David Ellison’s $150M Bet on Bari Weiss and a New-Look CBS News

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1:56On the film side, Will Smith got a big deal, as did Legendary Pictures, the Dune and Godzilla producer. They'll release new movies through Paramount. But none of them reaches the level of good fortune as Barry Weiss, the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. If you're not familiar with Weiss, she is not a television news executive or producer. She's never actually made a minute of TV news, despite now leading maybe the best brand in TV news, home of 60 Minutes, the highest-rated news program in the country. No, Weiss is a former opinion editor and writer at the New York Times who quit in 2021 over what she called an overly woke newsroom and harassment from colleagues.

2:33She started a substat called the Free Press, a mostly opinion publication that has grown to 1.5 million readers and 150 ,000 paid subscribers, they say. Weiss's politics and the politics of the Free Press, she calls herself a radical centrist, But it's a mix of some libertarianism, socially liberal stuff, very pro-Israel, culturally Trumpy on issues like DEI. It's turned her into a new media star with lots of fans among venture capitalists and the billionaire tech mogul crowd. Barry and her wife were there next to Kim Kardashian at the wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez this summer. Also a fan of the free press, David Ellison.

3:11To bring the 41-year-old wife to CBS, he's buying the free press for about$150 million in cash and stock. and installing her in one of the most influential perches in TV journalism. In announcing the move, Ellison told his staff that media is now often a platform that, quote, amplifies partisanship that is tearing our society apart, unquote. He said his goal is for CBS to reach the 70 % of Americans who say they don't want partisan news and, quote, broaden our reach while solidifying our position as a leading voice in American journalism. Okay, so how does Barry Weiss accomplish that goal? Should we expect a radically different CBS News now?

3:51And is that a smart business move at a time when supposedly down-the-middle outlets like CNN are struggling? Or does it even matter? Is CBS News just a small part of the overall Ellison empire, and he just wants someone there who will placate Trump? A lot of questions. We've got Ben Smith here to discuss. Ben is the co-founder of the new startup Semaphore and former media columnist for The New York Times. He also hosts the Mixed Signals podcast about media. Before that, he ran news at BuzzFeed. Today is the Barry Weiss era at CBS News. And what is David Ellison really thinking? From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

4:32All right, we are here with Ben Smith, who is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semaphore, returning champion on the show. Welcome back, Ben.

4:41Ben Smith:Thank you for having me back, Matt. It's a great honor. Oh, well, I appreciate that. But as you know, I'm a big fan of yours and I appreciate your insights. And you have one thing that I do not in this situation. You know Barry Weiss. I do not know her. You'd think that we would travel in L.A. media circles, but not quite the same circles. She's hanging out with more billionaires than I do. But you do know Barry. So here's the question for the town that we really care about. why does David Ellison want her so badly that he's willing to pay$150 million to get her? So you know David Ellison, and I have met him once or twice.

5:20Ben Smith:And so, I don't know. You tell me. Well, I have several theories. First of all, I think he cares very much about Israel, and I think she represents a change agent at CBS where some of the coverage, particularly in the final years of the Redstones, was coverage of Israel that he didn't find to be fair and he wanted someone in there. I do believe this is a little bit of a conspiracy theory, but I do believe that he made a promise to Sherry Redstone, who also cares very much about Israel, that he will use Paramount and CBS in particular to defend Israel and to stand up for Israel. That is not something he has ever told me, and I am making my own speculation there.

6:04But I do believe that he cares very much. Sherry cares very much. Query whether he said that to Donald Trump at some point. We know that they had several meet and greets at UFC matches and elsewhere. And perhaps he said that to Donald Trump. Perhaps Donald Trump is excited about the notion of someone who has defended some of his culture war stuff being in that position. And David Ellison, being very savvy, knows that the Trump administration has just given him the green light to buy this company. He will likely have other matters in front of the Trump administration, maybe a purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery that he would like to go through.

6:41So perhaps this is a message implicitly to Donald Trump that he believes in his stuff.

6:47Ben Smith:So first of all, like the idea that Donald Trump on the sidelines of a UFC fight is like, I love that Barry Weiss. I feel slightly implausible. You know what? Welcome to 2025. That's what he does. I want to talk about both of those things you said, which are both so interesting. One is that, right, Cherry Redstone, who, at least in my view, managed this business straight into the ground, took CBS from being an important American news business to a company that had missed the cable era and then missed the digital era and is now relevant solely to very elderly people and is in a state of, as a business, CBS News, which, by the way, tiny part of CBS, 3 % of the business.

7:26Well, that's the other aspect is he doesn't really care.

