The Paley Center for Media will offer the panel “A Presidential Election Unlike Any Other: The Media and the 2024 Race” on Wednesday, September 25 at The Paley Museum in New York. The session is part of the Paley’s Media Impact Series and happens at 6:30 p.m. 

Panelists include Joshua Glick, film and media Bard College; Margaret Hoover, Host of PBS’s Firing Line with Margaret Hoover; Christine Quinn, commentator; president/CEO, WIN; Reihan Salam, president, Manhattan Institute; Jessica Tarlov, co-host, Fox News Channel’s The Five; and moderator Mark Lodato, dean, Syracuse University, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

“The Paley Museum is honored to convene this timely discussion on the importance of media’s role in what is shaping up to be one of the most consequential presidential elections in our lifetime,” said Maureen J. Reidy, president/CEO, The Paley Center for Media. “We look forward to what promises to be a compelling and informative conversation just ahead of November 5.”

The Media Impact Series spotlights the role of media in influencing thought and behavior.

“As the 2024 Presidential Election unfolds, dramatic shifts have transformed the political landscape — from an unpredictable race to the rise of deepfakes and growing global interference,” Paley said. “To navigate these complexities, The Paley Museum will welcome a distinguished panel of experts and strategists to explore how the ever-expanding world of media — encompassing print, electronic, and digital platforms — can help the public understand the critical issues at stake, despite widespread skepticism toward both the news media and political parties. The discussion will highlight the influence of AI in this unprecedented election, exploring its potential impact on voter behavior. As the campaigns move into their final, decisive months, the panelists will provide insights on how the media can empower citizens with the information needed to make informed choices for the future.”                       

The Paley Center for Media has announced speakers for the 2024 Paley International Council Summit, including John C. Malone, chairman, Liberty Media, Liberty Broadband and Liberty Global; Adam Silver, NBA commissioner; and Aryeh B. Bourkoff, chairman and CEO, LionTree. With the title “Global Innovators: Defining the Future of Media,” the event happens at the Paley Museum in New York November 12-13. 

Each year, the summit brings together chief executives and other thought leaders to discuss topics and trends in the media. Frank A. Bennack, Jr., executive vice chairman and former CEO, Hearst, and chairman of The Paley Center For Media, chairs the summit. 

“Over the years I have had the distinct privilege to witness and take part in some of the insightful conversations that are a signature of the Paley International Council Summit,” said Bennack. “The media industry is constantly evolving, and the Summit continues to serve as a vital platform to discuss the ideas that will shape the industry in the coming years and beyond.” 

Other speakers include Paul Cheesbrough, CEO, Tubi Media Group; Mike Fries, CEO, Liberty Global; Don Garber, commissioner, Major League Soccer; Rebecca Glashow, CEO, BBC Global Media & Streaming; Steve Hasker, President and CEO, Thomson Reuters; Jim Lanzone, CEO, Yahoo Inc.; Almar Latour, CEO, Dow Jones & Co., and publisher, The Wall Street Journal; Dennis Mathew, chairman and CEO, Altice USA; Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO, Verizon Consumer Group, Verizon; and Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming. 

John Malone has spoken at the last few Paley summits. 

“We are honored to welcome the leaders and innovators from some of the world’s most influential companies to this year’s Paley International Council Summit,” said Maureen J. Reidy, president and CEO of The Paley Center for Media. “We look forward to hosting many fascinating discussions on some of the most important topics within the media industry including the advancement of artificial intelligence, the continued evolution of streaming and more. Additionally, we extend our deepest thanks to Accenture, Hearst, Verizon, and William S. Paley Foundation for their invaluable support of this year’s Summit.”

The Chairman’s Opening Night Reception happens Monday, November 11 at the Hearst Tower in New York. Day 1 takes place November 12 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the museum. Day 2 starts 9:30 a.m. and concludes at 1 p.m. 

The panel “Maintaining Trust in Journalism from Reporters to Aggregators and Everything in Between” was held at the Paley Center for Media in New York during its International Council Summit. Leopoldo Gomez, president, Univision News; Simone Swink, executive producer, Good Morning America; and Matt Murray, editor in chief, The Wall Street Journal, were on the panel, and Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, moderated. 

Gomez spoke about the polarization going on in America, amid politics and the culture war, and how that erodes trust in the news. “It’s a huge challenge going forward,“ he said.

Swink mentioned how fake news has become a catchphrase, but many who use the term do have a degree of trust in certain individuals and organizations. “When people start locking in on individual brands and individuals bringing them the news,” Swink said, the trust level in news is much higher.

Murray said a newsroom might start every day, assuming readers and viewers don't trust the product, then set out to earn it each day.

Swink brought up the challenge of covering politicians who deny the results of the 2020 election. “How much sound do you play from them?” she asked. “If you choose not to play that sound, are you telling the whole story?”

