Tucker, Lemon and Shell, oh my! Media's spring cleaning is underway

collage of headshots of three men in suits

By Ryan FaughnderCompany Town Senior Editor

April 25, 2023 6 AM PT

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It’s Spring cleaning time at the upper levels of Hollywood and the media business.

Here’s what happened in just the last couple days, in order of appearance. Or disappearance, as it were.

NBCUniversal Chief Executive Jeff Shell: Pushed out after admitting to an “inappropriate relationship” with a female colleague. It now turns out that the woman, an anchor for NBCUniversal-owned financial cable network CNBC, filed a complaint to the company accusing Shell of sexual harassment.

Shell’s Sunday statement didn’t specify the nature of the problematic relationship and he hasn’t commented on the sexual harassment claim. A Comcast regulatory confirmed the sexual harassment filing and said investigators were able to corroborate the allegations. Shell was fired for cause, the company said.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson: Bounced at the direction of Rupert Murdoch himself, but not over his role in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case that cost the network a $787.5-million settlement. Rather, sources indicate this follows now-former “Tucker Carlson Tonight” producer Abby Grossberg’s discrimination lawsuit against the company.

Murdoch was also supposedly worried over Carlson’s coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, in which the host promoted the conspiracy theory that it was provoked by government agents. But if that’s really the problem, then Fox has a lot more housecleaning to do.

CNN anchor Don Lemon: Canned on Monday morning — after he’d appeared on air that day — following reports of poor treatment of co-workers (particularly women) and his comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley being past her “prime.” She’s 51, for the record.

Lemon, in a statement on Twitter, alluded to “larger issues at play” in his axing, which he did not elaborate on. CNN, under the direction of Warner Bros. Discovery, has been trying to move its coverage toward the political center, and Lemon was famously outspoken, particularly during moments of racial unrest.

If this week is the Olympics for troubling behavior by media dudes, we’ve got our gold, silver and bronze medals ready to hand out. I’ll let our readers determine the order.

Adding to the drama, CNN is disputing Lemon’s characterization of how the firing was carried out. He says he was informed by his agent and that CNN managers didn’t have the decency to deliver the news themselves. CNN says he was offered the opportunity to speak with management, calling Lemon’s statement “inaccurate.”

Whatever.

Here’s a good rule for longevity in the media and entertainment business that I’ll just borrow from The Times’ Mary McNamara, who was writing about Scott Rudin and other bullying bigshots of the day in 2021.

Don’t be a jerk.

And for those watching the bloodletting from the bleachers, I’ll add another rule, which can be applied broadly, especially by journalists.

Do not feel bad for high-level Hollywood and media executives.

They will, in all likelihood, be fine. They had extraordinarily high-paying jobs for years. There will be books. There will be podcasts. Probably, anyway. And if there aren’t? They’ll still be fine, gently sent off with canned thank-yous and well-wishes from their former employers, in the cases of Carlson and Lemon.

They’re getting all the attention right now.

But save your sympathies for the people left at these companies who work hard and have to endure the chaos resulting from their bosses’ misdeeds.

Preserve your feelings of solidarity for the 4,000 people at Walt Disney Co. who will have been pink-slipped by the end of this week, with some 3,000 left to go, amid the broader workforce reduction happening in film, TV and streaming. Just don’t shed a tear for Ike Perlmutter, dumped from his Marvel role during the first round of Disney cuts.

Send your thoughts to the thousands upon thousands likely to be thrown out of work if the studios can’t reach a deal with the Writers Guild of America by the beginning of next month. And when the bosses lament their struggling stock prices, remember that the streaming wars were their idea.

There’s enough anxiety in Hollywood right now without having to deal with sexism, discrimination and harassment. So jerks of media, please exit to the left.

Stuff we wrote

— What shows would stop first if Hollywood writers strike? Here’s what the WGA says. The Writers Guild of America is adding pressure on Hollywood studios, highlighting how their shows and streaming platforms will be affected by a strike if it happens on May 2.

— BuzzFeed News shutting down as company cuts staff. Journalists ‘heartsick’. BuzzFeed, once a rising star in digital media, has undergone major cuts in recent years as digital-native brands struggle to create sustainable business models.

— Elliot Grainge is ready to step out from his father’s shadow. The hip-hop mogul and son of Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge on the demise of the major labels, his new wife, Sofia Richie, and the whole nepo-baby thing.

