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To mark his first hundred days in office, President Trump signed three executive orders related to immigration. On this week's On the Media, the powerful database that can help I.C.E. track down and deport people. Plus, the dramatic fight for power over Rupert Murdoch's media empire.[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone talks with Jason Koebler, co-founder of 404 Media, about how a surveillance company is supplying ICE with a powerful database to identify and deport people with minor infractions or certain characteristics.[20:57] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Jason Leopold, a senior investigative reporter at Bloomberg and writer of the newsletter “FOIA Files,” about the Trump administration's attacks on Freedom of Information Act offices at the CDC and FDA, and what they mean for the future of government transparency.[31:50] Brooke talks with McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic, about the remarkable, extensive interviews he conducted with members of the Murdoch family — particularly James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn. (Rupert and his eldest son, Lachlan, declined to participate.) Plus, how the HBO show “Succession” influenced the family's fight over the future of their own media empire.Further reading:Inside a Powerful Database ICE Uses to Identify and Deport People, by Jason KoeblerTrump Filed a FOIA Request. We FOIAed His FOIA, by Jason LeopoldGrowing Up Murdoch: James Murdoch on mind games, sibling rivalry, and the war for the family media empire, by McKay Coppins On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a challenge to Louisiana’s voting maps. A group of “non-African American” voters argue the state illegally relied on race to create the new districts. James Murdoch reveals the real-life “Succession” drama roiling his family in an exclusive interview with The Atlantic. At stake: Who controls Fox News? Frontman Jim James talks about handing over creative control of My Morning Jacket’s 10th studio album. He also shares his personal success with EMDR therapy.
IntroductionLIVE from a bottomless pit of CEO pay, it's a Business Pants Friday Show here at March 21st Studios, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today's weekly wrap up: Nelson Peltz hates woke ice cream, Self-hating Cybertrucks, and anti-ESG manbabies Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.Story of the Week (DR):‘Incompetent:' Jamie Dimon unloads on proxy advisor ISSJamie Dimon said Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) should be “gone and dead and done with”, as he also launched an attack on those who pay for their services.In an interview with Semafor at Blackrock's retirement summit, Mr Dimon said: “Anyone who gives them money – shame on you.”Unilever hit ‘new levels of oppressiveness,' Ben & Jerry's claims as its CEO was sacked over social activismIce cream maker Ben & Jerry's has accused its parent company of firing its CEO David Stever over his support of the brand's progressive politics.On Tuesday, the Vermont-based brand filed an amended complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Unilever “has repeatedly threatened Ben & Jerry's personnel, including CEO David Stever, should they fail to comply with Unilever's efforts to silence the Social Mission.”Ben & Jerry's said Unilever informed its board on March 3 that it was removing and replacing Ben & Jerry's CEO David Stever. Ben & Jerry's said that violated its merger agreement with Unilever, which states that any decisions regarding a CEO's removal must come after a consultation with an advisory committee from Ben & Jerry's board.“empowered to protect and defend Ben & Jerry's brand equity and integrity”White man David Stever, 4 women of color (one who is the chair), and two black men. In Vermont? Are they trolling us?!?! I guess it can be done. Unilever board member Nelson Peltz is still trying to find a white actor for Black PantherUnilever has not publicly disclosed a reason for Stever's firingThe ice cream company has a unique corporate structure that was meant to protect its activist mission, even after its 2000 sale to Unilever:Independent Board of Directors: Unlike most Unilever-owned brands, Ben & Jerry's has an independent board specifically tasked with preserving the company's social mission.Merger Agreement Protections: The 2000 acquisition agreement required consultation with the board for key leadership decisions, including hiring or firing the CEO.Social Mission Oversight: The board exists to prevent the dilution of the company's activist identity—something that appears to be under increasing pressure.Ben & Jerry's Founders Say They Stand Behind Ousted CEOBoeing Sued for Wrongful Death by Family of WhistleblowerBoeing pushed John Barnett, who was a quality manager at Boeing for nearly three decades, to his death by harassing and intimidating him after he raised safety concerns about the company's plant building the 787 Dreamliner in Charleston, South Carolina, a wrongful death lawsuit filed in federal court in the state alleges. His family claim in their suit that Boeing responded by carrying out a “campaign of harassment, abuse and intimidation intended to discourage, discredit and humiliate him until he would either give up or be discredited”.In the evening of March 8th last year, Barnett left the law offices of Boeing's outside counsel in Charleston after testifying for two days in the OSHA case. Barnett was giving his account of how Boeing violated its own policies and procedures, and FAA rules, during his seven years as a quality inspector at the North Charleston plant that assembles the 787 Dreamliner. He'd delayed a trip back to his home in Louisiana to finish his deposition the next day, a Saturday. Videos cited in the police report show Barnett leaving the hotel around 8:30 PM, and getting in his Clemson orange, Dodge truck. When Barnett failed to show by the 10 AM starting time for his final round of testimony, Turkewitz called the Holiday Inn to conduct a “welfare check.”Note: “America come together or die!!! Pray that the motherfk…ers who destroyed my life pay!!! I pray that Boeing pays!!! Bury me face down so that Boeing and their lying ass leaders can kiss my ass. I can't do this any longer!!! F-k Boeing!!!'Business has been neglected': Longtime Tesla investor demands Elon Musk resign as CEO MMElon Musk Says He Has No Idea What He Did to Make Everybody So Mad at Him"It's really come as quite a shock to me that there is this level of, really, hatred and violence from the left.""My companies make great products that people love and I've never physically hurt anyone.”“So why the hate and violence against me?”"I always thought that the left, you know, Democrats, were supposed to be the party of empathy, the party of caring, and yet they're burning down cars, they're firebombing dealerships, they're firing bullets into dealerships, they're smashing up Teslas," Musk said. "Tesla is a peaceful company. We've never done anything harmful.""I've never done anything harmful."“Because I am a deadly threat to the woke mind parasite and the humans it controls."Tesla just recalled basically all the Cybertrucks ever sold in AmericaTesla workers in Germany say they don't have time to use the bathroomTesla workers at a German factory say working conditions don't allow them enough time for drinking or bathroom breaks.Over 3,000 workers at a Tesla gigafactory near Berlin have signed a petition asking for more breaks and an end to intimidation from management, according to a statement from German metalworker's union IG Metall.A Huge Amount of Money Is Missing From TeslaEven the company's financials are now sprouting some glaring questions. As the Financial Times reports, a whopping $1.4 billion appears to have vanished in thin air. The enormous hole arises when examining the carmaker's capital expenditures and how those compare to the reported rise of the value of its assets.According to Tesla's cashflow statements, the firm spent $6.3 billion on "purchases of property and equipment excluding finance leases, net of sales" in the second half of 2024. However, its balance sheet claims the gross value of property, plant, and equipment rose by only $4.9 billion — leaving an eyebrow-raising $1.4 billion discrepancy.Musk Set to Receive Top-Secret Briefing on U.S. War Plans for ChinaMusk Tells Tesla Workers: Don't Sell Your SharesTesla board members, executive sell off over $100 million of stock in recent weeksTogether, four top officers at the company have offloaded over $100 million in shares since early February.Last week, longtime Musk ally James Murdoch became the latest to do so, exercising a stock option and selling shares worth approximately $13 million, according to an SEC filing.Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal Musk, who also sits on the board, unloaded 75,000 shares worth approximately $27 million last month, according to a filing.The chairman of the board, Robyn Denholm, has offloaded more than $75 million dollars worth of shares in two transactions in the past five weeks, federal filings show.Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):DR: Chobani CEO: Why we're now giving all workers at least 12 weeks of parental leaveDR: JD Vance rips globalization, calling cheap labor a 'drug'MM: Tesla Cybertruck deliveries are on hold as trims are flying off the 'bulletproof' truck DRThey recalled ALL of them - imagine if Mary Barra put out a car at GM that, 1 year after releasing, they had to recall ALL of them? What would you do investors? Assholiest of the Week (MM):WahWah, our CEO: Tesla warns White House over tariffs in unsigned letter: ‘It's a polite way to say that the bipolar tariff regime is screwing over Tesla'Wah, China: OpenAI slams DeepSeek, warning the US government that China is catching up fastWah, customers: Tesla owners are trading in their EVs at record levels, Edmunds says, Tesla springs last-minute public all hands on staffers, confusion ensues, Tesla Cybertrucks are getting roasted on TikTok—one prank at a timeWah, investors: Baillie Gifford slashes Tesla stake as investor calls on Musk to step down, $1.4bn is a lot to fall through the cracks, even for Tesla, A Huge Amount of Money Is Missing From TeslaWah, privacy: Dad demands OpenAI delete ChatGPT's false claim that he murdered his kidsWah, I'm back in middle school: Elon Musk says he's shocked at the level of Tesla hate and vandalism happening: 'I've never done anything harmful'Stefan Padfield DR"It is not surprising that our proposal received low support, given the concerns we have about bias and conflicts of interest infecting the votes and recommendations of the Big 5 asset managers and proxy advisors, as well as the company's management," Padfield said."The issues raised by our proposals remain relevant to Disney's bottom line, and we arguably saw an indication of this in the fact that neither ESG nor DEI were mentioned once, directly or indirectly, in Iger's opening remarks -- suggesting the company is slowly distancing itself from the leftist radicalism embodied in those agendas," Padfield said.Fact check: ESG and DEI were not mentioned in Iger's remarks in 2024. They were not mentioned in 2023. Congrats on paying attention to whatever's in front of your face.Shareholders rejected your proposal because it was asinine and no one caresYour group, NCPPR, gets an AVERAGE of 1% everywhere… but did you notice that NLPC, your sister group in anti white person crime, got a solid 11% in favor at Apple for it's very real proposal on the dangers of AI? And Bowyer, got a 10% in favor at Apple for a report on child sex abuse software and got 1% here at Disney?Maybe the problem is you write overtly racist, stupid fucking shareholder proposals and you shout shut your fat mouth?Have we reached the CEO pay tipping point?Surge in incentive pay lifts HanesBrands' 2024 CEO compensation to $12.9 millionBig companies backtrack on climate goals in bosses' payStarbucks Must End Its Greed'—Bernie Sanders Calls Out Starbucks CEO For Getting $96 Million For 4 Months Of WorkKlarna's CEO got an 862% pay rise ahead of its IPOWe hate TREES now? TREES?Is planting trees 'DEI'? Trump administration cuts nationwide tree-planting effortHeadliniest of the WeekDR: Top workplace psychologist Adam Grant says offering employees better pay packages is the smartest move for the ‘long term'DR: Mom of child dead from measles: “Don't do the shots,” my other 4 kids were fineDR: Prince Harry's friends are blaming Meghan Markle for making him ‘too woke'MM: Donald Trump's favorite musical explained as he demands 'non-woke' theaterLike 89% of Broadway is gay, no?MM: Wait, whaaaa? British Gas: Centrica CEO's pay slashed in half at FTSE 100 giantWho Won the Week?DR: Sonya Mishra, author of new study: How does society perceive power-seeking women differently from status-seeking women?The study found that desiring status is seen as more congruent with feminine stereotypes compared to desiring power, and that women who desire status are less likely to incur backlash compared to women who desire power.MM: This video: Tesla Fans Furious at Video of Tesla Crashing Into Wall Painted Like RoadMark Rober tested autopilots for Lexus and Tesla… and Tesla ran over a dummy kid over and overAs Electrek points out, Autopilot has a well-documented tendency to disengage right before a crash. Regulators have previously found that the advanced driver assistance software shuts off a fraction of a second before making impact.It's a highly questionable approach that has raised concerns over Tesla trying to evade guilt by automatically turning off any possibly incriminating driver assistance features before a crash.PredictionsDR: Bowyer Research and Robbie Starbuck blame female CEOs in the S&P 500 for reducing the overall percentage of male CEOs in the S&P 500MM: Bowyer Research and Robbie Starbuck blame all the women running the big 5 - Larry Fink, Ron O'Hanley, Salim Ramji, Gary Retelny, and Bob Mann - for the failure of their shareholder proposals and demand a report from each requesting an analysis of the risk of having so many woke women running the big 5
Nightlife looks at a significant development in the Murdoch story: James Murdoch breaking his rule of not speaking to the media. James and his wife Katherine were interviewed over a year by Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins, who joined Philip Clark.
One of the cardinal Murdoch family rules is never speak about the family outside the family. So, when journalist McKay Coppins got in touch with James Murdoch last year, he really wasn’t expecting a reply. But Coppins was curious – what would happen to the Murdoch empire when Rupert died? And what it would mean for his youngest son, James, who was seemingly an outcast from the family? What he didn’t yet know was there was a secret high stakes legal battle going on – and James was ready to talk. This is part two in a two part interview. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Staff writer at The Atlantic, McKay Coppins Photo: Ron Galella / GettySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Last year, one of the world’s most powerful families converged in a Nevada court room to fight over the future of their empire. Rupert Murdoch was attempting to change a decades-old family trust in order to install his chosen son, Lachlan, as heir apparent when he dies. Exactly what happened in that court room was a tightly guarded secret. But then, in a rare interview with The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins, James Murdoch gave his account of the case and how it tore his family apart. Today, Coppins tells us why James spoke out to reveal the bitter details of the battle over the Murdoch empire. This is part one in a two part interview. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Staff writer at The Atlantic, McKay Coppins Photo: Ron Galella / GettySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
IntroductionLIVE from your ESG and DEI Teeth Bleaching Kit, it's a Business Pants Friday Show here at February 21st Studios, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today's weekly wrap up: Canada still cares, Rupert Murdoch knows how to text, the illusion of meritocracy, and an important new announcement from YouTubeOur show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.Story of the Week (DR):ESG Week MMBlackRock and Vanguard halt meetings with companies after SEC cracks down on ESGBlackRock resumes stewardship talks after reviewing new ESG guidanceProxy vote support for ESG drops to record low in 2024Clarification: ShareAction analyzed how 70 of the world's largest asset managers voted on 279 ESG shareholder resolutions during the 2024 proxy voting season:In 2024, only four (1.4%) out of the 279 resolutions we assessed received majority support, less than half of the percentage that gained a majority vote in 2023 (3%), and far lower than the 21% which passed in 2021.This is reflected in an ongoing downward trend in the average percentage support that these resolutions received, which was 20.6% in 2024 compared to 40% in 2021.Vanguard, the world's second largest asset manager, performed the worst of all the managers we assessed, voting in favour of 0% of shareholder proposals.Top 26 all in Europe1 GenAM (Italy) 982 BNP Paribas Asset Management (France) 973 PGGM Investments (Netherlands) 9728 Federated Hermes (top in US) 80BlackRock at #67 with a score of 5; Vanguard to out of 70 with a 0.Tesla Targeted With Worldwide Protests, Vandalism Tesla showrooms are being hit by a wave of anti-DOGE protestsSheryl Crow says goodbye to her Tesla and donates to NPR: 'You have to decide who you are willing to align with'Sign That Says “We Hate Him Too” Appears in Window of Tesla DealershipEconomist Warns That Elon Musk Is About to Cause a "Deep, Deep Recession"Jesse Rothstein, DOL's chief economist at the start of the Obama administration: "This is going to be very, very bad."James Murdoch lays bare his relationship with ‘misogynist' father amid succession fight in rare interviewThe interview, published in the Atlantic, reveals James Murdoch, now 52, regarded his father, now 93, as a “misogynist” and described Fox News as a “menace” to US democracy.A series of “withering questions” put to James by Rupert's lawyer in a nearly five-hour session at a Manhattan law office. According to the Atlantic, the questions included:“Have you ever done anything successful on your own?”“Why were you too busy to say ‘Happy birthday' to your father when he turned 90?”“Does it strike you that, in your account, everything that goes wrong is always somebody else's fault?”The lawyer also referred to James and his sisters as “white, privileged, multibillionaire trust-fund babies”.James realised Rupert, who was seated silently, was texting the questions to the lawyer. “How fucking twisted is that?” he asks Coppins.UnitedHealth's rough stretch continues, with buyouts, a reported DOJ probe and a 23% drop in three monthsUnitedHealthcare is in hot water again as the insurance giant grapples with a reported government investigation of its Medicare billing practices, pursues employee buyouts and potential layoffs and faces sharp criticism from billionaire Bill Ackman.It extends a tumultuous period for its parent company, UnitedHealth Group, marked by the killing of a top executive, a costly cyberattack against its subsidiary and high medical costs.The Department of Justice has launched a civil fraud investigation in recent months into UnitedHealth's billing practices for its Medicare Advantage plansThe probe specifically examines whether diagnoses were routinely made to trigger extra payments in those plans, including at physician groups the insurer ownsGoodliest of the Week (MM/DR):DR: Canadian banks must reveal diversity of board, top managers under new rulesCanadian banks and other national institutions have to disclose information about the diversity of their boards of directors and top management under new rules published on Saturday, in sharp contrast with the U.S. Trump administration which is ending such practices.Federally regulated financial institutions must also disclose policies to increase diversity while sending out notices of annual meetings to shareholders."Investors lack transparent and standardized information on the representation of women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities in senior leadership positions … Diversity is fundamental to creating a thriving and successful financial sector that reflects Canadian values."DR: DEI is good for our business, Coca-Cola saysIn an annual filing, the company said its business could be adversely affected if it was "unable to attract or retain specialized talent or top talent with diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds."DR: REVERSAL: Trump rescinds DOT approval for NYC congestion toll, condemns city to pollutionDR: REVERSAL: Amazon workers reject union in vote at North Carolina warehouseOf the 3,276 ballots cast, there were 2,447 votes opposing the union and 829 in favor, according to the National Labor Relations Board.CAUSE was founded in 2022 by RDU1 employees Mary Hill and Rev. Ryan Brown to voice concerns about the company's response to the Covid pandemic, which they viewed as inadequate. The group sought to organize RDU1 to boost wages and secure longer breaks.Starting pay at RDU1 is $18.50 an hour. CAUSE has pushed to negotiate for wages of $30 an hour.Unions have enjoyed increasing support across the country, with 67% of Americans saying they approve of labor unions, according to Gallup.North Carolina had the lowest union membership rate in the country last year, with only 2.4% of workers in the state represented, according to the BLS.MM: NASA Has Some Good News About The Asteroid That Could Hit EarthMM: Finally, a future lawsuit against return to office mandates is here: Afternoon Naps Boost Your Problem-Solving, Study Finds110 minute nap!!MM: What's in that drink? Starbucks becomes less Instagrammable. MM DRAssholiest of the Week (MM):Meritocracy, the new buzzword DRExxon Swaps 'Diversity' for 'Meritocracy' in Report to InvestorsAccording to our data, ONE of Exxon's TWELVE directors meets relatively unimpeachable “merit” measures: advanced knowledge of the industry, network power, economic interest in the company, performance (earnings and TSR) at any company board they sit on, and CEO or leadership positions in the past.The ONE member that hits three of the five is Kaisa Hietala, who was a dissent director put there by Engine No 1 in an activist voteHere's why merit's missing: 7 of 12 directors are white menThere are no people of color anywhere except the two twofers - the woman born in Egypt who lived in Texas her whole life and was part of Trump 1.0, and the black guy on three other boards?Our data shows on average black women have more merit on paper than any other cohortNew plan: companies need to announce “increased meritocracy targets” - increasing the number of employees, executives, and directors meet meritocracy requirements by 2050The result will be: 100% of every company is black womenYou're welcomeIt's your job, assholeBoeing CEO praises Elon Musk for helping with the delayed Air Force One delivery: 'He's a brilliant guy'Your literal job is to build that thing for a client - imagine if we developed sucky director data, then said we hired ISS to build it because, “they're better at it!”Investors - you elected this board, this fool, and it's your money - is your job as owner the company to keep on a board and management team that needs help to do its basic job?Just a reminder: Ohio AG sued Boeing's board for safety failures - they can't keep their planes safe, they can't build new planes, they can't figure out how to deal with their employees… and the lowest vote against wasn't for prior CEO Dave Calhoun, it was for the guy who chaired the safety committee… for one year!Ohio voted FOR THEM ALLWhat it was always aboutThe worst version of fuck, marry, kill… fuck anyone with a vagina since you're a middle school boy, marry money, and kill… peopleAn Influencer Says She Had Elon Musk's Baby and the Drama Is Pretty Spectacular, Even by His StandardsElon Musk has a problem with X's Community Notes when he disapproves of the resultsElon Musk Is Flagrantly Gutting an Agency in Charge of Regulating TeslaTesla recalls more than 375,000 vehicles due to power steering issueHeadliniest of the WeekDR: Zuckerberg's New Metaverse Ad Is So Bad That the People Who Created It Must Be Secretly Trying to Embarrass HimMM: YouTube picked a new shade of red for its logo because the old red was too red - because the old color, hex code #FF1B1B was super loud and diverse, they made it a less diverse woke red, hex code #EB2F3BWho Won the Week?DR: NYC pollutionMM: Investor Relations Teams: BlackRock and Vanguard halt meetings with companies after SEC cracks down on ESG. BlackRock resumes stewardship talks after reviewing new ESG guidance. Not said but implied: “don't worry, we totally can't actually do stuff now, we're just talking here”PredictionsDR: Robbie Starbuck sues Coca-Cola because color of Coke is “too DEI”MM: Apple, prior to their upcoming meeting, sues Inspire Investing and Wayne Franzten, who copy pasted a shareholder proposal submitted by Bowyer Research, the company propped up by ISS, to Deere for a meeting in the same week. The lawsuit is on the grounds that Wayne Franzten doesn't exist (the only search result for his name is the Apple proposal, not even in voter records or political donation or real estate records can I find him - and this is his ONLY shareholder proposal in our database EVER), and on the grounds that a religious investor cannot sue on the grounds of financial materiality since Jesus said, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” | Mark 10:24b-25 and “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” | Luke 12:13-15, which means churches are anti-shareholder value.
A very public sibling feud sent Mia down a rabbit hole — and we needed to unpack it. From empire control to public fallouts, we dive into the dramatic Murdoch family saga that's playing out in public. Plus, we explore a growing trend — sibling therapy. With family relationships becoming increasingly complex, should more siblings be heading to the therapist's couch together? Also, we have our recommendations for your weekend. Something a bit sexy, something a bit controversial and the book Amelia Lester can’t stop talking about. And... our best and worst of the week. From an embarrassing moment, one of us thinks she’s beautiful and the jeans that transformed a wardrobe. Support independent women's media Get your tickets to the Mamamia Out Loud Live 2025 All or Nothing Tour Presented By Nivea Cellular What To Listen To Next: Listen to our latest episode: The Fingering Renaissance Listen: The 'Apple Cider Vinegar' Debrief We All Needed Listen: The Belle Gibson Fallout & Armie's 'D*ckhead Defence' Listen: The Exact Age A "Hot Mess" Is No Longer Cute Listen: The Great Attention Thief Listen: The Bully, The Mum & The Aftermath Of A Viral Video Listen: A Very Honest Review Of Nicole Kidman's 'Baby Girl' Listen: The True Story Of A Liar: Belle Gibson & Apple Cider Vinegar Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts The End Bits: Sign up to the Mamamia Out Loud Newsletter for all our recommendations and behind-the-scenes content in one place. ENTER SUBSCRIBER GIVEAWAYS: Use code MMOLCRUISE for 20% off a yearly subscription. Recommendations: Mia wants you to listen to Mamamia's spicy new podcast Butter Jessie wants you to watch The Apprentice on Stan Amelia wants you to read Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, by Maureen Callahan What To Read: Read: Everything you need to know about the Mamamia Out Loud ALL OR NOTHING TOUR coming May 2025 Read: GET IN TOUCH: Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message Join our Facebook group Mamamia Outlouders to talk about the show. Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud CREDITS: Hosts: Mia Freedman, Jessie Stephens & Amelia Lester Group Executive Producer: Ruth Devine Executive Producer: Emeline Gazilas Audio Producer: Leah Porges Video Producer: Josh Green Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Alex Smith drops in to discuss bringing the final series of Big Boys to Channel 4, and what's coming next for Rough Cut and the wider TV market as London prepares for its first Mip London.Jim Waterson's also here to celebrate the success of London Centric, his Substack newsroom for local journalism. With thousands paying for access, we'll ask why wouldn't journalists turn their back on legacy media?Also on the programme: we find out why James Murdoch has been a little indiscreet, preview the first ever MIP London... and, in the Media Quiz, we look at some unbroadcastable media moments.That's all happening in this edition of The Media Club. Come on in!Become a member for FREE when you sign up for our newsletter at https://www.themediaclub.comA Rethink Audio production, produced by Matt Hill with post-production from Podcast Discovery.We record at Podshop Studios - for 25% off your first booking, use the code MEDIA CLUB at https://www.podshoponline.co.ukWhat The Media Club has been reading this week:Deadline's MIPcom London previewJames Murdoch rare interview delivers the goodsBBC stops music radio streams internationallyNews and current affairs magazine ABCs 2024BBC begins £6.8m tender process for BBCS formatsSeries of new Irish digital radio stations with ‘existing & new content offerings' set to be launched in coming weeksBBC asked to remove Gaza documentary over narrator's father's ties to HamasTrump jokes cut from BAFTA broadcastGuardian signs licensing deal with ChatGPT owner OpenAIBauer Media launches Bridget Jones Radio pop-up station Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
As a family in control of one of the most powerful media empires in the world, there has long been a fascination with the Murdochs. But, as Rupert Murdoch's younger son, James Murdoch, speaks out about the family feuds and secret pacts – the dramatic fall out is even more sordid than a Succession script... Staff Writer with The Atlantic McKay Coppins published his in-depth piece which saw him spend time with James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn as the couple revealed their regrets and just how estranged the relationship is with his father and brother…He joins Seán to discuss.
As a family in control of one of the most powerful media empires in the world, there has long been a fascination with the Murdochs. But, as Rupert Murdoch's younger son, James Murdoch, speaks out about the family feuds and secret pacts – the dramatic fall out is even more sordid than a Succession script... Staff Writer with The Atlantic McKay Coppins published his in-depth piece which saw him spend time with James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn as the couple revealed their regrets and just how estranged the relationship is with his father and brother…He joins Seán to discuss.
