Ben Smith

And so, like, there's not really any denying that that's what's happening because it's happening in the open and Trump likes doing things in the open.

But then there's the other side of it, which is, you know, these are unbelievably cursed businesses, CBS News and CNN, right?

very, very challenging, been in decline for my entire career.

There wasn't really a moment when these things weren't in decline.

That's not true of CNN, but that's true of CBS for sure.

And CNN is just struggling with the fact that you can produce this, you can take what had been a very, very, very expensive to produce

cnn show and do something that is more personal looser but also quite high quality technically from whatever room in your home you're in right now and that's like a huge problem for these networks that isn't really fixable um and there's always been this idea oh maybe in this declining shrinking television space if you shove cbs and cnn together

kind of makes sense, maybe you save some money.

But I just think there are these much, much bigger problems, which is that CNN's business is just melting, you know, like, like an iceberg, and there's not really any way to fix it.

That aren't really about whether it's too mega or not mega enough.

No, it's just, I mean, they're in the cable business and you're, you know, and the rest of us these days are in the internet business, which by the way is cursed too and has its own problems.

But, you know, CNN had this incredible run of receiving cable affiliate fees where you're paid X dollars per cable subscriber and there are fewer and fewer cable subscribers every year.

And so that number, which I think this is a Warner overall number, but if it's like 700 million one year, it's 650 million the next.

And that's nice money to have, $700 million.

$650 million is still nice money to have, but the line is just going steadily down and down and down.

And so they're just built on this cost structure that doesn't extend into the future.

And that's totally separate from these questions around tinkering around the edges of ideology.

And in fact, like this basic CBS News story is that David Ellison wants to make movies, wants to own Warner, you know, is probably a little Trumpier than his predecessor, but also just wants to get this deal done.

And if CBS News is the minor sacrifice that you can throw the president, CBS News and something Trump really cares about, which is a great Max Taney scoop producing Rush Hour 4.

Those are the two things the president really cares about.