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      Dish and DirecTV Near a Deal to Combine (Again)

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      The companies are in talks to create one of the largest pay-TV providers in the country. In 2002, the U.S. government blocked a similar deal.Business has gotten only more difficult for Charlie Ergen, the founder of the satellite TV giant Dish, since the government blocked his bid to combine his company with DirecTV in 2002.Since then, streaming services have demolished the traditional TV industry. Cable and satellite companies have lost about 30 million customers, leaving just 50 million. And the outlook for traditional providers has grown so dire that Ergen warned two years ago that Dish and DirecTV were likely to “melt away” without a deal.The challenges ahead look just as worrisome. Dish’s parent company, EchoStar, sought to fend off declines in Dish’s business by spending billions building out a 5G wireless cellphone network. It now faces the prospect of fending off slicker, faster competitors like Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which put its first satellites in space last year. So Dish and DirecTV are giving a tie-up another try. DirecTV is in the advanced stages of acquiring Dish, two people familiar with the situation told DealBook, requesting anonymity to discuss confidential negotiations. News of the merger discussions, which could still fall apart, was reported earlier by Bloomberg.The latest attempt underscores how much the entertainment industry has shifted over the last two decades. And it raises a perhaps more thorny question: Did the government fail to see how the TV market was changing when it blocked the deal the last time?The television landscape looks nothing like it did 22 years ago. Back in 2002, the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission worried that a merger between Dish and DirecTV would hurt rural subscribers. But many out-of-the-way pockets of the United States no longer rely on the satellite companies as the sole providers of TV. Broadband access has exploded as companies like Comcast and Charter have expanded further.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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      Stream Maggie Smith’s Greatest Performances

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      In “Downton Abbey,” “A Room With a View” and dozens of other films and television series, she delighted audiences with her portrayal of sharp, tart-tongued and often wryly funny Englishwomen.Maggie Smith, who was 89 when she died on Friday, made her professional stage debut on Broadway in the 1950s, when she was still in her early 20s. In the decades that followed, she worked steadily in movies and television, while regularly returning to the theater.Smith won her first Oscar for the title role in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), a charismatic and manipulative teacher who has a profound and, at times, destructive effect on the lives of the teenage girls in her charge. She went on to win another Oscar, a Tony and four Emmys, and became known in her later years for playing a particular type of Englishwoman: sturdy, smart, sharp-tongued and rooted sometimes stubbornly in the traditions of the past.Audiences in the 21st century came to love Smith in two recurring roles: as the heroic Professor Minerva McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” movies and as the coolly disapproving Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in the period TV drama “Downton Abbey.” But her career was long and eclectic, with a mix of serious and comic characters, in both supporting and leading roles. Here are 10 of Smith’s best performances that are available to stream:1972‘Travels With My Aunt’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Though she was only in her late 30s at the time, Smith took an early step toward her most familiar screen persona — the dynamic and unforgettable older relative — in this adaptation of Graham Greene’s offbeat adventure novel. Filling in for Katharine Hepburn (who differed with the studio and with her old friend, the director George Cukor, on how best to tell her character’s story), Smith ended up nabbing her third Oscar nomination, playing the eccentric globe-trotter Augusta Bertram, who enlists a stuffy, middle-aged Londoner in one of her illicit moneymaking schemes while hiding her true connection to him. Smith builds an outsize yet complex character via flashbacks that show how she learned to eschew conventional mores and to enjoy life on her own terms.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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      Jimmy Kimmel on Trump campaign hacks: ‘Shows that his password is McNuggets123’

