Latest news with #Skydance Media
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Dana White On How UFC Landed A $7.7 Billion Streaming Deal With Paramount
W hen David Ellison sat in the front row at a pair of UFC events in April and June, just a few seats away from Donald Trump, media analysts wondered whether the 42-year-old CEO of Skydance Media—and son of the world's second richest man, Larry Ellison—was using the opportunity to smooth over any political concerns about his $8 billion acquisition of Paramount. The deal, which was held up by Trump's FCC for months, officially closed last week, but it appears the merger wasn't the only multibillion-dollar deal Ellison was working on in those ringside seats. On Monday, the Las Vegas-based UFC announced a seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal with Paramount to stream all of its fights on Paramount+ in the United States, with select events to be simulcast on CBS. UFC CEO Dana White tells Forbes he had a preexisting relationship with Larry Ellison and spoke with David at each of those events, one of many network executives looking to land the MMA behemoth. But it was Ellison who swooped in and knocked out the competition just days after the merger between his Skydance and Paramount was approved. 'These guys came in aggressive with an all-or-nothing approach and said, We want the whole thing,' White says. 'The Ellisons are brilliant businessmen and have a whole game plan behind this thing. I can't wait to be in business with them.' At $1.1 billion per year in average annual value, the UFC will now earn nearly as much in media rights fees as MLB ($1.8 billion), the Olympics ($1.3 billion), March Madness ($1.1 billion) and Nascar ($1.1 billion), dwarfing the likes of the NHL ($635 million) and the PGA Tour ($700 million). And that figure only covers the United States. The UFC will continue to sell its international rights territory by territory through IMG, a category worth an estimated $250 million per year. Unlike other sports leagues, however, the UFC funds its own broadcast productions to maintain control over the look and feel of its events. Any talk of offloading those costs to a partner, and thus ceding control, was a non-starter. 'It's going to be like that until I leave,' says the 56-year-old White. Paramount's annual payouts nearly double the UFC's current media rights revenue from ESPN, the promotion's partner since 2019. The existing deal will continue through the end of 2025, and pays the UFC an estimated $350 million per year to distribute 30 UFC Fight Nights per year on ESPN+. Additionally, under the most recent extension signed in 2023, ESPN pays an estimated $250 million per year up front for the UFC's 13 'numbered' events, which the network then offers to ESPN+ subscribers for an additional pay-per-view fee, keeping all of the PPV sales revenue. The major change in this new deal is the elimination of the pay-per-view model that has been a bedrock of UFC programming since its inception in 1993. Mark Shapiro, president and chief operating officer of UFC-parent company TKO Holdings, says UFC has wanted to ditch the PPV model since the beginning of negotiations with potential partners in February. At nearly $100 per month for fans to access both tiers of UFC events, he says the model had gotten too expensive for many fans, leading to a massive spike in pirated streams during the biggest events. 'That's when we really knew the price point or the double paywall had gotten out of control,' says Shapiro, who was previously head of programming and production at ESPN. 'We were seeing piracy number up tenfold, which is what you see for big boxing pay-per-views.' As negotiations continued this summer, White and Shapiro assumed the UFC would need to divide its media rights package among several partners. At one point, they considered using as many as five different distributors, with Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly included among the suitors. The Fight Stuff: David Ellison (seated, black suit) had a ringside seat with Donald Trump and Elon Musk at UFC 314 in April, and was seated near the president again at UFC 316 in July. Over time, Paramount emerged as the likely partner for Fight Nights, but conversations with multiple networks and streamers continued for the premium event rights until last Thursday when Ellison's Skydance officially took over Paramount and hammered out a deal for the entire package within 48 hours. 'Every time we do a media rights deal it's monumental—one, because obviously the money goes up,' White says. 'And two, because you start looking at all the different things we can do with leveraging the assets they have and what their plan is for their business over the next five years.' Paramount stock was down slightly on Monday following news of the new streaming deal while TKO's stock was up more than 10 percent. White and Shapiro are confident that UFC fans will move en masse to the Paramount+ platform next year, showing the same loyalty to the brand as they did in 2012 when the UFC moved from Spike to Fox, and then again in 2019 with the move to ESPN. The incoming Paramount leadership is no doubt counting on the bump. As of July 31, the company reported 77.7 million subscribers for its Paramount+ streaming service, trailing major competitors including Netflix (300 million), Amazon Prive Video (200 million), Disney+ (150 million) and HBO Max (125 million). According to Nielsen, Paramount+ accounts for just two percent of all TV viewing on a monthly basis. In an effort to boost those figures, Ellison has already signed a $1.5 billion agreement to bring South Park to Paramount+, a deal that made the show's creators, Matt Parker and Trey Stone, billionaires. But the UFC deal is a far bigger bet that a year-round global sport can drive new viewers to the platform, slow subscriber churn, and increase engagement. Now as the exclusive home of the UFC, Ellison has made the MMA promotion a pillar of the new Paramount. The political implications of such an association—given Trump's affinity for combat sports and personal friendship with White—cannot be ignored. White confirms plans to host a UFC event at the White House around July 4, 2026, a 'one of one' experience similar to the UFC's event at the Sphere in Las Vegas last fall, which he says would almost certainly be broadcast on CBS. White, who has long had the president on speed dial, says he had yet to hear from Trump regarding the new deal. 'Not yet,' White says with a laugh. 'But I'm sure he will. He always does.' MORE FROM FORBES Forbes Populist Capitalist: How The UFC's Dana White Epitomizes Business In The Trump Era By Matt Craig Forbes Inside Dana White's $20 Million Plan To Bring UFC 306 To The Sphere By Matt Craig Forbes South Park's Creators Are Now Billionaires By Matt Craig Forbes How The World's Second-Richest Person And His Son Pulled Off The $8 Billion Paramount Deal By Phoebe Liu