Swink described that as a daily discussion that did not exist a couple of years ago.

Ibarguen asked what news might look like five years down the road, and how much disruption is needed to retain its relevance. Gomez said the biggest challenge is reaching what he called the “really young,” those 18-35.

Murray shared that news might not need all that much of an upheaval. “There are things about journalism that should not be disrupted, that we should cling to,” he said. “People are always going to need and seek out news.” ■

The 15th annual PaleyFest Fall TV Previews event begins Sept. 20, with panels set up for shows on ABC, AMC, CBS, Disney Plus, Fox, HBO Max, NBC, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Showtime, TNT and truTV. The shows include Showtime’s American Rust, Fox’s The Big Leap, CBS’s CSI: Vegas, NBC’s Ordinary Joe, ABC’s The Wonder Years and Tru TV’s Tacoma FD, among others. 

Producers and cast are featured in the panels. Panels can be viewed on the Paley Center’s YouTube Channel Sept. 20, while Citi Cardmembers and Paley Center members get access to all panel discussions Sept. 14. 

“We are very excited to present one of the most anticipated programming lineups of the year, all while giving our Paley fans a truly binge-worthy experience with all-at-once access to our panel discussions,” said Maureen J. Reidy, Paley Center president and CEO. “We thank Citi for returning as an official sponsor, ensuring that even more entertainment enthusiasts have access to these enlightening conversations with some of the most talented and creative names in television today.”

Other series to be featured include Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and One of Us Is Lying on Peacock, Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. on Disney Plus, Ghosts on CBS, The Harper House on Paramount Plus, Love Life on HBO Max, Our Kind of People on Fox, Queens on ABC, Rhodes to the Top on TNT and The Walking Dead Universe on AMC. 

The Paley Center is based in New York and Los Angeles. 

AMC NETWORKS

AMC Networks has named Brett Dismuke general manager of WE tv and Urban Movie Channel, adding oversight of the female-focused network to his duties. Dismuke had been chief content officer of UMC since January. 

CPB

Kathryn Washington was elevated to senior VP, television content at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, charged with funding “innovative, diverse and creative programming.” She was VP, television content. 

CROWN MEDIA

Lara Richardson has joined Hallmark Channel parent Crown Media Family Networks as chief marketing officer. She comes from Discovery, where she was group executive VP of marketing for Discovery and Science Channel.

DISCOVERY

Jim Keller has joined Discovery as executive VP, digital ad sales and advanced advertising, based in New York and tasked with driving digital revenue for Discovery Plus. He was VP, head of national advertising sales at Hulu.

FOX NEWS

Tom Lowell was named executive VP and managing editor of news at Fox News Channel, tasked with overseeing daytime coverage. He had been VP and managing editor of news since 2016, overseeing network newsgathering. 

INTEGRAL AD SCIENCE

Digital ad verification firm Integral Ad Science has tapped Mehul Desai as country head, India. He most recently was chief operating officer at Scan-IT, where he led technical and business operations. 

MARKETCAST

Analytics firm MarketCast has added Zoë Friend as corporate senior VP of customer research and insights. She led a team of 40 as head of Netflix’s content and marketing research practice for five years. 

MSNBC

Rashida Jones was named president of MSNBC, succeeding 25-year veteran Phil Griffin at the helm of the cable news network. She had been a senior VP at NBC News and MSNBC.

PALEY CENTER

Jamitha Fields was named to the new post of VP of diversity, inclusion and engagement at The Paley Center for Media. She had worked as the organization’s VP of development and client services for four years.

RIEDEL 

Riedel Communications, a provider of IP-enabled video solutions, has promoted Renaud Lavoie to senior VP, technology. He had worked as managing director of Riedel Montreal for about a year. 

WARNERMEDIA

Jennifer Biry was named chief financial officer at WarnerMedia, succeeding now-AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches. She was most recently CFO of AT&T Communications’ mobility and entertainment organizations. 

WNET GROUP

The WNET Group in New York has named James King as the new artistic director of its ALL ARTS multimedia platform. He is the former managing director of Harlem Stage, also in New York. 

BRIEFLY NOTED

Other industry execs making moves

Adriana Diaz and Jericka Duncan have been named anchors of CBS Weekend News. Diaz will anchor Saturdays from Chicago and Duncan will anchor Sundays from New York. … Lara Richardson was named chief marketing officer at Crown Media Family Networks. She had been group executive VP of marketing for Discovery and Science Channel. … Kids’ content company Genius Brands International has promoted Michael Jaffa to chief operating officer. He was general counsel and senior VP of business affairs. … Hearst Television has upped Matt Helf to director of its HTV Design unit in Orlando. He had been a brand research manager. … Mission Broadcasting has promoted Taunya Tourville-Bennett to station manager and general sales manager of duopoly KWBQ/KASY Albuquerque, New Mexico. She had been local sales manager at the stations. … David Solomon was named CEO at independent cable ad rep firm Viamedia. He had been chief revenue officer. … Janet Dewart Bell has been named as chair of the Women’s Media Center. She is president of nonprofit organization LEAD Intergenerational Solutions.