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      Late-night hosts talk the Trump campaign’s multiple campaign hacks, Kamala Harris’s lead among young voters and a dubious new Trump merchandise product.Jimmy KimmelThe Trump campaign has now been hacked twice in the last two months, “which is what happens when you store secret documents next to the urinal at a golf course”, said Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday evening.Intelligence officials suspect Iran is behind at least one attack, leading campaign spokesman Steven Cheung to claim that the attacks show how Iran is “terrified of the strength and resolve of Donald J Trump”.“And it also shows that his password is McNuggets123,” Kimmel joked.One of the journalists who received the leaked documents said the material may be “embarrassing or problematic” to members of the Trump campaign. “As if anyone who works for the Trump campaign is capable of embarrassment,” Kimmel noted.In other campaign news, Trump was in Georgia on Tuesday, “where they’re working very hard to fix the election for him”, and “once again, he had a lil McFit about whether or not Kamala Harris worked at McDonalds”. Trump repeatedly and falsely said Harris never worked for the fast-food chain, calling her past employment a “lie”.“He really should just be running for Mayor McCheese,” said Kimmel. “It’s so dumb, it’s so petty, but so is he.”Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers laughed at Trump’s campaign trail confession that his “personality defect” is wanting people to like him. “By his own confession, he likes people who like him, and that’s it,” said Meyers. “He doesn’t care about policy or character or integrity. He you like him, he likes you.”That’s why Trump endorsed Mark Robinson, the scandal-plagued Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina. In multiple appearances, Trump praised Robinson, who is Black, saying: “I’ve gotten to know him so well.” He also described Robinson as a “fine wine”, “Martin Luther King on steroids” and “Martin Luther King times two”.“He’s really truly amazing,” said Meyers of Trump. “Everyone agrees Martin Luther King is a great person, but only Trump would say ‘I know someone twice as good! Every night he has two dreams!’”Among Robinson’s numerous scandals is a CNN report of his past racist comments on a pornographic website called Nude Africa, including calling himself a “black Nazi”. In another comment, Robinson, using his full name in his username, said slavery was “not bad” and that he wished it would come back.“First of all, who uses their full name on a porn website?” Meyers wondered. “I don’t even use my full name when I make a dinner reservation – I use Jimmy Fallon, because I want a table.”Despite his past support of Robinson, the Trump campaign is now pretending they don’t know him, and have removed joint events from their calendar. “A healthy, functional political party would do some introspection about how and why they keep attracting deranged extremists and anti-social weirdos like these guys,” Meyers concluded. “But the GOP would rather lie and pretend they have never had anything to do with Robinson in the first place.”Stephen ColbertAnd on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert cited a new Harvard youth voting poll that found Harris leads young female voters 70% to 23%. “Young women are going to save us all. And young men are going to play Xbox and see how high they can jump off a big rock,” Colbert joked.In an effort to attract young voters, the Harris campaign has committed to visiting over 150 college campuses. “Ooh, 150, she’s trying to break Matt Gaetz’s record,” Colbert quipped. “I’m kidding, obviously he’d never date a college girl. Or, as he calls them, mature honeys.”According to a polling director at Harvard, the results show “a significant shift in the overall vibe”.“Yeah the vibes are immaculate,” Colbert said. “The analysis shows that Harris ate and left no crumbs. Her campaign had a bussin’ glow-up. In conclusion, the children have broken my brain. Boots king!”In other news, “Trump may be busy campaigning, but he’ll never lose sight of his first love: selling garbage,” said Colbert. On Tuesday, the former president announced that he’d be selling silver Trump coins with his face on them. The coins are selling for $100 apiece, though the silver they’re made of only costs $30.“What a deal!” Colbert deadpanned, before imagining one man’s justification for buying the coins: “Honey, I know I bought a Trump coin at a 210% loss, but you can use the Trump coin to buy Truth Social stock, and once that eventually bounces back we’ll invest the profit in an NFT trading card of his gold sneakers, which is pegged to the price of the little pieces of his suit we got from when he got arrested, then convert it to Trump crypto, which we’ll use to buy Melania’s book, which, get this, is worth one Trump silver coin.” More

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      ‘We had no political agenda’: the White House hosts a West Wing TV reunion

