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Toucher & Rich: People Were ‘Writing Fan Fiction’ About Our Show

BSM Staff
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Toucher & Rich: People Were ‘Writing Fan Fiction’ About Our Show

For the first time in over a month, Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb were reunited on the radio. Shertenlieb returned to 98.5 The Sports Hub on Tuesday for the first time since Toucher came back from his sabbatical.

The duo did not waste time addressing some of the reports and speculation that has been out there regarding their relationship and the show’s future. Fred Toucher said that he had a friend in town from Detroit over the weekend that joked people were “writing fan fiction” about the show.

“In an amazingly weird way, it’s kind of flattering,” Shertenlieb said.

Following a social media post from Toucher complaining about the lack of communication from his colleagues as he dealt with a cancer scare, fans and media outlets alike raised questions. Toucher noted that a lot of it was fair, but some of it was absurd.

“I found a message board discussing if Rich’s insurance was good enough because he didn’t have to pay a lot out of pocket during Mary’s illness and that he could leave me because I was such an ass,” he said.

When he returned to the Boston morning show last week, Toucher apologized for his social media post. He explained that he was dealing with both fear and the frustration of having just given up smoking. He noted that it was no excuse for lashing out.

Shertenlieb didn’t let on if there were problems that the two had addressed off air. Instead, he said that he understands being in the spotlight the way the show is means you make concessions regarding privacy.

“That is wild, because if that were all gone, you realize that ‘Well, maybe the career’s not doing so hot,’” he said. “The fact that people are this invested in us is pretty cool. I have to be honest. That part is pretty awesome.”

Between message boards and media coverage, Toucher & Rich have been a hot topic in Boston and beyond. Fred Toucher made a prediction for the first show the entire cast and crew was back together.

Albert Breer: NFL Peacock Deal Amidst Layoffs Tells You ‘Who The Owners Are’

BSM Staff
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Over the course of the calendar year, a variety of media companies have engaged in layoffs in order to cut costs and/or reallocate existing resources. The NFL is in the midst of layoffs impacting “a limited number of positions” in its media sector according to the league. The league said it was because of changing economic circumstances, then it proceeded to agree to a reported $110 million deal with NBC to air an NFL playoff game exclusively on Peacock. It drew the ire of Sports Illustrated reporter Albert Breer.

“That the NFL conducted layoffs due to the economic ‘realities’ of 2023 while putting down $110 million to give a single playoff game to a streaming service is… a pretty good indicator on who the owners are,” Breer tweeted Monday evening.

Usually, reporters covering the NFL are careful in the language they use to describe instances in this nature because of the relationships they foster with sources. In this scenario though, Breer, as a former NFL Media employee, was unabashed in speaking on the optics.

One of the most criticized moves was the exit of Jim Trotter, who was let go by the network in April after declining a three-month severance package with a non-disclosure agreement as a term.

Trotter publicly questioned NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about a lack of diversity in the media sector’s leadership, and he stated that his agent was informed by the network that there was no reason to believe his contract would not be renewed.

Rachel Bonetta was another high profile talent that lost her job at NFL Network. Willie McGinst is also out, although he had been off the air for a number of months after video emerged of him in a fight at an LA-area restaurant.

Breer has been forthright regarding what it was like working for the league-owned media entity in the past, expressing that being able to effectively do his job gradually changed. He explained how the boundary between the league and the media dwindled and eventually rendered nonexistent, compelling him to depart from the company. He had previously been removed from the New England Patriots’ reporting beat when he heavily questioned head coach Bill Belichick in a press conference.

“You’re taught for all these years to challenge people, and that’s your job and everything else,” Breer said while appearing on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston, Mass. “I think you guys got a first-hand look at what happened when I started challenging people.”

Brian Kilmeade: Never Thought CNN or Jake Tapper Would Say Durham Report Exonerates Trump

BNM Staff
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Conservative news organizations have hailed yesterday’s release of the Durham Report as proof that any reports regarding the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election were false, while criticized by liberal outlets as “a big fat nothing”. However, Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade gave kudos to CNN anchor Jake Tapper for his encapsulation of the findings.

While discussing the investigation’s conclusion Tuesday morning, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy initially brought up Tapper’s reaction to the story, before the program aired a clip of Tapper saying the findings were “devastating to the FBI and to a degree, it does exonerate Donald Trump”.

