Joe Flint
Appearances
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
Well, it probably started getting criticized sometime a few days after the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was signed.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
But I think we really began to see a push about funding public media in the 90s. Newt Gingrich wanted to end funding for public media. George W. Bush also at one point made remarks about whether there was a need to fund public media. Mitt Romney, when he was running. The things I like, PBS.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
You may have noticed a pattern here. It seems to be Republicans who want to explore this idea of cutting funding for public media because their idea is, you know, we have so many challenges and so many debts and everything else. Why do we need to fund public media when there's so many options for the consumer out there?
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
Well, I think it really depends on the particular markets. So you're in D.C., I'm in L.A. We're in big markets. The public stations here and in D.C. don't rely as much on those funds from CPB the way smaller market stations do. But you go out into smaller markets and you might be talking about 15, 20 percent of their funding comes from the corporation.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
And so if they lose that money, a lot of these stations, of course, produce their own local content. They're covering town halls. They're covering the markets they're in. They're doing their own TV shows. And so without that funding, they won't be able to make as much or do other services inside a town that they might provide.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
Well, in the spring, there was a hearing chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene to discuss the bias in public media.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
And these hearings happen every few years, and they are somewhat predictable. Entertaining, but predictable. You will have Republicans telling us that the political bias of NPR and PBS is outrageous and that they carry a lot of children's content that isn't necessarily appropriate for children, that they are pushing an agenda and a culture that they don't feel should be pushed to their kids.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
So these things quickly turn into kind of a lot of broad attacks.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
It's a fight that's going on on multiple levels. That's our colleague Joe Flint.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
The hearing quickly turned into that sort of thing. One side is attacking them for their politics. The other side is defending Sesame Street.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
Well, these things, usually there's hearings, there's lots of talk, but they don't go anywhere. And one of the reasons they don't go anywhere is there are even a lot of Republican lawmakers from rural areas that count heavily on those public media stations. So they also may not be in the biggest rush to get rid of them because they're important to their constituents. We have a president right now
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
who is very confident in his ability to get what he wants through executive order, through muscling his way through situations. And so he issued in May, early May, an executive order saying that all funding for public media should stop.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
So one aspect of the fight is the idea or question of whether the government should continue to help fund public media. So there's been many attempts over the last several decades to end public funding, and Trump has just put it on the forefront. He has pretty much said, I feel that they are biased, hence we shouldn't support them with taxpayer money.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
I think there's certainly a perception that over the last 20 years, NPR has gotten more liberal. Former NPR employee Yuri Berliner, of course, wrote a piece for the Free Press many months ago outlining, in his view, just how liberal NPR has become over the last decade.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
You know, the NPR audience tends to be an urban audience in big cities that are usually democratically run and that a lot of their content is geared towards those folks. There's nothing wrong with that. I think for the administration, their argument is, well, no, but why should we have to fund it?
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
Certainly, there's always been an argument to be made that given the debt, given all the things that we need to cut and look at where we spend our money and what we need to invest in and what we don't, that public media maybe isn't the priority it was when the Public Broadcasting Act was created in 1967. And in the grand scheme of things, it's a relatively small amount of money.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
But nonetheless, it's still $535 million a year. It's not a drop in the bucket. So, I mean, you know, is there a rationale that it should be at least discussed? Yeah.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
I think it is safe to say that this administration is targeting media outlets whose coverage it doesn't like. So we've seen it go after ABC and CBS. We've seen Trump be very critical of MSNBC and its parent, Comcast Corporation. And in going after NPR and PBS, he has the added leverage of CNN. trying to use the power of an executive order to end government funding for public broadcasting.
The Journal.