Linnea Rönnqvist och Alice Dadgostar ger oss det senaste kring gnisslet mellan Europa och USA. Alice berättar om det blixtinkallade mötet i Paris där Emanuel Macron samlade Europas ledare för att hitta en gemensam strategi.Linnea pratar om huruvida Europa ska skaffa sig en egen armé eller förlita sig på ett allt svagare Nato.Alice berättar att Lars Trädgårdh har snävat av kriterierna för den kulturkanon han har tagit fram och ger exempel på reaktioner det fått. Hon pratar också om James Murdoch, son till mediamogulen Rupert Murdoch, som ovanligt nog medverkat i en intervju. Dessutom: Han blir Dumbledore, fågelholkar ska vårstädas och höga böter för rallyspelare som svor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
IntroductionLIVE from your ESG-powered Vitamix A3500 Ascent Series Smart Blender, it's a Business Pants Friday Show here at December 13th Studios, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today's weekly wrap up: Ongoing NEO murder stuff, Rupert Murdoch fails to screw over 75% of his children, God eats McDonald's, and hot sauce is going wokeOur show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.Story of the Week (DR):NEO shooter, continued MMUnitedHealth Group CEO addresses Brian Thompson death, says healthcare system is 'flawed'“a brilliant, kind man who was working to make health care better for everyone”No proof of that, of course“When a colleague proposed a new idea to Brian, he would always ask, “Would you want this for your own family?” If not, end of discussion.”Also, really?“His dad spent more than 40 years unloading trucks at grain elevators. B.T., as we knew him, worked farm jobs as a kid and fished at a gravel pit with his brother.“See, he's one of youFoxbusiness and foxnews is referring to Luigi as “ivy league graduate Luigi Mangione”“The ideas he advocated were aimed at making health care more affordable, more transparent, more intuitive, more compassionate — and more human. That's Brian's legacy, one that we will carry forward by continuing our work to make the health system work better for everyone.”His other legacy is TSC of $30M over past 3 years and roughly $40M in equity“we also are struggling to make sense of this unconscionable act and the vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues who have been barraged by threats. No employees — be they the people who answer customer calls or nurses who visit patients in their homes — should have to fear for their and their loved ones' safety.”Amazing deflection because people are clearly angry at the… EXECUTIVESBut maybe he DOES understand the vitriol:“We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people's frustrations with it.”“Clearly, we are not there yet. We understand and share the desire to build a health care system that works better for everyone.”“Health care is both intensely personal and very complicated, and the reasons behind coverage decisions are not well understood. We share some of the responsibility for that.”“No one would design a system like the one we have. … Our mission is to help make it work better.”It's true, that's basically their hollow mission statement. And I suppose massive profit helps with that goal?UnitedHealth Group annual gross profit for 2023 was $90.958B, a 14.24% increase from 2022.UnitedHealth Group annual gross profit for 2022 was $79.617B, a 14.31% increase from 2021.UnitedHealth Group annual gross profit for 2021 was $69.652B, a 3.96% increase from 2020.There's also this part of their mission statement: “We dedicate ourselves to this every day for our members by being there for what matters in moments big and small — from their earliest days, to their working years and through retirement.”Which doesn't exactly gel with: UnitedHealthcare's claim denial rate is 32%, which is higher than the industry average of around 17%UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect arrested; charged with murderLuigi Mangione wasn't a UnitedHealthcare member, may have targeted company because of size and influence: NYPDUnitedHealth Group CEO says slain exec Brian Thompson was ‘one of the good guys' in leaked memo to 400,000 employeesFormer Aetna CEO says he'd eliminate employer-sponsored insurance to fix the U.S. healthcare industry in wake of UnitedHealthcare shootingUnitedHealthcare CEO's death is being mocked on LinkedIn—a move that could hurt careers, says HR expertRupert Murdoch Fails in Bid to Change Family Trust A Nevada commissioner has ruled against Rupert Murdoch's legal attempt to alter his family trust so that his eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, will control the family's media and business empire when he diesBarring a successful appeal, the decision ensures Murdoch's media empire will be left equally to his four oldest children, who are not all ideologically aligned with the conservative views of Rupert and Lachlan.Notably, James Murdoch — once considered a contender to take over the family business — resigned from the board of News Corp. in 2020, citing disagreements over editorial content published by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.U.S. appeals court tosses Nasdaq diversity rules for company boardsThe conservative-majority New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission did not have the power to approve the rule that required companies to ensure women and minority directors were on their boards or provide an explanation of why this was not the case.It was implemented after George Floyd's killing pushed companies to address racial inequality and move toward diversity, equity and inclusion.CEO Buddy System: Deloitte survey: CEO optimism ‘is as high as we've ever seen'Trump's inaugural fund receives $1 million donation from Mark Zuckerberg's MetaOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to donate $1 million to Trump's inaugural fundJeff Bezos' Amazon Plans to Donate $1 Million to Trump's InaugurationElon Musk Gloats as Trump Announces Billionaires Will Be Exempt From Normal Environmental RulesOn Tuesday, president-elect Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post that any "person or company" investing $1 billion or more in the US would "receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental [sic] approvals."Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):DR: California bill would require mental health warning labels on social media California Attorney General Rob Bonta is pushing for social media companies to be required to post mental health warnings on their sites.DR: Paris is replacing 60,000 parking spaces with trees MMMM: Stanley recalls 2.6M travel mugs due to potential burn hazard from faulty lidsAssholiest of the Week (MM):Andrew Witty DRUnitedHealth Group C.E.O.: The Health Care System Is Flawed. Let's Fix It.We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people's frustrations with it. No one would design a system like the one we have. And no one did. It's a patchwork built over decades. Our mission is to help make it work better. Clearly, we are not there yet. We understand and share the desire to build a health care system that works better for everyone. That is the purpose of our organization.Health care is both intensely personal and very complicated, and the reasons behind coverage decisions are not well understood. We share some of the responsibility for that.While the health system is not perfect, every corner of it is filled with people who try to do their best for those they serve.Brian was one of those people. The ideas he advocated were aimed at making health care more affordable, more transparent, more intuitive, more compassionate — and more human.Meanwhile…How UnitedHealthcare and other insurers use AI to deny claimsLeaked video shows UnitedHealth CEO defending practices that prevent ‘unnecessary' careAccording to ValuePenguin, a site that helps users compare insurance plans' costs, UnitedHealth's 32% claims denial rate was twice the industry average. Congress Introduces Bills to Break Up UnitedHealth Groupsponsored by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), Dual class investorsNon profits have figured something out capital markets haven't - you can't make dual class non profits: Rupert Murdoch Fails in Bid to Change Family TrustAt one point in his 96-page opinion, Mr. Gorman characterizes the plan to change the trust as a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch's executive roles” inside the empire “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of the family trust.In a statement, James, Elisabeth and Prudence said: “We welcome Commissioner Gorman's decision and hope that we can move beyond this litigation to focus on strengthening and rebuilding relationships among all family members.”The initial trust arrangement was meant to be binding, the product of an agreement Mr. Murdoch negotiated with his second wife, Anna — the mother of Lachlan, Elisabeth and James — who was concerned that he would bequeath an equal share of control and equity to the young children he had with Ms. Deng. AND YET… we tolerate dual class dictatorships in capital markets in perpetuity?“Carefully crafted charade[s]” designed to keep a company's control private but siphon money from markets anywayOhioSB6The board, in accordance with its fiduciary duties described under this section, shall make investment decisions with the sole purpose of maximizing the return on its investments. The board shall not make an investment decision with the primary purpose of influencing any social or environmental policy or attempting to influence the governance of any corporation.That's literally the ONLY thing you get as an owner of stock - the ability to vote, which in and of itself is influence over governance of a corporation So no Ohio pension funds CANNOT VOTE AGAINST MANAGEMENT! EVER! BY LAW! NO MATTER WHAT!Small businessThe normies feel good… … and lose every timeHeadliniest of the WeekDR: How McDonald's was involved in almost every major news story this past yearCustomers' boycotts topple McDonald's Q1 salesIn October 2023, the McDonald's Israel franchise made headlines for giving away free meals to IDF soldiers involved in the escalating Israel-Hamas War—resulting in a massive boycott by pro-Palestinian protestors in the Middle East. Inflation plagues consumers and McDonald's prices soarMcDonald's faced another backlash this year over its $18 Big Macs, leaving many price-conscious customers questioning whether it was still worth the cost. Faced with inflation and the high cost of living, customers just weren't having it.In order to counteract the bad publicity it was receiving, McDonald's rolled out a $5 meal deal which seemed to win over at least some customers and gave the stock a boost as Americans came back for the more affordable burgers.McDonald's Quarter Pounders linked to an E. coli crisisIn a year with more than 300 food recalls, none seemed as well publicized, or as lamented, as the McDonald's Quarter Pounder recall in October. The fast-food chain's stock price plummeted after it became the center of a full-on E. coli outbreak, linked to onions on its Quarter Pounders. In the end, a significant number of people were affected across 14 states: 104 people became sick, 34 were hospitalized, and one person died.Trump serves fries at McDonald's on the campaign trailMcDonald's also played a role in the 2024 presidential campaign, when then-Republican nominee Donald Trump tried his hand at operating the fry machine at one of the fast-food giant's Pennsylvania locations and held a press conference at the drive-thru window. The visit was largely seen as a way to counter, without evidence, stories of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris's having worked at McDonald's one summer while in college.RFK Jr brutally mocked over ‘MAHA' hypocrisy as he enjoys McDonald's ‘really bad' meal with TrumpLuigi Mangione is arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald'sWhen law enforcement officials first arrested Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, many people were surprised that Mangione, who had alluded police for five days, was found at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania.MM: BuzzFeed survives by selling 'Hot Ones' to George Soros MMVivek Ramaswamy, winner of the Paul & Daisy Soros scholarship, still owns a 9% stake in the A shares of the dual class companyWho Won the Week?DR: Two winners:Directors who resign in protest: James Murdoch — once considered a contender to take over the family business — resigned from the board of News Corp. in 2020, citing disagreements over editorial content published by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.CEOs who take over companies from founders while the founder stays as Executive Chair: Oracle CEO Safra Catz Plans to Sell Over $1 Billion of StockMM: Billionaires who need permitsPredictionsDR: The next McDonald's headline: Shareholders Sue OpenAI's ChatGPT after the Chatbot Coaxed a Troubled Chief Revenue Officer to Eat 850 Quarter Pounders during Last Month's Nor'easterMM:
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Shownotes and Transcript Dr. Andy Wakefield joins Hearts of Oak to discuss his transition from mainstream physician to medical industry whistle-blower, sharing with us his findings on the MMR vaccine's link to autism. He talks about facing backlash, making films like "Vaxxed" and the recently released "Protocol 7" to address vaccine safety and pharmaceutical fraud. Despite challenges like losing his license, Andy stresses the importance of revealing the truth to the public. He highlights the profit-driven pharmaceutical industry's negligence towards patient safety, legal protections shielding companies from vaccine injury liability, and the need for public involvement in spreading awareness and demanding accountability. PROTOCOL 7 - An Andy Wakefield Film WEBSITE protocol7.movie X/TWITTER x.com/P7Movie INSTAGRAM instagram.com/protocol7movie Andy Wakefield has been likened to the Dreyfus of his generation -- a doctor falsely accused of scientific and medical misconduct, whose discoveries opened up entirely new perceptions of childhood autism, the gut-brain link, and vaccine safety. As an ‘insider,' the price for his discoveries and his refusal to walk away from the issues they raised, was swift and brutal, with loss of job, career, reputation, honours, colleagues, and country. And yet he enjoys a huge and growing support from around the world. Wakefield's stance made him a trusted place for whistle-blowers -- from government and industry to confess and ‘download.' He has extraordinary stories to share. Wakefield is now an award-winning filmmaker. Despite elaborate attempts at censorship, his documentary VAXXED: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe – the revelations of a vaccine scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention- changed the public mindset on the truth about vaccine safety. Wakefield's is a story that starts with professional trust in the instincts of mothers, choice and consequences, a quest for truth, and perseverance against overwhelming odds. Andy has long pursued the scientific link between childhood vaccines, intestinal inflammation, & neurological injury in children. Dr. Wakefield is the co-founder of the Autism Media Channel & the founder of 7th Chakra Films. He is the director of his first major narrative feature, the recently released #Protocol7, co-written with Terry Rossio (Aladdin, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fast and Furious, Godzilla vs. King Kong). Connect with Andy... WEBSITE 7thchakrafilms.com INSTAGRAM instagram.com/andrewjwakefield X/TWITTER x.com/DrAndyWakefield Interview recorded 25.6.24 Connect with Hearts of Oak... X/TWITTER x.com/HeartsofOakUK WEBSITE heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA heartsofoak.org/connect/ SHOP heartsofoak.org/shop/ Transcript (Hearts of Oak) I am delighted to have Dr. Andrew Wakefield with us today. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today. (Dr Andy Wakefield) Peter, my pleasure. Great to be here. Great to have you. And your name will be well known, certainly to many Brits. And I live through what you faced just as a Brit consuming news. And we'll get into all of that. People can follow you @DrAndyWakefield on Twitter. And we're going to talk about your latest film, Protocol7.Movie. All the links will be in the description. So we will get to that. But I encourage people to not only look at your Twitter feed, but also look at the website for the film, which is literally just out. But you're the award-winning filmmaker of Vaxxed and many other films. And of course, the latest one just came out. Doctor, if I can bring us back a little bit, because you had a certain time where your name was massively out there and that was simply asking questions. I think a lot of us have woken up to maybe big pharma, have woken up to vaccines and their role over the last four years. And you were much earlier than many people in the public. But that Lancet MMR autism, and I think your Wikipedia probably says fraud more than any other Wikipedia I've ever read. But you talked about that link between MMR, mumps, measles and rubella vaccine and autism. Maybe you could just go back and let us know your background, your medical background, and then what led up to you putting that out and maybe give us an insight into the chaos that ensued? Certainly, Peter. I was an entirely mainstream physician. I graduated at St. Mary's Hospital in London, part of the University of London, one of six generations of doctors in my family to have graduated there. And I ran a research team in gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital in North London and our principal interests were Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis inflammatory bowel disease, and in 1995 parents started contacting me and saying my child was perfectly fine they had an MMR vaccine in many cases and they regressed rapidly into autism, had seizures, lost speech, and language interaction with their siblings. And ultimately they were diagnosed with autism, well I know I knew nothing about autism. It was so rare when I was at medical school we weren't taught about it and I said you must have got the wrong number,. They said the reason we're contacting you is my child has intractable bowel problems, failure to thrive, they're in pain, I know they're in pain even though they've lost the ability to communicate. And the doctors and nurses that I've spoken to about this have said that's just part of autism, get over it, put them in a home, move on have another child. It's an extraordinary situation and so we investigated these children I put together a very eminent team of physicians. Who investigated these children and confirmed that the parents were right the children had I had an inflammatory bowel disease, and that's now been confirmed in multiple studies worldwide. When we treated that bowel disease, then not only did the gastrointestinal symptoms improve, but the autism improved. We didn't cure it, but the children, for example, started using words they hadn't used for five years. It was quite extraordinary. And so as academics, we said that didn't happen, and we did it 183 times, and it happened pretty much every time. So, we then began to believe that there was something really very, very interesting. So, when the parents said my child regressed after a vaccine, we had a professional and moral obligation to take that very seriously. But that really flew in the face of government policy and pharmaceutical industry profiteering. And that was really the beginning of the end of my career. The dean, Harry Zuckerman, took me aside and said, if you continue this vaccine safety research, it will not be good for your career. In that, at least he was correct. And when you offend government policymaking and the bottom line for the pharmaceutical industry, really, there's no price you will not pay. And people are now familiar with that. In the context of COVID, it's happened to many, many eminent doctors and scientists. But at the time, this was was a novelty, the cancel culture was a novelty, the ability of the system to destroy your career if you stepped out of line was something really quite new. And... So, I moved to America, set up a centre there for here in Austin, Texas for autism. They eventually destroyed my career there. And so I thought, well, how can I continue to help this population? And I'd been fascinated by filmmaking for a long time, screenwriting for a long time. And what had happened, Peter, is that over the years, because of the position I'd taken, And people had come to me from the Department of Health in the UK or from regulatory agencies such as the CDC in the US or the industry, the vaccine manufacturers, and said, we've done a terrible thing. Here is the evidence. We've committed fraud. And so I became a repository, if you like, for whistle-blowers. And this story, the latest story, Protocol 7, I mean, my films have been made about these whistle-blowers, some of them. And the latest story, Protocol 7, is one such whistle-blower, who came to me many years ago and presented to me the compelling story that ultimately we've turned into a major narrative feature film. Well, we'll get into that, but the role of media, I mean, you had BBC Channel 4 with hit pieces against you and I'm sure many others. What was that like? Because you said you were kind of mainstream. I remember that time as well, whenever I was mainstream, probably six years ago. So, it was a little bit later due. And you believe these institutions are positive. They're about actually reporting the news. And then you realize, actually, they're not. What was that like whenever you had all these media outlets suddenly make you a target of their reporting? Well, I think it really, part of it was Rupert Murdoch, his son, James Murdoch, was put onto the board of GlaxoSmithKline, Europe's biggest manufacturer of MMR, with the objective as a non-executive director of protecting that company's interests in the media, certainly the Murdoch media. And his target was me and they came after me in the biggest way and in the wake of that you know channel 4 as you say and others followed suit. It was very tricky. It was very difficult, because you didn't get to put the other side of it everything was heavily edited and it was just a relentless attack they were determined utterly determined that I committed fraud never committed scientific fraud in my life. But you can destroy the career of a physician or scientist in five minutes, literally five minutes. All you need is the headline and that's it. And then you spend the rest of your life trying to. Get back your reputation if ever. And I abandoned that idea because it was, the issue wasn't about me. It was about something far more important. And as soon as I, you know, I stopped worrying about what the media might say about me and simply got on with the job of doing what I could to help these children, then a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I just didn't worry about that anymore. Say what they like. I've got a job to do while I still have time on this planet. And that was to advocate on behalf of these children and try and move the needle on the real pandemic, which is of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders. I mean, it's in the media in the UK every day. We're talking about one in just over 20 children in Northern Ireland, in Scotland, in the UK. And this is an extraordinary level of a permanent serious neurological condition. When I was at medical school, it was one in 10,000. So what has happened? Just to bring your listeners up to date, your viewers up to date. The CDC performed a study at my behest. I told them, I said, look, I think that age of exposure is a major factor. The younger you are when you get the MMR, the greater the risk. It's not simply you get the MMR, you get autism. That's not it. There's got to be a co-factor associated with it. And age of exposure is one, I believe. Now, everybody is now familiar that the outcome from a viral infection, for example, COVID, is age-related. The older you are with COVID, the greater the risk. So everybody gets that now. And I said this to them. I said, I think that younger of age, your exposure is a major risk. Why? Because with natural measles, if you get it under one, you're at greater risk of a severe outcome than you are if you're over one. There is an age-related risk. So, they went away, they tested that hypothesis, and they confirmed that it was absolutely true. And they spent the next 14 years covering up, destroying the data, destroying the documents and changing the results to say that MMR vaccine was safe. And it was only when William Thompson, the senior scientist at the CDC who had designed the study, collected the data and analysed the data, had written the paper, came to me, came to a colleague of mine who came to me and said, we have done this terrible thing. I can no longer live with it. Here is the truth. And that was the basis of the film Vaxxed. And it wasn't my opinion. It wasn't my producer's opinion. This was the senior scientist from the CDC responsible for the study confessing to this fraud. What happened? Nothing. No one was held accountable. Absolutely appalling. These people, these five scientists at the CDC and their superiors had. Committed fraud and put millions of children at risk of serious permanent neurological disease and done so wilfully, knowing that there was a risk. And so I was appalled. And beyond that, I thought my filmmaking is going to expose people. It's going to actually hold people accountable for what they've done. Your study was, it was a small study, wasn't it? I think it was what like a dozen or 16. You're simply saying there does seem to be a link and it's surprising it could have been surprised, one time it should have been surprising, that actually a doctor who raises a concern that should surely be looked at and checked over instead of attacking but it wasn't a massive. You were simply saying these this is the pattern that I'm seeing in the small number of patients that I'm looking at in this study. That's absolutely right. The way in which human disease syndromes are described is usually in a handful of patients who present with... It's such a consistent pattern of signs and symptoms of clinical measures that they merit reporting in their own right. And that's exactly what this was. It couldn't test any hypothesis. It couldn't come to any conclusions other than more research was needed. It actually said this study does not confirm an association between the vaccine. It doesn't. It couldn't do. It is merely reporting the parent's story. And it was a very sober paper. But of course, the media blew it up to claim that I had said MMR vaccine causes autism. No, I didn't. However, I would say that now in light of the CDC study, I would most certainly. And it's their behaviour. It's their need to commit the fraud and hide the data that is the most compelling evidence that there is this clear link. They know there's a link, and rather than do something responsible about it they have put the children at continued risk. In fact they've expanded the vaccine program dramatically, so they've put even more children at risk in my opinion. No, completely and where many of us maybe may not have been anti-vaxxers five years ago we sure as hell are now so it's changed completely, but can I just ask you; you were up against the UK General Medical Council. They're the ones that allow you to practice. They're a judge and jury. It was like a few years investigation. Then in 2010, they decided that you were no longer acceptable. They struck you off. Tell us about that, because I've talked to doctors recently during the COVID chaos who have fought for their right to continue to practice as doctors and they've struggled. You were doing this 14 years ago. What was that experience at the General Medical Council? It was difficult. It was really difficult because there needn't have been a hearing. They'd made up their minds before we even walked through the door. The General Medical Council were under threat from the government of having their powers taken away and the government dictating policy such as right to practice and medical sort of ethics. And they therefore were under scrutiny from the government. They had to deliver on a decision, and they did. Now, the reason I can say that is that their decision was contrived and indeed made up their minds before they even come to the hearing is that when it came for the first time before a proper judiciary, before the UK's sort of senior courts, if you like. The judge was appalled by the GMC's behaviour. He said, and this is in the trial of John Walker Smith, my colleague's appeal against the decision to strike him off, he said, this must never happen again. It was really a political tool to destroy dissent. Now, I appealed as well as John Walker Smith, but I was told by my lawyers that it would cost me half a million pounds to pursue that appeal. I didn't have half a million pounds. I didn't have anything. So, the law belongs to those who can afford it. And that's a fact, whether you live in America or whether you live in the UK. Justice belongs to those who can pay for it. And so there was no opportunity for me to have my case heard on its merits it was simply thrown out. What we did do though when Brian Dear a journalist published in the British medical journal now claiming that I had committed fraud which is absolute nonsense. We sought to sue him and the British Medical Journal in the state of Texas. Now, that's where I lived. That's where my reputation was damaged. And that's where there was legal precedent that allowed us to sue them. Because the BMJ is a journal, sells its wares, its journal, to Texas medical schools. It profits from Texas medical schools. And there is a long-arm statute in Texas that allows us to sue them for defamation. Why would you, it costs about $3 million to sue someone for defamation. Why would you even think of doing that in a situation where all of the evidence is going to be laid bare for the public to scrutinize? Why would you do that if you committed fraud? You wouldn't do it. There was no fraud and therefore we had an extremely strong case and they knew it. They absolutely knew it and and they did everything they could to get out of it. Ultimately, the judge, the appeal court judges here ruled that we did not have jurisdiction. That went in the face of all of the legal precedent. We did not have jurisdiction. Indeed, the BMJ lawyers invoked Texas law in an attack on us. I mean, it was extraordinary that we weren't allowed to sue them here in Texas. This was a political decision from the highest level. They did not want this case to go forward. They They knew we were going to prevail, we were going to win, and that would have undermined their entire sort of years and years and years attacking me and others for suggesting that MMR vaccine might not be safe. And so we were denied the opportunity to have the case heard on its merits, and that's where it remains. Tell us about Vaxxed in 2016 from cover-up to catastrophe. And that talks about the CDC and others destroying evidence to show that there could be a link between MMR and autism. That's something which I think many of us over the last four years would probably accept that sounds plausible, definitely that makes sense, because of what we've seen with big pharma and the collusion with media and governments. But this, you put this out prior to that happening probably in a world where maybe people may not accept that as much because there was more were trusting institutions. But tell us about that film and the authorities wanting to destroy any evidence which would show there was a link. Yes, that was a fascinating film because, as I say, it was an insider from the CDC who was intimately involved in the study that looked at age of exposure to MMR and autism. And it clearly showed that the younger you were when when you've got the vaccine, the greater the risk of autism. And that was in... All children, boys in particular, and black boys above all. For some reason, black children seem to be highly susceptible to this adverse vaccine reaction. Now, we don't know the reason for that. Further follow-up studies should have been done. Now, when the CDC found this association, they had some clear options that would have been there available to them in the interests of the the American public. They could have said, right, we can delay. Let's suggest delaying this vaccine until it's safer. And we have done a bigger, better study to confirm it or refute it. That's what they should have done, to give parents the information, to give them the option. But they didn't. They trashed all of the documents. They trashed the data. They altered the results. And they, for 14 years deceived the public, doctors, the government, everybody, and so it was a very powerful story and we made the documentary it got into the Tribeca film festival which for us was one of the sort of preeminent film festivals and then it was withdrawn, it was censored. And I think that occurred because one of the sponsors of the film was involved in money management on Wall Street involving the pharmaceutical companies and also perhaps a sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival. And so, you know, this is what I hear, whether it's true or not, that remains to be seen. But we were censored. This is the first time this had ever happened at Tribeca Film Festival. And it was a bad few days. And then De Niro went on the television on the what's called Good Morning America and the Today Show, the big national shows and said, we should never have done that. We should have played this film, everybody should have seen it and made up their own minds. And suddenly there was an explosion of interest in this film that people had been banned from seeing. And every attempt by the media to cover it up or De Niro's partner, Jane Rosenthal, to shut him down during interviews failed. He was very angry, very angry. And it had the impact of spreading the news of this film worldwide. And so what we saw at that point, which should have pre-empted COVID, was a major shift in people's perception. They came to the movie theatre, they watched the movie, and they said, wow. There is something, there's a problem here. And then, of course, we had the COVID experience and the extraordinary mishandling and misconduct and lies and deception, about the disease, its origins, and the vaccines, so-called vaccine. And public trust in the public health authorities has never been at such a low. And it will never recover and the point peter is this is that they only have themselves to blame. That is the truth. It's no good then coming after me, or after you, or people who bring them the message or come from the clinic and saying this is what I see in these children. They only have themselves to blame for their arrogance and their stupidity. Now, 2016 it was about that specific link MMR and autism 2019 you widened it in vax 2and to look at actually side effects, vaccine harms, across a range. And certainly the issue does not seem to just be one vaccine, there seems to be a range and we've seen that, and I know any parent will have had this conversation thought, any parent that actually is aware of conversations happening, and they will maybe have questioned the rush to jab children. I will touch on the amount of jabs children now get, which is quite concerning, the rise of jabs. But 2019, yeah, you widen it away from just MMR and concerns of side effects to this seems to be in many vaccinations. Was that received differently or do you still have the the same uphill struggle. Now, that film was not mine. It was made by Brian Burrows and Polly Tommy. And I was interviewed for that film, but it wasn't my movie. But what happened, it was based upon a series of interviews. After Vaxxed, we went off across the country, principally Polly Tommy, interviewing thousands of parents about their experience. And it emerged that other vaccines were involved as well. And I'd come to this via a different route. I came over to America to testify before Congress on the vaccine autism issue. And there I became aware that the mercury in vaccines was a problem. I wasn't aware of it before, that aluminium in vaccines was a problem. And so it became clear that it is very likely that it's the actual toxic load that a child is presented with at a very early stage, rather than just being one vaccine or another. Now, we'll never be able to discern the truth of that. We know which vaccines are involved, which are more important or less important. And this comes to a point you've made, is that they have so many vaccines now that how do you even begin to untangle the complexity, the permutations of how was it this vaccine or this one and this one together or these three or these 15? We just don't know. And I think there's almost been a deliberate attempt to expand the program without doing the appropriate safety research in order to make it virtually impossible possible to target any specific vaccine. So, I think that my sort of current thinking on it, and had we been allowed to conclude our research without it being sabotaged, is that it is related to the toxic load. And there is a study that has literally just come out from Brian Hooker. Scientist with an affected child, that shows that there is an exponential increase in severe adverse reactions like autism with increasing load of vaccines. The more you're given at one time, the greater