Mediaboss Marketing

Discovery makes Bear Grylls Man Vs Wild, among other shows. Photograph: Discovery Channel

Bear Grylls is joining forces with the Barefoot Contessa in the latest of a series of major mergers to shakeup the media landscape.

Pay-TV giant Discovery, owner of Animal Planet and maker of Grylls Man Vs Wild, Naked and Afraid and other reality shows, will buy Food Network and lifestyle programme giant Scripps Networks for close to $12bn (9.1bn), tying together two powerful stables of TV shows.

Scripps also jointly controls Dave and Gold owner UKTV with the BBC, and the move will extend Discovery boss and cable tycoon John Malones control of UK media.

Discovery has sealed the $14.6bn (11.1bn) cash-and-shares deal days after rival Viacom, owner of MTV, Nickelodeon and Channel 5 in the UK, dropped its bid.

The deal, three years after previous merger talks fell through, will create $350m (266m) in cost savings, which are likely to include significant job cuts.

The deal comes as AT&T is trying to finalize its merger with Time Warner and the Sinclair Group pushes on with its controversial bid to take over Tribunes local TV networks across the US.

Media companies are also continuing to adjust to the shift to online media consumption. Online ads are still worth a fraction of TV ads but the audiences for the networks shows and the ways in which they can package their content has also grown enormously.

Discovery, which owns assets including Eurosport and spent almost 1bn on the rights to the Olympics across Europe, will add TV brands including Food Network, which airs shows such as Nigella Express.

In addition, Scripps owns a 50% stake in UKTV which runs 10 channels with shows including Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Horses, Dads Army and the magician Dynamo with the commercial arm of the BBC.

The deal will also increase the influence and control that Malone, the American cable tycoon challenging Rupert Murdochs dominance of pay-TV in Europe, has in the UK.

Malone is chairman of Liberty Global, which in 2013 acquired Virgin Media in a 15bn deal and owns a 10% stake in ITV, as well as a stake in Discovery Communications that gives him almost 30% of the voting power.

The UKTV business has grown tremendously in recent years: profits jumped 12% to 84.8m ($111m) last year, accounting for more than a third of the profits at BBC Worldwide.

The licence fee funded BBC relies on regular returns from BBC Worldwide, which top 200m ($263m) annually, to help top up its coffers.

David Zaslav, the deal-hungry chief executive of Discovery, said that the takeover would help the company compete better on the global stage.

Scripps is one of the best run media companies in the world with terrific assets, strong brands and popular talent and formats, he said. We believe that by coming together with Scripps we will create a stronger, more flexible and more dynamic media company with a global content engine.

Zaslav had eyed a 1bn ($1.3bn) bid for Channel 4 when the government considered a part or full sale of the state-owned broadcaster. Discovery has also considered finding partners to make tilt at Premier League rights. In 2014, Discovery was a contender to buy Channel 5 from Richard Desmond, but pulled out with rival Viacom eventually stumping up more than 450m ($591m).

In 2014, Discovery and Liberty Global teamed up to buy All3Media, the TV production giant behind shows including Skins, Midsomer Murders and The Only Way is Essex, for more than 500m ($657m).

Go here to see the original:
Discovery Communications to buy Scripps Networks for close to $12bn - The Guardian

Anthony Scaramucci, the brash New Yorker who was announced little more than a week ago as President Trump's White House communications director, was ousted Monday before he had even officially taken the job.

John F. Kelly, the newly sworn-in White House chief of staff, told Scaramucci around 9:30 a.m. EDT that he was going to be replaced, according to a person close to White House.

In a statement officially announcing the move, the White House said Scaramucci"felt it was best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team."

While Scaramucci's time at the center of the president's circlewas short, it was consequential, prompting the resignations of first Sean Spicer as White House press secretary and then Reince Priebus as chief of staff.

The most notable firings and resignations in the Trump administration >>

A former hedge fund executive on Wall Street, Scaramucci, who enjoyed media attention,also had come on strong stylistically, highlighted by a profane tirade against colleagues Priebusand Trump strategist Steve Bannonin an exchangelast week with a New Yorker reporter.

Theabrupt shift in Scaramucci'sstatus seemed to reflect Kelly's mission to bring order to the chainof command within the chaotic administration.

Ingetting Scaramuccito leave,Kelly was undoing Trump'sown hiring decision.Scaramuccihad told reporters when he was hired that he would be reporting directly to the president at Trump's request, bypassing the normal chain that would have the communications director -- like all staff -- report to the chief of staff.

Scaramucci's unusually short tenure reflects a moment of extreme turbulence in the White House, which has been embroiled in infighting as it confronts low poll numbers for the president, a floundering legislative agendaand the investigations involving Russian meddling in last year's presidential election.