NPR’s CEO on the Fight Over Public Media
So obviously with public media, that he has the power to strangle their money and force them to basically get their funding from somewhere else.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
They just have a really great vibe between all of them and they gel and sometimes there's tension between them and they speak in a way that does not feel manufactured. They're there to give the fans their view and without regard of how it may play with the teams that they're talking about or the league.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
So it's a very complex, very unusual deal, but one that I think will keep fans happy, the league happy, and hopefully the cast of Inside the NBA as well, because they also need to all get on board with this.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
TNT first started carrying the NBA all the way back in 1989. So, you know, this is a very long relationship. And way back then, TNT also had for a while NFL football. Sports was a big part of putting TNT on the map.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Their chief executive, David Zaslav, made clear that they were going to be very careful in how they were spending money on content. That's entertainment content, sports content. He famously said in an investor conference about almost two years ago now, hey, we don't need the NBA.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
And whether that was a negotiating ploy or just a belief that they could get by fine without this sport that has been very important to TNT, who knows? But it certainly meant that this was going to be a much more confrontational negotiation than previous ones.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Netflix is going to carry two NFL games at Christmas. Amazon has Thursday night football. Apple has a lot of baseball. All these companies that are trying to carve out their space in the entertainment universe bet on sports.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Certainly TNT could have kept airing inside the NBA, but I don't think it would have done as well for them there without the games to bring in an audience, and it's an expensive show. for them to air without the benefit of it serving as a promotional platform for their basketball games. These folks get paid, you know, good salaries.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
So while they could have kept airing it and it might have had an audience, it wouldn't have been nearly as impactful both for TNT and for the NBA.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Well, certainly the most outspoken of those four was Barkley, who expressed a lot of disappointment in Turner for losing the NBA. A lot of concern about the people at Turner whose jobs and livelihoods were dependent on the NBA and inside the NBA.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
I think they were all disappointed, obviously, that a place that had been their home and the home of the NBA for so many years was suddenly left out in the cold.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Their claim was that they had rights to match that the NBA did not honor. So in this case, Warner did make a matching offer on the NBA package that Amazon had. That was the package they decided they were going to try to match. It was sort of a last-ditch effort, and it was comparable to the $1.9 billion Amazon was paying.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
However, the league ultimately decided there were other aspects to the Amazon deal that made it more valuable to them. And so that's what led TNT to sue. They essentially claimed that there was a breach of contract and the league was saying basically the claims are without merit.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Well, I would say in terms of getting, if you look at TNT and Warner Discovery, they certainly didn't win in the sense of getting NBA games back on TNT. That ship is now officially sailed, but they did receive rights at no cost
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
to NBA games in many international markets, including the Nordics, Denmark, Norway, also Poland, a lot of Northern Europe and Latin America, with the exception of Brazil and Mexico.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Well, I think there's two things going on. One, I do think ESPN recognized the value inside the NBA could bring to it. And at the same time, ESPN has a lot of college football and college basketball. You might say they have a surplus of it.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
So for them to be able to sub-license some of their games to another provider, and, you know, so they'll still collect money from that, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Well, that's the hope. I don't know how happy the NBA is. I do think that there were other factors as well to this deal, which is the discovery process had just started and if this suit had gone on, there was the potential for a lot of confidential material and details about the negotiations to be made public. And I think the NBA didn't want that.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
I would describe it, I mean, on the one hand, it's a similar type of pregame show to Inside the NFL or the types of shows we see on ESPN before big events. But it's much more than that.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
I'm pretty sure that Amazon wouldn't have wanted that. So there were other motivations as well to make a deal here.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Well, I don't think the show will change. However, I should note that literally as soon as our story went up on Saturday night about the show moving, there were a few people suggesting that, well, they better make sure all the talent's locked up. My understanding from talking to people is that the talent will be on board, the four. But that said...
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Agents look for any opportunity to open up a deal to renegotiate. So, yeah, there may be some more negotiations and more money to be figured out here and there. But most people feel pretty confident this will get done. I have to think that ESPN wouldn't have gone into this if they weren't confident that all the talent will –
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
be part of this show but uh you know we'll see we live in a strange world lots of things can happen do you think that this deal sets a new precedent for what's possible in the media industry or is this just sort of like a one-off creative solution to a very specific problem well on the one hand i view it is that this is a one-off creative solution to a specific problem on the other hand the
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Media companies are often tangled up in all sorts of business disputes and often said disputes are resolved by deals like this. I mean, this is obviously unique because it's a big popular show, but we've seen settlements of other legal battles where an asset might be traded to make a suit go away.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
Yeah. This show has a unique place in the sports landscape and the media landscape. And that is what's kind of created this situation. It's not necessarily means that every pregame show, postgame show is of that same value.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
For all the talk and obsession that we in the industry and people who cover it have with deals and who's selling what network to who and who's getting into streaming and what's that going to mean, it ultimately still comes down to having personalities that people want to watch. And to me, that's what this Inside the MBA deal represents.
The Journal.
The Biggest Trade in Sports Wasn't an Athlete — It Was a TV Show
It's just so hard to find that sort of extra special sauce that will bring a viewer in and keep them in when perhaps the game may not be that exciting on that particular night. But because of these guys, people will stick around to hear what they're going to say at halftime.