the risk of an adverse reaction. This dose response effect is very plausible and is very strong evidence of causation. So, the field is highly complex. I'm quite certain that the sheer volume of vaccines that are given to children is way in excess of being safe. I mean, way in excess. And it has never been subjected to any formal clinical trial. You know, is it safe to give multiple vaccines at the same time? Hasn't been done. Well, yeah let me poke, because the issue is supposedly we have had a vaccine that's tested over a 10-year period or whatever and then it's decided safe, but the amount of vaccines that children are given; there is absolutely no way you could do any long-term study on that number of combinations of vaccines. So, it's completely into the unknown. It is. Now and here's the dilemma lemma is that when you take a pharmaceutical agent in the United States, for example. Then it goes through years, literally sort of 10, 15 years of clinical trials, randomized control clinical trials using a placebo, an inert placebo, before it's deemed to be safe. And yet with vaccines, that doesn't apply. They're classified as biologics, and the bar is set very much lower for safety. And so for the childhood vaccines, there has never been a proper long-term placebo-controlled randomized trial of safety. And therefore, it is deceptive, entirely deceptive to say that these vaccines are safe. They're not because they've never been subjected to the appropriate safety studies. And people need to know that. People need to realize that. It just has not been done. And it's now, you know, it's too late to close the gate. The horse has bolted. The vaccine safety studies are very difficult to do now, certainly prospectively. Well, one thing I just, before I get into Protocol 7, one thing I realized traveling the States so much over the last couple of years is that you turn on a TV, so different from Britain, and you see an advert for medication and it tells you how wonderful this medication is. And then half the advert is telling you the possible side effects and usually ends up with death. And you're thinking, that's the last thing I want to have. But that's a world away, and that's just kind of pushed through and accepted that actually the side effect could be much worse than the disease or the issue that it's trying to address. And you think, I sit and watch some of those adverts when I'm over in the States and think, how do we get to this situation where death is seemingly better than a headache? It is bizarre and this direct consumer advertising that happens in America and the other the only other place it happens is New Zealand. We don't, you know it doesn't happen in the UK, but it it's it's there's something more insidious about it, and that is the fact that the nightly news networks here way in excess of 70% of their income comes from the pharmaceutical industry advertising. They could not sustain their operation, a news operation, in the absence of that pharmaceutical industry sponsorship. And so, the industry controls the narrative the industry controls the editorial the headline they're not going to publish something and this happened to me I was interviewing with a girl called Cheryl Ackerson outstanding journalist who was at the the time at CBS. And she said, Andy, when we have finished editing this sequence about vaccines and autism, I will get a call within, you know, in 15 minutes, I'll get a call from the money men on the top story, a top floor saying, you will not play this segment because our sponsors have said they'll pull their money. Well, she was wrong. It was five minutes later. It came five minutes later. And that's the way they operate, I'm afraid. So there is, over and above advertising their drugs, there is something far more sinister about the control, the influence that these drug companies have over American mainstream media. Fortunately, in the UK, that direct-to-consumer advertising does not exist. So I want to jump on, which fits perfectly into Protocol 7, which seems to be about someone, a lawyer, small town, sees issues with Big Pharma, with the industry and wants to challenge. And it is a David and Goliath, something I guess, as you alluded to, we're all up against with Big Pharma. But tell us about this film, which is a story about a whistle-blower, but also going up against Big Pharma. This is based on a true story whistle-blower who came to me many years ago at a meeting in Chicago and revealed this fraud within Merck in respect of its mumps vaccine. And it's really a story more about the behaviour, how the industry behaves when confronted with a threat to its profiteering and its monopolistic sort of control of a vaccine in a country like America. And it's against sort of set against the love and devotion the um intuition of a mother who happens to be a lawyer who fights who battles against the power of the industry. And I'm not going to spoil the end for anyone but I urge people to see this film. It is it's now won 27 film awards it's only just really come out. It's got some wonderful reviews. Very, very high scores on rotten tomatoes and IMDb, so the key to the success of this film is its dissemination is people watching it and we're planning our UK release our European release as well right now So when it comes, please support it. Please get your friends and family to it. Merck realized in the 90s that the Mumps vaccine wasn't working and they took, many, many steps to cover that up and to essentially defraud the American public, the medical profession and others. And that's what the story is about. And it's based upon documents, actual documents obtained from that company that confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt what happened. It's important in the context of safety. And you may say, why is it? The film really is about, or Merck's fraud, was about the efficacy, the protectiveness of the vaccine. It wasn't working as well as they said it was working. And that made it dangerous. Why? Because mumps in children is a trivial condition. That's acknowledged by the CDC. Mumps in post-pubertal adults is not trivial. You risk suffering testicular inflammation and sterility or or ovarian inflammation, brain inflammation. And so a vaccine that doesn't work or only works for a limited amount of time will make you susceptible to mumps again when you're past puberty, when you're in that at-risk period. And so a vaccine that doesn't work makes it a dangerous vaccine. It makes mumps a more dangerous disease. And this is a very important thing to understand within the context of mumps. Merck certainly knew about it and continued to defraud the public despite that. So yeah, it's a very, very important film over and above the issue of mumps. It's about how the industry responds to threats that really sort of compromise its ability to earn revenue, make profits, and maintain a monopoly. Because I think people often forget, and maybe have woken up during the COVID tyranny, that these institutions, they exist to make money for their shareholders. They don't really exist to make a product which makes you better. Their primary aim is the share price for shareholders, just like any company. And if they make a product that actually helps you, then to me, that's a bonus. Is that too cynical a view of the industry? No, it's absolutely true. And they wouldn't deny that. They would say, we're here as a business to make money. We're here as a business to serve our shareholders, our stockholders, first and foremost. That's not ambiguous at all. They would admit to that. The problem comes when everything's fine and they're making good drugs and they're benefiting people. That's fine. It's how the industry responds when something goes wrong. And for example, with Merck and Vioxx, the drug that, you know, was notoriously unsafe. But, you know, they knew at the time of licensing that there were problems. It was causing strokes and heart attacks. It was estimated, I think, that many hundreds or thousands of people suffered as a consequence of that drug. In the litigation in Australia, where Merck were, really, their heads were on the block about this. They uncovered some, in discovery, they uncovered documents which were an exchange between Merck employees about what to do about doctors who criticized their drug. And they said, we may have to seek them out and destroy them where they live. This is not conspiracy theory. This is company policy. There you have these guys saying, we may have to seek them out and destroy them where they live. Okay, so these are the kind of people with whom you're dealing. Tell us, because we hear that these companies are beyond the legal sphere. They have protections and safeguards within countries, and it doesn't matter what side effects that the drug causes, they have this legal protection. I mean, is that the case, or is there a way of actually using the legal system to actually go after these companies? Or is it a slap on the wrist? Sometimes they pay out money to different governments and they say: oops Well there there is and it's interesting the national childhood vaccine injury act in this country in America in 1986 took away liability financial liability from the drug companies for death and injury caused by childhood vaccines on the recommended schedule. Now, that was a gold mine for the industry because they had mandatory markets. Kids had effectively to get vaccinated to go to school and no liability. All they could do was make a profit. But the legal system does work sometimes. And in the context of COVID and the so-called COVID vaccine. There's just been a ruling, I think, by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that has said COVID vaccine is not a vaccine. It doesn't protect against disease and it doesn't stop transmission. Ergo, it is not a vaccine. Now, once it's not a vaccine, by ruling of the court, it's not covered by the indemnity. It's not covered by the government protecting the industry. Suddenly, they're on their own. And that really raises some very interesting legal possibilities that is for litigation in this country. So, we'll see what happens. But there will be every effort by the government to side with the pharmaceutical industry to prevent them being sued, I'm quite sure, because that's what happened. But let's hope that the judges see it differently. I just want to end off on people's response to you because you were maligned, attacked. The media tried to discredit you. You then moved to the US. You lost your medical license. But these films you're putting out, they tell a compelling story. Tell us about how you feel these films have woken people up, maybe in a way that back whenever this happened to you 25 years ago, the opening was not there for the same ability to win people over. The opening does seem to be here now, maybe because of COVID, maybe people are more aware, maybe because of alternative media. But tell us about the message you're putting out in these films and kind of the response you're getting. Thing well really the films are made in a way that they're entirely up to the protocol seven, these were entirely factual documentary films and so vax for example if there'd been any word of a lie, if we'd got something wrong, we would have we've accused these scientists at the CDC of the worst sort of humanitarian crime. Their job was to protect these children they did completely the opposite. The hypocrisy goes way beyond what we've seen before and so if there had been a problem. We would have been sued to the moon and back again and there wasn't and they why because they know that it's true. And that's a very powerful thing and the same comes now with protocol 7 even though it's a narrative feature film. If there was something in that film that was defamatory of Merck, then they would come after us. They may well do because they're big and rich and powerful, certainly far more powerful than we are. But that's not a reason. Not to get the story out. My commitment is, my duty is to the public, not to Merck or to the government or indeed to the whistle-blower, but to the public who are being harmed. And so never make a decision based in fear. This is something I've learned over the years. If the story has merit, if it's honest, if it's true, if it has integrity, then you get it out there and, you know, let the cards fall where they may. Yeah completely. I want to ask you about funding, because it's everything costs money. It is actually, it takes a lot of work not only finance but expertise and research to put anything like this out and you know you're going up against an industry that will attack you in any opening any any chink in your armour. Was it difficult to actually raise funding to put these films together? Initially, it was. You know, this is my fifth film, and initially it was difficult, because people said, well, you're a physician. You know, what are you doing making films? Now they say, they're much more inclined to say, you've proven you can do it. Get on and make the next one. It's not easy, particularly in the current climate, I mean, Hollywood itself is in the doldrums; filmmaking, but the people still want meaningful films they want films that count films like Sound of Freedom and others that they really mean something that are worth going to the movie theatres to watch. And so that's the kind of film that we're making and hopefully we'll be able to continue to do it. I just can ask you about the last last thing about those who want to be part of what's happening, supporting the film as it comes out. I mean, how do they play a part? They can go, obviously, to the website, protocol7.movie, make sure and follow that, and they can follow your Twitter. But if they want to say, actually, I believe this message, it's so true, I have friends, family, actually suffering side effects, not only MMR, but across the board, and I want to make sure this message gets out. How can they play a part in doing that? One thing they can do, I mean, if they're immensely rich, they can fund the next film. If they're not, then they can help. People can help by going to the website and clicking on Pay It Forward. And this is a way of, we saw it with Sound of Freedom. It was very successful, a way of providing tickets for people who might not otherwise be able to afford a ticket to go and watch the movie, or for people who might not be inclined otherwise to go. In other words if there if there is an incentive to get a free ticket they may go and then be persuaded. And so it's a way of helping other people to access the film. When they might not otherwise be able to or be inclined to do that so pay it forward is a very useful device. And of course on the website you can pass on the trailer and make sure people watch that and get ready for it. Please do. Now, the success of the film comes down to the public. And that means, you know, your listeners, your viewers. So, we're very, very grateful for any help in that respect. And Sound of Freedom did that to a degree we hadn't seen before. And I encourage the viewers and listeners to do the same for Protocol 7. Dr. Andrew Wakefield, it is an honour to have you on and someone who I read all the stuff. In the late 90s and probably believed a lot of it that uh how times change and it's great to have you on and thank you for what you're doing on getting the message out on the link between the pharmaceutical industry and side effects. Well thank you so much. My pleasure thank you for having me on.
This Day in Legal History: Miranda RightsOn June 13, 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, fundamentally transforming the criminal justice system. The Court held that suspects must be informed of their rights prior to police interrogation, a decision aimed at protecting the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. This ruling introduced what is now known as "Miranda rights," which include the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and the warning that anything said can be used in court. The case arose from Ernesto Miranda's conviction based on a confession obtained without these warnings, which the Court deemed unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren emphasized the necessity of procedural safeguards to ensure suspects' awareness of their rights. This decision has since become a cornerstone of American legal procedure, significantly influencing law enforcement practices nationwide. The Miranda warning aims to prevent coercion and ensure fair treatment, highlighting the importance of individual rights within the justice system.Today, Tesla shareholders are voting to approve Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package and relocate the company's legal home to Texas. Musk announced on social media that the pay package and relocation were passing by wide margins. Approval of this substantial pay deal could alleviate investor concerns about Musk's future at Tesla and support the company's efforts to reverse a court decision that voided the pay package. However, the decision may still face challenges in the Delaware court, where a judge previously ruled that Tesla's board was too influenced by Musk. Despite the shareholder vote, legal experts, such as UC Berkeley's Adam Badawi, are uncertain if the court will uphold it.Tesla's stock rose significantly in premarket trading following the announcement. The final voting results will be disclosed at a shareholder meeting in Texas. Major proxy firms had advised against the pay package, but a mix of institutional and retail investor votes helped secure its passage. Shareholders also voted on relocating Tesla's legal headquarters and re-electing board members Kimbal Musk and James Murdoch. This vote is seen as a test of confidence in Musk's leadership amid Tesla's recent challenges, including a significant drop in stock value since 2021 and concerns about Musk's commitments across his multiple ventures.Musk says Tesla shareholders voting yes for his $56 billion pay package | ReutersDisney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have resolved their dispute with a deal allowing Disney to develop the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando for the next 15 years. The feud began in 2022 when former Disney CEO Bob Chapek criticized a state law limiting discussions of sexuality and gender issues in schools, known as the "Don't Say Gay" law. The new agreement, made with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, commits Disney to spending at least $8 billion over a decade and $17 billion over 10 to 20 years on the resort. This investment will include expanding affordable housing, ensuring 50% of the spending benefits Florida businesses, and potentially building a fifth theme park, retail and office spaces, and 14,000 additional hotel rooms. Disney President Jeff Vahle highlighted that the agreement facilitates significant investments in the resort. This deal follows a settlement in March to end a lawsuit over control of the special district encompassing Walt Disney World.Disney, Florida's DeSantis end spat with deal on 15-year expansion plan | ReutersThe U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule on the constitutionality of the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) use of in-house judges for adjudicating enforcement actions. This decision could have significant consequences for other federal agencies that employ similar systems. The SEC employs administrative law judges who handle cases referred by the agency's commissioners. These judges conduct hearings, issue subpoenas, and make initial decisions on sanctions, which are then reviewed by the commissioners. This process is generally faster and more specialized than federal court proceedings.The challenge originates from George Jarkesy, a hedge fund manager fined by the SEC in 2013 for securities fraud. Jarkesy contested the SEC's in-house system, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2022 that these proceedings violate the Seventh Amendment's right to a jury trial. This ruling has prompted the Supreme Court to review the case.During a November hearing, the Supreme Court's conservative justices expressed doubts about the legality of the SEC's in-house system, particularly its exclusion of jury trials for fraud charges. Chief Justice John Roberts questioned the constitutionality of depriving individuals of a jury trial based on the government's decision.If the Supreme Court decides to limit or abolish the SEC's in-house courts, it could affect not only the SEC but also other federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Labor Department, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These agencies might face slower enforcement actions, increased resource demands, and challenges in targeting misconduct without the use of in-house tribunals.Explainer: What is the US SEC's in-house court under Supreme Court review? | ReutersFirst, some very brief background. Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that shields government officials, including law enforcement, from liability for civil damages unless they violated a clearly established statutory or constitutional right. It is intended to protect officials from lawsuits over actions taken in their official capacity, provided their conduct does not violate clearly established laws.Recently, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals told the Ohio Attorney General (AG) to stop blocking a ballot initiative aimed at ending qualified immunity. This initiative arose from widespread public dissatisfaction with various forms of immunity that often protect government employees from lawsuits. Ohio residents have been trying to place a measure on the ballot to eliminate these immunities. However, the Ohio AG, David Yost, has repeatedly refused to certify the proposed amendment, preventing it from advancing.We'll have to see what Ohio decides, but this development could pave the way for similar initiatives in other states. If Ohio successfully places the measure on the ballot and it gains voter approval, it may inspire activists and lawmakers in other jurisdictions to pursue comparable reforms. The outcome in Ohio could set a precedent and generate momentum for a broader movement to reassess and potentially limit qualified immunity across the United States.Sixth Circuit Tells Ohio AG To Stop Blocking Ballot Initiative Calling For End Of Qualified Immunity | Techdirt This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
This Day in Legal History: The Incorporation of the City of New AmsterdamOn this day in legal history, February 2nd marks a significant moment with the incorporation of the City of New Amsterdam in 1653 by the Dutch Republic. This historic event laid the groundwork for what would become one of the most influential cities in the world. Situated on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, New Amsterdam served as a pivotal trading and administrative center of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Its strategic location played a crucial role in the burgeoning trade network between the New World and Europe.However, the city's Dutch identity was not to last. In 1664, following the British conquest, New Amsterdam underwent a profound transformation, symbolized by its renaming to New York in honor of the Duke of York. This change marked a significant shift not just in governance but in the cultural and legal fabric of the city. The British takeover introduced English legal practices and administrative structures, which would influence the development of New York and, by extension, the emerging United States.Today, as we reflect on the incorporation of New Amsterdam, we recognize it as a moment of convergence between Dutch and English legal traditions that would shape the character of New York City. The legacy of this transformation is still evident in the city's diverse cultural tapestry, its role as a global economic powerhouse, and its legal system, which continues to influence international law and commerce. The story of New Amsterdam's incorporation and its subsequent renaming to New York serves as a reminder of the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of legal and urban history.Proskauer, a prominent Big Law firm, has successfully reached a confidential settlement with its former chief operating officer, Jonathan O'Brien, concluding a legal battle over allegations of trade secret theft. This dispute centered on O'Brien's accused misappropriation of sensitive electronic files detailing the firm's finances, business strategies, and billing rates. Proskauer initiated the lawsuit following O'Brien's sudden resignation in December 2022, amid claims he intended to utilize these files for a prospective position at competing firm Paul Hastings—a move that ultimately did not transpire. O'Brien has contested these accusations, arguing his actions were merely to facilitate work related to his departure while on vacation in a remote location. The settlement, detailed in a court submission, seeks a permanent injunction preventing O'Brien from retaining or employing the disputed confidential materials. Despite the resolution, representatives for both parties have yet to publicly comment on the matter. Before this legal fray, O'Brien, a UK national non-lawyer, had contributed five years of service as Proskauer's COO.Proskauer Reaches Settlement with Ex-COO in Trade Secrets RowThe verdict in the $370 million civil fraud case against former U.S. President Donald Trump, overseen by Justice Arthur Engoron, is now expected to be delivered in early to mid-February, following a three-month trial last year. Initially, Justice Engoron aimed to conclude by the end of January, but this timeline has been extended. The lawsuit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accuses Trump and his family businesses of inflating his net worth by up to $3.6 billion annually over ten years to obtain favorable loan conditions. Trump has rebutted these claims, denouncing the lawsuit as a politically motivated attack by James, a Democrat.If found liable, Trump could face significant consequences, including monetary penalties and a permanent ban from the New York real estate sector, significantly impacting his business operations within the state. This legal battle unfolds as Trump campaigns for the Republican nomination to run against President Joe Biden in the upcoming election. Engoron had previously determined in September that Trump committed fraud, leading to an order to partially dissolve his business empire, a decision Trump is appealing. The final arguments were made on January 11, with Trump criticizing Engoron directly in court for alleged bias, prompting a call for decorum from the judge.Trump civil fraud verdict now expected by mid-February | ReutersActivist investors at Tesla are poised to leverage a recent Delaware court ruling against CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion stock compensation package to push for corporate governance reforms. The court's decision, which criticized Tesla's board for its deference to Musk, has emboldened these investors, who have struggled in the past to secure significant changes at shareholder meetings. They argue that the ruling could sway major index funds and investors to support their resolutions, such as altering the voting threshold for corporate changes to a simple majority. Tesla has not yet scheduled its annual shareholder meeting, typically held in May, where only a few directors, including Musk's brother Kimbal and James Murdoch, are up for re-election. Both directors previously faced opposition from proxy advisers over concerns related to executive compensation, and activist investors expect advisory firms like ISS and Glass Lewis to bolster their case against Tesla's board this year. Additionally, a new shareholder resolution proposes annual re-elections for all directors, challenging the current staggered board system. With Musk holding a significant voting stake, critics will need support from major mutual fund holders to effect change. The Delaware judge's scathing review of the board's negotiation process for Musk's compensation plan may also prompt Tesla's top investors to reconsider their stance on governance issues.Tesla activist investors to seize on Elon Musk pay ruling | ReutersTexas Supreme Court Justice John Devine has been notably absent from more than half of the court's oral arguments since the current term began in September, opting instead to campaign for re-election. Despite the critical nature of the cases being heard, including those concerning Texas' abortion ban and laws regarding medical treatment for transgender children, Devine has missed 28 of the 50 argued cases. His absence from these proceedings, while not violating the state's elections code, has sparked debate about his ability to fulfill his judicial responsibilities. Devine, who is running for a third term and faces a primary challenge, defends his campaign activities as part of his duties, asserting that he remains informed by reviewing case briefs and watching archived video of the proceedings he misses. However, this approach prevents him from directly questioning lawyers during arguments, potentially impacting his grasp of complex legal issues. Critics, including his primary opponent Justice Brian Walker, argue that Devine's priorities may not align with the judicial code of conduct, which emphasizes the precedence of judicial duties over other activities. Despite the controversy, Devine's campaign has been financially successful, raising significant funds and outpacing his opponent in the lead-up to the primary. This situation underscores the tension between the demands of electoral politics and the expectations of judicial office, highlighting the unique challenges faced by elected judges in balancing these roles.Justice Misses Half of Texas Supreme Court Arguments to CampaignThis week's closing music features the vibrant Allegro from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, a masterpiece that has captivated audiences and performers alike with its lyrical beauty and innovative structure. It was Mendelssohn's final concerto before his untimely death due to illness at the age of 38. Born on February 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany, Mendelssohn was a musical prodigy who made significant contributions to the Romantic era, both as a composer and conductor. This weekend marks the anniversary of his birth, and if he were alive today, Mendelssohn would be celebrating his 215th birthday. His Violin Concerto, premiered in 1845, stands as one of the most important and beloved works in the violin repertoire, admired for its emotional depth and technical brilliance. Mendelssohn's ability to blend classical forms with the expressive power of the Romantic era is exemplified in this concerto, particularly in the seamless flow from the first movement into the second, a departure from traditional concerto form that was innovative at the time. This recording, a testament to Mendelssohn's enduring legacy, is made available through the generosity of the University of Chicago Orchestra and under a Creative Commons license, allowing us to appreciate and share the genius of Mendelssohn's compositions. As we listen to the Allegro from his Violin Concerto, we highlight not only Mendelssohn's contribution to music but also the spirit of innovation and expression that defines the Romantic era. If you're looking for more Mendelssohn, and who among us is not, I highly recommend the performance by Ray Chen, available on YouTube and linked in the shownotes. Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
On this day in legal history, September 21, 1981, the United States Senate approved the nomination by President Reagan of Sandra Day O'Connor to the United States Supreme Court–making her the first female Supreme Court justice. O'Connor, who often leaned conservative, used her political experience from her time in the Arizona state Senate to shape her judicial views. She was known for filing concurring opinions that aimed to limit the scope of majority rulings. She faced opposition from the time of her nomination from anti-abortion and religious groups. During her tenure, O'Connor was known for her pragmatic approach and often served as the swing vote in contentious cases. Initially aligning closely with conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist, her voting record later became more moderate as the Court's composition shifted. She played a pivotal role in key decisions, including those related to abortion rights, affirmative action, and campaign finance.She was involved in landmark cases such as Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the constitutionality of race-based admissions to universities, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which preserved the core constitutional precept of Roe v. Wade. O'Connor retired in 2006 but left a lasting impact on American jurisprudence, particularly in her nuanced approach to complex legal issues.O'Connor also had a brief stint in acting, appearing as Queen Isabel in a 1996 Shakespeare Theatre production of Henry V. In a landmark decision, she cast the deciding vote in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case, which ended the Florida vote recount and paved the way for George W. Bush's presidency. She later expressed reservations about the court's involvement in the case.In another historic moment, O'Connor became the first woman to preside over an oral argument in the Supreme Court during the case of Kelo v. City of New London on February 22, 2005. Later that year, at the age of 75, she announced her plans to retire from the bench. Following her retirement, she took on the ceremonial role of the 23rd chancellor of William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, a position first held by George Washington. Her groundbreaking career remains a significant chapter in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.The Federal Circuit's active judges have suspended 96-year-old Judge Pauline Newman for one year for failing to undergo medical testing as part of a disability and misconduct investigation. Initiated by Chief Judge Kimberly A. Moore, the probe began after Newman allegedly had a cardiac incident and raised questions about her productivity. The investigation is notable for its public nature, a rarity in judicial disability investigations. Legal scholars suggest that such probes may become more frequent as the average age of federal judges has risen to 69.Newman has contested the investigation, framing it as bullying and arguing that it was motivated by her frequent dissents in favor of stronger patent rights. The council stated that Newman's non-compliance with medical tests hampers their ability to assess her fitness for duty. A special committee had recommended the suspension, citing Newman's consistent refusal to cooperate.Newman's lawyer, Greg Dolin, criticized the investigation's procedures and called the renewable suspension "unlawful" under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act. Newman plans to appeal the council's order and has also filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement. She submitted two medical reports affirming her mental fitness, which the council dismissed as inadequate.The case has drawn public attention, contrasting sharply with Newman's recent accolades at a legal conference. Affidavits from court staff depict her as struggling with memory loss and paranoia, adding another layer of complexity to this unprecedented judicial probe.Embattled 96-Year-Old Judge Suspended in Disability Probe (2)A high-stakes antitrust lawsuit has been filed against the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) by around 1,200 former fighters, including Nate "Rock" Quarry. The suit alleges that UFC confines athletes to perpetual contracts and pays them far less than they would earn in a competitive market. The case has been fast-tracked for trial next spring and is closely watched as it could set a precedent for athletes in various sports to fight for better pay using antitrust law.The UFC, owned by Endeavor Group Holdings, generated a record revenue of $1.14 billion last year and reaches over 900 million households globally. Fighters are required to sign exclusive deals, often including four fights per year. However, the UFC allegedly withholds the last fight in a contract until the fighter agrees to renew, effectively trapping them in a cycle of successive contracts.The fighters argue that the UFC is a "monopsony," a sole buyer in a market, and accuse it of abusing this power. Monopsony cases are rare but have gained attention under the Biden administration. While there are other combat sports promotions, the plaintiffs argue that UFC controls the majority of fighters in nearly all weight classes and has also bought or shut down its rivals.The class action status of the lawsuit increases the risk for UFC, as it could be compelled to pay up to $4.8 billion in treble damages. The case could also encourage athletes in other industries to file similar suits. UFC has petitioned to appeal the class certification, arguing that the court erroneously certified the class.The case also highlights the financial struggles of fighters, who are independent contractors paid per bout. While top fighters can earn millions, most fighters have to fund their own training and equipment, leaving them with little net income. The case aims not just for compensation but also to bring about a change in the sport, offering fighters better terms and ending the cycle of perpetual contracts.UFC Fighters Test Antitrust Law to Escape ‘Perpetual' ContractsThe U.S. federal judiciary has enough funds to operate for at least two weeks if the government shuts down due to a lapse in funding. