Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Monday, April 24th, 2023

And the anti-Murdoch forces strike back. Anonymously.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, April 24th, 2023. Thanks to all of the breaking cable TV news, today's newsletter is a bit longer and more news-centric than a normal edition. And it's coming out a bit later than normal, thanks to one last radio interview (number five today) talking about Tucker Carlson's exit from Fox News.

TUCKER CARLSON, EXIT STAGE RIGHT
The phrase "shocking news" is overused in the media news business, but it's an apt description of the news this morning that Tucker Carlson was exiting Fox News. And combine that with Don Lemon being fired from CNN and NBCU Entertainment head Jeff Shell being fired on Sunday...well, the last 24 hours have been the Super Bowl for media reporters.

I wrote a piece recounting the news so far early this afternoon and to be honest, despite a lot of reporting by myself and just about every media reporter, there doesn't seem to be a clear-cut and definitive explanation of why Rupert Murdoch pulled the trigger right now:

The decision seems to be connected in some way to the the discrimination lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, the producer fired by the network last month. Her lawsuit included claims that she and other women faced sexism and harassment from coworkers on Carlson's show as well as from Fox News employees. Grossberg had previously been a producer on Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo and moved Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2022, where she said in the lawsuit she was bullied and subjected to antisemitic comments.

But there were also other ongoing concerns by the network about Carlson. He was in the middle of the Dominion trial that ended with a $785 million judgement being awarded to the voting machine company. And it's likely Carlson would also be centerstage of any trial stemming from a similar lawsuit from fellow voting machine company Smartmatic.

Carlson has also been embroiled in a number of allegations about his statements ranging from the murder of Seth Rich (which led to a settlement with the network) to recent claims that a Texas man named Ray Epps was an FBI plant. Epps participated in the January 6th storming of the Capitol but did not enter the building. But he has been the target of multiple claims from conservatives that he was secretly working for the FBI and was used as a plant to lure unsuspecting Trump supporters into the Capitol.

A piece in Vanity Fair has a bit more context about the firing. Like my earlier reporting, the piece mentions Carlson found out this morning. But they have a few more details:

On Monday morning, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott called Carlson and informed him he was being taken off the air, and his Fox News email account was shut off. According to a source briefed on the conversation, Carlson was stunned by his sudden ouster from his 8 p.m. show, the most watched program in cable news last month. Carlson was in the midst of negotiating the renewal of his Fox News contract through 2029, the source said. As of last week, Carlson had told people he expected the contract to be renewed.

Carlson has told people he doesn’t know why he was terminated. According to the source, Scott refused to tell him how the decision was made; she only said that it was made “from above.” Carlson has told people he believes his controversial show is being taken off the air because the Murdoch children intend to sell Fox News at some point. 

In other reporting, Sarah Fisher at Axios writes that according to her sources, Carlson's firing was not a condition of the Fox News settlement with Dominion.

And in the Wall Street Journal, Joe Flint reports that Carlson learned he was being fired just ten minutes before the news was publicly announced. Flint also notes that comments Carlson made in texts about Fox executives apparently upset some people inside the company:

Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” Mr. Carlson wrote in a text message to a colleague in the aftermath of the election, according to court documents. “We’re playing with fire, for real.”

Fox took issue with remarks Mr. Carlson made that were derogatory toward the network, people familiar with the matter said. Much of the communications were redacted in court documents but became known internally to senior Fox management, they said.

And along those lines, The Daily Beast's Confider reports that network executives were also not thrilled about Carlson's responses during the Dominion trial depositions:

But most egregious, and what loomed large in his termination, people familiar with the matter told Confider, was how during his deposition with Dominion lawyers, when he was asked if “this wasn’t the only time you referred to Sidney Powell as a cunt,” the Fox News star responded: “You know I-I-I can’t know and I just want to apologize preemptively. I mean you’re trying to embarrass me, you’re definitely succeeding as I am embarrassed.” Carlson being nailed in court documents for his repeated use of the overtly misogynist c-word was a key factor in his demise, as Fox News had rid itself of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly after years of sexual-harassment complaints and could not have its biggest star undermining any supposed progress.

AND THE ANTI-MURDOCH REBELS STRIKE BACK
It's unclear if the sources used in this Semafor piece have any connection to Tucker Carlson and his people. But it would certainly seem likely give that the premise of the piece is that Murdoch's decision to can Carlson is just the latest indication Murdoch is mentally addled and perhaps a bit errratic:

Some moves, like Emma Tucker’s takeover of the Journal, have been painfully slowly. But the sudden moves, the endless leaks, and the general sense of an out-of-control train has also raised questions in the middle and top ranks of the company about the elder Murdoch’s state of mind, temperament, and what the changes suggest about the path forward for the media empire he built.

“There’s a long list of pretty drastic steps from him this year,” one person familiar with the details of today’s firing told Semafor. “People asking questions about whether an octogenarian should exert influence over the country should also ask whether a nonagenarian should exert influence over America’s most powerful media conglomerate."

