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      CNN Cuts 100 Jobs, and Announces Plan for Digital Subscription Product

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      The network’s C.E.O., Mark Thompson, has promised a more robust digital strategy as people flee traditional cable packages.CNN’s top leader announced 100 job cuts on Wednesday as well as a digital strategy that would include a new subscription-only digital offering by the end of the year.The company is laying off around 100 people, or about 3 percent of its work force. The layoffs would come “across the company,” Mark Thompson, the network’s chairman, said in a memo to employees. CNN last had significant layoffs in late 2022.Mr. Thompson announced the job cuts as the company began to unveil steps on a digital plan that he said would help the network “regain a leadership position in the news experiences of the future.”Mr. Thompson, the former chief executive of The New York Times and a senior leader at the BBC, has been in charge of CNN since October 2023. He has promised a more robust digital strategy as people flee traditional cable packages in favor of streaming entertainment.CNN’s ratings have plummeted over the last two years, more so than those of its primary competitors, Fox News and MSNBC. Additionally, CNN’s parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, has an enormous debt load, and its share price has fallen sharply this year.CNN got a recent shot in the arm when it organized and broadcast the first presidential debate in late June, an event that continued to set off alarm bells within the Democratic Party about the future of President Biden’s campaign. CNN made the debate available for other outlets to broadcast, and it drew more than 50 million viewers overall. About 9.5 million of those watched on CNN.As part of the announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Thompson said CNN.com’s “first subscription product” would debut later this year. He also said the company would create “a growing stable of ‘news you can use’ offerings” in lifestyle coverage. Additionally, he said the company would make a push into artificial intelligence.Mr. Thompson laid out a reorganization that would include merging three separate newsrooms (U.S. news gathering, international news gathering and digital news) under one leader, Virginia Moseley. And on the prime-time television front, he has directed deputies to “increase audience competitiveness and also keep a close eye on production costs.”“Turning a great news organization toward the future is not a one-day affair,” Mr. Thompson wrote in a memo to employees. “It happens in stages and over time. Today’s announcements do not answer every question or seek to solve every challenge we face. However, they do represent a significant step forward.” More

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      ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, Episode 4: Fire in the Sky

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      This week brings all-out warfare and the death of a key character.Season 2, Episode 4: ‘A Dance of Dragons’From its sobriquet on down, George R.R. Martin’s World of Ice and Fire is largely a bipolar one. Blacks fight Greens. Starks fight Lannisters. And in the prophetic Song of Ice and Fire itself, death wars against life.The dragons flown by the Targaryen dynasty are an exception to this rule. In the source novels, various maesters and royals speculate that dragons are neither male nor female, capable of switching sexes as needed. True, they are the fire that helps turn back the ice of the Night King and his undead minions in “Game of Thrones,” and the most magnificent and awe-inspiring living creatures in the Westerosi bestiary. But they are also death incarnate, capable of inflicting carnage amid soldiers and civilians alike at an industrial scale.And if need be, they can be called upon to kill one another, in battles as brutal as they are beautiful. There is a reason scholars within Martin’s fictional universe refer to the Targaryen civil war as the Dance of the Dragons: The conflict is as rapturous to behold as it is repugnant, often in the same scene.This episode’s three-way battle between Princess Rhaenys and her red dragon Meleys, King Aegon II and his gloriously golden Sunfyre, and Prince Aemond One-Eye and the colossal beast Vhagar is a case study in the dragons’ duality. The script, by the co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal, contains a lengthy lead-up to the climactic Battle at Rook’s Rest — a trap set by the Hand of the King, Ser Criston Cole, and his primary ally, Prince Aemond, to lure Black dragons and their riders to their doom — featuring glory shots of Meleys and Sunfyre on their way to war. The director, Alan Taylor, a signature talent on “Game of Thrones,” makes it clear what kind of splendor the world will lose if these animals should die.He also makes it clear what kind of horrors the world will see if they live. Rook’s Rest is a nightmare of burning men, crushed men, men fleeing for their lives from what are effectively flying nuclear dinosaurs. The riders try their best, for the most part, but neither dragon fire nor dragon feet are particular about who they snuff out.Indeed, the episode’s most shocking moment comes when Aemond, who delayed his own assault when his detested brother Aegon crashed the battle uninvited so as not to appear weak, turns Vhagar against not only their enemy Rhaenys, but Aegon too. Only the timely intervention of Ser Criston prevents Aemond from striding across the broken body of Sunfyre and putting his fallen, burned brother out of his misery at the battle’s end.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Meet David Ellison, the CEO of Skydance and Paramount’s New Owner