“Did you ever think you’d hear that on CNN?” Kilmeade marveled after the clip ended. “It does exonerate Donald Trump! Sure. The last person you’d think to do that!”

Later in the morning show, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) joined the show and lamented that the media had been “willfully blind” to the facts presented in the investigation when Kilmeade gave Tapper props once more.

In response, Lee said, “to Jake Tapper’s credit, I think he should be applauded for acknowledging that”.

During Tapper’s report on the release of Durham’s investigation, he did note that the report likely did not produce the results many conservative voices had hoped for. Many prominent Republicans had claimed the Durham Report would lead to indictments and jail time for those found to perpetuate the alleged Russian hoax. However, only one low-level FBI attorney was convicted of any wrongdoing, and avoided jail time.

ESPN, ABC Secure Four Marquee College Football Games

BSM Staff
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ESPN, ABC Secure Four Marquee College Football Games

Ahead of Disney’s Upfront event on Tuesday, ESPN revealed a four-game slate of marquee college football matchups starting this September. Six of the teams highlighted in the announcement are part of the network’s “Way-Too-Early Top 25,” and should provide college football fans enthralling action throughout the season.

The Camping World Kickoff Game from Orlando was the first game announced. The match up between the LSU Tigers and Florida State Seminoles will air on ABC on Labor Day.

Six days later, the second week of college football is highlighted by a marquee matchup between the Texas Longhorns and Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday, Sep. 9. That game will air in primetime on ESPN. The game pits Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian against his former boss Nick Saban. Last season, Alabama handed Texas just its second loss in the history of the series on a 33-yard field goal kick with 10 seconds remaining.

The Longhorns return to ABC for the Red River Showdown at the Cotton Bowl against their arch rivals, the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, Oct. 7. The two teams will both play in the Southeastern Conference once they leave the Big 12 Conference after the upcoming college football season. Last season’s matchup resulted in a 49-0 win for Texas wherefore Oklahoma will look for redemption.

The final matchup revealed by The Walt Disney Company is a battle between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Clemson Tigers televised on ABC on Saturday, Nov. 4. The Fighting Irish will look to even the all time series from “Death Valley.”

The Walt Disney Company will make additional announcements pertaining to the college football schedule, including Bowl games and special presentations, on Wednesday, May 31. The company also revealed that it will detail more information regarding the forthcoming partnership with the SEC, a decade-long pact worth a reported $300 million per year.

Sports Media Blasts Blue Jays Broadcast for Insinuating Aaron Judge Was Cheating

Demetri Ravanos
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Sports Media Blasts Blue Jays Broadcast for Insinuating Aaron Judge Was Cheating

Was Aaron Judge trying to get a leg up on the Toronto Blue Jays Monday night? His eyes shifted to the Toronto dugout multiple times during his at bats. It is something the Sportsnet broadcast noticed and questioned.

Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez never accused Judge of anything specific. They did point out that the reigning AL MVP looked to his right and away from the pitcher “more than once” during an eighth inning at bat that turned into his tenth home run of the young season.

Talkin’ Baseball shared a clip of the comments from the Blue Jays television broadcast on Twitter. It elicited reactions from fans and media members alike.

Toronto Blue Jays manager said after the game that he was aware of Aaron Judge’s eye movements. He stopped short of making any accusations though, instead putting the blame on his team.

“I think (we’ll) dive into it a little bit more tonight and tomorrow and just make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to not make ourselves susceptible to tendencies or location or pitches or anything like that, but it was, yeah, kind of odd to see him looking over there right before a pitch came,” he told the media.

For his part, Judge said he was looking at his teammates, who were complaining about their manager, Aaron Boone, being tossed from the game earlier.

Given recent sign stealing scandals in the sport, it makes sense that everyone is a little on edge. It also makes sense for Shulman and Martinez to point out an irregular occurrence on the broadcast.

The reaction of the public at large though is something no one in a Blue Jays uniform or on the team payroll can control.

Bill O’Reilly: ‘Anticipating Carnage is Absolutely Imperative’ For Media in 2023

BNM Staff
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Fallout persists from CNN’s town hall event with Donald Trump, as many in the media examine, discuss, and at times argue about how to cover the former president. Former cable news host Bill O’Reilly wonders why media outlets don’t have the foresight to consider blowback before formulating their coverage.