Daily Mail
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Gayle King's CBS Mornings future 'murky' over $15m-a-year star's DEI agenda blamed for tanking ratings
Gayle King 's future at CBS Mornings is uncertain as networks boss are not happy with the star's focus on DEI and tanking ratings, according to a new report. King, who earns and eye-watering $15million a year, has reportedly refused to follow her bosses' attempts to move away from polarizing coverage, sources told the New York Post. The sources claimed that the 70-year-old anchor and her executive producer Shawna Thomas have alienated viewers with ultra-progressive programming, like an interview with RuPaul 's Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen, who was promoting his 'gender-bending' novel Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert. Ratings for the last-place morning show, once a cash cow for the network, have dropped to below 2million in recent months, according to Nielsen figures cited by The Post. Meanwhile Gayle lost between 20 to 30 percent of her audience in the last three weeks when compared to last year in the coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic. 'The audience doesn't want woke. It doesn't like progressive and provocative bookings,' one of the sources told The Post. 'The morning show audience wants optimism and cheer and joy and what they were producing is at odds with audience expectations.' Gayle signed a contract extension last year for between $13 and $15million that is scheduled to end in May 2026, a source told The Post. Skydance Media, which is to take over running CBS likely won't offer Gayle the same deal given the ratings, the source added. The potential Mornings shake up come as CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, whose own reported $15million contract also ends next May. Gayle's producer Shawna Thomas had reportedly already been told to tone down the progressive content, but just 'didn't do what she was told.' Thomas views herself as a 'major journalist who wants to heavy reporting and provocative interviews with edgy guests, insiders said. However, Thomas kept her job because she has Gayle's support. The Post, citing sources, reported that aside from the woke programming, viewers were 'alienated' by the fact none of the show's anchors, aside from Tony Dokoupil, are white. A shakeup is expected once Skydance, led by CEO David Ellison, takes over the network. As part of the deal with the FCC, Skydance pledged to monitor for political bias and Paramount eliminated its DEI policies. reached out to CBS for comment on this story. The network declined to comment to the New York Post. As previously reported, CBS Mornings is leaving its prized Times Square studio amid ongoing cost cutting efforts and plummeting ratings. The last-placed morning show spent big just four years ago to build the state-of-the-art studio, which reportedly cost tens of millions of dollars. But CBS Mornings is packing up and moving home to the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street. The move is reportedly slated for September and comes as CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon makes efforts to slash $500million from the network's budget.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Commentary: Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show' is canceled, but he won't go quietly into that goodnight
We seem to be in an era of endings. The end of ethical norms, of the rule of law, of science, of democracy, of Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast, possibly the world and the just-announced end of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," when the host's contract runs out in 10 months — which may presage the end of late-night television, at least on CBS, which says it has no plans to replace him or keep the show. "This is all just going away," Colbert said in a statement taped Thursday. Coincidentally, or not, Paramount Global, which owns CBS, is seeking regulatory approval from the Trump administration to sell itself to the Hollywood studio Skydance Media. (I'd never heard of it either.) An official statement, claiming that the "Late Show" cancellation represents "a purely financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night … not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount" (italics mine) is — however true it might be — just the sort of thing to make one say, "Pull the other one." "Other matters" would seem to refer to the merger and to Paramount's recent payment of $16 million to settle a frivolous Trump lawsuit over the perfectly routine editing of a "60 Minutes" Kamala Harris interview that was somehow supposed to give Harris an unfair advantage in the 2024 election and to have caused her opponent "mental anguish" — a payment Colbert characterized in a monologue just a few days ago as a "big fat bribe": "As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don't know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I'd say $16 million would help." Read more: CBS to end 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' next year Though he responded to his studio audience's supportive boos saying, "Yeah, I share your feelings," he was only kind to the network: 'I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners,' Colbert said. 