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      The marine band struck up a familiar theme. The door of the Oval Office swung open. Out strode the president and first lady to address an expectant crowd – that is, the real first lady, Jill Biden, and the president that fans of the TV show The West Wing used to secretly crave: Jed Bartlet, alias actor Martin Sheen.After a decade in which US politics has often felt like the work of a hyper-imaginative screenwriter, with ever more unlikely plot twists including the election of a reality TV star, it felt strangely natural to see Sheen stepping into the shoes of Joe Biden as his show’s theme music filled the Rose Garden.“We just came from the Oval,” said Jill Biden. “But even though Joe is away hosting leaders of Australia and India and Japan in Delaware, he wanted to make sure that President Bartlet and his staff had a chance to see the Oval Office again.”Sheen and fellow cast members had come to the White House to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first episode of The West Wing, the seven-season drama about an idealist liberal president and his fast-talking staff.On Friday, in warm sunshine, there were references to “big blocks of cheese” – a tradition on the show of requiring presidential staffers to meet with eccentric or offbeat constituents – and the walk-and-talk dialogues in which characters moved through the halls at high speed. Waiters passed out bourbon-and-ginger ale cocktails called the Jackal, a reference to press secretary CJ Cregg’s dance and lip-sync routine in one episode.Sheen – who has said his character was a conglomeration of Democrats John F Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – rolled back the years. In classic Bartlet mode, he exhorted the crowd to find something worth fighting for, “something deeply personal and uncompromising, something that can unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh”.View image in fullscreenThen Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, declared: “Our cast will live on as one of the best in the history of television,” and recognised those in attendance. Among them were Richard Schiff, who played communications director Toby Ziegler; Janel Moloney, who played assistant Donna Moss; and Dulé Hill, who played the president’s body man, Charlie Young.Sorkin also noted the absence of a few high-profile actors – Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford and Rob Lowe, better known to fans as Cregg, Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn – who he said were on set elsewhere. “The rest of us are apparently unemployed,” he joked.After the crowd laughed, a voice chimed in from Sorkin’s right. “Not yet!” Jill Biden said. It was a nod to the fact that her husband still has four months left in office – and a quick retort worthy of Bartlet’s exchanges with wife Abbey Bartlet, played by Stockard Channing.The West Wing remains a favourite of many who now work in Washington. Among those spotted in the Rose Garden were the House foreign affairs chair, Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, and Joe Walsh, once a Tea Party-aligned Illinois representative who is now a fierce critic of former president Donald Trump.Sorkin reflected: “We had no political agenda. We were trying to do a good show every week. But the greatest delivery system ever invented for an idea is a story and, once in a while, we’ll hear from someone who was inspired to go into public service because of our show. And that’s something that 25 years ago this week, none of us could have foreseen or even dared to hope for.”Born in the last year of the 20th century, the show illustrates that there is nothing so remote as the recent past. Its run coincided with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was off the air by the time Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden were elected and long gone when the Covid-19 pandemic and January 6 insurrection unfolded.Sorkin continued: “The show was idealistic, aspirational and romantic. Over the years, I’ve noticed that during times of peak political tension, pundits will warn us not to expect ‘a West Wing moment’.View image in fullscreen“They mean not to expect a selfless act of statesmanship. Not to expect anyone to put country first. Don’t expect anyone to swing for the fences or reach for the stars. But the fact is, West Wing moments do happen and Dr Biden, we saw proof of that on the morning of July 21.”That was the day Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election after a disastrous debate performance and growing concerns over the 81-year-old’s mental and physical condition. For months, however, Biden had been in denial. If anyone wants to look for an on-screen parallel, it might be Bartlet hiding a multiple sclerosis diagnosis while running for president.The final season of The West Wing saw Bartlet passing on the torch to fellow Democrat Matthew Santos, played by Jimmy Smits. He becomes America’s first Latino president after defeating Senator Arnold Vinick of California, portrayed by Alan Alda as the kind of old school Republican who is now an endangered species in the Trump era.Nothing, perhaps, dates The West Wing more than that. More

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      ‘Agatha All Along’ Review: Toil and Trouble

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      Marvel’s “WandaVision” spinoff has more witchcraft but less magic.This review contains spoilers for the first episode of “Agatha All Along.”Jac Schaeffer, who created the first of the Disney+ Marvel series, “WandaVision,” and has now created the 11th, its spinoff “Agatha All Along,” is not one to let an idea go to waste.In Schaeffer’s first series, a grieving superheroine used her magical powers to create a world for herself based on classic American sitcoms. It was entertaining to watch how the show reimagined those familiar comedies within a dark fantasy-science fiction framework. (At least until “WandaVision” went off the rails toward convoluted Marvel business as usual in its last few episodes.)Now she starts “Agatha All Along,” which premiered Wednesday night on Disney+, with another detailed sendup. This time she puts her new main character — Agatha Harkness, a dangerous witch with a half-century history in Marvel comic books — inside a parody of the grim HBO crime drama “Mare of Easttown.” Still stuck where she was at the end of “WandaVision,” under a spell that strips her powers and any memory of who she really is, the fallen sorceress is now a cynical, violence-prone small-town police officer.You may ask yourself how, in the three years that have elapsed between the two shows, Agatha has undergone a complete personality shift, from chirpy neighborhood noodge to hardened cop. You should be more concerned, though, with why the cop-show pastiche is so disappointing — so dull and aimless that talented comic actresses like Kathryn Hahn (who stars as Agatha) and Aubrey Plaza seem at a loss.It is a relief when that show-within-a-show ends during the first episode, apparently a quick diversion rather than an integral element like the sitcom burlesques in “WandaVision.” (Four of the nine episodes of “Agatha All Along” were available for review.)It has set a bad precedent, though. Even when the series shifts into its actual format — a jokey, jaggedly comic fantasy quest in which a group of unfulfilled women hit the road in search of their powers — the results are mostly perfunctory. Spells are cast, but not on the audience.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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      Daniel Lubetzky Joins ‘Shark Tank’ as Mark Cuban Departs

