If you are under the age of 45 or 50, 60 Minutes has always been a newsmagazine institution. It’s not part of the establishment, exactly. But it’s a part of the political landscape that delivers a sometimes awkward mix of hard-hitting investigative pieces side-by-side with puffy profiles and lifestyle stories.
While I think she is absolutely the wrong person to lead the effort, I agree that the culture of 60 Minutes needs to be substantially shook up. And the best way to see how much the show has changed since its early years and how its approach has often calcified into “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” I’m going to recommend watching the 2019 documentary Mike Wallace Is Here.
The documentary follows the long and complex life of Mike Wallace, someone who didn’t start out as a journalist, but who learned that he had the ability to ask the tough questions most other journalists would dance around. When Don Hewitt launched 60 Minutes, both he and Wallace were near outcasts at CBS News because they didn’t comfortably fit into that network’s news division culture.
60 Minutes struggled early on, but found success when the show leaned into coverage of the various threads in the Watergate story. Wallace seems to have interviewed nearly every major figure in the scandal short of the President and made news by using his impressive interviewing skills to wrangle answers out of reluctant and often belligerent interviewees.
There is a lot in this documentary that resonates strongly in 2026. Lawsuits that threatened to shut down the show, government claims the show was slanted and fake news. As well as concerns that the public was losing trust in journalism.
Mike Wallace had a complex personal life, including the death of his adult son (just a horrifying story), battles with depression and a failed suicide attempt. Director Avi Belkin got access to 1,200 hours of 60 Minutes footage and was able to use some of Wallace’s 60 Minutes colleagues to ask him the difficult questions.
The result is a film that says a lot about one of television’s greatest journalists. But also a great deal about why 60 Minutes matters. And why this current reinvention might be the wrong way to go.
Something Feels Off With This Puck Story…I am Just Not Sure What It Might Be
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Puck was in “advanced talks” with RedBird Capital Partners for an investment that would value the newsletter outlet at $250 million. I am no financial expert, but I did spend some years as a financial reporter and that valuation sounded outrageously high.
According to Reuters, the investment would require the company’s existing institutional investors to sell their shares to RedBird, who would then own a substantial (and as yet undisclosed) portion of Puck.
In a statement released after the Reuters story was posted, a Puck spokesperson said: “Puck is in advanced discussions about a strategic recapitalisation to accelerate growth that would make RedBird our leading investor.”
So what is going on?
There is a lot to unwind here, but first of all let’s deal with the crazy valuation of Puck.
Rafat Ali is someone who has founded and sold multiple media outlets. He is currently the CEO of Skift, which describes itself as “the largest business intelligence and marketing platform in travel, providing news, information, data, and services to all sectors of the world’s largest industry.”
And previously, “he was the founder of paidContent and ContentNext, now owned by UK’s Guardian News and Media. Prior to that, he was managing editor of Silicon Alley Reporter.”
In other words, he knows about media company valuations and this was his take on the news:
I agree that the $250 million valuation seems wildly overpriced, so here is likely what is happening.
RedBird Capital Partners seems to gave Reuters the exclusive, and then confirmed the news on background to other outlets. Which really doesn’t matter so much in this case. The question is why did RedBird leak the news before the funding round seems to have closed?
My hunch is that RedBird will only do the deal if it is able to acquire all of the shares owned by the institutional investors - which include TPG, Standard Investments and RIT Capital Partners - and some of those people have declined to sell so far. Valuing Puck at $250 million forces the hand of those reluctant investors, who might not believe the $250 million valuation, but find themselves in a situation where they can make money by pretending it’s a reasonable figure and sell based on some discount of that number.
The other thing that inflated valuation does is make RedBird Partners current stake in Puck (which it obtained through Puck’s acquisition of Air Mail) more valuable. It also has a similar impact on Puck’s journalists, who find themselves in a strange situation. Every major Puck journalist is an equity owner in the company, and if this investment goes through, their equity will be worth more, albeit they’ll likely be asked to accept a limited liquidability in the short term.