'I'm so grateful to the Tiffany network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home." But there have been plenty of surrogates to draw connections, provide context and bite harder, especially in light of the departure of "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens and CBS News President Wendy McMahon. 'Love you Stephen," ABC host Jimmy Kimmel, posted on Instagram, "adding "F— you CBS and all your Sheldons.' (In January, ABC also settled a Trump suit for $16 million, over George Stephanopoulos erroneously saying that Trump had been found civilly liable of "rape.") Of the remaining late-night hosts, we may say that each is special in their own way. Colbert, 61, who has been at "The Late Show" for 10 years, is the most mature, professorial and philosophical — gentle, a gentleman, and at times a mock-gentleman, addressing his audience as "My fellow Americans," or echoing Walter Winchell, "Mr. and Mrs. America and All the Ships at Sea," or as "Ladies and Gentlemen." He slaps himself in the face twice before every show to "be in the moment … [to] only do this for the next hour." Though he may still kick up his heels during a monologue, as an interviewer he is composed and thoughtful and curious — and funny, to be sure — to the degree each conversation demands. A committed (liberal) Catholic, he co-narrated the English-language audiobook of Pope Francis' "Life: My Story Through History," with Franciscan Father John Quigley, at the same time, he's a first-generation Dungeons & Dragons devotee, a lifelong reader of science fiction and a man of whom director Peter Jackson said, "I have never met a bigger Tolkien geek in my life." (Jackson cast him as "Laketown spy" in "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.") He's a person who will quote Gandalf in a conversation on grief and loss with Anderson Cooper, or, on "The Friendship Onion" podcast with Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, a.k.a. Merry and Pippin, declare that after reading "The Lord of the Rings" after college, "I realized that Aragorn is the Apollonian model of manhood … The Hobbits are us. And we should love life as much as they do." And he knows a thing or two about Ronnie James Dio. And grew up on Mad magazine, where young minds were taught to recognize the deceptions and hypocrisies of politics, business and media. Read more: 'Jimmy Kimmel is next': Trump gloats after cancellation of Colbert's 'Late Show' Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," which he hosted from 2005 through 2014, had a huge cultural effect beyond the reach of any late-night host now, Colbert included. Because it ran on basic cable and not network television, and because Colbert hid within the character of a pompous conservative pundit, the show could take wild swings; to the extent it looked respectable, it was only a matter of irony. Colbert and Jon Stewart, on whose "The Daily Show," where Colbert had earlier worked, staged a "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" on the National Mall in Washington, which drew a crowd of more than 200,000; he ran for president twice and created a PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, "100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical." During its run, he (or his writers) gave the world "truthiness," named 2006's Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster, which defined it as "a truthful or seemingly truthful quality that is claimed for something not because of supporting facts or evidence but because of a feeling that it is true or a desire for it to be true." Colbert was twice named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. Ben & Jerry's created an ice cream flavor, Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream, in his honor, and NASA dubbed a piece of exercise equipment for use on the International Space Station the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill," or COLBERT. Testifying in character in 2010, before a House Judiciary subcommittee on legal status for immigrant farmworkers, he said, as if looking into 2025, "This is America," he said, "I don't want my tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian … My great grandfather did not travel over 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see the country overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor, I don't know if that's true. I'd like to have that stricken from the record." The signature segment of "The Late Show" is the "Colbert Questionert" in which the host poses 15 questions "ergonomically designed to penetrate straight to the soul of one of my guests and reveal their true being to the world." (It's "a scientifically verified survey; I've asked several scientists and they assured me — yeah, it's a survey.") Designed to create comic and/or sincere responses, they range from "What's the best sandwich?" (Will Ferrell: "Salami and grapefruit on rye, with a light sheen of mayonnaise.") to "Apples or oranges?" (Colbert considers apples the correct answer, because you can put peanut butter on them.) to "The rest of your life in five words." (Tom Hanks: "A magnificent cavalcade of color.") Cate Blanchett took it lying on Colbert's desk, as if in therapy. "What do you think happens when we die?" he asked. "You turn into a soup," she replied. "A human soup." But it's Colbert's extended interviews and discussions, from "The Late Show" and elsewhere, posted online, that dig the deepest and reveal the most about him in the bargain: a much circulated conversation with Nick Cave from last year; a long talk with Anderson Cooper, after the death of his mother, both about grief and gratitude; an episode of "The Spiritual Life With Fr. James Martin, S.J.," from a couple of weeks ago. (Colbert describes himself as "publicly Catholic," not "a public Catholic.") Such discussions perhaps point the way to a post-"Late Show" practice for Colbert, much as it became one for David Letterman, who passed the seat on to him. (He's only the second host since the show's premiere in 1993.) As to the field he'll be leaving next May, who can say? Taylor Tomlinson's "After Midnight" game show, which followed "The Late Show," expired this week. Kimmel and Seth Meyers, who go as hard against Trump as does Colbert, and the milder Jimmy Fallon, seem for the moment safely fixed at their desks. Though new platforms