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts stated that court fees and other available funds could be used to continue hearing cases. Some case deadlines may be rescheduled if federal agency attorneys are not working during the shutdown. If the funds do run out, the judiciary would operate on a limited basis, retaining only the staff necessary for mission-critical work.Current government funding is set to expire at the end of the fiscal year on September 30, putting pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal on a short-term funding bill. Infighting among House Republicans and disagreements between the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate have jeopardized the passage of appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024. House Republicans have proposed allocating $8.7 billion to the federal judiciary for the next fiscal year, while Senate Democrats have proposed $8.56 billion. Both fall short of the judiciary's request for $9.1 billion.Judge Lavenski Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit expressed that a potential government shutdown is a "consistent matter of concern" and that plans are being considered to keep the judiciary operational. The judiciary, which employs nearly 30,000 people, almost ran out of money during the last government shutdown in 2018. The Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system, used for electronic filing of documents, remained operational during the previous shutdown. The U.S. Supreme Court, which opens its new term on October 2, has used non-appropriated funds in the past to continue short-term operations.Judiciary Has Funds for Two Weeks if Government Shuts Down (1)A legal team that successfully sued Tesla's board of directors for allegedly overpaying themselves is now seeking $229 million in legal fees, amounting to $10,690 an hour. The request was made in a filing in Delaware's Court of Chancery on September 8. If approved, this would be one of the largest fee awards ever resulting from a shareholder lawsuit against a board. The case took several years to build and focused on the compensation paid to Tesla's directors from 2017 to 2020.The 12 director defendants, including James Murdoch and Larry Ellison, had agreed to return $735 million in compensation and forego another potential $184 million. They also agreed to overhaul the board's compensation determination process. The settlement money will be paid to Tesla and indirectly benefit shareholders, making this a derivative lawsuit.The law firms involved in the case estimate the total settlement value at $919 million and are seeking 25% of that sum as their fee. They are also requesting about $1 million in expenses. Partners and staff from the law firms involved have billed thousands of hours on the case.Courts typically review fee requests by balancing the need to reward risk and effort against the risk of a disproportionate windfall that could undermine public confidence in the legal system. David Paige, founder of Legal Fee Advisors, described the fee request as "extraordinary" compared to typical hourly rates for corporate attorneys, which can go up to $2,000.Tesla's directors have not yet objected to the fee request but are expected to do so, according to court filings. A hearing to approve the settlement and the legal fees is scheduled for October 13, and Tesla shareholders have until Friday to file any objections.In 2012, Delaware courts approved an hourly rate that worked out to $35,000 in a Southern Copper shareholder lawsuit, setting a precedent that the outcome achieved should be the focus, not the hourly rate.Lawyers who sued Tesla board for excess pay want $10,000 an hour | ReutersA recent Reuters/Ipsos poll reveals that a majority of Americans, including both Democrats and Republicans, support the ongoing strikes in the auto industry and Hollywood. The poll found that 58% of Americans back the United Auto Workers union's strike against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis for better pay and benefits. In the entertainment industry, 60% support the strikes by screenwriters and actors for better pay and protections. Among Democrats, the support is especially strong, with 72% backing the auto workers strike and 79% supporting the Hollywood strike. Interestingly, a significant number of Republicans also expressed support for the strikes, despite the party's traditional pro-business stance. The poll reflects a broader trend of increased union activism in the U.S., with 2023 on track to become the busiest year for strikes since 2019.Americans broadly support auto, Hollywood strikes -Reuters/Ipsos pollA U.S. authors' trade group, including renowned writers like John Grisham and George R.R. Martin, has filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of unlawfully training its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, on copyrighted works from these authors. The Authors Guild, which filed the suit, is also concerned that the training data may have been sourced from illegal online book repositories. OpenAI has defended its actions by claiming that the use of internet-scraped training data falls under "fair use" according to U.S. copyright law. The lawsuit is part of a broader legal landscape where AI companies are facing challenges over the data used to train their systems.John Grisham, other top US authors sue OpenAI over copyrights | Reuters Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
In the Covid summer of 2020, the art world was jolted by a very different kind of drama when reports surfaced that MCH Group, the Swiss corporation best known as the parent company of Art Basel, had entered talks to sell a significant equity stake to Lupa Systems, the private investment company founded by none other than James Murdoch. For listeners who haven't spent years devouring media-sector or political gossip, James Murdoch is the fourth of six children of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, now most infamous for presiding over the hard-right coverage beamed out through Fox News in the U.S. and various overseas properties via his News Corp conglomerate. The proximity of the Murdoch family to Art Basel initially sent some people in the art world into hysterics. One conspiracy theory even held that James was acting as a front for his father, who would take control of the planet's best known, most prestigious art fair and… well, it was never quite clear what he would do, or why he would care, but obviously something dastardly and irreparable was about to happen, and we should all prepare for the worst. Yet people interested in digging soon found out that James Murdoch is very much his own man with his own resources. Although he spent decades in the family business, including prominent roles in some of its satellite TV and entertainment companies, he cut his final tie to the empire when he resigned from the board of News Corp in July 2020. He has been a public critic of Donald Trump as far back as 2017, and through Quadrivium, the foundation James and his wife Kathryn started in 2014, he has funneled substantial philanthropic resources into counteracting climate change, promoting evidence-based solutions in science and health, expanding voting rights, and pushing back against online extremism.He's also a mogul in his own right. When Disney paid a knee-buckling $71.3 billion in 2019 to acquire nearly all of the Murdochs' entertainment assets, James received a reported $2.2 billion from the deal. He launched Lupa Systems shortly after, with sources claiming at the time that he would invest up to $1 billion of his wealth through the company. By fall of 2020, MCH Group's shareholders had approved the deal to make Lupa Systems the company's new “anchor shareholder,” with the option to buy up to 49 percent of its shares. But in the time since, we've heard relatively little from James Murdoch himself about how MCH Group and Art Basel fits alongside the other ventures in Lupa's portfolio, including media properties like the Tribeca Festival, advanced technology startups, and sustainability projects Ahead of the 2023 edition of Art Basel in Basel, however, Artnet News Art Business Editor, Tim Schneider, managed to sit down with James at Lupa Systems New York offices to hear his thinking firsthand.
In the Covid summer of 2020, the art world was jolted by a very different kind of drama when reports surfaced that MCH Group, the Swiss corporation best known as the parent company of Art Basel, had entered talks to sell a significant equity stake to Lupa Systems, the private investment company founded by none other than James Murdoch. For listeners who haven't spent years devouring media-sector or political gossip, James Murdoch is the fourth of six children of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, now most infamous for presiding over the hard-right coverage beamed out through Fox News in the U.S. and various overseas properties via his News Corp conglomerate. The proximity of the Murdoch family to Art Basel initially sent some people in the art world into hysterics. One conspiracy theory even held that James was acting as a front for his father, who would take control of the planet's best known, most prestigious art fair and… well, it was never quite clear what he would do, or why he would care, but obviously something dastardly and irreparable was about to happen, and we should all prepare for the worst. Yet people interested in digging soon found out that James Murdoch is very much his own man with his own resources. Although he spent decades in the family business, including prominent roles in some of its satellite TV and entertainment companies, he cut his final tie to the empire when he resigned from the board of News Corp in July 2020. He has been a public critic of Donald Trump as far back as 2017, and through Quadrivium, the foundation James and his wife Kathryn started in 2014, he has funneled substantial philanthropic resources into counteracting climate change, promoting evidence-based solutions in science and health, expanding voting rights, and pushing back against online extremism.He's also a mogul in his own right. When Disney paid a knee-buckling $71.3 billion in 2019 to acquire nearly all of the Murdochs' entertainment assets, James received a reported $2.2 billion from the deal. He launched Lupa Systems shortly after, with sources claiming at the time that he would invest up to $1 billion of his wealth through the company. By fall of 2020, MCH Group's shareholders had approved the deal to make Lupa Systems the company's new “anchor shareholder,” with the option to buy up to 49 percent of its shares. But in the time since, we've heard relatively little from James Murdoch himself about how MCH Group and Art Basel fits alongside the other ventures in Lupa's portfolio, including media properties like the Tribeca Festival, advanced technology startups, and sustainability projects Ahead of the 2023 edition of Art Basel in Basel, however, Artnet News Art Business Editor, Tim Schneider, managed to sit down with James at Lupa Systems New York offices to hear his thinking firsthand.
Who will take over Rupert Murdoch's media empire after he dies, and why does it matter?
Elon Musk kan een hoop vragen over zijn opvolging als CEO van Tesla verwachten, tijdens de aandeelhoudersvergadering van dat bedrijf vandaag. Afgelopen week gaf Musk nog aan dat Linda Yaccarino hem zal opvolgen als CEO bij Twitter. De rijkste man ter wereld zei daarmee al ook meer tijd te krijgen voor zijn taken bij Tesla. Toch blijven er bij aandeelhouders zorgen dat zijn aandacht te versplinterd blijft, met ook bedrijven als SpaceX, Neuralink en een nieuwe AI-startup onder Musks hoede. Zo willen diverse aandeelhouders een stemming om een "Key-Person Risk" onderzoek te krijgen, om er zo achter de komen hoe erg Tesla afhankelijk is van Musks leiderschap. Voor zijn opvolgen zijn un de loop der tijd zijn ook wel wat namen voorbijgekomen, zoals die van bestuurder James Murdoch, CFO Zach Kirkhorn en CTO JB Straubel. Ook zal er gestemd worden over Straubels aanstelling in de Raad van Bestuur bij Tesla. Verder in deze Tech Update: De CEO van het bedrijf achter ChatGPT heeft een interessant idee voor regelgeving van AI See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, we dive into various intriguing topics, including the upcoming FOX trial involving Rupert Murdoch and his son James, who face a credibility problem as they prepare to testify. We also discuss Murdoch's connections to intelligence circles and his involvement in Project Democracy during the Reagan years, as well as the possible rivalry and cooperation between Murdoch and Robert Maxwell in the takeover of British Fleet Street newspapers. We examine the disturbing trend of mass shootings in the US and the potential factors influencing these violent acts, raising questions about whether the GOP and foreign intelligence services are involved. Additionally, we delve into the Israeli spyware industry, the Second Amendment Preservation Act, and the urgent need for a national task force to investigate and identify potential causes of gun violence. We also analyze leaked documents about the war in Ukraine, Egypt's potential involvement in supplying Russia with missiles, the mistranslation and misinterpretation of French President Emmanuel Macron's statements on China and geopolitics, and the importance of accurate translations in diplomatic matters. Finally, we touch on the role of the ATF and the NRA in preventing research and investigations into gun crime and its effects on public health, and we explore the connections between Roy Cohn, Roger Stone, and Richard Nixon in the 1970s. • Don't miss out – join us on Patreon for exclusive content like Spy Murdoch and get the inside track on our work - plus, you'll help fund Narativ. Access is a click away: patreon.com/narativ Episode Keywords: FOX Trial, Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, Project Democracy, Robert Maxwell, Fleet Street, Mass Shootings, GOP, Israeli Spyware, Second Amendment Preservation Act, National Task Force, Gun Violence, ATF, NRA, War in Ukraine, Leaked Documents, Egypt, Emmanuel Macron, Diplomatic Translations, Roy Cohn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode, we dive into various intriguing topics, including the upcoming FOX trial involving Rupert Murdoch and his son James, who face a credibility problem as they prepare to testify. We also discuss Murdoch's connections to intelligence circles and his involvement in Project Democracy during the Reagan years, as well as the possible rivalry and cooperation between Murdoch and Robert Maxwell in the takeover of British Fleet Street newspapers. We examine the disturbing trend of mass shootings in the US and the potential factors influencing these violent acts, raising questions about whether the GOP and foreign intelligence services are involved. Additionally, we delve into the Israeli spyware industry, the Second Amendment Preservation Act, and the urgent need for a national task force to investigate and identify potential causes of gun violence. We also analyze leaked documents about the war in Ukraine, Egypt's potential involvement in supplying Russia with missiles, the mistranslation and misinterpretation of French President Emmanuel Macron's statements on China and geopolitics, and the importance of accurate translations in diplomatic matters. Finally, we touch on the role of the ATF and the NRA in preventing research and investigations into gun crime and its effects on public health, and we explore the connections between Roy Cohn, Roger Stone, and Richard Nixon in the 1970s. • Don't miss out – join us on Patreon for exclusive content like Spy Murdoch and get the inside track on our work - plus, you'll help fund Narativ. Access is a click away: patreon.com/narativ Episode Keywords: FOX Trial, Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, Project Democracy, Robert Maxwell, Fleet Street, Mass Shootings, GOP, Israeli Spyware, Second Amendment Preservation Act, National Task Force, Gun Violence, ATF, NRA, War in Ukraine, Leaked Documents, Egypt, Emmanuel Macron, Diplomatic Translations, Roy Cohn
Heather Hartnett is the founding partner of Human Ventures. The firm is a startup studio and a venture firm investing in wellness and digital health. It is backed by renowned investors, including Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, and James Murdoch. As the CEO of Human Ventures, she has created one of New York's premier startup studios and early-stage venture funds. Since launching under Heather's leadership, Human Ventures has invested in and co-built more than 65 companies, with key investments including Reserve (acquired), Current, TheSkimm, Tiny Organics, and Tia Health. Those companies have grown to more than $7.5 billion in enterprise value and have raised over $500 million in additional capital from notable later-stage investors.As one of The 50 Most Influential Women in America by Hearst Digital Media Publications, Heather is a frequent speaker at TechCrunch Disrupt and a regular contributor to Forbes, where she covers various venture capital topics.Twitter of Host (Shamus Madan): @mbitpodcastTwitter of Guest (Heather Hartnett): @HeatherHartnettLearn more about Human Ventures here: https://human.vc/
Luck favors the heroin addict that refuses to give up! Just ask Disney. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Colair Cooling & Heating Ad] Dave Young: Vice Media. So we've all seen Facebook articles and things that are shared from vice.com. Stephen Semple: Right. Yeah. Dave Young: And I'm assuming that this is a bigger thing than just that. Stephen Semple: It is. It is. Today they do over a billion dollars in sales, is what's estimated. They're a private company, so it's hard to know exactly. And they have 3,000 employees and 35 offices around the world. So they're a big deal. And they remain privately-owned. They're owned by Shane Smith, one of the founders. Disney, A&E, George Sorrows, James Murdoch, and TPG Capital. Disney is a surprising one, especially when you look at the type of content. And wait till you hear the story behind this. It's crazy. This one is crazy. So it was founded by Suroosh Alvi, Shane Smith and Gavin McInnes in 1994, right? This is when it started. This is sort of right at the beginning days of a lot of the online things going on. And today they're considered the largest independent youth media company in the world, is kind of how they build themselves. But as I said, it's a crazy story, especially when you consider this media company started in 1994, and when we think from 1994 today, how many media companies have died? The big growth in that time has been YouTube. YouTube went from nothing to... YouTube has 2.6 billion active users and there's 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. This is the backdrop. So with this backdrop, it's amazing that they were able to create this media company. And as I said, story's nuts. And there's a Canadian tie-in. So I kind of like it. Suroosh, who's the main driver behind it, was born in Toronto and his parents were from Pakistan, and they're academics. But they moved around a fair bit and he did his high school in the United States. And growing up with Pakistani parents, to be respected in the community, you needed to do medicine or engineering. So he was very much the black sheep, because what he ended up doing when he went to school was a BA. He was the outlier there. And he went to University of Montreal and he got a degree in philosophy, McGill University of Montreal. And when he finished, not only did he finish with a degree, but he also finished as a full-blown heroin addict. He blamed the city. He said this has to do with the influence of Montreal and university and whatnot, so he moved around. And finally what he decided to do is, he went to Eastern Europe and he moved into this little tiny town in the middle of nowhere because he said, "If I go there, I can beat the heroin addiction." And basically what he discovered- Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: ... was even in a little small town in the middle of Eastern Europe, you can still get strung out. You can still find it. Dave Young: You can still find it. Stephen Semple: So he returns to Toronto, he goes into grad school, takes psychology, drops out. Back to Montreal and he decides to do rehab. And at this time, he's living a double life. No one knew his problem. His family was this very conservative Muslim family. And when he finally shared with them about his addiction, it was really bad. It really hurt the family. And his mental state was not good. He went to rehab twice. In early '94, he's on a waiting list to get into another treatment center and life's not great.
It's Monday, October 10th, A.D. 2022. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. By Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) Muslims with machetes kill 14 Congolese citizens On Saturday, October 1, Muslim militants belonging to the Allied Democratic Forces, an ISIS-affiliated extremist group operating in parts of Uganda and the Congo, killed 14 civilians in a surprise attack. The bloodshed took place in the volatile eastern region of Ituri, in Kymata village. The attackers killed fourteen people with machetes, injured two more, and are suspected to have kidnapped two children. Following the murders, the militants set fire to the village, destroying the homes and livelihoods of its residents. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the 40th worst country in the world for the persecution of Christians. President Biden warned of nuclear Armageddon Last Thursday night, according to Politico.com, at a private fundraiser in the home of James Murdoch, President Joe Biden told donors, “First time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use [of a] nuclear weapon if, in fact, things continue down the path they are going. I'm trying to figure out what is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's off ramp,” referencing the war with Ukraine which is going poorly. Later in the evening, ABC News reports that Biden said, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since [President John F.] Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. [Putin is] not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming. I don't think there's any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.” Mike Pompeo called Biden's Armageddon remarks “reckless” Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served under Donald Trump, called out Biden for his Armageddon comments following Russia's potential nuclear threat to the U.S. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Pompeo called Biden's remarks “reckless.” POMPEO: “Oh, my goodness. First of all, those comments were reckless. (laughs) Even more importantly, they demonstrate maybe one of the greatest foreign policy failures of the last decades, which was the failure to deter Vladimir Putin in the same way that the Trump administration did for four years.” Pompeo criticized Biden's lack of awareness, saying big news like that should not have been said randomly while speaking at a fundraiser event. “When you hear the President talking about Armageddon as a random thought, just a musing at a fundraiser, that is a terrible risk to the American people. If he truly believes that, he ought to be out talking to us in a serious way. More importantly, he should be doing all the things that are necessary to deter Vladimir Putin.” Pompeo pointed to the history of how America responds to a nuclear threat. POMPEO: “We've been here before, not only in October of ‘62, we've been here other times as well. And America has always pushed back against our adversaries by showing enormous resolve, executing quiet diplomacy in the same way that we did during our time in office, making very clear to Vladimir Putin that the cost of him using a nuclear weapon will bring the force of not only United States and Europe, but of the whole world against Vladimir Putin. We ought to be doing that. I hope that they're doing this quietly.” Hershel Walker accused of paying for abortion The Daily Beast, a left-wing website, dropped a bomb on the senatorial candidacy of Hershel Walker. The Republican, a former NFL football player, is challenging Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock, the incumbent in the Georgia race. CBS Congressional Correspondent Nicole Killion summarized the allegation made by The Daily Beast. KILLION: “New reporting from The Daily Beast, which has not been independently confirmed by CBS News, claims he encouraged a woman he was dating in 2009 to get an abortion and helped pay for it. The woman, whose identity was not published, provided The Daily Beast with a receipt for the procedure, a get well card, and an image of a $700 check allegedly signed by Walker.” Appearing on Fox News a week ago Monday, Walker denied that he had paid for an abortion. WALKER: “It is a flat-out lie. I can tell you right now, I never asked anyone to get an abortion. I never paid for an abortion. They think they can threaten me. They think they can scare me. Right now, all they've done is energize me more, that I'm going to fight and win this seat for the great people of Georgia.” According to USA Today, the relationship between Walker and the woman allegedly ended after she refused to get a second abortion, and is now raising their 10-year-old son. On July 20th of this year, just hours before a federal court allowed Georgia to enact its Heartbeat bill, which protects babies in the womb from abortion when a heartbeat can be detected at six weeks gestation, Walker said this to 11 Alive TV. WALKER: “There's not a national ban on abortion right now, and I think that's a problem. Right now, I'm for life.” Walker has indicated he would support a national 15-week ban on abortion. The Bible verses of In-N-Out And finally, In-N-Out is not just America's best fast-food burger, it's also an unashamed purveyor of the Good News, reports The Christian Post. Since the 1990s, the California-based chain has printed Bible verses on the packaging for several of its food items, including John 3:16 on In-N-Out's soda cups: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Lynsi Snyder, owner and president of In-N-Out Burger, told The Christian Post in a 2019 interview that it was her uncle, Rich Snyder, who first came up with the idea during the 1980s when he was president of the company. “It was my uncle Rich who put the Bible verses on the cups and wrappers in the early ‘90s, just before he passed away,” Snyder said. “He had just accepted the Lord and wanted to put that little touch of his faith on our brand.” And, when it's time for dessert, you'll find the sweet surprise of Proverbs 3:5 on the In-N-Out shake cups. It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” Close And that's The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Monday, October 10th, in the year of our Lord 2022, just two days past my beloved bride Amy's birthday. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
Today's podcast is the third of four in our “What the World Watches” audio series recorded at Singapore's APOS conference, for paid subscribers only. You can listen to earlier conversations with Formula 1's Director of Media Rights and Content Creation Ian Holmes here, and Warner Bros. Discovery International President Gerhard Zeiler here. Amazon Prime leads in Japan; Netflix in South Korea; Disney+ in India. Nowhere is the growth opportunity (some might say only opportunity) for American streamers as significant as it is in Asia. But it's not as simple as ordering up more Squid Game. Consigliere to many an entertainment C-suite exec, Vivek Couto, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Media Partners Asia, recently hosted regional players including Amazon's VP, Prime Video International Kelly Day, Netflix's Vice President, Content APAC (ex-India) Minyoung Kim and Uday Shankar, investor with James Murdoch in Viacom18, at the APOS conference in Singapore. From there, he joined hosts Janice Min and The Wakeup's Sean McNulty to discuss what will determine who wins (and how) the most important front of the streaming wars. Among the topics: * The immense scale of opportunity vs. the U.S. and Europe (9:22)* Current misassumptions about the quantity of local content necessary to win (multiple mentions)* Who has first-mover advantage where* Regional players — and potential acquisition targets for American players (multiple mentions)* Sports rights as loss leaders in the region — including cricket (33:14)* The region's wide disparity in ARPU (average revenue per user) (10:58)* Potential for imminent streaming consolidation in the Asian market (43:43) * How Warner Bros. has “one of the best libraries to monetize in…the world” (17:57)A transcript of the conversation is available here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe
As an addendum to Season One, here are six more stories of 19th C. Philadelphia theater. We discuss Alexander Reinagle, Joseph Jefferson III, James Murdoch, Matilda Heron, John McCullough - as well as two stagehands at the Walnut Street Theater you likely never heard of before, but may never forget!To see images and more information about today's subjects, see the blog post on our podcast's web page: https://www.aithpodcast.com/blog/back-to-the-19th-century/If you enjoyed the show, PLEASE LEAVE US A REVIEW! You can do it easily, right here:https://www.aithpodcast.com/reviews/If you have any questions, inquiries or additional comments, you can write us at our email address: AITHpodcast.comOr, follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/schmeterpitzFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/AITHpodcastTo become a Patreon Patron of the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/AITHpodcastFor the music and recordings featured in today's episode (all found easily on YouTube)Alexander Reinagle"Six Scots Tunes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meY6-Hkolxc "Baroque Americain" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyu811rSB5U"Philadelphia Sonata #1" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImEhQvsukJM"Federal March" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3I067IuWA8"Philadelphia Sonata #2" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3I067IuWA8"I Have a Silent Sorrow Here" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngVW6rKaWCcJoseph Jefferson"Jefferson and Liberty" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAOurpDRyPw&list=PLfw18z0BT49LCohEMD3kBcYcMm7LZgUN8"Jump Jim Crow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8wg1vGucbs"Rip Van Winkle" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwiBdrOtGmAJames E. Murdoch"Philadelphia Fireman's Cotillion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aw_JDlvXwc"Sospiri del Mio Cor" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1TbAwZv1R8&list=PLfw18z0BT49LCohEMD3kBcYcMm7LZgUN8&index=15Matilda Heron"Traditional Irish Music" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdxGhKbdjxUChopin, Sonata #3 - Op.58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cy3dmqrn3c&list=PLsiUDYPNEqx2yytIAxpTOrxWtKfByxg2zJohn McCulloughTchaikovsky, Music for Hamlet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2le05k-6ls"The Ravings of John McCullough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCNprlhvmoSaint-Saëns, Danse Macabre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhSupport the show
SatoriXR, a tech startup in Chennai that offers 3D and augmented reality technologies for engineering design and manufacturing, has won Grameen Foundation India's first Tech4Inclusion challenge. And entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala's UpGrad has doubled its private valuation in new funding round, ET reports. Notes: SatoriXR, a tech startup in Chennai that offers 3D and augmented reality technologies for engineering design and manufacturing, has won Grameen Foundation India's first Tech4Inclusion challenge, the foundation said in a LinkedIn post yesterday. With a grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grameen conceptualised the Technology for Growth and Inclusion Challenge and announced it in August last year. Competitors were invited to work in the Augmented Reality and Machine Learning space to design a mobile application for educating rural customers and banking agents. SatoriXR, founded by Mahesh Ramamurthy in 2018, built the prototype for a gamified AR learning application, to facilitate financial literacy and inclusion on its eponymous SatoriXR platform. The company will now be awarded the contract to build the full-scale application for Grameen, which will then be used by its banking correspondent partners. SatoriXR was picked from among three finalists. The other two were Deeploop Technologies and MuCrest Technologies. Clari, a Silicon Valley company that makes a revenue tracking software platform for businesses, has acquired India's Wingman, a conversational AI provider for sales teams, the companies said in a press release yesterday. Clari didn't reveal the terms of the deal, but the entire team of Wingman, including its three founders, is expected to join the US company, according to the press release. The acquisition of Wingman gives Clari's revenue collaboration and governance platform the ability to analyse customer and employee conversations, extract valuable AI-based insights, and reliably predict all revenue outcomes. Wingman goes beyond the limits of similar conversation intelligence tools by helping revenue-critical teams act in the moment when it matters, the companies said in the release. Wingman, a Y Combinator portfolio company, was founded in 2018 by Shruti Kapoor, Muralidharan Venkatasubramanian and Srikar Yekollu. The company had raised $2.3 million in 2019 from investors including early-stage deep tech VC firm Speciale Invest. UpGrad Education, founded by Ronnie Screwvala, has raised $225 million in funding from investors including billionaire James Murdoch's Lupa Systems and US testing and assessment provider Educational Testing Service, Economic Times reports. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds
Google has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit with around 15,500 women, according to a statement from the law firms representing the women. Meanwhile, The UK's competition regulator wants to investigate how Apple and Google use their mobile phone dominance to kill competition. And an ed-tech company's co-founder wants to blacklist teachers if they seek better prospects, ET reports. Notes: Google has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit with around 15,500 women, according to a press release on June 10, from the law firms representing the women who took Google to court four years ago. The lawsuit first emerged in 2017 after three women filed a complaint accusing the company of underpaying female workers in violation of California's Equal Pay Act, citing a wage gap of around $17,000, according to The Verge. The complaint also alleged Google locks women into lower career tracks, leading to less pay and lower bonuses when compared with their male counterparts. The plaintiffs won class-action status last year. The UK's competition regulator wants to investigate how Apple and Google might be using their dominance of the mobile phone market to kill competition, ramping up global antitrust scrutiny of the largest US technology companies, Wall Street Journal reports. Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said on Friday that it intends to initiate market investigations into how the companies control web browsers for mobile devices, as well as complaints that Apple restricts cloud gaming on its devices. Under UK rules, market investigations can lead to binding orders to change practices, but no fines. Shares of DocuSign plunged 24 percent on Friday after the e-signature software maker posted fiscal first-quarter earnings that fell short of analysts' estimates, CNBC reports. DocuSign's adjusted earnings per share of 38 cents missed analysts expectations of 46 cents, according to CNBC. That pushed shares down even though DocuSign's revenue for the quarter, at $588.7 million, beat analysts estimates of $581.8 million. Brajesh Maheshwari, co-founder and director of test preparation coaching provider Allen Career Institute has threatened teachers working with the company with ‘blacklisting,' if they move to rival offline coaching platforms set up by ed-tech startups, in a video statement released by him, Economic Times reports. Among Allen Career Institute's biggest investors is Bodhi Tree, formed by Lupa Systems founder and CEO James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, the former head of Star TV and Disney India. Bodhi Tree announced an investment of $600 million in Allen Institute in May, according to ET. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds
This week's guest on Here Comes Pod is one of the UK's most experienced TV executives, Dawn Airey. We covered a lot of ground - her start in the business at ITV, her move to C4, Greg Dyke's cunning plan to entice her over to C5 and the joy of launching the channel, life at Sky under Tony Ball and James Murdoch, and returning to C4 as a board member and interim chair. Enjoy!