It’s easy to get caught up in the $250 million valuation number, but everyone involved understands the true valuation of Puck is likely to be much less than that. The current investors will likely be bought out at a discounted rate that values the company at more than its last valuation but less than the new one. And RedBird will likely end up with new preferred shares, which will provide them with extra money per share if Puck is ultimately sold off for, say, $175 million.
This feels like an effort by RedBird Capital Partners to do a very familiar move in the private equity space - artificially set a high valuation for a still not-profitable asset, then sell it off at a level that is below the public valuation, but still high enough to provide a profit.
I suspect the recent new funding round at semi-rival Semafor - which raised $30 million in January 2026 at a $330 million valuation - had some impact on this move.
There are a couple of other interesting side notes here.
RedBird IMI (led by former CNN chief Jeff Zucker and backed by RedBird Capital Partners and International Media Investments) owns a majority stake in the sports media and news organization Front Office Sports. In that case, RedBird IMI made a similar series of moves to what we are seeing with Puck.
RedBird IMI first invested in Front Office Sports in November 2023 in a deal valuing the company at roughly $40 million. Then in October 2024, RedBird IMI increased its position to a majority stake by buying out early investor SC Holdings and increasing its equity share.
So it’s not crazy to imagine a scenario in which RedBird combines Puck and Front Office Sports and spins them off to a new owner at a profit. It’s not clear who would buy that resulting company, but they would make a formidable contender in the live events space.
The other interesting note is that RedBird is also one of the investors in Paramount’s attempt to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery. Which means Puck will be reporting on a story in which their owner is intimately involved.
If you have knowledge of any of the details of this deal (or happen to be Jon Kelly or Dylan Byers), you can contact me confidentially at [email protected]
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UTA Picks Fight With Variety Over Negative Article
On Tuesday, Variety’s Matt Donnelly posted a piece about United Talent Agency entitled “Inside UTA's Bummer Summer: Client Departures, Stalled M&A and Agent Anxiety.”
The article received a lot of attention in Hollywood because it was a remarkably passive-aggressive negative look at an agency that certainly has had some issues. But even the piece swings back-and-forth between “UTA might be in trouble,” and “Maybe UTA will be fine:
A closer look shows that Glaser’s and Cooper’s exits follow several major client losses over the past three years — including whales like Greta Gerwig, Ben Stiller, Kevin Hart and Judd Apatow. Parallel to client exits, the agency hasn’t been immune to consolidation pressure facing the media sector. In July, UTA kicked the tires on merging with The Team (formerly Wasserman) in an attempt to scale up, four insiders with knowledge of the discussions tell Variety. It’s fueled chatter about the agency’s future at industry lunch tables and on text-message threads as power players ride out the dog days of August.
Wednesday morning, managing director of United Talent Agency David Kramer sent the email below to UTA staff in response to Variety's piece. He accused the reporter of exhibiting “hostile and unprofessional behavior” towards women at UTA as well as threatening UTA with “consequences from Variety/PMC)”
The Wrap’s A.J. Katz has some additional context about the threats, which he reports go back to a May encounter:
A UTA insider told TheWrap of Donnelly’s behavior towards the agency’s staffers: “He calls them lazy. He calls them inept to their faces.”
In May at the Cannes Film Festival, Donnelly got into a dispute with UTA’s indie film head, Rena Ronson, over a requested correction to a Q&A the editor conducted with her. Donnelly refused to change the article and then wrote in response to a contentious back and forth, “I will move forward treating UTA as a flagrant and hostile enemy.”
A second UTA insider told TheWrap that Kramer decided to write the memo to his staff on Wednesday because there had been multiple conversations with Donnelly that were “hostile to UTA staffers” and he wanted them to know he was standing up for them.
Variety issued a statement denying the claims by UTA and defending Donnelly:
"We stand by our reporting and our editor Matt Donnelly. The email and texts cited by UTA in its memo to staff date from last May when a UTA exec initiated a heated back and forth regarding an on-the-record Q&A published by Variety, which Donnelly regrets being drawn into."
Obviously, I don’t know how much truth there is in any if this back-and-forth allegations. I will say that this is not the first time I have heard stories about editors at Variety and sister Penske Media Corporation outlets throwing their weight around, knowing that the company’s near-stranglehold on Hollywood’s news outlets provides it with a lot of power.