and viewing habits have changed the way, and how much, it's consumed, late-night television by its temporal nature remains a special province, out at the edge of things, where edgy things may be said and tried. (Don't expect Colbert to go quietly into that goodnight.) Yet even as the No. 1 show in late night, "The Late Show" reportedly loses money. There's something to that "financial decision," I'm sure; it's the "purely" that smells. We'll see. "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired," Trump posted on his vanity social media site, going on to say that he "hears" that "Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert." Trump and Colbert could not be farther apart as humans. The president sells fear; he uses it as a club. But the TV host is sanguine. "You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time," Colbert is fond of saying, sometimes adding, "and the Devil cannot stand mockery." Sign up for Screen Gab, a free newsletter about the TV and movies everyone's talking about from the L.A. Times. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
CBC
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
The political and cultural gravity of cancelling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Social Sharing Last night, comedian Stephen Colbert told his TV audience that his eponymous late night show will end its run in May 2026. The show's network, CBS, cites financial concerns as the reason to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. However, media analysts and politicians speculate that Colbert's criticism of President Donald Trump may have more to do with this decision than money. This past Monday, Colbert had criticized CBS parent company Paramount Global for settling a $16 million lawsuit with Trump. Colbert called the settlement a "big fat bribe," as Paramount needs the Trump administration's approval to facilitate a merger between Paramount and Skydance Media. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with film and TV critics Dylan Green, Rad Simonpillai and Alison Willmore to discuss what the cancellation of The Late Show means for the TV and political landscape. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion on the new film Eddington and the viral "Coldplay couple," listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: The thing that really struck me about this story, Alison, is that the idea that Colbert himself gets named as one of the things that is making Skydance nervous. Because there's a lot of reporting that suggests that Skydance is like, "Hey, Stephen Colbert is quite critical of Trump politics in general." And that could be a reason to maybe, at a certain point, Trump having some kind of frustration and blocking the merger. He does have that power. He has interfered before or attempted to block a merger before. What are you seeing in terms of your reaction to this story? Alison: What's disturbing to me — there are many things that are disturbing about this — but I think in particular, the way in which CBS and Paramount are just one of many large media and tech companies who have essentially paid out to the Trump administration in different ways. ABC also did, I think it was a $15 million settlement over the George Stephanopoulos thing. Meta has paid out. Amazon figured out a way to pay millions and millions of dollars for a Melania documentary that we have yet to see. All of these things, it's hard not to read them for — whatever justification that each one gives — as a means of, yes, doing something that looks a lot like a "big fat bribe" to placate the Trump administration. These are the largest media companies we have and they're immediately bending the knee to the administration. It just gives you that sense that there is no space for even the pretense of a critical voice in any of these large media corporations. In part because Trump has proven so prone to be punitive, but also because none of them seem to want to stand up in any way. They're all immediately saying, "This is the way the wind is blowing, at least for the next few years, and we're going to follow it." That's depressing. It's not a great sign. Elamin: Your reactions to this entire story, Rad, what do you see? Rad: It's hard to take the financial reasons as the excuse, even though there's a lot of legitimacy to that, because late night in general has been suffering and people don't tune in for cable, and we've seen other shows fall for this very reason. But when you say financial reason, I mean, that $16 million settlement is a financial reason. The fact that you have this voice on your platform that is critical of that, that is calling it a "bribe" to the Trump administration to make sure that this sale goes through, this merger with Skydance. That's obviously the thing that everyone is honing in on. If you're thinking about how desperately Paramount wants a sale with Skydance to go through. You think about: what would Skydance want out of a media company? Skydance, their CEO, David Ellison, I mean, this guy's a Trump supporter. This guy's courting [conservative journalist] Bari Weiss to either take over her Free Press organization [her news outlet] or to have her become an editorial overseer in terms of CBS. The idea of Bari Weiss and Stephen Colbert existing at the same media platform, that does not cohere. Elamin: Colbert is far and away the number one show in that slot. He's way ahead of Jimmy Kimmel, who's number two in that slot. And he's the only late night show that's been growing its audience, according to Nielsen ratings. Dylan, does this surprise you, reading all of this? Dylan: Not really. Him and Jon Stewart were pioneers of that particular type of satirical newscasting. And then Colbert transitions into something that he's not playing the character no more. But he has that experience and he has that built-in audience and he's got a lot of power, in that sense. So it shook me to see that they were like, "We're not just replacing something, the whole show is leaving." They're very much sending a statement …. But considering his [Colbert's] reputation, it makes perfect sense to me that they're using him as an opportunity to just be like, "Y'all are next."