YOU REALLY SHOULD BE WATCHING 'FROM'
It's rare that a mythology-driven TV series last longer than one season or manages to stay on course creatively without falling into a confusing heap. From has navigated both challenges and season two of the series premiered yesterday on MGM+. I had a chance to speak with star Harold Perrineau back at January's TCA gathering and while we managed to talk a bit about the series, we also talked about everything from his approach to acting to which Liam Neeson movie he wishes he would have made:

Q: One of the things I like about your work is that you have done a wide range of different projects, from series regular to one-off appearances. And from an acting standpoint, does having experience with a diversity of roles like that give you more to draw on as you're figuring out a role like Boyd Stevens?

Harold Perrineau: It does. That was one of the things I've felt really, really good about in the first season. The ability to use my acting instrument in a way where I felt really...effortless isn't the right word. But it felt really open. I could feel the anger come to without the normal struggle that I had been having in the earlier parts of my career. So it made me feel a bit more like "Oh, maybe I do know what I'm doing." Not to say that I think I don't usually, but I was a bit more confident.

The different experiences I've had end up being like any other tool you get to practice with. If you do it enough, you eventually get really proficient with it. And I feel all the different things are really helpful - especially in this show - because you just don't know where anything is coming from. You just don't and having that experience means I don't have to rely on just one or two tricks. Because it may be a monster, it may be my son, it may be someone who represents a son, it may be a lover, it may be something else entirely. But all of those different experiences helped me to tap into different parts of myself to make it work for the show.

LA MAG'S SEMI-LOVE LETTER TO JAY PENSKE
I had been hearing for weeks that LA Magazine was preparing a hard-hitting takedown of Jay Penske, whose Penske Media owns Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Deadline, TV Line and a host of other trade and entertainment publications as well as several live events such as SXSW and Dick Clark Productions.

Instead, the piece feels like one of those really sad NY Times Magazine profiles pieces, which offers up a few mild criticisms, but mostly just offers up quote after quote touting his loyalty and friendly-yet-quiet nature. And darn it, he's just a great all-around boss:

Meanwhile, things are only getting busier at the office. For the last 14 years, Penske has carefully accumulated media brands at a time when the conventional wisdom—usually the worst kind—suggests that traditional print and online news media are in intractable decline. But Penske saw only opportunity amid a landscape of fading or undervalued titles, and he typically leads them to new financial viability where others have fallen short. As Penske builds this empire, it’s been a long time since he’s had time to sit with a book in the antiquarian bookshop he owned for years in the hills above Los Angeles. “He’s extremely, extremely busy,” says Variety COO Dea Lawrence. “He’s on planes, he’s flying, he’s a dealmaker, he works constantly. He’s the hardest-working person I know.”

No, really. He is just the BEST boss ever:

While other publishers are retrenching, Penske is doubling down: Rolling Stone and Variety now employ more staffers than ever; in 2022, Variety notched the strongest revenues in its 117-year history. “When I started in the New York office, there were four or five reporters—now we have 15,” says Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh. Shunning the spotlight, Penske makes a point of meeting with every employee at every new property, seeking ideas and input from the inside. “The thing about Jay is, he asks really tough questions,” says Setoodeh. “So you have to be prepared. You can’t bluff your way through a conversation with him.” Still, to most outsiders, he remains a handsome cypher.

Even the rare criticism of Penske is couched carefully and only after a few well-placed compliments:

“He’s built a company, and he’s stuck with it,” says Richard Rushfield, founder of the online entertainment news upstart the Ankler. “He’s gone beyond the amount of time a mere dilettante would hang around.” But Rushfeld is wary of the concentration of titles Penske has amassed in entertainment. “Monopoly has never been good for any business, and for reporters in particular,” he warns.

And then of course, there is the gentle recounting of Penske's origin story:

In 2012, he married supermodel Elaine Erwin and fully settled into Los Angeles as a family man and a captain of industry, but he’s not publicly active in local politics. He endorsed no one in last year’s mayoral contest, though he’s known Rick Caruso for years. In 2019, his father was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House by Donald Trump, drawing a group of family members into the Oval Office. Standing in the back, Jay inevitably stood out, looking like Bruce Wayne or a movie producer in a dark blue suit.

There's nothing wrong journalistically with the L.A. Magazine profile. But it's lightweight in a way that is a tad embarrassing. Especially given the importance of the story's subject in local media circles. And along those lines, only in Hollywood would this type of piece be described as "hard-hitting." It is the Nerf bat of takedowns and given the lack of pieces that take a hard look at Jay Penske, this piece feels like a missed opportunity

TWEET OF THE DAY

NO, WAIT. MAYBE *THIS* IS THE TWEET OF THE DAY

WHAT'S NEW FOR MONDAY:
* Dalgliesh Season Two Premiere (Acorn TV)
* Independent Lens: Free Chol Soo Lee (PBS)
* PAW Patrol: All Paws On Deck (Nickelodeon)
* Perry Mason Season Two Finale (HBO)
* Rain Dogs Season One Finale (HBO)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU TUESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.