☀️ WB’s Big Cannes Buy, NETFLIX Sets ’70s Remake

Where ya just gotta love a book about AI called The Future of Truth being called out for, yes, including many made-up or misattributed quotes devised by AI. 🤌

So, let’s just enjoy our very IRL huge comeback KNICKS win last night. Hope the $1,000 price tag for the MSG nosebleed seats gave you a good view.

AH: The James Murdoch VOX MEDIA deal is street legal — Murdoch’s LUPA SYSTEMS co. (Tribeca Festival, Art Basel) is getting a majority stake for $300M+, but no precise ownership stake was given.

• This includes the VOX podcast network ($80M revenue in 2025), the NY MAG business, Vox.com and more.
• Sites like The Verge, Eater and others are not included — plans for those businesses are TBA, according to the NYT.
• No word on the resulting investor structure for VOX (i.e., whether the 20% PENSKE ownership stake is intact, etc).

THEN: YOUTUBE is now letting you “remix” yourself into creator Shorts videos with AI, “without changing the basic context of the video.” 🤷‍♂️ So uh, you too can now be on the Ankler Agenda pod, I guess?

• Creators can #hardpass on being involved in the function.
• YOUTUBE is now also adding essentially an enhanced GOOGLE function to the site where you can ask it questions and it’ll assemble answers/instructions put together from various YT videos . . . that I’m sure totally won’t soon result in hilariously wrong answers, given the information in some YT videos.
• GOOGLE also announced a new line of surveillance glasses audio glasses, which can take pictures and distort them with AI, give you directions and more easily spy on people help you with the very difficult task of ordering an UBER.

AND: Ari and Shapiro are using some of their big TKO and ENDEAVOR breakup paydays to buy in as owners of the LAS VEGAS RAIDERS. This is not part of their joint MARI company, and SBJ puts Ari’s stake at 1.4% and Shapiro’s at 0.6%.

• Egon Durban, leader of TKO / WME controlling owner SILVER LAKE, also led a group of investors, including CASAMIGOS co-founder Mike Meldman, with Durban expanding his stake to 22% and Meldman to 13%.
• Mark Davis is still the majority owner.
• ELSEWHERE: The CLEVELAND BROWNS also sold a 10% stake to PE firm ARCTOS, one of the 6 approved firms by the league able to buy into teams.
  • The team — which has finished last in the AFC North 14 of the last 20 years — was valued at $9B+ . . . showing that the upcoming HULU show featuring a fictionalized version of the team is paying off already!

AH: EXCEL SPORTS and Patrick Whitesell/WTSL’s WIN ARTISTS are forming a “commercial partnership” whereby EXCEL clients (Tiger, Caitlin, Jeter, Jokic, etc.) will have access to WIN’s expertise/connections in broadcast TV, digital media and content creation.

• EXCEL gets access to bigger media expertise dealmaking with Whitesell and WIN ARTISTS head Josh Pyatt . . .WIN gets access to top-tier sports clients to build its leverage and access.
• A partnership that’s also certainly helpful should a company like EXCEL, say, be looking at acquiring a certain talent agency (or select assets) currently up for sale.

THEN: Yup 👇.

NOW: Anyone wanna predict what the AI company equivalent chart will look like in the early 2030s?

• Granted, this is just from an opinion survey of fund managers by BOFA, but the percentage that said “AI hyperscaler capital spending” (i.e., money being spent on AI data hubs) was the most likely source of a future systemic credit event doubled from April to May to 34%.
• Keep in mind that, unlike BUZZFEED and VICE — this AI spending is underpinning a lot of U.S. economic/GDP growth that’s currently propping up the wobbly economy.

THANKS: To LIONSGATE for the invite to check out the NYC premiere of Power Ballad last night, always great to return to Ireland with director John Carney.

🎥 The Silver Screen