April 25Title – James Murdoch firm leads $2 bn funding in Ambani media armDescription – In this episode, find out about HUL becoming Rs 50,000 crore turnover company, also find why Bajaj Auto saw a drop in Q4 resultsBusiness Term of the Day: Poison Pill
Welcome to the latest Unmade podcast. Today's edition features another extract from the audio edition of my book, Media Unmade, which is published by Hardie Grant and available online and in book stores.In today's chapter, I explore the dramatic evolution of News Corp in Australia and around the world during the last decade.I analyse the insights offered by News Corp Australia's executive chairman Michael Miller when I interviewed him on stage in 2018. It came at a point that the company was recognising that in television and in news, it was building subscription products for narrowly targeted, polarised audiences. That included Sky News Australia, which the company took full control of in 2016 and began moving towards opinionated, mostly right-leaning commentary under new boss Paul Whittaker.Globally, sister organisation 21st Century Fox failed in a 2014 bid to take over Time Warner with proprietor Rupert Murdoch later taking the decision to sell most of the company's assets to Disney instead.The aftermath of the 2019 Disney deal saw Lachlan Murdoch become the boss of the new Fox Corporation, parent company of cable giant Fox News in the US, setting him up as the likely successor to his father. That looked even more likely when James Murdoch walked out in 2020.If you enjoy hearing the podcast, please do give it a five star rating on whichever podcasting app you use. That helps other people find it, and gives me some much needed validation.Audio production on Media Unmade comes courtesy of Abe's Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers and sound design for corporate videos, digital content, commercials and podcasts.As ever, I welcome your thoughts to letters@unmade.media.Time to let you go about your Friday. Have a great day.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesUnmade This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe
James Murdoch, Uday Shankar return to India with $1.5 billion from QIA James Murdoch and Uday Shankar have launched a new company called Bodhi Tree, with $1.5 billion from Qatar Investment Authority, to focus on opportunities in India and Southeast Asia. Bodhi Tree would be “designed to invest in media and consumer technology opportunities in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on India,” Murdoch and Shankar said in a statement, according to the LA Times. James, the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was previously making investments through his firm Lupa Systems, which also he had started with Shankar. Shankar built Star India for 21st Century Fox, the Murdoch family's media conglomerate that was acquired by Disney in a deal that was completed in 2019. Climate tech gets more funding in India Climate tech businesses received $7 billion in equity funding in 2021, a 4X increase over the $1.87 billion in equity funding raised by all climate tech sectors in 2020, according to the ‘State of Climate Finance in India' report, released by Unitus Capital on Feb 8. The bulk of the climate financing still goes towards renewables, with electric vehicles a distant second. Later stage rounds skew the funding that has gone into climate tech—the 25 Series C and beyond deals tracked by the impact investment firm constituted 86 percent of the $7 billion in funding. In early-stage financing, funding interest is expanding into other areas of climate innovation. Renewables were responsible for only 12 percent of the 182 deals Unitus tracked in 2021. Electric mobility was the largest segment with 68 deals. Agri and F&B sectors saw 52 deals spread across the value chain, although agri-tech needs more focus at the farm level, according to Unitus. Starlink loses 40 satellites to a geomagnetic storm Starlink has lost 40 satellites that were meant to be part of its low-earth orbit constellation to a geomagnetic storm, the company said in a statement on Feb. 8. These satellites were part of the 49 launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth's atmosphere, the company said. The de-orbiting satellites pose no collision risk with other satellites and will burn up in the atmosphere, so no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts will hit the ground. Xpressbees raises $300 million, becomes a unicorn Xpressbees, a third-party logistics services provider, has raised $300 million in Series F funding, led by private equity funds Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital. Existing investors, Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners, also participated. With this round, the total amount of funds raised by Xpressbees exceeds $500 million. The Pune-based company will use the money to expand operations, invest in product development and hire more people. The latest investment makes the six-year-old startup a unicorn, co-founder and CEO Amitava Saha told Forbes India in an interview. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds
Rupert's oldest son Lachlan may have won the Murdoch family succession battle when he became CEO of the Fox Corporation. But that's not where the Murdoch drama ends. On this brand new episode, New York Times assistant editor Ed Lee joins Aricia and Brooke to unpack some big news from James Murdoch. Later, culture writer Hunter Harris gives an update on the new season of HBO's Succession. Harris flew to Tuscany to interview the cast and crew while they shot the final episodes of season three.Read Ed Lee's reporting on the Murdochs:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/business/media/james-murdoch-resigns-news-corp.htmlCheck out Hunter Harris's Vulture article about her time in Italy with the cast of Succession:https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-season-three.htmlIndeed- Get started with a $75 credit to upgrade your job post at indeed.com/RICH!Each & Every- Listeners get 30% your first purchase of Each & Every at eachandevery.com/RICH, and use the promo code: RICH!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chad Melchert is one of Canada's most pre-eminent live and session drummers who is also an acclaimed drum teacher. This native Canadian calls Edmonton (Morinville), Alberta, home but despite his Canadian residence Melchert has toured all over the world and played with artists from all types genres including Gord Bamford, Brett Kissel, Adam Gregory, Aaron Goodvin, Duane Steele, Hemingway Corner, Gil Grand, Jake Mathews, Dallas Smith, Beverley Mahood, Michelle Wright, Bobby Wills, Mikaila Cooper, Corb Lund, Charlie Major, Tyler Connoly (Theory Of A Deadman), Rose Maddox (Grand Ole Opry legend), Jean Shepard (Grand Ole Opry legend), Ian Tyson, FOXX Worthee, Drew Gregory, Deric Ruttan, Jason Blaine, Chad Brownlee, Aaron Pritchett, Lindsay Ell, Patricia Conroy, Tenille Alee, Lindi Ortega, Charlie James, Shawn Oates, The Lovelocks, Eric Ethridge, Jeremy Dallas, Chris Henderson, Trinity Bradshaw, Michela Sheedy, Katie Love Hess, Amber Bauer, Amber Stoby, Hastie and The Alibi, Freedom's Note, Thin Line Sid, Jordan Lee,, The Dungarees, James Murdoch, Deon Blyan, Jay Sparrow, Mike Nash, Dan Davidson, Codie Prevost, Alex Runions, Craig Moritz, and Joal Kamps, to name a few. Melchert has also earned repeated recognition as the CCMA (Canadian Country Music Association) Drummer Of The Year (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016 and, 2019) and in fact, Melchert was the first drummer to enter the CCMA Hall Of Honor. Melchert endorses, Gretsch drums, Canopus Snares, Remo Drum Heads, Beier Drums Snares, Paiste Cymbals, Porter & Davies Monitoring System, Vic Firth Drumsticks, Protection Racket Cases and, Rhythm Tech Percussion. In this episode, Chad talks about: Maintaining and growing his home studio Home studio hacks Playing a supportive role in a studio environment Supporting Canadian artists Being “studio ready”
Plus... Inside The AP's meeting with Israeli officials; James Murdoch versus his father Rupert; new hope for missing journalist Austin Tice? Sam Feist, Oliver Darcy, Amanda Carpenter, Ruth Eglash, Ian Phillips, Stephen Engelberg and Mike Holtzman join Brian Stelter. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcastIf you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.Competition ends August 27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.Show references:www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrpenfoldwww.itv.com/imacelebrityjunglechallengewww.itv.com/coronationstreettourhttps://village.emmerdalestudioexperience.co.uk James PenfoldJames is the Controller of Partnerships over at ITV and the name behind some of the prolific IP attraction, tour experiences and event ventures – including Coronation Street The Tour, Emmerdale Village Tour and the brand new (for 2021) I’m A Celebrity… Jungle Challenge. James has garnered an indisputable reputation during his 20+ year career at the forefront of leading British media and entertainment branded content formats. An instrumental and respected figure within the industry, James has directly influenced some of the most pioneering live events, UK visitor attractions and big-brand agency collaborations of recent times. His strategic vision, creative energy and unequivocal commercial drive has captured the essence of Intellectual Property (IP) immersive content as he continues to push the boundaries with trailblazing concepts for the biggest players within the media landscape today. With business development disciplines stretching across mergers and acquisitions, brand licencing, IP visitor attractions and participation services, cross platform content distribution, media strategy and commercial partnerships, James has carved out an illustrious career when it comes to brand experiential.Now, a distinguished and well-networked figurehead for immersive experiences and visitor attractions, James’ name is associated with new-format arena tours, big-brand visitor experiences, digital cinema trials, TV channel launches and live entertainment events. Transcription:Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with James Penfold, Controller of Partnerships at ITV, the name behind prolific tour experiences including Coronation Street The Tour, and Emmerdale Village Tour. We discuss translating big brand IPs into commercial ventures, what the most successful formats are, and the brand new I'm A Celebrity Jungle Challenge, opening later this year.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's such a pleasure to see you again.James Penfold: Thank you. It's great to see you today.Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, you say that now, you might not say that after the questions that I'm about to ask you.James Penfold: No, no. Listen, I'm a regular listener and I don't know what's going to be thrown at me, so yeah, I've taken my Xanax and I'm ready.Kelly Molson: I had a lot of fun putting these together. I've gone for a theme. You might notice what the theme is. Okay, let's begin. Would you rather eat a fish eye or drink blended fermented duck eggs?James Penfold: The duck eggs, definitely.Kelly Molson: Oh, really? You'd go for the duck eggs? But the smell though?James Penfold: Yeah. But that's the eye thing, and I always say, the eyeballs or anything, it's that kind of crunch moment, I suppose. Mind you, a fish eye is quite small, isn't it? I was kind of thinking ... Yeah, no, I'll have to stick with my answer, sadly.Kelly Molson: All right. Blended duck eggs, okay. I was not expecting that. Right, who's funnier; Ant or Dec?James Penfold: Oh my god. Well, listen, I love them both, but it's got to be Dec.Kelly Molson: I agree, but then I had a bit of a crush on Dec when I was younger, so he's always been my fave.James Penfold: Yeah, I'm not going to say who my crush is with, but they're both lovely.Kelly Molson: Maybe we'll find out later when you've relaxed a little bit. If you could be any Coronation Street character, who would you be?James Penfold: William Roach. Ken Barlow. Because who doesn't want to work for 40, 50 years in the industry and get so many great storylines?Kelly Molson: He's been a bit of rogue as well though, hasn't he?James Penfold: Absolutely.Kelly Molson: He's been a hit with the ladies.James Penfold: Completely. And a returning hit with the ladies. And he gets great one-liners, he's been involved in amazingly iconic plots. So whenever I ask colleagues within the industry, if any actor can have anything, it's longevity within the industry, isn't it? So yeah, I'll go that road.Kelly Molson: Great. Thank you for answering those. Right, tell me what your unpopular opinion is?James Penfold: My unpopular opinion? Well, let's just say that this is formed off the back of a big reunion. It was controversial, certainly then at the time, certainly on the trips, it was simply that the live recording of any single is 99% of the time not as good as the single recorded in the studio. And obviously, I used to say things like, "Well it's not as good as in the studio," and yeah, it didn't go down that well.Kelly Molson: I think you're probably right though, aren't you?James Penfold: Yeah. I mean Adam Rickitt took it personally, but I think we'd all have to agree. I Breath Again, sitting in the fish tank, needs to be done in the studio.Kelly Molson: I cannot wait to talk to you about this. So James and I had a kind of pre-interview chat a few weeks ago, and I did share my huge love ... I mean, who doesn't love Ant and Dec really? I mean, maybe that will come up as someone's unpopular opinion some day, that they detest them. But I've been such a massive fan, I kind of grew up with them over the years as well, and when they came back a few years ago and brought out Ready to Rumble again, I lost my shit watching that episode. I can remember my friends texting me, it was like, "What is happening? This is amazing." And then for that to kind of expand into the whole big reunion thing was just phenomenal. But we will come to that.Kelly Molson: James, at the moment, you're Controller of Partnerships at ITV, which sounds like a very grand title. What about your background? How did you get to where you are today, and what big highlights have you had in your career?James Penfold: So, like anyone, I think career is all about a bit of a zigzag. Not many people go straight to the end role they hope to achieve. So, left school not knowing at all what I wanted to do, always absolutely loved television. I mean, was an avid fan of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop every Saturday morning. But how did I, therefore, end up in a BT technical apprenticeship at the age of 16, having just done the first year of GCSEs? So we were kind of guinea pigs on that front. Ageing myself here. But BT ran an amazing classic apprenticeship scheme. Three years, going across, two months at a time, every facet in the business. So you could be on estates one week, you'd be on customer residential services and installations, you'd be on externals, so working in the man-holes and those sorts of things and learning about that aspect, marketing, sales, customer service in the sense of operator services. It was a great induction, and all the while being able to go on block release, again, doesn't happen very often, paid for by the company during the day, three months at a time, to colleges and that to get a technical qualification. And then I was very grateful when they offered me, "Did I want to go to university and do a degree?"James Penfold: So I do those three years later than most, probably, at 21 rather than 18. But that meant that I was absolutely ready for it, I knew what I wanted to do, I loved commerce and commercial and the marketing sales. And so I went to Birmingham University, studied B-Comm there, Bachelor of Commerce. Again, coming back into BT in the summer holidays. The internet was just kicking off and so I was fortunate enough to have the choice of, "Which division do you want to go back to in those holidays?" And I went into a division that was just a startup division called the Internet and Multimedia Services. That was actually the precursor days of BT becoming an internet service provider, it was all about the narrow band, but we quickly learned, or the company quickly learned, like everyone, that whether you're an AOL operator or anybody else, that once the people had logged on, what were they going to go to? Because it was the early days of search engines. There wasn't a great lot of content.James Penfold: So I just opted to be a content development manager, which was basically business classic, business development. So looking to acquire content fees. So, in the day, you'd go to BT's various partners and obviously think to what you personally liked, whether it was Top of the Pops, the music, Bloomberg for financial services, and you'd pick off these various brands and go and do deals to acquire that. That moved into broadband services, then worked on a number of trials that were pioneering, I suppose, towards all the things we use now. Multimedia payphones. So they were a whole trial of payphones across Cardiff and Central London for people coming when not many people had email, and certainly, not many people had laptops at home and computers at home, but they did want to be able to send email messages or check their messages when they were between stations or travelling between offices.James Penfold: And then the early precursor to BT TV, which was an ADSL trial, so again using copper wire to send TV signals down it. Well, again, where's the content there. So I was lucky enough to ... again, all hands to the pump really when you're launching these trials, so I opted to talk to the music companies. So EMI, Sony BMG, [inaudible 00:07:33], to provide a variety of content to prove. And then we were really just looking to the customer to say what they wanted. These were only closed user group trials, two or three thousand people in Ipswich and those sorts of things.James Penfold: My boss then got snapped up by Sky. Sky was really taking off as a digital satellite broadcaster, and that inherently launched something called Interactive Services, or the Red Button services, which many of us might have used. He stayed very briefly at Sky, I should say, because he didn't get famously on with James Murdoch, but quickly learned that there was a real desire with multi-choice TV. The reason we had those 200, 300 channels, it's obviously refined itself now as technology has moved on, there are other ways of accessing content. But we settled on a company called the Interactive TV Group. I'm fortunate for Adam Faith, the singer, he'd set up a financial TV group based out of Wapping. Sadly, three weeks into operating that, he passed away. But the facility was available, and my then boss at the time, John [inaudible 00:08:37], picked it up at an absolute song, and we went in. And he'd reformed a team from people he'd worked with at BT and Sky to become an Interactive TV Group, so launching TV channels for other parties here in the UK, and some further afield.James Penfold: I was a business development manager at first, looking after studio facilities and winning clients to use those. And then also looking then into interactive services, which is, again, taking back, I suppose, the internet skillsets, some red buttons. We used to provide those red button services. If Sky didn't develop them for you and do all the coding and the content, then probably the Interactive TV Group did at the time. So BBC, all the Children In Need apps, the multi-screen sports, the Glastonbury multi-screen sports. Not all of it was just developed in-house at the BBC.James Penfold: That took me then to a company called Interaction TV because brands and branded content was becoming very much niche, but certainly a fad at the time, and obviously it's come back in many facets now. I was a commercial director at that company for about four years, which took me to 10, 11 years ago when a colleague, and now my boss, William Van Rest who had joined ITV, picked up the phone and said, "Do you want to come in for a conversation?" And I was lucky enough to literally join ITV.James Penfold: So, probably 20 years after starting my career, always having wanted to work in television, never thinking, "What's my route to being that?" Sadly I'm never going to be in front of a camera, not while Ant and Dec are around and other greats on like that. And there the role, it wasn't defined, which is always, again, a great opportunity where I thrive from. It was about classic business development or sales, looking at what the opportunities are, "Where aren't we making use of the assets that ITV might have?" ITV was absolutely just coming off the back of a transformation where the regions, all the various regions, Granada, HTV, Meridian, London Carbon, LWT, were all combining in to become under one brand for once.James Penfold: And so that journey began. And the team at first was called Brand Extension, which I think was really simple, did what it said on the tin, which was literally, if there's a brand that would have intellectual property that ITV has, owns or makes, what could we be doing with it that isn't the core show itself? And that took me into actually working with all the producers who make all of our shows, whether they're in-house or in the ITV Studios group or third parties, to see where there are opportunities. And often there aren't, but every now and again you strike lucky and there is.Kelly Molson: That's such a crazy path to get to where you really wanted to get to. I love hearing how people have got there. And that must be such an exciting thing to do, to have that opportunity to say, "We have this amazing brand that people love; what more do we do with it? How do we make that even more immersive for people? How do we build this into an experience?" What a fantastic role.James Penfold: Yeah, no, I mean I'm one of a great team, and it's been and is an incredible train set to play with. And you don't take any opportunity for granted, and the show must come first, and absolutely respect the IP in that sense. But sometimes it's not always necessarily the show itself, but there's something that happens off the back of that show. Or you feel, "Right, okay, a tour is warranted off the back of this." Whether that's a theatrical tour, whether it's an arena tour, whether there's obviously a set tour opportunity as we change buildings that we own and opportunities present themselves. Or, increasingly now, again with colleagues, the whole app generation, and games and gaming, and the natural brand extension that you might have to the very successful quiz shows that we produce.Kelly Molson: Well, this is one of my first questions really, because essentially, breaking down what you do is you translate big brand IPs into commercial ventures. So it's taking something and making it more than just a TV show.James Penfold: Yeah.Kelly Molson: What qualities does a brand need to have for it to succeed beyond the telly? What are you looking for?James Penfold: Let's see. It helps if it's got a super fan base. I mean, there is always one ... not one rule, something that we certainly began to find over the years. Again, because ITV's been around for 65 years, and it's a commercial broadcaster, but really this notion of brand extension beyond just simple merchandising is something that's only probably looked at in the last 10, 12 years. A super fan base is great. A show that's certainly finding its feet, so second, the third series, so you don't jump at the opportunity too quickly. That's not always the rule, and I'll come back to the big reunion. Broad appeal, longevity, again, that helps because you've got the fan base and it's really aligned itself with that fan base, viewer engagement. Repeatability is obviously a great commercial opportunity because one-offs tend to be expensive, and that's again a very good learning point. And sometimes we do things that are more celebratory about a show, and they're commercial, but ultimately they've not got the rerun factor or the repeat factor.James Penfold: And then a decent amount of context. I think that's another important thing. So with context, that could be timing in the sense of an anniversary. A talent anniversary, a show anniversary, or related events, so a season in the year where it's just summer festivals, or even just like the exhibitions field where certain things happen in spring and Easter and you think, "Do you know, God, that really resonates with what we do as a show?" And that was a really good example when we took This Morning to the NEC for three years running because as a show it lends itself, it is live, it lends itself to an audience. And you think of nature as a news and consumer affairs show, if you think of what the subject matter is, the broad base of it all, then God, you don't even need to think what the floor plan of the exhibition is, and you don't even really need to change from what people already do for exhibitions. You're just layering our IP onto it. So that's an easy one.Kelly Molson: Some of the things we're talking about today are what you're involved in terms of TV shows and real-life visitor experience. So we've got Coronation Street The Tour, we've got the Emmerdale Village Tour, and again, we'll mention the Big Reunion, there's been various tours and live experiences that have spun out of existing TV shows as well. But then you've also got something brand new that's launching this year, which I'm not going to mention just yet, we're going to keep the suspense, we'll talk about that a little bit later. What are the most successful formats that you find translate from the telly to real-life experiences?James Penfold: So I suppose the obvious ones, and this isn't unique to ITV, but certainly, it's about Mass Market big entertainment, stuff that appeals to the broadest audience; so with Syco and Fremantle, X Factor was an obvious tour in its day, at the height of unknown people becoming music talents, celebrities, recording artists, and then going on tour. You have it with the BBC, and they still do it with Strictly. With ourselves again, BGT, Britain's Got Talent, absolutely lends itself to scalability, and scalability leads to commercial success, and it leads itself to repetition. But everything has a life cycle.James Penfold: For ourselves, purely on your own, Saturday Night Takeaway. I've talked about anniversaries; Ant and Dec. What are we? Five or six years ago now it was their 20th anniversary in the industry, they wanted to do something, we'd actually spotted the opportunity; why are Ant and Dec not on tour? Well, there are many reasons. They're very busy and not everybody wants to be on tour the whole time. But the Saturday Night Takeaway show, it's just mass-market entertainment, and it's a show that's so professionally produced that when it airs as a live TV show if you arrived as an audience member, you don't have to arrive hours and hours and hours beforehand. You're slotted into your seats. There might be a few hits done to record some interim piece, some inter-show pieces that play out in the ads or links to that, but then you're straight onto the show. And the 90 minutes you see in the TV audience is the 90 minutes you get at home. God, if you're in that audience, there's a live buzz to it. So, taking that to an arena tour, 30 dates, matinees and evenings, 15, 16 days with the boys on tour around the country, absolutely lent itself. And hats off to colleagues in my team who helped to deliver that. The production company, ITV Entertainment and ITV Studios Entertainment, and of course working with Live Nation as a promoter. So there’s a great marry of partnerships.James Penfold: Big Reunion, again, that's the one, I would say, where it didn't need to be into its 10th series, it didn't need to be coming back like Saturday Night Takeaway was doing after a bit of a hiatus. That was, "Okay, it's been certainly 10 years since we've seen a lot of these acts in arenas or in larger-scale theatres. What have they gone on to do?" Michael Kelpie and Potato, one of the ITV labels, had had success with bringing back Steps for Sky, and they've made that format. I've looked at that format and there was an obvious journey there. And then it was, "Okay, how does ITV do that?" Well, we do it on the scale, so why bring back just one band? Why not let's bring back five every series? And we did two series because basically, there were about 15 real acts that when we thought about it and looked at chart successes and also their back story, what they've gone on to do and where they all are now, we didn't even have to air the first episode. And Twitter was really a thing by then and it was like, "Well, obviously there's going to be a tour." I can assure you there wasn't going to be a tour.Kelly Molson: Oh, so the public requested that? It wasn't the plan to start with?James Penfold: Well, there was a kind of concept. When you work with that many artists and that much talent and its confusing schedules, you think, "Okay, this could lend itself to be but let's be ready, waiting in the wings," but consumer demand, instant feedback. And then, by picking the right partnerships, you've got to be able to move quickly on those sorts of opportunities. And they don't often come along in that way.Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's fabulous. I mean, that show, for me, was really like reliving my childhood, because I'm of a certain age.James Penfold: Much younger than me.Kelly Molson: Thank you. I doubt that very much though. But I was into a lot of those bands at the time, on some level, and it just brilliant watching what they'd gone on and done, and then trying to get them back into shape to do the routines and stuff. It was so funny and so interesting.James Penfold: Kelly, I'm in the exact same situation as you. Don't think I'm not. As somebody in an 18-year-old apprenticeship, or working in and around Soho as I did, because that was where my apprenticeship was based, it was based in the West End of London, love pop music; if you'd ever said you'd then be working with those individuals, sitting on a couch, sometimes on short journeys, sometimes on long journeys, and sometimes in the craziest situations. Well, the show was playing itself out, and of course, the stories were, and then we were getting to take them on tour at the time. So yeah, no, you don't get many opportunities like that, and I'm ever so grateful.Kelly Molson: Fantastic experience for you. So, with the TV, what's interesting is you've obviously got a captive audience with the TV, and it was really interesting to hear how that audience demand kind of spurred ... there was obviously a little idea about the tour, but it really spurred it. How do you strike that balance between developing products to reach new audiences? How do you get that right?James Penfold: So I think, importantly for us, and this is done by trial by error, is you've got to, I suppose, look at does it feel right? Is it a natural extension for us, ITV, to be taking? Because we're not a theme park operator, we don't do reparatory theatre, those sorts of things, and there are other parties out there. And one of the principal roles, I suppose what my role's evolved into now, is looking at the licensing side, where there are many entities who might choose to look at something from a slightly less obvious position and take the thought.James Penfold: But from our perspective, it's really looking at ratings, it's looking at social media and how that talent engages with their audience. Do they engage with their audience? Don't they? Are there natural wins? Because of course, people can always involve them and move their careers forward. A really good example is Gino D'Acampo. So I think we did three tours with him. So Gino, incredible talent, was iconic from his season when he was on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, he was obviously becoming a prominent TV chef, he was on This Morning pretty much every week or every other week. And then he starts getting his own show, and that's the test for the commissioners. They're almost like a litmus test; they spot these opportunities and take some of the pain out of it for us. And it was Gino ... I think was Italian Escapes, and that was where he'd go to a different part of Italy.James Penfold: And then we were talking again to a promoter, I think it was clean and Gyro, could he live, who also looked at Ed Sheeran, so talk about different ends of the spectrum for them. And they were talking about theatre shows and the successes they have, and they'd said, "Would Gino be interested?" And there was a quick conversation to be had, "If the talents are interested, then great." Of course, he was. And for him, it suits his purpose, because there he is, having done I'm a Celebrity, having done some TV chef shows, having done This Morning, and now with his own Italian Escapes, but what does he actually stand for? And he wants to evolve his career and put himself differently. So I'd like to think three sellout tours in theatres, 1500, 2000 seats a night, which we were told we were doing well at because we're doing 14 nights a run. And it wasn't just Gino who goes on stage and cooks, because that would have been obvious. It's Gino who goes on stage and does what he does best, which is to engage with the audience. The cooking almost becomes auxiliary to the evening.James Penfold: And then, quickly really, we learned that the audience ... it becomes almost a 50/50 divide. 50% of them were there because they wanted some cooking advice or to hear his anecdotes about Italian Escapes and what it's like to be on the road and cooking the food of his homeland, and 50%, of course, enjoy him because he was suddenly an overnight success in Celebrity Juice. And that audience wanted quite a different thing. And of course, Gino being Gino, he would play to the Celebrity Juice audience, and it made for an unpredictable but incredibly entertaining show. The first tour, it was fairly locked down in what they produced and what it would be and what the format would be. Number two and three, "You go for it. You know what you want to do. As long as you pitch it correctly to the audience as to what they're going to be getting," so Live and Unplugged was tour number two, "Then you've got success."James Penfold: Another good example is, I suppose, This Morning Live. So there we'd been approached by Media 10, the guys who deliver Grand Designs and the Ideal Home Show for a number of years. In fact, for probably nearly about eight or nine years. And they hit us when it was right to have a conversation, because I'd thought, "This is madness?" I'd be challenged; "Why aren't we doing festivals? Why isn't ITV more involved with festivals?" Because you had the Good Food Program for the BBC, you had The Clothes Show historically being such a success.Kelly Molson: Yeah, it is.James Penfold: And in truth, we have always been very successful in the daytime, and I think with This Morning, it was really ... well, we looked at all the shows, so Good Morning Britain, Lorraine, This Morning, and Loose Women, and could you take them all on the road, and would there be an exhibition? And then you start getting into the realities of cost, of logistics, of actually the quite disparate audiences that do come across those four different shows and what they want to engage with. And we quickly settled on This Morning, and then just simply This Morning Live, in that it has cooking in it, it has health issues, it does fashion, it does entertainment. And ultimately, at the heart of it are Phil and Holly, or Eamonn and Ruth at the time. And we learned very quickly that we were taking the show on the road whilst we had a replacement presenter team in London. So you'd have Phil and Holly in Birmingham and Eamonn and Ruth in the studio, or vice versa. They'd hand to each other. Great segments of the show were able to be done from the NEC.James Penfold: Yes, there were costs involved, but to us, that was more of a marketing vehicle. It worked really well for Media 10, because they absolutely know how to deliver a live exhibition. And from a Stand's perspective, and from all those consumer brands that want to sell to our audiences who would normally take advertising slots in those shows anyway, it was a no brainer for them to want to attend. And it was on for four days a week every year, 40 to 50,000 people attending over those four days.James Penfold: And then you get into the great hurdles of, "Oh my God, it's almost too successful in terms of capacities." And fans being more than just, I suppose, the typical ticket buyer and visitor. Everyone wants to meet the talent. And so meet and greets, I think that became a whole performance item in itself.Kelly Molson: So, a huge success. You can see that the formats work, you've got huge engagement from people, and then a global pandemic comes along and kind of smashes us all in the face. I mean, it's affected obviously your plans and things that you've got in fruition quite extensively; how has it affected you and how have you tried to overcome some of those challenges this year?James Penfold: Yeah. So if we look back to this time this year, or actually go back a further two, three weeks, when the UK government was still slightly in denial of the nature of this pandemic-Kelly Molson: I think we all were, weren't we? Because I think we were watching the news going, "Oh, it's all happening in Italy, isn't it? Oh yeah, that looks bad."James Penfold: Yes, the broad public were, but don't forget, ITV is a stakeholder in ITN, so we produce Channel Four News, Channel Five News and ITN News, the three variants, different editorial flavours. So I don't think you could avoid it from that point of view. And I'm based in Gray's Inn Road. Well, I was based in Gray's Inn Road, which is where the news studios are, so I think there was a real feeling there, most importantly about just hand sanitisers introducing themselves.James Penfold: But the thing came to was three weeks out of not even lockdown, us beginning to talk about it, so probably we're talking the back end of February. I was approached by my then division director to say, "At a board level, we think we need to curtail or stop set tours." So the set tours of Coronation Street and the Emmerdale Village Tour. Both were external sets, although there were some interiors to be seen, as in interior sets on the Coronation Street set. And that is principal because, first and foremost, we're a broadcaster and a producer of content, a producer of successful TV shows. These serial dramas have been going last year, 60 years for Corrie, and this year we're celebrating 45 years for Emmerdale.James Penfold: And so hearts and minds, which is a phrase that's very well known now within the business, is looking after staff wellbeing. And staff wellbeing is, therefore, the actors, the talent, all the production staff, all those many people that come on board. So, quickly the sets began to lockdown, and a wrapper was put around the productions to enable them to come on production for as long as they could. That wasn't feasible from the moment the national lockdown happened, and we had to then wait and work with health and safety committees and other people, and with the government, to work out what the safe way through production was.James Penfold: So from my perspective, it was, "Please turn off tours." And we were just starting the season. And we had loads of pre-bookings across Emmerdale, and we had loads of booking across Coronation Street. And of course, we'd just recruited our seasonal workers in the sense of our tour guides for that year, many who come back each year and have other roles when the tours aren't operated at weekends. So I think it was straight away onto the phones with Emmerdale, our partner, Continuum Group, Continuum Attractions, who will work with on many tours and attractions. And obviously, from their perspective, there was a quite rightful debate, "Are we jumping the gun and doing this too soon?" Because they weren't seeing that advice in the tourism market for their attractions. But ours was, "No, this is what we need to do." And we didn't want to let consumers down at the last minute, because with Corrie certainly, people travel quite a distance across the country to come to those weekends. They book hotels in advance, they book transport in advance, and so then it really is about you're just going into a situation of customer management.James Penfold: So there it was a case of, "Listen, sorry, we need to cancel down tours. Obviously, refunds were immediately available if you wanted them, or you can basically move to hold a voucher and we'll contact you as soon as." So that's a complete curtailment of that business, and it became then a reality that even with unlock-down, lockdown, over the backend of summer, that again the situation was even just worse. Think of where we are now in winter. So autumn and the end of summer last year, everyone was feeling great in the UK, and around most of the world. Some had fitted in summer holidays or done stay-cations and things like this. So again, from a consumer point of view, it's all about proactively managing the comms to them.James Penfold: But at the same time, for us, because we don't have a lot to say on this because we're not a true classic digital attraction, just enough communication where you're engaging, giving the consumers what they need to know. Of course, at all opportunities, offering refunds. When we began to realise, "Do you know what? We aren't going to be opening these in autumn, because if anything the pandemic's getting worse," and this was even before new variants, it was, "Okay, well we hope to be able to bring this back in in 2021." That's a realisation now that probably that isn't even a reality. And of course, it's incredibly disappointing to the team. Thank God in the early days, when the furlough opportunity was there, we absolutely used it. From a customer point of view, social media, thank God we've got decent outlets to be able to contact customers. And from being a broadcaster with viewer services, we were able to really talk about it's a business for them to help us to get in contact with as many consumers as possible.James Penfold: And even now it's a difficult one because we look to the advice from ALVA, we keep across Blooloop, we listen to your podcast, we talk to experts, we're talking with Continuum every day, and we have health and safety advisers from the tourist market as well. But from a set tours point of view, it just isn't realistic. There is nobody in any of our offices, we all work remotely. All the editing of the shows is pretty much done remotely, incredibly. In the early days of the pandemic, every show was produced remotely. The galleries all became laptops, so editors and directors were sitting at home. And the two teams that make the soaps have done an incredible job of creating cohorts where nobody overlaps, you're in your cohort group, and you move through, based on your plotline, through those cohorts so that you always stay safe. And then you have the people who go on sets, their costumes are already hung out for them, and their makeup they do themselves.James Penfold: And so I suppose the thought on the ITV Studios drama and production side, the thought of even entertaining us being able to welcome the members of the public onto those sets currently is still untenable. So the good news is very exciting plans for next year. What this has given, I suppose, the pandemic, let me come to the positives, is it's given us a time to reflect. We were very lucky six years ago when the old set became available, Coronation Street. The Granada building was sold quite quickly after 55 years of ownership by ITV. It would have just been quickly demolished, but I was like, "No, that can't happen. Let's think about this."Kelly Molson: Sacrilege.James Penfold: Yeah. Well, and also, to the developer who bought it, "When do you need the building by? You've got planning to do, you've got plans to put into council; when do you need it by?" "We need it probably in about 24 months time." So for 18 months, we were able to open that set, and 900,000 people came through that set tour in that period of time. And that's a success. And that felt completely natural.James Penfold: But now when we're working in a different environment, we're part of a living breathing production, a production community, so we're looking at it from a filming perspective and from that visitor perspective. The exciting thing is we are able to look at now how do we make the tours more accessible? Is there technology that can almost enhance them? We've worked with groups like Antenna. We've long resisted audio guides because we love the interpersonal nature of the tour guide, but actually, if you think of the amount of content and archive and things like that, it can actually bring sets to life, and everybody's got a different character they like on those shows, and different memory of the storylines. Some people like the '60s, the '70s, the '80s. Some people remember Emmerdale, and I'm going to say ITV sacrilege when it was called Emmerdale Farm. And so there are those angles to it. And it's given us time to reflect.James Penfold: Completely exclusive to you, where we're building a new building next to Coronation Street in Manchester. The pilings underway. The intention is to have it open by next Easter. What's it going to serve? It's multifaceted because it addresses multiple problems. The scriptwriters and there are about 200 in Corrie, normally meet in hotels and go to conference centres to marry all the plot lines together and to do the timelines. Again, with the cast, with all the principal production team, they'll now be able to haggle on the top floor of this almost event space building. The middle floor will have an exhibition space, which will be used by us from a Coronation Street perspective. And the ground floor will have a 70 seat theatre for those, like me, who believe that people will come back in some form to a similar environment. And we'll have a café and we'll have a retail outlet.James Penfold: So I'm going to call it a visitor reception area, as opposed to them just meeting somewhere in Media City and then we walk them over to the set and take them on the set there. That will allow us to be seven days a week from an experience point of view as people engage with the brand. It really plays for Peel, the landowner of Media City, because there's a brand new tramline that opened ... it was pretty much all whilst we've been in lockdown, that serves the Trafford side of Manchester and is a much faster link into Manchester. There's a stop right by ourselves and the Imperial War Museum, so there'll be that stop. There'll be a café there that which I say will provide to. So that's playing to an opportunity, that if we'd not had the pandemic, would have taken quite a lot longer because we've been able to do stuff when the set's been closed, when the filming hasn't happened, and it's a great positive.James Penfold: Something similar is happening with the village for Emmerdale for hopefully the backend of 2022 so that we can get more people into the village and really celebrate the sets and do Q and As and audience with cast and things like that. So yeah, so positives.Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that you've come on and dropped a few little exclusives for us, James. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, many of our listeners are in the attractions world, and they will be completely sympathising with the situation you've been in terms of having to shut down the sets, but it's such a different challenge that you have. I mean, the attractions now, they're planning for their reopening in May time, and are incredibly excited about that and what that looks like, that roadmap. But your roadmap is so much longer because of the logistics of filming, and I hadn't really taken that into consideration at all, how difficult that would be because obviously, you can't have the general public on the sets when you've got to protect the people that are on the sets recording each day. It's a huge challenge.James Penfold: I mean, they're such substantial principle revenue streams, and the most important audience drivers for ITV. The soaps still regularly get between six and eight million, depending on where we are in the storylines, five days a week. And that's incredible in the streaming platform and non-linear broadcast era that we all live within.James Penfold: That said, colleagues within my team who look after our Ninja Warrior brand, in lockdown we started last year with eight licensees and eight sites. By the time we get to the backend of summer, there will be 15 sites, because people are proactively taking and opening sites because they've seen properties becoming available. Previous guests of yours have talked about the nature of retail and leisure finally beginning to merge, which we haven't seen in the UK. It's been prevalent in Asia, very strong in the USA, and to some extent mainland Europe. But that's created a real opportunity. And so there's a real opportunity in that, and obviously those, they're nothing to do with show production, and so they can open, as you're talking about, with these May time scales, and I hope they go on to have really successful years. And whatever sort of restrictions we have in 2021, let's hope 2022 then gives them a full run.Kelly Molson: Yeah. And there's going to be a huge resurgence in people wanting to do things. We're all desperate to get back out and have new experiences because we've been stuck between our four walls for so long. But this brings me to something very exciting, which is the I'm A Celebrity Jungle Challenge. Is it opening this year? Maybe this year? Who knows at the moment? Tell us a little bit about it.James Penfold: I can tell you that based on current government guidelines and what we know of the roadmap, we're absolutely opening this summer. I mean, for me it's very exciting. It's the fruition of a three-year project in a sense, from talking with Peel Holdings, the landowner, to then working with various design companies and settling with Scruffy Dog Productions, and then the exciting part, which we started right back at the start of this podcast, working with the producers of the show. And Richard Cowles, Tom Gould and that ITV entertainment team are genius. I'm A Celebrity is his format, Saturday Night Takeaway is his co-format, Love Island is his format. That team know how to do live programming. And being able to look under the bonnet of what is the essence of I'm A Celebrity if we were going to make it an attraction, has been really exciting.James Penfold: So yeah, Media City, or Quayside Media City I should say, what was the Lowry Outlet, will be opening this summer.Kelly Molson: Oh, I'm so excited. You know, the team, we've already started planning that we'll come and do it as one of our Christmas do adventures because our Christmas do is always a thing. We go and have an experience somewhere. We went and did the Crystal Maze challenge, and then we'll go for dinner and drinks and stuff. And as soon as I mentioned this, they were like, "That's it. That's the Christmas do."James Penfold: I know, Kelly, I need you there soon. We need those guinea pigs for early summer, so I'll be calling you up.Kelly Molson: All right, we'll bring our Christmas to do forward. That's right, we missed out on one last year, so we'll be there.James Penfold: There are no restrictions on tinsel, so you're welcome.Kelly Molson: Fabulous, because I do love a bit of tinsel. Has COVID changed how you will deliver that visitor experience for that attraction, though? Because I think one of the things that we've been talking about quite a lot with attractions are actually some of the positives, of the visitor experience is better when the capacity has been reduced. So, for example, you want to go and visit the Mona Lisa. Well, on a normal day, if you go and visit the Mona Lisa, there are thousands of people that are doing it with you at the same time, and so that experience is just not what you might have hoped for. But actually, if you did it ... well, not now, but when they're open and you've got that reduced capacity, it's a nicer experience. It's more engaging for you. Maybe people will pay a slightly higher price for that as well. So how has that changed how you open and your strategy?James Penfold: So, obviously, when you design any of these attractions, and again, we work with good partners, and we're not experts. We hold people to flame as to how we want it to look and we want it to be delivered 100% to be true to the format, but you've designed it for this sort of flow, for this capacity, and people use it in this manner. And of course, only when we start getting to the customer testing, which we're pretty much just approaching now, will we see how that happens. Now we layer on the COVID factor, and the COVID factor is exactly what you've said. Probably a little more time in that attraction, yes, reviewing the price for that, but the capacity is being reduced, but then the experience is so much better. I think also all leisure attractions are getting price-sensitive, but I do think, and I hope when you see it ... the layering over the IP of the Jungle Challenge, and whether it's the thematic, and even a safety video from Ant and Dec, through to the gameplay we've put on what would traditionally be a rope and swinging course and a bit of Ninja Warrior in the middle, really does bring value to it. So I think we've got to, and we are, reviewing what that customer experience is.James Penfold: Similarly, on the tours side of things, it's absolutely about capacity. Less people maybe in tour groups, certainly fast-tracking this notion of pre-flow that colleagues have had, which is, "Okay, tour guides are wonderful and they give the as scripted and in the tone of a show version of events," but we know, especially as we look to the younger audiences, that it absolutely is all about the selfie moment, the racing to the bit of the set that you know most. Again, I mentioned characters earlier, so we've got to look at that. And then that looks at, "Okay, well how do we then convey some of the knowledge and depth and years of plot lines, characters, and why things look the way they do? Why the houses aren't as big as real houses would be and all those sorts of things." Then we're looking at the audio guide, or certainly the interactive guide, and how smartphones, that again really have got pretty much mass market penetration now across all age brackets, how we can use those.James Penfold: I think last week somebody raised a really ... so the podcast that aired last week, and I can't recall the chap's name, but oh my God, never did I think we'd be looking back at QR codes. And-Kelly Molson: QR codes; 2020 was the year of the resurgence for them. Who knew that was going to happen?James Penfold: Absolutely. It's like the spectrum of tourism, it's suddenly back.Kelly Molson: I was going to say Atari, but that would super age me.James Penfold: Yeah, no, that was 10 years before me.Kelly Molson: So we're coming to the end of the podcast, but one more question to ask you. But can you let us know what kind of things that we might find in this new attraction? Are there going to be any disgusting eating challenges? Because I feel like that is up there with what people really want to do.James Penfold: Listen, I'm A Celebrity just had its 20th season, even in an amazing cast in Wales, did record audiences, and I know we've got pandemic viewers and that people can't go out, and there are many facets to the show. And so I think this is the first iteration of what you're going to see and what we'd like to do with the I'm A Celebrity brand, working with not just property partners, but also with operator partners that we're currently engaged with. This one is all about the Jungle Challenge and getting stars because, at the heart of the show, you get those stars, and it is for the more physical aspects of it. So you've got to climb 15-meter rock-faces, you've got to zip line across the venue, you've got to do a treetop trail that doesn't have much to support you other than the harness you're clipped to, and so that'll test your heights. There's a spy ride, if you so wish, that you can strap yourself into and travel 20 miles an hour around the rooftop. There's Escape the Jungle, which is our variant on Ninja Warrior. So we've packed a lot into this. And if you want to test, again, your test of heights, there's Leap of Faith, where you go and you jump, you hang onto a cushion for as long as you can before you drop to the ground.James Penfold: Yeah, but don't worry, you're in a safe be like.Kelly Molson: Oh, it's going to be great. I feel super excited about it already, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of our listeners will be booking up tickets as soon as they can. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing that, James.James Penfold: Pleasure.Kelly Molson: We always ask our guests for a book that they would recommend to us, and it can be anything really. I used to always ask ... it was a book that had shaped someone's career, but I think actually just a book that you really love, or one that you would just like to share with our audience would be great.James Penfold: Okey-dokey. Well, I've changed my choice as of this morning, and it's courtesy, because of course, working from home, or even when I work in the office, I've always got ITV on, playing in the background. And a book that I found absolutely charming, and not a lifesaver, but just really resonated with me in this lockdown, being single, working on my own, working on a project quite distanced with a team that's quite disparate around the country, has been The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. Charlie Mackesy.Kelly Molson: Oh gosh.James Penfold: And it comes into mind today because I saw him over my shoulder just because we came on the call because he was on This Morning and it's being made into a movie, which is incredible. An animated movie using his beautiful artwork. And as I understand it, it's going to extend the characters and give some background to those four wonderful subjects. And I just feel, with all that's going on, whether it's headlines in the news this week on any level, whether it regards ITV or not, that you put a bit of love out there and we'll all be good, and we'll get through this storm, as he likes to put it.Kelly Molson: Oh, do you know what? That book has given me so much comfort over the years, and I'm so glad that somebody ... nobody has recommended that book yet, I'm so glad that you chose that one today because it really does sum up what we all need right now. And like I said, for me, it's been a huge comfort on many different levels, and I think it has been a huge comfort for a lot of people through the lockdown as well.James Penfold: Absolutely. And yeah, you can turn to any page of it and there's a quote or a phrase that you can draw something from it. And I think there have been many books prior to that, and I'm not going to bankrupt you as others do, so that's my book.Kelly Molson: Thank you, just the one book. Just remember, I ask for one book, people.James Penfold: Yeah guys, just listen, one book, please. That's all Kelly wants.Kelly Molson: Costs me so much money. Oh, thank you so much, that's a great recommendation. As ever, if you want to win a copy of that book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want James's book," then you will be in with a chance of winning a copy. And you should do that because it is a really lovely book. I'm so glad that there's going to be a film as well, that's really nice.James Penfold: Yeah.Kelly Molson: James, thank you.James Penfold: Can I say thank you, by the way? Because I listen to your podcast every week; fascinating insights helps all of us, and yeah, so I'm really pleased that I was invited on. Thank you.Kelly Molson: Aw, that's very kind. All of our guests have said very lovely things about the podcast and I feel super humbled by it. I actually felt really humbled that you put us in the bracket of ALVA and Blooloop there, who are phenomenal organisations that have been doing brilliant things for attractions throughout this. Thank you, James, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you today. It's been wonderful, so thank you so much for your time.James Penfold: You're very welcome, you take care.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