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      He left college to try out acting. Now, he’s set to become one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.David Ellison’s Hollywood career has been defined by high-octane blockbusters filled with suspense, stunts and improbable plot twists.But on Sunday he landed his biggest cliffhanger yet, striking a deal to merge with Paramount after months of negotiations with the company and its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone. If the deal closes, he will be in charge of a sprawling media empire that includes CBS, MTV and the Paramount movie studio.Though Mr. Ellison, 41, joined the cast of Hollywood’s power players more than a decade ago, he hasn’t taken center stage until now. Here’s a look at his career.Who is David Ellison, and what is his company, Skydance?A quick perusal of Mr. Ellison’s page on the Internet Movie Database shows a relatively undistinguished acting career, with minor roles in films like the fighter drama “Flyboys” and teen comedy “The Chumscrubber” (in which he played “Student No. 1”). It wasn’t until he became a producer that his star in Hollywood began to rise.After he dropped out of the University of Southern California and gave up on acting, Mr. Ellison turned to producing. His family’s considerable influence — he is the son of the Oracle founder Larry Ellison — helped him bankroll big-budget films like “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” and “Star Trek Into Darkness.”Along the way, the valuation of Mr. Ellison’s company Skydance Media ballooned to more than $4 billion, after private-equity firms like RedBird Capital Partners and KKR invested in it. Mr. Ellison, the chief executive of Skydance, has co-produced hits like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” with Paramount, giving him an entree to the company’s executives and its most valuable franchises.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For George Stephanopoulos, 22 Minutes of Probing the Personal.

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      It was, in the end, an interview as personal as it was political, a cross-examination more focused on the psyche and the inescapable reality of aging than on any points of policy or governance.Respectfully but firmly, the ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday pressed President Biden, again and again, on the basic questions that Americans had asked themselves over the past eight days, since 51 million people saw a diminished Mr. Biden struggle to perform on the debate stage.“Are you more frail?”“Have there been more lapses?”“Have you had a neurologist, a specialist, do an examination?”And as Mr. Biden dismissed all those concerns one by one — flicking away the cascading worries about his health, his electability, his capacity to serve in his office for four additional years — Mr. Stephanopoulos zeroed in on the matters of pride, dignity and self-worth swirling beneath the surface.“Are you sure,” the anchor asked, “you’re being honest with yourself?”At 81, Mr. Biden is 18 years older than his interlocutor. The president arrived at the ABC interview on Friday tanned and tieless, his top two shirt buttons undone, making every effort to project youth and vitality. Yet a viewer could not help but imagine the mop-haired Mr. Stephanopoulos in the role of an adult son, guiding an elderly parent toward a conclusion that may be difficult, and deeply painful, to accept.It is too soon to say if their 22-minute encounter on Friday, taped in the library of a Wisconsin middle school and broadcast by ABC in prime time, will count among the most consequential interviews in presidential history. But it carried some of the highest stakes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Prosper’ Is a Juicy Megachurch Drama

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      This Australian series has enough tawdry scandals to qualify as a soap and enough Shakespearean power lust to qualify as a fancy drama.Richard Roxburgh stars as a megachurch leader in “Prosper.”StanThe Australian drama “Prosper,” on the Roku channel, follows the Quinn family and their megachurch franchise. Dad Cal (Richard Roxburgh) is the slick, energetic leader, the kind of pastor who does not turn the other cheek but instead punches the guy right back, harder. Mom Abi (Rebecca Gibney) is the tough power player, willing though not always happy to cover up her family’s transgressions — a task that takes up nearly all of her time.The eldest son, Dion (Ewen Leslie), might be too milquetoast to take over. “If you want to inherit the earth, Dion, you’re going to have to be a little less meek,” says one attaché. Dion’s wife, Taz (Ming-Zhu Hii), is more than happy to push him, though. God helps those who help their spouses, right? Issy (Hayley McCarthy) is the pop singer with a showbiz-Jesus husband (Jordi Webber) who would love his own chance to preach, while Jed (Jacob Collins-Levy) is the prodigal son who ditched the megachurch in favor of a soup kitchen but now finds himself sucked back into the fold. And the baby of the family, the adopted, teenage Moses (Alexander D’Souza), is trying to contact his birth parents amid a self-destructive spiral.“Nobody does church like us,” Cal brags. One hopes! His plan to plant a church in Los Angeles sends his children scrambling for top position, trying to prove both their spiritual and commercial mettle. They compete to baptize a famous young D.J. the way the “Succession” kids tried to close deals. Jesus is lord, but cash is king, and those sprawling buildings, rock-concert stages, private helicopters and image consultants don’t pay for themselves.“Prosper” has enough tawdry scandals to qualify as a soap and enough Shakespearean power lust to qualify as a fancy drama. Unlike some of its more prestige-chasing brethren, “Prosper” moves; it almost feels distilled. Episodes zip along, and characters tend to announce their schemes and allegiances, and what the show lacks in nuance it makes up for in momentum. Many of its juiciest arcs are ripped from tabloid headlines, but the series avoids tinny caricature and instead finds the real light and longing in its characters, the sincerity of the search within the hypocrisy of the outcomes. More

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      How to Watch Biden’s ABC News Interview With George Stephanopoulos