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      Daniel Lubetzky, the founder of the Kind snack company, began appearing as a guest on “Shark Tank” five years ago. Soon he’ll have a permanent seat.As Mark Cuban prepares to leave the ABC hit “Shark Tank” after more than a decade, the reality show is giving the guest star Daniel Lubetzky a permanent seat on the five-person panel. The show, which has aired since 2009, introduces well-connected investors, like Lubetzky, to ambitious entrepreneurs who hope to strike a deal.Lubetzky, who founded Kind Snacks, signed a multi-season deal, and his presence will bring a new dynamic when the next season airs on Oct. 18. This is the first time since 2012 that the show has introduced a regular investor — known as a shark — to its rotating panel, which also includes Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O’Leary.“We’re seeing it as an inflection point, as an opportunity to grow,” Clay Newbill, the executive director of “Shark Tank,” said in a video interview.Lubetzky started appearing on the show five years ago, often attracting founders of food companies. During negotiations, Lubetzky often smiles and asks entrepreneurs for their back stories. In the process he shares his own. Before he declines to fund someone’s company, he offers advice and shares stories of his own rejections and business miscalculations. He often invokes his father, a Holocaust survivor, when talking about resiliency.Lubetzky complements the show’s themes around the American dream and enchantment with entrepreneurship. He was born in Mexico, and as a child watched his father run businesses. When he was a teenager, the family moved to the United States, and in 2004, after starting other businesses, he began his Kind brand, which emphasizes that its snacks lack artificial flavors and preservatives. A deal with Starbucks in 2009 helped the brand reach even more customers. In 2020, Mars, the maker of M&M’s and Snickers, acquired Kind and valued the company at about $5 billion.Lubetzky says he sees himself as a team player as he joins the show permanently.“So many kids and families watch this show together,” Lubetzky said in an interview in June on the set of “Shark Tank” in Los Angeles, adding that the show is a way for viewers to learn about entrepreneurship. “It’s just an incredible way to contribute.”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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      ‘American Crime Story’ Turns to Sports With Aaron Hernandez Saga

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      The buzzy FX series delves into the N.F.L. star who murdered a friend less than a year after playing in the Super Bowl.The saga of Aaron Hernandez has riveted the sports world and beyond for more than a decade. An N.F.L. star on one of football’s best teams killed a man in 2013 even as he chased fame and glory on the field.Two years after his conviction in 2015, Hernandez hanged himself in prison, leaving unexplained his descent into crime, rumors about his sexuality, and how he was able to hide his off-field life while thriving at America’s most popular sport.Hernandez has been the subject of multiple books, true crime podcasts and documentaries. But his story is getting the Ryan Murphy treatment in a new 10-part anthology series, “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez,” premiering on Tuesday on FX and Hulu. Its showrunners are trying a playbook similar to one used for dramatizations of other well-known scandals like “The People v. O.J. Simpson” and “Impeachment,” about former President Bill Clinton’s sexual improprieties. But this time, they’re grappling with new terrain: pro football.Nina Jacobson, an executive producer of “American Sports Story,” said showrunners hoped to offer viewers a “more subjective experience,” rather than a rehashing of previously reported events.“I think we try, in all of these shows, to find a way to put people in the shoes of the characters and put themselves in the eye of the storm — not in a way to excuse anybody’s voices or behaviors,” she said, “but to give people a chance to maybe see them in a different light.”Ahead of the first installment, here are the key points to know about Aaron Hernandez’s football career and murder case, and the TV drama that will depict them.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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      Emmy Viewership Rises to 6.9 Million Viewers

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      The uptick puts the Emmys among the award shows, such as the Oscars, that have had audience gains in the past few years.For the first time in three years, viewership for the Emmy Awards has gone in an upward direction.The Emmys drew an audience of 6.9 million on ABC on Sunday night, according to Nielsen, a healthy increase following a strike-delayed ceremony in January that drew a low of just over 4 million viewers.The ratings increase finally follows a trend of other award shows, such as the Oscars and Grammys, which have had viewership gains over the past few years. And it also stops the bleeding for an event that was dangerously approaching the low ratings of the Tony Awards.Even with the increase, the Emmys has lost a substantial amount of its audience in recent years. As recently as 2018, the event regularly drew more than 10 million people.Sunday’s telecast had some advantages over the last show. The January ceremony ran head-to-head against an N.F.L. playoff game, and was on the tail end of a frenetic stretch of award shows that included the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards. Sunday’s show was back in the Emmys’ traditional mid-September slot that viewers have come to expect.The Emmys has long had the unfortunate — but accurate — reputation of being numbingly predictable. Indeed, in recent years, voters have tended to shower the same show (“Schitt’s Creek,” “The White Lotus,” “Ted Lasso,” “Succession”) with award after award. But on Sunday, there was an unusual turn of events: There were numerous upsets.“The Bear” won four Emmys on Sunday but, in a big surprise, “Hacks” won best comedy. Voters gave “Shogun” best drama honors, but also delivered unexpected wins to shows like “Slow Horses” and “The Morning Show.” “Baby Reindeer” took best limited series, but “True Detective,” “Fargo” and “Ripley” also had wins on Sunday.Reviews for the telecast, which was hosted by the father-and-son duo of Eugene and Dan Levy, were decidedly mixed. The Los Angeles Times described the telecast as “casually interesting” while Variety called it “humdrum” and Rolling Stone said it was “blah.” More