This bonus podcast episode contains Brian Stelter's entire interview with former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. They discuss the international influence of Rupert Murdoch's media empire; the impact of Murdoch's climate denialism; the growing family divide between brothers Lachlan and James Murdoch; Fox's "imitators in the right wing media ecosystem;" and more. Turnbull says Rupert "has to take responsibility for what he has done." To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
From a hardened criminal turned tournament combatant to a delusional patient of a psychiatrist, and aHarvard graduate who specializes in numerical analysis, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, director,producer, and actor Josh Lawson has brought captivating characters and compelling projects to life on screenfor over a decade, solidifying himself as “one to watch” as not only an actor but as a filmmaker.This year Lawson can be seen starring as rogue mercenary Kano in Warner Bros' action-adventure featurefilm, “Mortal Kombat.” Directed by Simon McQuaid and produced by James Wan (“Aquaman”), the film followsCole Young (Lewis Tan), a young MMA fighter who embarks on a journey to unlock his supernatural abilities tosave his family, and stop the evil powers of the Outworld. During his quest he aligns himself with experiencedwarriors; Kano (Lawson), Liu Kang, and Kung Lao, as they prepare to stand with Earth's greatest champions ina high stakes battle for the universe. “Mortal Kombat" will be released simultaneously in theaters worldwide,and on HBO Max April 16, 2021.In addition to “Mortal Kombat,” Lawson will return to comedy in the indie feature “Long StoryShort” (StudioCanal). The film, which Lawson penned, directed, and stars in, tells the story of a man namedTeddy who wakes up the morning after his wedding to discover that every few minutes he's jumping forward tothe next year of his life. “Long Story Short” will debut in Australia on February 11, 2021. Lawson will also staropposite Simon Baker and Yael Stone in the upcoming drama “Blaze” (Causeway Films) which is currently inpost production.An accomplished writer and director, in 2018 Lawson was nominated for his first Academy Award in the BestLive Action Short Film category, for “The Eleven O'Clock.” The short film, which Lawson directed, wrote, andstarred in entertained audiences as they watched a delusional patient of a psychiatrist believing he is actuallythe psychiatrist. The film spent nearly two years screening at festivals, gaining traction and rave reviews whileshowcasing Lawson's unique brand of comedy.In 2014 Lawson made his directorial debut with “The Little Death,” which he concurrently wrote, and starred in.The film, which tells the story of the secret lives of five suburban couples living in Sydney, was met with criticalacclaim, winning the Audience Award, Narrative Spotlight at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival, the AudienceAward, Open Horizons at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, and procuring dozens of nominations at the AustralianAcademy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards, the Australian Film Critics Association Awards, theAustralian Writers' Guild, the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards, and The São Paulo International FilmFestival. Additional film credits for Lawson include starring as James Murdoch in Lionsgate's 2019 dramafeature “Bombshell” opposite Margot Robbie, Nicole Kidman, and Charlize Theron, “Anchorman 2: The LegendContinues” (Paramount Pictures) opposite Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, festival darling “BecomingBond” (Delirio Films, Hulu) and “The Campaign” (Warner Bros) alongside Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis.On the television front Lawson is best known for his starring role as Doug Guggenheim on Showtime's awardwinning, critically acclaimed series “House of Lies.” For five seasons Lawson captivated audiences as thebrilliant, quintessential math geek Doug, alongside Academy Award nominee Don Cheadle, Kristin Bell, andBen Schwartz. Lawson also recently appeared on the hit NBC comedy series “Superstore” as Tate.Lawson was born and raised in Brisbane, and attended St. Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace. He graduatedfrom the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and studied in Los Angeles at The Second City, The Groundlings,ACME Comedy Theatre and I.O. West. While working in film and television keeps Lawson busy, he recentlytook on the title of poet, publishing his first book of poetry entitled Struggling Heartist (March 2020). Lawsonpublished his debut children's book Shoo Grumpers Shoo! in 2018, and will release “The InterNOT” later thisyear. Lawson currently splits his time between Queensland and Los Angeles, and enjoys traveling the worldwith his dog, Moose.Follow Josh on social media: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thatjoshlawson/Follow The Story Box on Social MediaINSTAGRAM ► - https://www.instagram.com/thestoryboxpodcast/ TWITTER ► - https://twitter.com/jay_fantom FACEBOOK ► - https://www.facebook.com/thestoryboxpodcast WEBSITE ► - https://thestoryboxpodcast.com/SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE! Apple Podcast ► - https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-story-box/id1486295252 Spotify ► - https://open.spotify.com/show/7h8Qv3r2ZV29f7ktJOwmgM?si=FXxYC1JFSHesBv7_d1WtNQ WATCH HERE:YouTube ► - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheStoryBox If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to YouTube & Apple Podcasts, and leave a 5-star positive rating and review over on Apple Podcasts. Share it around with your friends and family.FREE MINDVALLEY COURSES: VISHEN LAKHIANI Learn the 3 keys to transformative learning with Vishen's FREE Mindvalley masterclasshttps://mval.li/?a=9745&c=2806&p=r&s1MARISA PEER Rapid Transformational Hypnotherapy for AbundanceDiscover the 5 steps to reprogram your mind for abundance with Marisa's FREE Mindvalley masterclasshttps://mval.li/?a=9745&c=2707&p=r&s1 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Hi dear listeners,On today’s show we had to talk about Netflix’s Emily in Paris. We looked at this round-up of French critics’ opinions on The Guardian and this Vogue letter to the fictional Emily by a Canadian living in Paris. And this Instyle piece written by Sam Reed rips into Emily’s social media tactics.Here is Rihanna’s public apology and here is the Insider article that will fill you in on food publication Bon Appėtit’s drama.Jasmine recommends an interview with media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s son, James who resigned from News Corp this year, titled ‘James Murdoch, the Rebellious Scion’ by Maureen Dowd for The New York Times. Maggie recommends Pandora Sykes’ book, How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right? This book of essays explores modern millennial life in all its intricacies. Our jingle, editing and production is by India Raine. You can email us at cultureclubmail@gmail.com, find us on Instagram at @cultureclubpod, or on our personal accounts at @jasmineeskye and @yemagz.Sending love,Maggie & Jasmine x
What might the economic and social upheavals of 2020 mean for climate policy in Australia? For this Fifth Estate conversation, host Sally Warhaft brings together Judith Brett and Marian Wilkinson – two writers who have undertaken in-depth research into the resource economy and Australian climate scepticism. Brett's recent Quarterly Essay, 'The Coal Curse', traces the history of Australia's resource dependence and its impact on our political culture. Wilkinson's book, The Carbon Club, explores the loose but powerful alliance of Australian media, mining and political figures whose scepticism has hindered meaningful climate policy development for decades. There are signs, though, that the stalemate might be starting to shift. Amid widespread criticism during the bushfires earlier this year, Scott Morrison began to soften his climate rhetoric, speaking of ‘adaptation' and ‘resilience'. James Murdoch spoke out against News Corp's climate scepticism in January and, more recently, dramatically resigned from the board. Will the seismic impacts of Covid-19 set us back into our entrenched economic habits, or could 2020 mark a turning point? #TWCFifthEstateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week we have Zenith with the Bamford x Blackbadger El Primero. We have a release from Revolution with Hanhart and one from Ming with their diver. More on James Murdoch and Hour Universe A.K.A Baselworld and we talk microbrands with AutoDromo and Monta
Harappa is an ed-tech startup founded in 2018, which enables professionals to learn life skills at scale, leveraging digital learning technologies and online pedagogical tools. The startup offers a curriculum of ‘5 Habits' and ‘25 Skills', which is delivered through an online-first approach. It recently completed a round of funding from James Murdoch-led Lupa Systems. Questions discussed on the podcast: *Q. What is you take on formal education in India? *Q. Do you believe the Indian education industry is in need of a major overhaul? *Q Bootstrapping is not easy you have to be very careful about the outflow of money, any tips here? *Q. Ed-tech is booming! Wherever you see there is a webinar, and there is a lot of competition in the market. How do you manage to stay ahead of the curve? *Q. Ed-tech is a billion-dollar industry, however, there are many players. Do you feel the pie is big enough for everyone or the market is getting saturated? *Q. Post-COVID, once schools/colleges will technology still play such a crucial role in education? *Q. What would you say your biggest mistake has been in this industry as an entrepreneur? Or your biggest learning? Follow the Dialogue Room IG page to become smarter https://www.instagram.com/dialogueroom/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dialogue-room/message
Earlier this summer, rumors emerged that a member of the Murdoch media dynasty—most (in)famous for building the far-right Fox News—may be sniffing around a major investment in the MCH Group, the financially beleaguered parent company of mega-fair Art Basel. Initial fears that the interested party was ultra-conservative family patriarch Rupert Murdoch soon gave way to official news that it was instead his son James, a billionaire in his own right who has been referred to as "the smart one in the clan." The media scion's interest represented a lifeline for the MCH Group, which had been battered by an extended run of strategic miscues even before this year's global shutdown forced it to begin canceling or postponing its lavish slate of international gatherings. But the prospect of an alliance raised a whole other set of questions: Who exactly is James Murdoch? How similar is he to his climate-change-denying, Trump-supporting father? And why on earth would he want to pump roughly $80 million of his fortune into a Swiss company best known for producing trade fairs for expensive artworks and watches? On this week's episode of the Art Angle, Artnet News art business editor Tim Schneider joins Andrew Goldstein to dissect the MCH Group's rocky last three years, the controversial career arc of Murdoch the younger, and how his influence as the new "anchor shareholder" could reshape the future of Art Basel.
Earlier this summer, rumors emerged that a member of the Murdoch media dynasty—most (in)famous for building the far-right Fox News—may be sniffing around a major investment in the MCH Group, the financially beleaguered parent company of mega-fair Art Basel. Initial fears that the interested party was ultra-conservative family patriarch Rupert Murdoch soon gave way to official news that it was instead his son James, a billionaire in his own right who has been referred to as "the smart one in the clan." The media scion's interest represented a lifeline for the MCH Group, which had been battered by an extended run of strategic miscues even before this year's global shutdown forced it to begin canceling or postponing its lavish slate of international gatherings. But the prospect of an alliance raised a whole other set of questions: Who exactly is James Murdoch? How similar is he to his climate-change-denying, Trump-supporting father? And why on earth would he want to pump roughly $80 million of his fortune into a Swiss company best known for producing trade fairs for expensive artworks and watches? On this week's episode of the Art Angle, Artnet News art business editor Tim Schneider joins Andrew Goldstein to dissect the MCH Group's rocky last three years, the controversial career arc of Murdoch the younger, and how his influence as the new "anchor shareholder" could reshape the future of Art Basel.
First, he quit the family business and now James Murdoch owns one of the most prestigious and financially struggling art events. Bernadine Brocker Wieder, CEO of Vastari 00:25 #ArtBasel #JamesMurdoch #Art
Hour 1 * Jeff Bezos Wants to Turn Shopping Malls into Amazon Warehouses. * Poll: Majority Pennsylvania Voters Believe ‘Secret Trump Voters’ in Their Communities. * Trump Supporters Are Just Surviving The Cancel Culture. * James Murdoch, Wife Give $1.23M to Biden Campaign. * Klayman: Biden Is Being “Blackmailed”: Literally! Black male leaders say Biden will lose election if he doesn’t choose Black woman as VP. * Washington State Teens Honored for Saving Deputy’s Life. * 9-Year-Old Boy Saves Father Who Fractured Neck in Diving Accident. * Police officer’s ‘good deed’ gets him suspended without pay – Trying to return a lost wallet puts him in hot water. * Sen. Tom Cotton: Google Suppression of Political News Critical of Democrats Is Election Interference. Hour 2 * Kanye West Releases 10-Point Campaign Platform. West called his platform “Creating a Culture of Life,” and cited a Bible verse for each point on his plan. * West said he must “ensure that we always place Americans’ best interest first and foremost in dealing with foreign affairs. We want trust, but we must also verify. We want fair trade, not one-sided deals that hurt American workers.” * Kanye West’s 10-point platform mirrors MAGA; says Dems tried to block candidacy, hired PI to spy on him. * Kanye West Will Appear on Colorado’s Presidential Ballot. * Trump’s cryptic remark prompts prayers for his personal safety – ‘This may be the last time you’ll see me for a while’. * Ty Clevenger, noted, veteran news reporter Ellen Ratner said at a symposium at Embry Riddle University the day after the 2016 election that on the previous Saturday she had spent three hours with Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Ratner told him that Assange disclosed to her that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron, “were responsible for releasing the DNC emails to Wikileaks.” * Julian Assange ordered to testify in Seth Rich case – Fox News fighting family’s claim of peddling conspiracy theory. * NFL players can be fined for church attendance under league’s COVID-19 policy – OK to go to bars to pick up food. * Donald Trump Pursues Low Drug Costs: ‘Big Pharma Doesn’t Mean Anything to Me’. * Las Vegas: Over 223K Mail-In Ballots Bounced as ‘Undeliverable’ in Recent Primary Election. * 1 in 4 Vote-by-Mail Ballots Disqualified in New York City Democrat Primary. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loving-liberty/support
* Jeff Bezos Wants to Turn Shopping Malls into Amazon Warehouses. * Poll: Majority Pennsylvania Voters Believe ‘Secret Trump Voters’ in Their Communities. * Trump Supporters Are Just Surviving The Cancel Culture. * James Murdoch, Wife Give $1.23M to Biden Campaign. * Klayman: Biden Is Being "Blackmailed": Literally! Black male leaders say Biden will lose election if he doesn't choose Black woman as VP. * Washington State Teens Honored for Saving Deputy’s Life. * 9-Year-Old Boy Saves Father Who Fractured Neck in Diving Accident. * Police officer's 'good deed' gets him suspended without pay - Trying to return a lost wallet puts him in hot water. * Sen. Tom Cotton: Google Suppression of Political News Critical of Democrats Is Election Interference.
On your travels you meet two twins....one can only tell lies and the other also lies. It's the Barclay Brothers! Dan and Rory scoop out what they can from the lives of the secretive (see: private)twins, from their tangling with island nation governments to the infamous Ritz Hotel Bugging. Other topics include: Ellen Degeneres, American talk show host breakdowns, James Murdoch's resignation, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Intrigue and drama at two of the world's most talked about media companies; James Murdoch has resigned from the family firm, and TikTok faces an ultimatum from President Trump. Also in the show, a new Ofcom report on media viewing trends during the lockdown, and how Condé Nast Traveller and Sunset + Vine have responded to the pandemic. Panel: Melinda Stevens, editor in chief at Condé Nast Traveller, Jeff Foulser, Executive Chairman of Sunset and Vine, Chris Williams, The Sunday Telegraph's business editor, and Yih-Choung Teh, Strategy and Research Group Director at Ofcom Presenter: Amol Rajan Studio engineer: Duncan Hannant Producer: Richard Hooper
Join Craig Hutchison and Damian Barrett for Ep 27.The Sounding Board is all thanks to Drinkwise - Stay safe and if you're choosing to drink, be sure to Drinkwise. You can listen to the new Drinkwise podcast Bounce Back with Dr Andrew Rochford HERE.Join us on Tuesday August 18th at 8.45am (EST) for our REVERSE PRESS CONFERENCE. All you need to do is email your details to thesoundingboard@crocmedia.com and our producer will send you a link to join us on Microsoft TEAMS.SHOW NOTES0.0- Hutchy and Damo discuss the layers of the story surrounding senior AFL.com.au journalist Mitch Cleary who was stood down after re-tweeting about Brooke Cotchin's COVID breach.Did Damo lobby for Mitch behind the scenes? Is the AFL's media arm truly independent? Is any media organisation truly independent?11.45 - Hutchy's opinion on the fundamental issue of the Mitch Cleary tweet. If he had the story he should have filed it via the AFL Newsdesk, not published on Twitter outside of his employer's platform.19.45 – James Murdoch stepped down from the Board of Directors of News Corp. Lack of coverage by News publications.22.45 – Reminiscing about Death Valley and Hutchy's suspension when he was a young journo. It's a shot in the arm for a journalists career. Get a new suit and some decent profile shots.22.30 – Andrew Bogut v Hutchy. Bitter War of Words.30.00 – The Rock getting into XFL34. 00 - Update from Melbourne – now officially in a State of Disaster.36.00 - Question of the Week for Social Status.Leigh Marriot via Twitter asked;"Can you confirm what impact the players wives and families staying in the hubs is having in the salary cap?. NSW, QLD, SA and WA families almost nil, are Victorian clubs taking families into account in salary cap disclosure, as under tax law it has to be a Fringe Benefit"That's our Question of the Week for Social Status. Social Media marketing is more important than ever and if your business needs social media marketing, Social Status are offering fifty 50% off to any Sounding Board listener. Visit their website HERE.39.00 – Allegations about inappropriate behaviour behind the scenes on the Ellen DeGeneres show.40.00 Reverse Press Conference August 18th.42.45 – Condolences to the McGuire family for the loss of Eddie's Mum and Luke Darcy's family after the loss of his father. The Sounding Board is produced, engineered and edited by Jane Nield for Crocmedia.
Today we're discussing the alleged toxicity and potential end of Ellen DeGeneres's talk show, the over 2 million copies of Taylor Swift's 'Folklore" that sold in its first week, Biden's potential running-mate, the Indian schoolgirls who discovered an asteroid headed towards Earth, the teenager in Tampa suspected of hacking high-profile Twitter accounts, the documents revealed proving Bill Clinton visited Epstein's island, Trader Joe's decision not to change label names, James Murdoch's decision to leave the Fox media empire board due to disagreements over editorial content, Hotelier to the Stars' plans to convert some properties to private clubs, what stock splits are and why they made the Apple stock soar this weekend, economic trends during the coronavirus epidemic, and more. Smartest Person in America – Group Chat News Have we gotten too soft as a generation? Revisiting the wiggler conversation and the potential ban of TikTok in the US. [2:54] The old age of Hollywood: The Ellen DeGeneres story. [21:04] Taylor Swift’s BIG win. [27:32] We have a genius on our team finally?! [29:54] Who will Joe Biden’s running mate be? [34:26] Epstein documents revealed. Who is going down? [38:44] Group Chat Ads. [45:04] Trader Joe’s putting their foot down. [46:16] In the 2020 version of Succession...James Murdoch quits board of News Corp. [48:46] Whatever business you are in, it is time to rethink. [51:15] What is a stock split and what is the strategy behind it? [56:07] Five charts illustrating U.S. economic trends amid the coronavirus pandemic. [58:50] Related Links/Products Mentioned Ellen DeGeneres reportedly wants to end her 17-year-old daytime talk show 'The show feels done' Lea Thompson Responds to Brad Garrett’s Ellen DeGeneres Comments: ‘True Story’ Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ sells over 2M copies in first week Indian schoolgirls discover asteroid moving toward Earth Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack that targeted high-profile accounts Biden’s Top Running-Mate Contenders Emerge as He Enters Key Week Jeffrey Epstein hosted Bill Clinton on his private island, documents reveal Trader Joe's says no to changing ethnic-sounding label names Did Rupert Murdoch's son quit his media empire because it isn't woke enough? James Murdoch QUITS board of News Corp Hotelier to the Stars Plans to Make Some Properties Private Clubs Stock splits pay off--on the rare occasions they occur Five charts illustrating U.S. economic trends amid the coronavirus pandemic Group Chat News (@groupchatpod) • Instagram Behind Closed Doors Melrose Street Journal
HEADLINES: NBCU Entertainment Chief creating Toxic Culture? PAR Scream reboot adds Cox to Arquette. CONDE gets new Entertainment chief from DISNEY+. PEACOCK orders Craig Robinson script to series project. BAFTA TV winners list. NETFLIX renews, ends MONEY HEIST. James Murdoch peace's out from News Corp board. TWITTER hack culprits arrested. MICROSOFT gets 45 days to close TIK TOK deal. Latest SIRIUSXM + PANDORA subscriber numbers. Major Music labels WFH through 2020. Virtual TCA begins. IMMIGRATION NATION Netflix docuseries trailer. Buy ATHLETIC BREWING here. Follow THE WAKEUP on LinkedIn here. Email me at Wakeupodcast@gmail.com
Plus... Many Fox viewers changed the channel during John Lewis funeral; pandemic disinformation is wasting precious time; how the AP is prepping to cover 'election week' in 2020; 'Election Meltdown' author on Trump's threat to democracy; why was Homeland Security collecting 'intel' on journalists?; James Murdoch breaks with family's media empire; how news outlets can empower voters in 2020. Susan Glasser, Erin Geiger Smith, Richard Hasen, Sally Buzbee, TJ Ducklo and Errol Louis join Brian Stelter. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
James Murdoch, scion of News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch, resigned from the company’s board of directors today, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content.” We’ll spend a little time today talking about what that means for Murdoch’s older brother, Lachlan, and the family’s media empire. Plus, somehow “Make Me Smile” keeps getting sadder. TGIF. As always, you’ll find links to everything we talked about on the episode page at makemesmart.org. You’ll also find a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel, so you never miss a live taping.
James Murdoch, scion of News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch, resigned from the company’s board of directors today, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content.” We’ll spend a little time today talking about what that means for Murdoch’s older brother, Lachlan, and the family’s media empire. Plus, somehow “Make Me Smile” keeps getting sadder. TGIF. As always, you’ll find links to everything we talked about on the episode page at makemesmart.org. You’ll also find a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel, so you never miss a live taping.
Welcome to East West Hurricane! 🌪We update you on the most essential news from Asia in tech, media, and business—the things you need to know that you probably haven’t heard in Western media.Follow us on Twitter and Instagram! ⚡️Pinduoduo’s Latest Adventures in Livestreaming, Real Estate 🏘E-Commerce livestreaming in China is a wild beast that has been growing steadily over the past couple of years and accelerating because of the coronavirus. Many people don’t realise that the realm of products that are sold over livestreams in China is incredibly broad. Let’s take a look at some of the latest things sold on Chinese social commerce platform Pinduoduo.On July 13, 600 apartments in the Chinese city of Zhongshan were sold over a four hour livestream, marking Pinduoduo’s first venture into selling real estate on their e-commerce platform. The event got 720,000 views and featured special discounts that viewers could claim if they made the purchase during the livestream. Viewers were able to place refundable deposits and then have two weeks after the livestream to visit the apartments in person. Real estate agents and property developers have been using Chinese livestreaming platforms to sell apartments since the beginning of this year and this will likely continue.Indian Fantasy Sports Startup Dream11 Restarts $200 Million Fundraise 🏏Dream 11, an Indian Fantasy Sports Startup, has announced their intention to raise $200 Million on a $2 Billion valuation. The company had initially suspended the fundraise for a few weeks due to the coronavirus but has now found a new set of investors to reach their target. Dream11 is in the final stages of their restarted talks with the original investors and a set of new investors, including US private equity firm TPG, Indian private equity firm Kedaara Capital, and James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems.Many people are speculating how the coronavirus will change the startup funding landscape in both the short and medium term. This latest investment, after a period of pause, should inspire more confidence in the startups currently looking for investors. Also—fantasy sports, compared to many other verticals, is something that will benefit from the changes in consumer behaviour thanks to the coronavirus. The Indian online gaming industry, under which fantasy sports would be categorised, is expected to nearly triple in size over the next four years.Positive Updates for China’s Film Industry 🎬The film industry has been hit pretty hard by the coronavirus. As I wrote in a previous update, 13,000 Chinese film and TV companies have gone out of business this year. Cinemas were briefly reopened in March, but then shut down again when cases started rising. There may be a silver lining, however. The China Film Association has just announced that cinemas in “low-risk” areas could now begin reopening as of this week.Under the “low-risk” definition, the vast majority of cities in China would qualify as fitting within this criteria. There are additional requirements to the reopening, as theatres can only operate at around 30% seating capacity. Customers will have their temperatures taken before entering and wearing masks will be mandatory for anyone in the theatre. Perhaps the most devastating new rule is that food and drink is not allowed to be served.Charging people for concessions is the highest margin, most profitable part of a theatre. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this would drastically change the entire business model of a movie theatre. We should look out to see how Chinese cinemas are able to adapt and figure out other ways to monetise their customer base. What the Chinese cinemas experiment with may end up being adopted by other traditional theatre chains across the world. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eastwesthurricane.substack.com
Matthew Anderson is the CMO of Roku one of the most popular manufacturers of streaming set top boxes and Smart TV operating systems. Matthew has been the CMO of Roku since 2013 and has overseen the growth of Roku by creating a purpose-driven software for streaming content and a platform for advertisers to reach consumers. In this conversation, Matthew talks about how his hopscotch career path helped him shape his leadership, how he views what the consumers want to create the best product for everybody, and the advice James Murdoch gave him to help his outlook on the media landscape. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Much of the ad industry's ways of measuring eyeballs on the internet is flat-out wrong, according to Joe Marchese, co-founder and CEO of Attention Capital. "Every Q4, there's more ad impressions in the digital world," Marchese said on the Digiday Podcast. "Do you think more people are watching more ads in Q4, or do you think we're just trying to shove them in there?" Attention Capital sees an opportunity in all that bloat and fabrication. It's a holding company with a portfolio that so far includes Girlboss and Tribeca Enterprises -- organizer of the Tribeca Film Festival -- which it invested in alongside James Murdoch. Those may seem like unrelated assets, but they fit Marchese's standard as companies that have built confidence in their ability to "curate some aspect of the world," he said. "In this world where trust is eroding, the curator brands kind of become king." Marchese joined the Digiday Podcast to discuss his other criteria for brands worth investing in, why Wirecutter is the model to beat and the attention you get when the word "capital" is part of your company name.