In the earlier days of Netflix, co-founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings and his DVD rental startup were often underestimated by folks like Blockbuster Video impresario Joe Antioco, who notably rebuffed an overture to purchase the then small Silicon Valley company.

But Liberty Global Chairman John Malone says he saw Netflix comin’ all the way. 

Malone described an early interaction with Hastings while interviewed last week by Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries in a virtual event produced by the Paley Center. (Hat tip to LightShed Partners principal analyst Richard Greenfield for highlighting the event in the firm’s blog. The interview is also archived here.) 

According to Malone, at some point, Fries invited Hastings to a Liberty Global board meeting, and Hastings tried to assure the room that Netflix had “no intention” of producing its own content or competing with the then-thriving video services of cable companies like Liberty. 

“I responded to him at the time, bulls***,” Malone recalled. “It was clear where he was headed, and if he didn’t understand that, he was going to figure it out.”

(Hastings hasn't corroborated or disputed this public account.)

Malone also recounted the time he tried to have DirecTV acquire Netflix when he was chairing the satellite TV company: “I knew it was going to be a home run at that point and that was when [Hastings] was struggling with getting rid of his old mail platform. What I saw was global scale.” 

Is Roku the Next Netflix?

Malone also spent some time discussing the growing clout of Roku, which has seen its market capitalization quickly grow to nearly $30 billion after an up-and-down first 18 months on the Nasdaq. 

Roku, which still hasn’t come to terms with WarnerMedia to support HBO Max, also recently touted that its connected TV device platform has 46 million active users. 

Malone said that if Roku’s platform continues to expand—reaching, say, the magic 100 million active user mark—it could establish market power similar to the Apple App Store, where content suppliers have to “pay to play.”

“That’s a function of how big and unique the platform is,” Malone said. “So if the platform provider can capture a large enough global scale of consumers who are essentially using it as a bundling agent—as an intermediary—then they’re going to have market power over the suppliers of the content, and they will emerge to use that market power to get a pricing or access differentiator, and they’ll build a business based on it. I think the reason you see so much market cap flowing to Roku right now is because they seem to have developed an independent separate public company platform that is becoming essentially a channel store of scale.”

With the 2014-15 television season now in the books, a recent Ratings Intelligence report revealed that three of the top five highest-rated broadcast dramas of 2015 featured a predominately African-American cast or was headed by an African-American actor/actress: Empire, How to Get Away with Murder and Scandal.

With the success of those broadcast TV shows as well as cable series such as Power, Being Mary Jane and the Haves and Have Nots featuring predominately African-American cast or lead actors, it’s hard to believe there was a time when such images weren’t a major part of the television landscape.

Yet a recent Paley Center Tribute to African-American Achievements in Television reminded the many actors, writers and network executives in attendance how far African-Americans have come in portraying their stories and their images on the small screen.

Oprah Winfrey, who has been a mainstay on television for more than 30 years, spoke during the Paley Center tribute about a period in the early 1950s through late 1960s when there were no TV shows featuring an African-American actor or actresses in a starring or supporting role.

To have come from that point through the 1970s and 1980s when a few shows like Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons,Good Times and eventually The Cosby Show began to showcase African-American images and stories, to today’s array of programs showcasing African Americans across multiple platforms is not lost on the veteran actors and actresses who lived through those often lean times.

Antonio Fargas, best known for his role as the iconic, streetwise informant Huggy Bear on the 1970s crime drama Starsky & Hutch and who has been embraced by contemporary audiences through appearances on Everybody Hates Chris and most recently on Showtime’s House of Lies, recently told Multichannel News that he’s impressed with the strides African-Americans have made on TV.

   “For me I know whose shoulders I stand on. To now know that I’m a young pioneer in TV history because of the opportunities that I had in the 1970s is special," said Fargas, who is currently serving as brand ambassador for the vintage TV network Cozi Tv. "[Today’s performers] gave me opportunities in their shows because they wanted to say thank you for the shoulders that I gave them.” 

The other message heard loud and clear at the Paley Center tribute was that the beat must go on for African-American images on TV beyond Scandal, Empire and Black-ish.  

“It’s imperative that we keep telling our stories because our experiences are so broad, rich and multifaceted – there isn’t one way to be Black or ish,” said Winfrey. “The more stories we share the more reflective we can be of the whole diverse African-American community.”