Oh Hell, Everybody in Media Donated to the Clinton Foundation: Here’s a List
Posted: May 16, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: BANKING, Boston Properties, Cablevision, Carlos Slim, Clinton Foundation, Daily News (New York), Gary Myers (writer), George Stephanopoulos, James Murdoch, Mexico, NBCUniversal, News Corporation, Newsday, PBS NewsHour, Telmex, The New York Times, Tom Brady 1 Comment
Clinton Foundation donors include dozens of media organizations, individuals
Josh Gerstein, Tarini Parti, Hadas Gold and Dylan Byers report:
…The following list includes news media organizations that have donated to the foundation, as well as other media networks, companies, foundations or individuals that have donated. It is organized by the size of the contribution:
$1,000,000-$5,000,000
Carlos Slim
Chairman & CEO of Telmex, largest New York Times shareholder
James Murdoch
Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox
Newsmax Media
Florida-based conservative media network
Thomson Reuters
Owner of the Reuters news service
$500,00-$1,000,000
News Corporation Foundation
Philanthropic arm of former Fox News parent company
$250,000-$500,000
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publisher
Richard Mellon Scaife
Owner of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
$100,000-$250,000
Abigail Disney
Documentary filmmaker
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Howard Stringer
Former CBS, CBS News and Sony executive
Intermountain West Communications Company
Local television affiliate owner (formerly Sunbelt Communications)
$50,000-$100,000
Bloomberg L.P.
Discovery Communications Inc.
George Stephanopoulos
ABC News chief anchor and chief political correspondent
Mort Zuckerman
Owner of New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report
Time Warner Inc.
Owner of CNN parent company Turner Broadcasting
$25,000-$50,000
AOL
HBO
Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Presenters of the Golden Globe Awards
Viacom
$10,000-$25,000
Knight Foundation
Non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting journalism
Public Radio International
Turner Broadcasting
Parent company of CNN
$5,000-$10,000
Comcast
Parent copmany of NBCUniversal
NBC Universal
Parent company of NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC
Public Broadcasting Service
$1,000-$5,000
Robert Allbritton
Owner of POLITICO parent company Capitol News Group
$250-$1,000
AOL Huffington Post Media Group
Hearst Corporation
Judy Woodruff
PBS Newshour co-anchor and managing editor
The Washington Post Company
BREAKING: MERGER DEAD: Comcast + Time Warner Cable Mega-Merger Doomed After FCC Issues Dreaded ‘Death Sentence’
Posted: April 23, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Economics, Mediasphere | Tags: Bloomberg Television, Cable television, Comcast, Federal Communications Commission, Internet, Mergers and acquisitions, NBCUniversal, The Wall Street Journal, Time Warner, Time Warner Cable, United States Department of Justice Leave a comment
Internet users ‘can breathe sigh of relief’ as FCC calls for lengthy hearing, reportedly scuttling proposed mega-deal between top two US cable companies
The controversial merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable appears to be dead after the top regulator in the United States recommended handing over the deal to a lengthy hearing by an administrative law judge.
“The reason this is essentially a ‘death sentence’ is that it’s a multi-year process.”
The blockbuster combination of the two top cable companies in the US was already threatened by a widely reported decision from the Department of Justice to block the merger on antitrust grounds.
On Thursday, in the face of a threat from the staff of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Bloomberg reported that the deal is doomed.
Citing “people with knowledge of the matter”, the business news service said Comcast could decide whether to walk away from its proposed Time Warner Cable takeover as soon as Thursday, with an announcement on Friday.
“Designating the deal for a hearing would make Comcast and Time Warner Cable go through a lengthy evidentiary procedure. That’s a very high hurdle to clear in its own right, and a huge barrier to overcome for a disastrous deal like this one, which has no real public interest benefits to show.”
A spokeswoman for Comcast said the company had no comment on the report of the merger’s dissolution.
The two telecommunications giants proposed to create a single operator that would have controlled up to two-thirds of US internet connections and provided cable television to more that a quarter of the American market.
“The reason this is essentially a ‘death sentence’ is that it’s a multi-year process,” explained Rich Greenfield, an analyst at the research firm BTIG.
An FCC hearing under its rigorous judicial process, he said, “would involve senior Comcast executives taking the stand, and it’s very hard to imagine Comcast fighting a multi-year battle with the government. Even if they won that, it sounds like the Department of Justice is waiting to sue, so then you’d have to go to war with the DoJ.”
Rather than face a lengthy legal battle on two different fronts, the easiest way forward for Comcast appears to be to scuttle the merger entirely.
A reverse termination fee, or breakup fee, is usually a consolation prize for the smaller partner in a merger, paid by the larger partner if such a mega-deal fails – in Comcast’s case, probably about $1.35bn. Time Warner agreed to waive that fee last year.
From the moment the Comcast-Time Warner deal was proposed, critics questioned the possible consumer benefit from a merger that created a company with such a large share across multiple markets.