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      President Biden on Friday will sit down with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News for his first television interview since his poor debate performance last week sent his campaign into damage control mode and raised concerns about his ability to stay in the race.Here’s how to watch it:The first clip from the interview, which is being taped while Mr. Biden campaigns in Wisconsin, will air on “World News Tonight with David Muir” at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Friday.The full conversation will then be broadcast during a prime-time special on ABC starting at 8 p.m., both Eastern and Pacific time. If you miss it tonight, you have another chance on Sunday: The interview will run again in its entirety on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” Check your local station for air times.You can also watch in the ABC smartphone app, on ABC.com and via connected devices (Roku, Apple TV+ and Amazon Fire TV). More

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      ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, Episode 3 Recap: Let’s Talk

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      Rhaenyra acts on a risky hope that cooler heads might prevail. But are there really any cool heads left?Season 2, Episode 3:“We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think,” George R.R. Martin wrote in his short 1996 essay “On Fantasy.” “To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.” By that standard, this week’s episode of “House of the Dragon,” a series based on Martin’s book “Fire and Blood,” is spicy fantasy indeed.I don’t just mean the sex and nudity, though what there was of both blew my hair back on my head. For Martin, fantasy is about more than ribaldry. Describing it as a genre of “silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli,” he goes on to write of how its very largeness, the unbounded scope of its imagination, “speaks to something deep within us.” This episode certainly spoke to something deep within this critic.Crumbling gothic castles and grotesque charnel-house battlefields, nightmares of murder and desperate pleas for peace, breakneck dragon chases and it-was-all-a-big-misunderstandings — this week offered the kind of maximalist storytelling that felt both over-the-top and vital. (Indeed it’s hard to have great TV without at least a smidgen of the outlandish.) From a story perspective, the episode’s biggest moment arrived right near the end. The brewing war between the Blacks and the Greens over the Iron Throne comes down to the wishes of one dead man, King Viserys. For years, he proclaimed his daughter, Rhaenyra, to be his heir to all and sundry. But on the night it most counted, the night of his death, he told his wife, Queen Alicent, that his eldest son, Aegon, must be the one to unite the realm — “The Prince That Was Promised,” as Viserys called the callow lad.Or so it seemed to Alicent. We in the audience knew that when he mentioned the name Aegon, he was referring to his prophetic ancestor, Aegon the Conqueror, and to Aegon’s vision of an apocalyptic battle against the darkness, as depicted in the final season of “Game of Thrones.”Did Alicent truly believe that Viserys was talking about their son? Or was that merely what she wished to believe? (As important, should a drama hinge its central conflict on the kind of verbal mix-up better suited to a sitcom? Answering that is, at this advanced stage, perhaps beyond the scope of this recap.)The daring stealth mission in which Rhaenyra sneaks back into King’s Landing (with Mysaria’s help) to force a one-on-one meeting with her frenemy of frenemies clears all this up. Alicent really believes Viserys wanted Aegon. For her part, Rhaenyra really believes Alicent really believes it. But once the dowager queen mentions the Conqueror’s “Song of Ice and Fire,” Rhaenyra figures out what went wrong and offers a clarification … which Alicent refuses to heed, although she seems to knows in her heart that it is true.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Can Japan’s First Same-Sex Dating Reality Show Change Hearts and Minds?

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      Producers of “The Boyfriend” on Netflix hope it will encourage broader acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Japan, which still has not legalized same-sex unions.Japan is the only country among the world’s wealthiest democracies that has not legalized same-sex unions. Few celebrities are openly gay. Conservative groups oppose legislative efforts to protect the L.G.B.T.Q. community.But now, Netflix is introducing the country’s first same-sex dating reality series.Over 10 episodes of “The Boyfriend,” which will be available in 190 countries beginning on July 9, a group of nine men gather in a luxury beach house outside Tokyo. The format evokes Japan’s most popular romantic reality show, “Terrace House,” with its assembly of clean cut and exceedingly polite cast members, overseen by a panel of jovial commentators.The vibe is wholesome and mostly chaste. The men, who range in age from 22 to 36, operate a coffee truck during the day and cook dinner at night, with occasional forays outside for dates. One of the biggest (among very few) conflicts of the series revolves around the cost of buying raw chicken to make protein shakes for a club dancer who is trying to maintain his physique. Sex rarely comes up, and friendship and self-improvement feature as prominently as romance.In Japan, the handful of openly gay and transgender performers who regularly appear on television are typically flamboyant, effeminate comic foils who are shoehorned into exaggerated stereotypes. With “The Boyfriend,” Dai Ota, the executive producer, said he wanted to “portray same-sex relationships as they really are.”Mr. Ota, who was also a producer of “Terrace House,” which was made by Fuji TV and licensed and distributed globally by Netflix, said he had avoided “the approach of ‘let’s include people who cause problems.’”“The Boyfriend,” he said, represents diversity in another way — with cast members of South Korean, Taiwanese and multiethnic heritages.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More