It is rare for these battles to spill into the public, which at least speaks to how upset Kramer and other execs at UTA are with Donnelly’s coverage.
Odds & Sods
House Shock
Wonka’s Golden Ticket premieres Wednesday, September 23rd on Netflix. Here is a first look at the trailer. And here is the official logline: “Twelve lucky Golden Ticket winners, each with a partner of their choosing, will step through the gates of Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and into a world of pure imagination, delicious mischief, and unexpected challenges. Once inside, contestants must navigate a series of Wonka’s games, tests, and temptations designed to challenge them physically, mentally, and morally. In this high-stakes social experiment, players will journey through the factory’s wondrous and unpredictable landscape, adapting, strategizing, and withstanding the unknown while proving they have the instincts, resilience, and character to thrive in chaos. In the end, only one contestant will have what it takes to earn Wonka’s life-changing prize.”
The new home renovation series House Shock premieres Tuesday, September 22nd on HGTV. Here is a first look at the show. And here is the official logline: “Host and designer Arielle Vandenberg will team up with expert contractor and former Battle on the Beach winner Steve Lewis to help pull off surprise overhauls of spaces the recipients have dreamed of updating, whether neglected, abandoned or just plain despised. In each one-hour episode, Arielle will request design inspiration from the nominating family member and track down the perfect pieces on the fly, while Steve and his resourceful construction team will ensure the edge-of-your-seat renovation stays on track and on time. With only days to complete the remodel, the duo will recruit neighbors, friends and coworkers for elaborate cover stories and clever distractions to keep the homeowner in the dark. At the dramatic reveal, the recipient will find out what was happening right under their nose and get the ultimate house shock from the stunning transformation.”
The David Fincher film The Further Mis-Adventures Of Cliff Booth premieres Wednesday, December 23rd on Netflix. Here is the official brief logline: “Brad Pitt returns to his Academy Award-winning role as Cliff Booth, only this time it’s 1977 and it’s a very different Hollywood. Directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, the film also stars Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Peter Weller.“
The age-gap drama Alice And Steve has been renewed for a second season by Disney+.
The weekly late-night talk show The Stepback with Blake Griffin premieres Tuesday, October 20th on Prime Video.
The documentary My Idaho premieres Monday, October 5th on the PBS documentary series Independent Lens. Here is a look at the trailer. And here is the official logline: “Set against the political and racial divisions reshaping the United States, the film follows filmmaker Nick Beaulieu as he documents North Omaha’s racial justice movement while attempting to reconnect with his terminally ill father, Randy, a conservative Christian and staunch Trump supporter.”
The film Guiding Stars premieres Wednesday, November 18th on Netflix. Here is the official logline: “Directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum and starring Leighton Meester and Jared Padalecki, the holiday romance flips the classic bodyguard trope on its head, following a no-nonsense bodyguard assigned to protect a charming movie star over the holidays, with predictably complicated results.”
The film Possible Love premieres in select theaters Friday, October 23rd before premiering on Netflix worldwide Friday, November 6th. Here is a first look at the film and here is the official logline: "The film follows two married couples — a laid-off worker and his wife, and a documentary filmmaker and her husband — whose paths cross when the filmmaker sets out to film them, bringing both marriages face to face with their different lives and hidden desires."
What’s Coming Tonight And Tomorrow
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26TH, 2026:
Death Of The Pastor’s Wife (Netflix)
Let’s Marry Harry Reunion Special (Netflix)
Mom Knows Best Series Premiere (Netflix)
One Hundred Years Of Solitude Series Finale (Netflix)
The Airport Chaplin Series Premiere (Netflix)
The Last Sunrise (Prime Video)
The Simpsons: "Yellow Mirror" (Disney+)
Totally 90s House Series Premiere (HGTV)
Trying Season Five Finale (Apple TV)
2026 Miss Teen USA (The CW)
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27TH, 2026:
Adults Season Two Premiere (FXX)
Leanne Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
Miss USA 75th Diamond Celebration (The CW)
The Undeclared War (Peacock)
Tyler Perry’s Back In Black Season Three Premiere (Netflix)