7:28Ben Smith:Right, doesn't really care. but even of flailing American television news networks obviously the worst managed the state of rolling crisis forever you only hear about CBS when there's some internal mess which there is annually for the last decade but number one news program in America just gonna say that and I know the viewership is ancient but those people vote Donald Trump cares about it enough where he sued them wait the evening ABC News is the number one evening news program in America no the number one daily but 60 Minutes has the most total viewers. 60 Minutes, which while we're talking about entertainment and sports and things like this in the show, has the lead-in of NFL football, is the most watched news program and often does good stuff.

8:12Ben Smith:But honestly, in covering media and thinking about me the last few years, I hear more about 60 Minutes because there was some scandal or somebody died than because they broke something. Okay, but I know you care about Scoops. I think CBS News and 60 Minutes is still important And that 60 Minutes in particular, as the number one television news program, still commands attention among a demo that still votes. And what other broadcast news operation is Donald Trump talking about? He cares about 60 Minutes because he knows people watch it. He was yelling about Fox yesterday at NBC the day before. Okay, no, but those are, he cares about Fox.

8:51He cares about the cable news, but he's not talking about David Muir.

8:54Ben Smith:No, it is true. 60 Minutes is an important brand and has some really brilliant people working for it. But I think broadly, this is the Titanic that has already hit the iceberg that Barry is being hired to be the editor-in-chief of. It's a very messy situation. They're about to have huge layoffs. And I think the question of was there... I mean, Sherry Redstone reportedly was very unhappy about the coverage of Israel. That's fascinating. I had the notion that she and Ellison had some arrangement around that. I think the thing that will really hang over whatever CBS does is this impression, which Ellison basically has refused to comment on that they made a deal with the White House to be nicer.

9:29Ben Smith:I don't think Barry is actually like that. I would be, I have no idea if she voted for Trump. I don't think she said, but I would, but she's, I don't, she does not see, she's not the kind of Republican who loves Donald Trump. And in fact, she basically left the journal rather than be forced to support him. So I don't think it's, I don't think she's particularly pro-Trump. I mean, she's anti-Trump's enemies, which for Trump is often good enough. But I think the bigger question is just literally did the Ellisons, David and his father, who's put up the money and is close to the president, make a deal to take it easy on him?

10:00Ben Smith:And I think that will hang over every single thing they produce in there. And I think people will just have to judge them based on whether they can be tough about the most powerful person in the world or whether they're going to pull their punches. Like that's the actual question. Yeah. I mean, 60 Minutes led off the season with a very nice profile of Dana White, one of Trump's best friends, and they disclosed right up top. They've been working on it for a long time, pre-sale. But this is the kind of thing that Donald Trump likes out of CBS News. They had a great exclusive today about how few immigrants are coming over the border and how great that's going.

10:35Ben Smith:Exclusive data they had obtained. Oh, really? From the administration? That had a great quote. I didn't say where they obtained it, but there was this warm quote from the administration. The other thing I think is going on is I do think that David Ellison sees her as a successful new media person. The kind of content the free press produces has appealed to the billionaire class. It is that it sort of like provides a, I don't want to say a shelter, but it provides a cover a little bit for the kind of formerly left or people who identify as left, but in reality, lean more fiscally conservative or they're drawn to these right wing causes like Israel.

11:25She gives them cover to say, no, no, no, I'm not a Republican. I do love the free press. And I think that, you know, Barry Weiss, who describes herself as a radical centrist, I think she says the truth and she's about both sides. And she can bring some kind of perception or reality of centrism to these news institutions that are tainted by the perception that they are in the tank for the Democrats. That is what appeals to Ellison as a owner of news. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously in her target audience, right? Yeah, exactly. She's like an ombudsman for the billionaire class.

12:06Ben Smith:And we're in this moment of political resorting. And in a way, what the free press has been doing is kind of chaperoning a group of people who used to be Democrats to the Republican Party, while you have publications like the Bulwark that are there to chaperone Republicans over to the Democratic Party. And she's successful. I mean, we can't underestimate the fact that she built a subscription business that does, according to the New York Times, generate$15 million a year in revenue and has 150 million paid subscribers, 1.5 million people get her emails. So he looks at that and says, wait, maybe this is the answer to my CBS News problem.

12:40Ben Smith:Yeah, and she came by those subscribers. Honestly, there's a huge group of people who, particularly of New York Times readers, who thought, I mean, I imagine some might even listen to this podcast who thought like the New York Times got unbelievably kind of doctrinaire, left wing, kind of stilted, like you weren't really sure what you were reading. And so here was somebody who'd left the Times and was saying that and said, come along with me and we'll do stuff that is fun and engaging and flatters your prejudices. And like, you know, what more does anybody ask for media? Totally. And I talk to those people all the time in Hollywood.

13:12Ben Smith:But do you not buy that critique? You don't think that's true? Listen, I'm not a media critic. I read the New York Times every day. I like the product. I recognize sometimes articles that feel like they're coming from the progressive playbook. I think the same way about the Wall Street Journal on the other side. But I don't think it's controversial. Like Joe Khan, I think, the editor of the Times, would tell you, basically did tell me in an interview, yeah, we got two left wing in 2020 and now we're trying to row it back. I think that the leadership of the New York Times agrees with that critique.