— Fox News settled Dominion defamation case for $787 million. Should it have apologized as well? A day after Fox News agreed to settle a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems, critics debated whether Fox should have been forced to make an apology.

— ‘Rust’ prosecutors drop charges against Alec Baldwin after questions over gun misfire. New Mexico prosecutors have dropped criminal involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin.

— ICYMI: Disney and former Marvel exec Victoria Alonso reach settlement over her firing. Conservative commentator Dan Bongino leaving Fox News. “It’s not some big conspiracy.” After ‘Rust’ shooting, California moves closer to impose film set safety rules.

— This week: CinemaCon, the annual trade show for the movie theater business, is underway this week, with Anousha Sakoui covering from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Speaking of CinemaCon ...

Welcome back to Moviefone

There are some brands that have no business existing as long as they have, but persist nonetheless.

Consider the case of Moviefone.

If the movie showtime listings service enters anyone’s consciousness today, it’s probably as a cheeky 90s pop culture reference, having been parodied on “Seinfeld” for the stentorian voice that greeted customers who called in to 777-FILM.

More recently, in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” a dubious business venture was described as “Moviefone for foot massages.”

Founded in 1989, Moviefone rose to fame for the booming vocals of Russ Leatherman, a.k.a. Mr. Moviefone. But starting in 1999, the company embarked on a tour of the tech/entertainment business mergers-and-acquisitions highway to hell.

Once valued by AOL at $388 million, Moviefone became part of Verizon’s Oath and was later sold to the parent company of MoviePass in a deal worth up to $23 million ($1 million in cash, plus stock and warrants from MoviePass’ owner, which ended up liquidating in Chapter 7 bankruptcy).

But now, Moviefone is looking for its second coming — or perhaps its third or fourth? — thanks to Cleveland O’Neal III, the L.A.-based producer and entrepreneur who bought the business for $1.075 million out of the bankruptcy proceedings of MoviePass’ parent company. O’Neal purchased the asset in March 2020, a time when there were no showtimes to look up.

O’Neal was watching the brand’s precipitous decline from the sidelines and saw an opportunity.

“I thought, ‘It’s certainly moving in my direction,’” O’Neal said.

He’s trying to revive the name by bolstering Moviefone’s movie listings website with video content from his syndicated “Made in Hollywood” behind-the-scenes interview series, which is now in its 18th season on local TV stations.

Lately he’s gotten the brand onto the big screen by bringing Moviefone into the business of pre-show entertainment in movie theaters, through a 14,000-screen deal with ScreenVision Media that was recently renewed. The company supplies programming to theaters under the title, “Made in Hollywood powered by Moviefone.”

This week, O’Neal and Moviefone are hosting a Wednesday party at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in honor of Paramount Pictures’ “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.”

“If the synergy is right and if the opportunities are there, then yes, that nostalgic brand — that legacy brand — can become a perfect complement to today’s marketplace and ecosystem,” O’Neal said.

We’ll see.

It’s a fitting move for an industry such as Hollywood, which, for all of its talk of looking to the future, remains obsessed with the past.

Aging brands associated with outmoded technology sometimes get re-purposed for modern contexts, with mixed results.

I remember when Blockbuster, fading in relevance during the digital age, had its name grafted onto a Dish Network streaming service. The former video rental giant, with one franchise store left standing, recently saw its brand abused by a short-lived, critically panned Netflix series.

Nostalgia is a powerful reanimating force.

Number of the week

Paramount Global last week filed a counter complaint against Warner Bros. Discovery in the ongoing dispute over “South Park” streaming rights. To recap, Warner Bros. Discovery had a 2019 deal to stream the vast “South Park” library and new episodes on HBO Max. Paramount wanted some new “South Park” material for Paramount+, so it made a pact for Matt Stone and Trey Parker to create hourlong specials for the platform.

Well, Warner sued Paramount and South Park Digital Studios and also stopped paying Paramount licensing fees for the content, which totals more than 300 episodes. But wait, Paramount said, HBO Max is still profiting from the “South Park” episodes it has already received and continued to stream. At this point, Warner owes more than $50 million, having stopped payments halfway through their $500 million deal, according to Paramount. You knew this was going to get interesting.