Others pointed to Comcast’s moves during its most recent huge merger, with NBCUniversal, in particular its record on providing broadband to low-income households in markets like its hometown of Philadelphia, as it had promised to do. Comcast was responding to those charges as recently as Wednesday. Read the rest of this entry »
Comcast Accused of Paying Off Al Sharpton in $20 Billion Racial Discrimination Lawsuit
Posted: February 23, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: African American, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, Brian Williams, Chris Hayes (journalist), Comcast, Fifty Shades of Grey, MSNBC, NBCUniversal, Republican Party (United States) 1 Comment
Tina Nguyen reports: Today, Comcast and Time Warner Cable were served with a lawsuit from a group of African-American media owners seeking $20 billion — yes, “billion,” with a “b” — for discriminatory practices, and alleges that Al Sharpton and his organizations received big money to look the other way.
“The money includes $3.8 million to Sharpton and his National Action Network. The money, it’s charged, was meant to pay Sharpton to endorse the NBCU deal and divert attention away from discrimination.”
The suit, filed by the National Association of African-American Owned Media (NAAAOM) and obtained by the The Hollywood Reporter, claims that despite touting itself as a diverse company, Comcast and 
TWC only carries one channel owned by a black media owner and refuses to carry any others. Furthermore, the diversity Comcast presents — including the hiring of minority personalities such as
Sharpton, and including a “memorandum of understanding” they signed with the NAACP and Sharpton’s National Urban League — is “a sham, undertaken to whitewash Comcast’s discriminatory business practices.”
The lawsuit specifically targets Comcast’s practices: so far, they argue, only one channel in Comcast’s lineup, The Africa Channel, is owned by a black person (and that person facilitated Comcast’s purchase of NBC Universal, “thus creating a serious conflict of interest”). And speaking of that purchase, the suit alleges that Comcast paid off Sharpton, an employee of MSNBC, to support that acquisition — specifically, to say that Comcast was an awesomely diverse company:
The lawsuit goes on to say that Comcast made large cash “donations” to obtain support for its acquisition. The money includes $3.8 million to Sharpton and his National Action Network. The money, it’s charged, was meant to pay Sharpton to endorse the NBCU deal and divert attention away from discrimination. As for Sharpton’s MSNBC gig, the complaint says, “Despite the notoriously low ratings that Sharpton’s show generates, Comcast has allowed Sharpton to maintain his hosting position for more than three years in exchange for Sharpton’s continued public support for Comcast on issues of diversity.”
In a statement to THR, Comcast said it was “disappointing that [NAAAOM] have decided to file a frivolous lawsuit” and that they planned to defend themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
North Korea’s World-Class State-of-the-Art Internet Services Reporting Issues, Outages, Users Experiencing Sub-Optimal Performance
Posted: December 22, 2014 Filed under: Asia, Breaking News, Science & Technology, War Room | Tags: Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, CNBC, Cumulus Media, Deutsche Bank, Federal Bureau of Investigation, GSO Capital Partners, Landmark Media Enterprises, NBCUniversal, North Korea, Sony Pictures Entertainment 1 Comment
North Korea is having major Internet problems, just days after President Barack Obama promised a proportional response to the devastating hacks against Sony.
“We aren’t going to discuss publicly operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports in anyway except to say that as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen.”
— State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf
The country, which the FBI accused last week of the cyberattack, is suffering from periodic Internet outages, and experts at DYN Research found that recent problems were out of the ordinary, as first reported by North Korea Tech.
According to the research firm, North Korea’s internet grew steadily worse beginning Sunday night, and then went completely offline Monday morning.
“I haven’t seen such a steady beat of routing instability and outages in KP before,” Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at DYN Research, told North Korea Tech. “Usually there are isolated blips, not continuous connectivity problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are absorbing some sort of attack presently.”
In an interview with Re/code, Madory said that even typically strong connections are experiencing disruptions. (CNBC’s parent NBC Universal is an investor in Re/code’s parent Revere Digital.)
“They’re pretty stable networks normally,” he told Re/code. “In the last 24 hours or so, the networks in North Korea are under some kind of duress, but I can’t tell you exactly what’s causing it.”
He added that there is no way to know if the outages are the result of an attack, or are just from maintenance or a power outage. Still, “given the timing,” a cyberattack is worth considering, he told Re/code.
BREAKING: MSNBC Purchases Morning Jolt Newsletter From National Review in Six-Figure Deal
Posted: April 1, 2014 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Jim Geraghty, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe, MSNBC, National Review, NBCUniversal, New York City 1 CommentFrom my inbox, NRO‘s Jim Geraghty writes: Readers, you may have noticed commercials for MSNBC‘s Morning Joe program, hosted by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, touting the program as a Morning Jolt.™ That branding effort was, in fact, an early promotion for MSNBC and NBCUniversal‘s effort to diversify its morning news assets. Last night that effort took a dramatic step forward — with an additional bit of leaning forward — as NBCUniversal finalized its purchase of the Morning Jolt™ newsletter from National Review, Inc.
In exchange, National Review, Inc. received an undisclosed sum, as well as a second round draft pick in this year’s National Media Pundit Draft, held May 8-10 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City….