13:40Ben Smith:Like she clearly took a moment and reacted to it fast and there was a big audience for that that was real. But what's interesting about Ellison is when he made this hire, he's put in his statement, he said the media is now a platform that, quote, amplifies partisanship that is tearing our society apart. So he sees Barry Weiss as a change agent for resolving conflict and resolving partisanship when she's pretty openly partisan about her views. And that's what I don't totally get. It's like you take it's like it's like taking someone who is a candy maker and putting them in charge of the president's physical fitness group.

14:22Like you're going to get someone who is advocating for a certain position. Yeah.

14:27Ben Smith:I mean, I wouldn't say she's partisan in the sense she's a Republican or a Democrat, but she's obviously very engaged in the most heated and divisive social media fights and kind of culture wars and on one side of them. You know, and I think these are conflicts in which the partisans want total victory. and see their opponents as monsters. And she's certainly deeply in those battles. All right, so let's get to the business issues because that's what we care about. Will this work? CNN went towards the middle in their mind and the ratings on CNN are anemic. I mean, it's actually embarrassing. I was looking at the demo ratings for CNN.

15:02They're generating like 50, 60 ,000 viewers in the demo in prime time. I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my God. Now, Fox and MSNBC have a lot more viewers because they are openly partisan. Will Ellison's plan raise the ratings? Will it alienate 60 Minutes viewers? Will it backfire and tank the entire thing? Or does it even matter?

15:25Ben Smith:First of all, I think it kind of doesn't. Like CBS News is not an important part of Paramount. It's not why he bought it. It's sort of a weird headache that he has to deal with. And I just think there's this question of like, what is a broadcast news channel for now? And I think the CBS News brand is very powerful. You could imagine some very dramatic and radical digital reinvention. And so remember, CBS doesn't really have a cable or a digital platform or not much of one. So it's a really strange place. And they're not going to save broadcast television. That's not anybody's fault. But that ship is clearly sinking.

16:02Ben Smith:And then in a world where there's no broadcast television, or broadcast is really like, I don't know, what we think of as what UHF is, like a really fringy part of the media environment. What is CBS News? Where does it live? Who watches it? How does it support the kind of cost structure it now has? I mean, I wouldn't want to be in the position of trying to solve those problems. I don't think anybody working there has any experience in trying to fix that. I mean, Barry does bring at least a sense of kind of like cultural could bring a level of cultural relevance by having bitter fights with people.

16:33Which traditionally has not been the CBS brand.

16:36Ben Smith:And you could, I suppose, like Fox has vastly a bigger audience than everybody else. And is there a world where you could say we're going to try to slice off the younger part of Fox News that is embarrassed by some of its programming that's aimed at older people? Yeah. Yeah. Ellison says, we want CBS to speak to that 70 % of the audience that would really define themselves as center left to center right. I mean, that's just sadly in today's media, that is the path to having no viewers. I mean, who is he talking to with that? I think he's just talking to satisfy shareholders, satisfy the president.

17:11I don't know who he's talking to, because that has proven to not work.

17:15Ben Smith:Well, the risk is that there may risk or maybe the goal is that you wind up programming essentially for the board of directors. Yeah. Or to not cause problems for the other aspects of your business that you do actually care about. And there are elements. I mean, listen, I sort of rather own CBS News right now than CNN because CBS News at least has the broadcast channel as its promotional platform. And those seem to be at least a viable business right now rather than cable networks, which other than Fox are kind of lagging. and don't have much of a future, CNN now trying to reinvent itself as a streamer.

17:52You think broadcast has more of a future than cable? Yeah, I do. Cable has no future. Cable is the newspaper business that is going to just be milked and run into the ground. And broadcast, because the sports are there and because they are free and there is a government mandate for them to keep going, they will at least have a future for the next decade or two, I think.

18:15Ben Smith:That's really interesting. I think I've typically thought of it, maybe I'm wrong, as the opposite, which is just that cable, although is obviously in decline, is just throwing off enough cash to try to fund a digital transition like CNN. I think Lazarus said the Versant companies had maybe$770 million in revenue five years ago,$700 million today. That's obviously a catastrophic trend, but it's also a big number. It is, but how much did the Chicago Tribune throw off 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or Los Angeles Times, and then look at them today? I think that's the way we need to talk about these things.

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20:03Advertise on LinkedIn. the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the town. That's linkedin.com slash the town. Terms and conditions apply. The reporting structure on Barry Weiss is interesting too. She reports directly to Ellison, her quote unquote partner, who is actually running CBS News, Tom Sobrowski. He reports to George Cheeks, who runs the TV unit, who reports to Jeff Schell, who's the number two, who reports to David Ellison. So Barry has the leverage in every conversation with anyone at CBS News.