Early JFK researcher, area of expertise is the role of the media, New York Times, CBS, Time Inc, John McCloy Murdoch hacking scandal, Watergate analogy, revelations getting bigger and bigger, broke two years ago United States connection, going to take Murdoch and PM Cameron down, Chris Christie, News America, Floor Graphics Carlucci, I will destroy you, hacked by News America, settled for 29 million dollars, multiple cases 500 million and 125 million dollar settlements, violations of the law, mysterious deaths Margaret Thatcher, the Cameron government, head of Scotland Yard resigned, corridors of power The Weekly Standard, helped launch the Iraq war, Fox News, Murdoch became a US citizen, still run from Australia Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, talking about it now, tip of the iceberg, news is the political arm of the Murdoch empire People are afraid of Murdoch, whistle blower, engaged in fraud, FCC waiver, they rolled out the red carpet Frank Sturgis, Marita Lorenz, Murdoch, inherited a newspaper from his father, started Hard Copy, tabloid television James Murdoch lied, Rupert may throw his son under the bus He knew everything going on with his newspapers, he likes thugs, death of a Chief of Police, Metro Media Bill O'Reilly, host of Inside Edition, a clone of Hard Copy, had leaked CIA documents about Garrison At one point he had a sense of outrage, what a nut-case, money does strange things to people
Kathryn Murdoch opens up about her famous Fox News-owning in-laws, the existential threat of climate change, why politics is so broken — and why she plans on spending $100 million to fix it.
We hebben het over een tweet die volgens Thomas Muntz meer aandacht had moeten krijgen. Welke tweet en waarom? Daar heeft Muntz wel een verhaal bij! Aan tafel zitten Thomas Muntz, Elske Schouten en Spraakmaker Eelke Blokker. Ook hebben we het over een opvallende oproep van James Murdoch, zoon van mediamagnaat Rupert Murdoch. Hij noemt de manier waarop Australische journalisten in dienst van mediabedrijf News Corp van Murdoch over de bosbranden berichten ‘enorm schadelijk’. Is dit een generatiekloof? Hoe kijken onze mediakenners hier naar? En het trok aardig wat aandacht deze week: De actie onder de hashtag #TouEem (Toe even, doe ff normaal). Met het oplezen van grove Facebookreacties op de Grote Markt in Groningen wilde RTV Noord dat hun Facebookpagina weer veiliger werd om op de discussiëren. De reacties op de Facebookpagina zijn vaak grof en met scheldwoorden. Is dit herkenbaar? Hoe gaan ze hier bijvoorbeeld bij NRC Handelsblad mee om? Heeft Muntz hier ervaring mee met zijn persoonlijke stukken en wat doet hij met bepaald commentaar? Tot slot: Afgelopen dagen kwam het gevaar dat internet met zich meebrengt ook weer veelvuldig in de publiciteit. Zoals , vanochtend, de toename van cybercriminaliteit in de misdaadcijfers over 2019. Volgens Muntz zijn we nog ‘aan het uitvinden wat het internet nu precies is en wie mensen op internet zijn’.
EU pressures Iran on Nuclear deal in last-ditch bid to save it. James Murdoch criticises father's news outlets for climate crisis denial. Dating apps leak personal data, Norwegian group says. You can subscribe to Five Minute News with your preferred podcast app, ask your smart speaker, or enable Five Minute News as your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing skill. Visit us online at www.fiveminute.newsFive Minute News is an independent production, covering politics, inequality, health and climate - delivering unbiased, verified, and truthful world news, daily. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/fiveminutenews)
Sterling had its biggest day since March on Thursday amid hopes for a Brexit deal, James Murdoch’s new holding company has agreed to buy a minority stake in Vice Media and the US and China are aiming to reach a trade war truce as early as this week. Plus, the FT’s Frankfurt bureau chief Martin Arnold explains how the European Central Bank’s divide over quantitative easing is affecting the global economy. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
TOPICS: The city of Tempe might be introducing co-living spaces for professionals. The Colin Kaepernick Nike ad won an Emmy for Best Commercial. Eddie Money died this past Friday. Lavar Ball calls Lonzo “damaged goods” on their Facebook show. James Murdoch says that his father, Fox News, and other major media outlets are ‘ruining’ America because of how divisive they are. | SEGMENTS | It’s Arguing Time: Who is the most annoying celebrity? Why We Have Hope in the World Today: Bam Adebayo, No Shit + ASU Football.
Musk mocks SEC. SEC apparently does not care. James Murdoch as Tesla Chairman? Please.
In this episode, 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch discusses where he thinks the rapidly shifting entertainment landscape is heading and how social platforms, virtual reality and other technology trends are transforming the future of storytelling. The conversation is moderated by Goldman Sachs' John Waldron. Date: September 11, 2018 This podcast should not be copied, distributed, published or reproduced, in whole or in part, or disclosed by any recipient to any other person. The information contained in this podcast does not constitute a recommendation from any Goldman Sachs entity to the recipient. Neither Goldman Sachs nor any of its affiliates makes any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or any information contained in this podcast and any liability therefore (including in respect of direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage) is expressly disclaimed. The views expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of Goldman Sachs, and Goldman Sachs is not providing any financial, economic, legal, accounting or tax advice or recommendations in this podcast. In addition, the receipt of this podcast by any recipient is not to be taken as constituting the giving of investment advice by Goldman Sachs to that recipient, nor to constitute such person a client of any Goldman Sachs entity. Copyright 2018 Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC. All rights reserved.
Jason Hirschhorn, the CEO and chief curator of Redef, returns to the podcast to talk with Recode's Peter Kafka about media moguls, the virtues of taking time off and how Netflix outsmarted the TV guys. In this episode:02:50 - Viacom and YouTube09:51 - Big media on the internet vs. digital-first DNA11:51 - How Netflix outsmarted the TV guys, part one14:48 - The non-Netflixes and “traditional relationships”17:52 - Should tech companies buy movie/TV studios?23:38 - Sumner Redstone25:48 - The future of Redef28:48 - The Murdochs and Fox News36:35 - James Murdoch not going to Disney41:35 - Amazon and Apple45:42 - How Netflix outsmarted the TV guys, part two48:38 - Streaming music and musicians ditching labels54:51 - It’s okay to take time off58:17 - “When you’re CEO, no one gives a shit.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Conference. Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, says he’s focused on “land[ing] the plane” as Fox plans to merge with Disney in the coming months, but doesn’t expect to be a part of either the merged entity or the remaining Fox properties, such as Fox News, which won’t be sold. Murdoch also talks about the possibility of a competing bid for the company from Comcast, what the pending merger signifies for the larger business ecosystem and how the media and advertising industries can adapt to changing viewer habits. Plus: Should companies fire on-air talent the way ABC fired Roseanne Barr for her tweets? And is the reckoning over #MeToo ever going to end? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
DIS Daily Fix - Your Source for the latest Disney and Universal News
Disney Cruise Line possible considering developing another private island,James Murdoch will not be joining Disney if Fox deal closes, The Walt Disney Company shows revenue and income increases in second quarter earning report, and more on today’s DIS Daily Fix!
James Murdoch of the Alberta Country group The Dunagarees is here to chat about their 5 nominations from the Alberta Country Music Association. The group was just sIgned to an Australian label Social Family Records and will start a tour in Australia in January 2018. You'll hear the group's latest single Anywhere With You produced by legendary Grammy award-winning producer Paul Worley.
Olly Mann is joined by Broadcast Magazine's Peter White and broadcaster and audio producer Ruth Barnes to discuss the week's media news. The panel tackle the big talking points from the Cambridge Media Convention, including the latest on Channel 4 verse the culture secretary, James Murdoch using Brexit to full advantage, and OFCOM tackles the industry's diversity problem. Plus: why the EU might destroy television but save newspapers, the Radio Academy's award nominations are announced and, in the media quiz, we ask if it really is all ‘a sense of proportion'. A PPM production, produced by Matt Hill. Ensure more episodes in the future, by taking out a voluntary subscription: themediapodcast.com/donate Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/themediapodcast. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Sean Hannity took to Twitter Thursday to defend embattled Fox News co-president Bill Shine following a report that suggested Shineâ??s future with the network could be on unsteady ground. â??Gäbe i pray this is NOT true because if it is, thatâ??s the total end of the FNC as we know it. Done. Best Sean,â?? Hannity tweeted, with a link to Gabe Shermanâ??s New York magazine story citing unnamed sources who claimed that Shine has become worried about what he perceives as lack of public support for him from 21st Century Fox leaders Rupert, Lachlan and James Murdoch. Hannity then apologized for inserting a diaeresis into Shermanâ??s name, writing, â??Ha. Gabe sorry about the 2 dots. I couldnâ??t do that again if I tried. Best Sean.â?? Hannity and Shine have a long history at the 21st Century Fox-owned cable-news outlet. Hannity recommended that Fox News hire Shine early in the networkâ??s history, and Shine was an early producer on â??Hannity & Colmes,â?? one of the first primetime programs on the networkâ??s schedule. Hannity also claimed that Shine was was the victim of an internal fox News plot to undermine his leadership, tweeting, â??Somebody HIGH UP AND INSIDE FNC is trying to get an innocent person fired. And Gabe I KNOW WHO it is. Best Sean.â?? He followed up by tweeting #istandwithbill. When other Twitter users expressed confusion as to whether Hannity was supporting Shine or recently departed Fox News host Bill Oâ??Reilly, Hannity tweeted again, â??Iâ??ll change it. #Istandwithshine.â?? A Fox News spokesperson declined to comment on Hannityâ??s Twitter activity. READ: http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/sean-hannity-bill-shine-fox-news-1202401807/ PLUG BOOK: amazon.com/Lies-We-Trust-Politicians-Deceiving/dp/1682612031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489519595&sr=8-1&keywords=ED+BRODOW WEBSITE: brodow.com BIO: Brodow is one of the worldâ??s leading negotiation experts and a staunch advocate of critical thinking. SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt dubbed him â??The King of Negotiators.â?? Forbes Magazine agreed, ranking Ed as one of the nationâ??s top dealmakers. He is the author of six books, including the business classic, Negotiation Boot Camp: How to Resolve Conflict, Satisfy Customers, and Make Better Deals. For two decades, Edâ??s acclaimed Negotiation Boot Camp® seminars have set the standard for â??how to make a dealâ?? in Corporate America. A nationally recognized television personality, Ed has appeared as negotiation guru on PBS, ABC National News, Fox News, Fortune Business Report, and Inside Edition. He is negotiation consultant to some of the worldâ??s most prominent organizations, including Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Learjet, Ritz-Carlton, Starbucks, McKinsey, Philips, Zurich Insurance, the IRS, the GSA, and the Pentagon. As a keynote speaker, Ed has enthralled more than 1,000 audiences in Paris, Milan, Athens, Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok, Sao Paulo, Bogota, and New York with his charismatic stage presence, infectious humor, and practical ideas. In previous lives, Ed was a U.S. Marine Corps officer, corporate sales executive, and Hollywood movie actor. FACEBOOK: facebook.com/ed.brodow TWITTER: @edbrodow
James Murdoch, son of Rupert, has returned to Sky as Chairman. It comes four years after he resigned from the position amid the phone hacking scandal, which led to the closure of the Murdoch-owned newspaper News of the World. Since last July, James Murdoch also served as chief executive of 21st Century Fox, Sky's biggest shareholder. Andrea Catherwood is joined by Sarah Ellison of Vanity Fair, who has closely followed the Murdoch media dynasty, and also Ashley Hamilton Claxton, from Royal London Asset Management, a shareholder in Sky, who calls the reappointment 'inappropriate.' Guardian News & Media, the publisher of the Guardian, is to cut running costs by 20% - a little over £50m - in a bid to break even within three years and support future growth. In the words of its Chief executive David Pemsel: 'We need to be an agile, lean and responsive organisation.' Ian Burrell, Assistant Editor & Media Editor of The Independent newspaper joins Andrea to discuss whether the Guardian's model of free content online, amid a climate of reduced print advertising revenues & the rise of ad-blocking, is a sustainable one. Africa's internet penetration will reach 50 percent by 2025 and there are expected to be 360 million smartphones, according to data from McKinsey Consultants. Today, journalist Ismail Einashe is discussing what impact new media in Africa is having on journalism, at a talk for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. He joins Andrea after the talk. Also joining her is author Anjan Sundaram, whose new book "Bad News" examines press freedom in Rwanda. Together they discuss whether the growth of new media in Africa is a way to improve democracy, or whether it's a mechanism for greater state control? Producer: Katy Takatsuki.
Blackie’s back! Whenever Blackie & the Rodeo Kings roll through town, it’s cause for celebration, so much of today’s show is dedicated to that glorious occasion, including a chat with our old friend Stephen Fearing. That’s not the end of the special celebrations, as another old friend, James Murdoch, returns to town with Jay Sparrow, when Murdoch & Sparrow play Sunset Saloon this week. We chat with James and hear some of their great songs. And, as if that weren’t enough, we’ve got some exciting new releases.
Blackie’s back! Whenever Blackie & the Rodeo Kings roll through town, it’s cause for celebration, so much of today’s show is dedicated to that glorious occasion, including a chat with our old friend Stephen Fearing. That’s not the end of the special celebrations, as another old friend, James Murdoch, returns to town with Jay Sparrow, when Murdoch & Sparrow play Sunset Saloon this week. We chat with James and hear some of their great songs. And, as if that weren’t enough, we’ve got some exciting new releases.
Blackie’s back! Whenever Blackie & the Rodeo Kings roll through town, it’s cause for celebration, so much of today’s show is dedicated to that glorious occasion, including a chat with our old friend Stephen Fearing. That’s not the end of the special celebrations, as another old friend, James Murdoch, returns to town with Jay Sparrow, when Murdoch & Sparrow play Sunset Saloon this week. We chat with James and hear some of their great songs. And, as if that weren’t enough, we’ve got some exciting new releases.
Steve Hewlett canvasses reaction to today's evidence from Rupert Murdoch with Ben Fenton of the Financial Times and Sarah Ellison, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now contributing editor of Vanity Fair. Steve traces the rise of the Murdochs - and politicians' interest in them - from Margaret Thatcher onwards, with former cabinet member Lord Fowler, former Guardian editor Peter Preston and Claire Enders of Enders Analysis. Moving on to the BSkyB takeover that dominated yesterday's coverage of James Murdoch's evidence, the panel are joined by Steward Purvis, formerly of OFCOM. Are the controls on media ownership, which the Murdochs have challenged over the decades, as relevant now as they were before the rise of the internet? Should politicians be taken out of decisions about media ownership? The producer is Simon Tillotson.
How much will BSkyB and Sky News miss James Murdoch after his resignation yesterday and what is the bigger picture for the Murdoch family's NewsCorp? Are the interests of the family and the shareholders diverging? That's the discussion between media analyst Mathew Horsman of Mediatique, US National Public Radio media correspondent David Folkenflik and former Guardian editor Peter Preston.The Leveson Inquiry reaches the end of its second stage today, focussing on whether the relationship between the press and police acts in the public interest. It comes after concerns that some former Met Police officers became too close to staff at the News of the World. Sean O'Neill of The Times and Anne Pickles of The Cumberland News discuss how working relations with police have changed since the News of the World closed last July. Peter Preston looks ahead the next stage of the Leveson Inquiry later this month, when news proprietors and politicians will be cross examined.And what is riding on the success of Britain's Got Talent and The Voice? Should Simon Cowell be concerned if The Voice becomes the most talked about singing talent show while The X Factor is off air? Colin Robertson, The Sun's TV editor, gives his views.The producer is Simon Tillotson.
Edition #587 The lives and tragic deaths of media tyrants I'm riding 300 miles to raise money to fight climate change. Donate at: http://climateride.donordrive.com/participant/bestoftheleft Ch. 1: Intro - Theme: A Fond Farewell, Elliott Smith Ch. 2: Act 1: Distract-O-Tron - Mark Fiore - Air Date - 01-11-12 Ch. 3: Song 1: In the Morning of the Magicians - Flaming Lips Ch. 4: Act 2: Controversy Over Old Mean-Spirited Obama Quote Recalls Old Bush Quotes - Rachel Maddow - Air Date 3-16-2012 Ch. 5: Song 2: Hate me - Blue October Ch. 6: Act 3: Andrew Breitbart's CPAC OWS Plea for Help - MR - Air Date: 02-13-12 Ch. 7: Song 3: Drop dead blues - Anya Marina Ch. 8: Act 4: Andrew Breitbart Dies - On the Media - Air Date: 3-1-12 Ch. 9: Song 4: Open book - Cake Ch. 10: Act 5: Andrew Breitbart Dead - Majority Report - Air Date: 3-1-12 Ch. 11: Song 5: Unforgiven - Apocalyptica Ch. 12: Act 6: Conservative Media Group Makes Up Oil Statistics - Media Matters Air Date: 2-24-12 Ch. 13: Song 6: Unforgiven - Apocalyptica Ch. 14: Act 7: Oh My God! New Hosts Pretending Bigotry and Ignorance Just Matter of Opinion - Jimmy Dore - Air Date: 2-3-12 Ch. 15: Song 7: And we got older - Jim Guthrie Ch. 16: Act 8: Gay Terrorism Ad - The Al Franken Show - Air Date: 2004 Ch. 17: Song 8: And we got older - Jim Guthrie Ch. 18: Act 9: Pat Buchanan's Blacklisted Swan Song - Majority Report - Air Date: 02-17-12 Ch. 19: Song 9: The rose - Soft Rock Piano Players Ch. 20: Act 10: Limbaugh's Changing Attitude on Racial and Religious Attacks - Media Matters Air Date: 3-16-12 Ch. 21: Song 10: The rose - Soft Rock Piano Players Ch. 22: Act 11: James Murdoch steps down - On the Media - Air Date: 3-1-12 Ch. 23: Song 11: Sweet Dreams - Marylin Manson Ch. 24: Act 12: James Murdoch Getting Demoted - The Young Turks - Air Date: 02-29-12 Ch. 25: Song 12: Finding something to do - Hellogoodbye Ch. 26: Act 13: The Fall of Rupert Murdoch - MR - Air Date: 02-28-12 Voicemails: Ch. 27: Please don't vote for third parties! - Jesse from Tokyo Ch. 28: Thanks for focus on GOP state policies - Doug in Chicagoland Ch. 29: Athiest raised as Mormon on religious fundamentalism - Rebecca from Salt Lake City Leave a message at 206-202-3410 Voicemail Music: Loud Pipes - Ratatat Ch. 30: Final comments on the difficulty of tackling issues of privilege Produced by: Jay! Tomlinson Thanks for listening! Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Check out the BotL iOS/Android App in the App Stores! Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Review the show on iTunes!
The Voice launches on BBC1 next week, a few weeks ahead of the usual launch date of ITV's Britain's Got Talent. This year, though, BGT's been brought forward and the two programmes will clash. Neil Midgley has been looking into how this happened and what's at stake for the broadcasters.James Murdoch's written to the Commons committee investigating phone hacking at the News of the World, reasserting that he has not misled Parliament while sharing responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier. Why has he written this now, without being asked and what hangs on the committee's delayed report? Channel 4's political editor Gary Gibbon and Guardian media editor Dan Sabbagh discuss.Lord Hunt is the chair of the Press Complaints Commission which, he announced last week, is closing down to reform. He says he has the encouragement of Lord Leveson to develop a new model for self regulation - which Lord Leveson has clarified is not the same as endorsement. Lord Hunt tells Steve how he thinks a new PCC could work.And Emma Barnett, the Telegraph's digital media editor, looks at Mashable, the technology and social media news site which CNN is said to be thinking of buying for $200 million, just a few years after a Scottish teenager started it up in his bedroom in Aberdeen.The producer is Simon Tillotson.
Mike and Nathan discuss cigarette labels, dementia in prison, Agent Orange, greed, Arctic drilling, Mitt Romney, James Murdoch, Cassava, Fukushima, Baltasar and clouds getting lower.
Hints and tips for media appearances, speaking and social media. This week; Back in the UK; Two apologies; James Murdoch; Davy Jones; Disney fat problems; Make your speech Twitter-friendly; How to be a perfect spokesperson; I'm not Roger Federer; An interview with Edwina Currie; Music from Mick Terry
The Labour MP Tom Watson compared James Murdoch with "a Mafia boss" while questioning him about phone hacking this week. He has led the charge in Parliament against News International, and has been forensically campaigning on phone hacking for years. While many of his Labour colleagues regard him as a hero for his role in taking on the Murdoch empire, Watson wasn't always so popular. A close ally of Gordon Brown, he called for Tony Blair to resign in 2006, although he denied Brown conspired with him to bring down the Prime Minister.Edward Stourton profiles the pioneer blogger and populist campaigner, who is unafraid to take on powerful figures in and out of politics.Producer Bill Law.
Max Mosley has won damages in Paris from the publishers of the News of the World for invasion of privacy. Is this the end of his actions against the News of the World or does he now have new targets?Last week the Arab League secured an agreement with Syria to stop violence against protesters and to allow journalists to monitor the situation in the country. It is not the first time Syrian authorities have said journalists can work in the country without fear, even if the reality is very different. A Syrian dissident who's fled the country tells Steve why she tries to help foreign journalists, despite the danger to them and to the people they interview. Sue Lloyd Roberts has recently returned from Syria where she reported undercover for BBC2's Newsnight and she talks about the precautions she has to take to protect her sources from arrest and punishment.Tomorrow, James Murdoch returns to give evidence on what he did and did not know about phone hacking at the News of the World. The evidence he gave in July has been contradicted by the newspaper's editor Colin Myler and lawyer Tom Crone and so the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has asked for clarification. Sarah Ellison has written extensively for Vanity Fair on the impact of the phone hacking claims on the Murdoch family and, from New York, she comments on where the latest claims leave James Murdoch while Damian Collins MP outlines the questions he will be putting in tomorrow's crucial session. The producer is Simon Tillotson.
The Press Complaints Commission has appointed Lord Hunt as its new chairman, after Baroness Buscombe resigned following criticisms of the PCC's handling of the phone hacking scandal. To hear about the challenges facing Lord Hunt and how the PCC might change, Steve Hewlett is joined by former PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer. James Murdoch is back under the spotlight as a House of Commons Media Select Committee hears more about his alleged involvement in negotiating a pay off with phone hacking victim Graham Taylor. Lawyer Mark Lewis, who gave evidence to the committee, discusses the most recent revelations. As BSkyB announces its first quarter results, there are also suggestions that some shareholders are unhappy with James Murdoch's role on the board. Financial Times Media correspondent Ben Fenton discusses BSkyB's results and whether the call for Murdoch's resignation will be answered. The US public broadcaster PBS is set to launch a subscription channel in the UK which it hopes will find a wider audience for its news, current affairs and documentary programmes. Paula Kerger, the CEO of PBS, explains what the brand, which is highly regarded in the US, can bring to UK viewers more used to watching US comedy and drama. The producer is Simon Tillotson.
Yesterday Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks were questioned by MPs about exactly what went wrong at the News of the World. But has their evidence thrown any new light on the phone hacking scandal or made clear who will take responsibility at News International? Paul Farrelly, one of the MPs who questioned Rebekah Brooks and the Murdochs during yesterday's select committee, discusses what we have learned about the workings of News International and the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson joins Steve Hewlett from Westminster for an update on the political fall out of the scandal. Roger Alton, the executive editor of The Times looks at Rebekah Brooks's assertions that The News of the World was not the only newspaper to use private investigators to source information and discusses what wider investigation could mean for British journalism. Media lawyer Duncan Lamont discusses James Murdoch's explanation of why such high payments were made to Gordon Taylor and Max Clifford to settle a case for invasion of privacy. And Sarah Ellison, the US based journalist who has been following the News of the World phone hacking scandal for Vanity Fair, joins The Media Show from New York to discuss how the story is developing in the USA.
Alan Rusbridger, Nick Davies, Roy Greenslade and Janine Gibson discuss the closure of the News of the World and the impact of the phone-hacking scandal on News International and the British newspaper industry
Tabloid News of the World in Britain will shut down after Sunday's issue. The announcement follows accusations that the paper illegally eavesdropped on the phone messages of murder and terror victims, politicians and celebrities. News International chairman James Murdoch said the scandal "sullied" the newspaper and "has no place in our company". Lawmakers in Virginia are cracking down on cyber criminals. Starting this month, the state enacted what some are calling the nation’s first law that criminalizes phishing schemes. Phishing occurs when someone sends out bulk e-mail messages designed to trick consumers into revealing bank account passwords, social security numbers and other personal information. Facebook is getting into face to face interaction. The social networking giant introduced a video-calling feature on Wednesday in partnership with Skype, the popular internet video-chat provider.
First Broadcast 17th September 2009 Join Thom and Sam for an entertaining review of news stories from the week in Papercuts on IC Radio. Papercuts makes a triumphant return, we have politicians and nudists, annoying things, plus the return of shoe news. 'Hitler sex video causes outrage' (both the least and most surprising sentance of the year). We have some dubious survey revelations, the bulgarian Derren Brown, Worrying news for Latvia, Baked Beans scandal sweeps Europe. Email etiquette and milk gets the Papercuts debate treatment, James Murdoch faces off against Robert Peston and the greatest invoicing story ever (FACT) All this and much much more Join the Facebook group Here You can sponsor the show, current threshold is 25p, beat that and you will be the official sponsor. email papercuts2009@hotmail.co.uk Back next week Thom and Sam xx
Trees is one of a number of works in egg tempera that Howard Taylor painted from around 1950. The work is a disciplined study of line, light and shape combined to create an overall shimmering effect. In this work Taylor explored the ephemeral qualities of light and colour and the rich and subtle surfaces he observed in the Australian bush. He said that: ‘painting the Australian landscape involved a big change for me, and another change was that I soon got more involved in tempera painting … if you paint in tempera you become engaged in a highly disciplined technique … you’ve got to plan right from the beginning.’1 In Trees the composition is divided into distinct planes, the horizontal bands set against a vertical cluster of trees. Positioned in the centre of the work is the apex of a circle. This circle is filled with light from an unknown source. Around its perimeter are eight trees, the trunks of which create long shadows stretching to the bottom right-hand corner of the composition. The tree foliage resembles a three-dimensional structure, carefully constructed by lines and subtle tonal variations. The shape of a figure 8 defines this arrangement, symbolic of infinity and the cyclical patterns of nature. Trees is a dense picture, yet the overall effect is one of lightness. The meticulous repetition of line suggests both the complexity and ethereal delicacy of the natural world. 1 Howard Taylor, interview by James Murdoch in 1986 for the Australia Council Archival Art Series. See Gary Dufour & Allan Watson (eds), Howard Taylor: phenomena, Perth: Art Gallery of Western Australia & Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003, p. 61.