After word spread of Scaramucci's ouster, Spicer, who resigned when Scaramucci took over but was still working in the White House, walked out of his office to a throng of reporters.

"Is this a surprise party?" he asked.

UPDATE

12:15 p.m.: This story has been updated throughout with additional details and background.

This article was originally published at11:49 a.m.

Link:
Scaramucci out as Trump communications director as new White House chief of staff takes control - Los Angeles Times

The theme of following the Partys command dominated Chinas massive military parade held on July 30.

By Charlotte Gao for The Diplomat

August 01, 2017

On July 30, China held a massive military parade to commemorate Chinas Army Day marking the day the Communist Party of China (CPC) founded the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in 1927 for the first time, in celebration of the PLAs 90th anniversary. Although China has conducted multiple military parades for various days, this parade is undoubtedly an unprecedented one to reaffirm the CPCs absolute control over the army. The theme of following the Partys command dominated the whole event.

During the parade, as Xi Jinping, Chinese president, the current general secretary of the CPC, and chairman of the Central Military Commission, was driven past ranks of troops, the troops shouted out loudly: [We] follow the Partys command; [we] can win the battle; [we] have excellent behavior! This is actually the newest goal and slogan for all the military to memorize and following the Partys command is obviously the priority.

The most striking and iconic signal on the day was that as shown in the picture the banner team held the flags sothat the Partys flag went right in the front of Chinese national flag, and the national flag was in front of the armys flag.

As if the scene itself was not clear enough, the host of China Central Television (CCTV) , which live-broadcasted the parade, made a further elaboration to the whole world:

Following the Partys command is the soul of the military The Partys banner is the armys banner; the Partys will is the armys will; the direction the Party leads is the direction the army advances Wherever the Party points, the army will attack

The next day, the picture depicting that the Partys flag leading the way was also widely publishedon the front page of most Chinese national media websites.

In addition to the theme of following the Partys command, following Chairman Xi was another significant agenda of the parade.

As The Diplomat notedregardingthe Hong Kongs military parade, held on June 30, the previous tradition insuch military parades was that the CMC chairmanwouldshout Greetings, comrades! to the troops and the troops would shout Greetings, leader! in return. Yetat the Hong Kong military parade, the protocol was slightly changed, rather unprecedentedly. Instead of shouting Greetings, leader! the comrades shouted Greetings, chairman! to Xi.

At that time, it was still unclear if the unusual change of wording was specifically designed for the Hong Kong parade or not. Now we know thatits a more long-term change, as the troops in the Army Day Parade also shouted Greetings, chairman! to Xi.

In this case, the Hong Kong commentator Ma Dingshengs analysis during the Hong Kongs military parade is proved right: Chairman demonstrated Xis paramount status, since there are many leaders, but only one chairman.

In other words, according to a Chinese national media commentator,[Greetings, chairman] embodies that the chairman of the Central Military Commission takes full responsibility [of the army] it highlights the important identity of the chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Charlotte Gao holds a MA degree in Asian Studies. Her research interests center around East Asian topics. She has worked in the past as a news editor, reporter, and writer for multiple traditional, online, and new media outlets.

See the rest here:
China's Military Parade Reaffirms Communist Party's Absolute Control Over Army - The Diplomat

Yesterday it was Hamburg. Today or tomorrow it could be anywhere else in Germany.

As I chronicle below, there have been a dozen terror-related incidents in Germany since January 2016, indicating that the problem may be at a tipping point as the number of fatal terror attacks in Western Europe has exploded in just the past few years.

And many of the recent problems are refugee-driven.

The attacker who killed one and injured seven at a supermarket in Hamburg Friday while shouting "Allah akbar" was a Palestinian born in the UAE who was in the country illegally and was scheduled for deportation.

He entered the country in 2015 during the massive rush of Syrian migrants, during which 900,000 entered the country.

Video taken at the scene of yesterday's attack shows him being taken under arrest and fending off the bystanders who subdued him:

Local media reported that the attacker was an Islamist already known to German authorities:

Link:
Germany's Refugee-Driven Terror Problem Out of Control After a Dozen Incidents Since Jan 2016 - PJ Media

Silicon Valley Business Journal

Laurene Powell Jobs' group buys control of The Atlantic Silicon Valley Business Journal Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective has agreed to buy control of The Atlantic, the magazine that her group's namesake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, helped to create 160 years ago. David G. Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media, plans to keep a minority stake ... Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs' widow, makes splashy media dealNew York Post David Bradley is selling the Atlantic magazine to Laurene Powell Jobs's nonprofitWashington Post Laurene Powell Jobs, Philanthropist and Widow of Steve Jobs, Just Took Over The AtlanticGizmodo The Atlantic -Axios -Emerson Collective all 137 news articles »

Read the rest here:
Laurene Powell Jobs' group buys control of The Atlantic - Silicon Valley Business Journal