deal to acquire the company, which, with the way the federal government is plodding through its review, may be awhile. It’s almost July and things are slowing down, and we need to fill this baby, so we’ll forgive the paper for basically rehashing a lot of leftovers.
Sell them while they’re hot. Usually, studios wait a few years into a show’s run before shopping the reruns. But News Corp.s 20th Television, which sells shows made by its sister studio, 20th Century Fox Television, is selling ‘Modern Family’ and ‘Glee’ now after each has been on for one season. Deadline Hollywood reports that Oxygen is snagging ‘Glee,’ and USA is going to end up with ‘Modern Family.’ Of course, local stations also will likely get a window for ‘Modern Family.’ Having covered syndication for far too long, I will just note that it is smart to sell ‘Glee’ now because, I guarantee, by its third and fourth seasons, the show will be slowing down, and dramas are tougher to sell anyway. ‘Modern Family,’ however, seems like it could have a longer lifespan, and maybe 20th should have held off a little longer. But hey, if someone is waving millions of dollars in your face, it’s tough not to take the money and run.
ESPN and Univision score! The U.S. may have lost to Ghana, but ESPN and Univision were winners with their coverage of that game and the World Cup in general. The New York Times talks to executives from both companies who are pleased not only with the ratings but the dollars as well. ESPN’s already talking about how great the 2014 World Cup will be because it’s in Brazil. Good, the world has four years to come up with a noisemaker more annoying than the vuvuzela. Of course, as the Hollywood Reporter notes, now that some big teams are gone, many broadcasters will experience a ratings dip in the tournament’s final weeks.
Guess Fiji didn’t get the memo. Though the fate of newspapers is in doubt around the world, Fiji fears ink so much it has passed a law demanding local ownership for papers that will require Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to divest the Fiji Times. More on the crackdown from the Wall Street Journal.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: Patrick Goldstein finds the rare Hollywood executive in 20th Century Fox marketing chief Tony Sella, who steps up to take the heat for the marketing campaign on Tom Cruise’s ‘Knight and Day.’ David Nevins, the new Showtime programming chief, has big shoes to fill. Disney is overhauling its stores. Cantor Fitzgerald is bailing on its plans to start a box-office futures trading exchange.
-- Joe Flint
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