During his O’Reilly Update Morning Edition Tuesday, the former Fox News host argued that CNN was always going to be criticized for giving Trump a platform, regardless of how successful the event was.

“Predictably, CNN continues to get hammered for giving Donald Trump airtime last week,” O’Reilly said.

“CNN would be ridiculed to send a message to any other media organization that might invite Donald Trump to appear. It should have anticipated all of that, but it did not…CNN whacked itself in the head and the bleeding continues. In this brutal political climate, anticipating carnage is absolutely imperative.”

During his criticism of the network, O’Reilly called CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins “a talented broadcaster”, but argued that her line of questioning directed at Trump was a waste of time because the former president was never going to relent on his characterizations that the 2020 election was rigged against him.

Elon Musk: I’m Doing Interview With David Faber, Not CNBC

BNM Staff
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CNBC has announced that Elon Musk will join the network for an interview at 6:00 PM ET this evening. However, he says it’s more of an interview with David Faber than an interview with the network.

The announced interview raised eyebrows. Musk has had an often contentious relationship with the cable finance channel. The network has been critical of his takeover and subsequent gutting of Twitter, and Musk mocked the network after it interviewed people outside Twitter’s headquarters after a mass layoff. However, the people interviewed had not actually been employed by Twitter.

In a tweet, Musk argued that he was conducting the interview on the advice of Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel.

“I’m not doing an interview with CNBC, the organization, I’m doing an interview with David Faber at Ari Emanuel’s recommendation,” wrote Musk. “If David was at another news org, I would still do it.”

Musk’s tweet was in response to a user calling the interview a “shocker” that he would interview with a “media outlet that bashed him since the early days and never gave him and Tesla the light of day”.

The interview with Musk comes days after he named Linda Yaccarino, an advertising executive at NBCUniversal, as Twitter’s new CEO. Musk has alluded to changes on the horizon for the app, claiming he looks forward to working with the new CEO to “transform this platform into X, the everything app.”

Ken Carman: Playoff Game on Peacock isn’t Sure Sign of Pay-Per-View Super Bowl

BSM Staff
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As a new media rights deal commences with the upcoming regular season, NBCUniversal and the National Football League announced Monday that Peacock will present the first-ever, exclusive live streamed NFL Playoff game on Saturday, Jan. 13. The game will take place during NFL Wild Card Weekend, a specific conference notwithstanding.

Additionally, the deal will make NBCUniversal the first media company to present three NFL Playoff games in one weekend, as its linear channel will broadcast an additional Saturday NFL Wild Card game and a Sunday NFL Wild Card game. NBCUniversal is reportedly paying the NFL $110 million for the additional game as it prepares to broadcast three Super Bowls over the next 11 seasons (2025, 2029, 2033).

“We’ve always had access, and when you walk into a bar, you know, ‘Hey, the playoff game is on.’ That’s a big part of the playoff atmosphere or the playoff environment,” said Anthony Lima, 92.3 The Game morning co-host. “Now the Peacock part of this is a lot of people are going to have to learn, again, how to get it. Do they want to get it, do they want to do the free trial, do they want to invest all that? They’re going to have to.”

During the NFL regular season, Peacock will be the streaming home for Sunday Night Football games on NBC, along with its accompanying studio show Football Night in America. The OTT platform will also present an exclusive NFL regular season contest for the first time when the Buffalo Bills square off against the Los Angeles Chargers on December 23.

“Two-thirds of this room does not have Peacock,” said Ken Carman, 92.3 The Game morning co-host. “I have Peacock, [and] there’s some pretty good shows on there. I said that they’re actually making a mistake there. They should have a regular season game on Peacock during Halloween, because their Halloween selection is just outstanding.”

With streaming services and ad supported television cemented as a regular part of people’s everyday lives – becoming the primary destination for television viewership according to Nielsen Media Research – questions regarding the future of the Super Bowl are starting to be raised.

Former ESPN president and co-founder and CEO of Meadowlark Media, John Skipper, has mentioned that he expects the Super Bowl to become a pay-per-view event in the future. While much of it has been speculation, a move in this way could force the NFL to fight for its broadcast antitrust exemption it was given under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. The NFL relies on this congressional decision most heavily compared to other major sports entities, as all of its regular season games are broadcast on national television.

“I think so much stuff has to change for the pay-per-view Super Bowl to be a realistic conversation, for pay-per-view football in the playoffs to be a realistic conversation,” Carman said. “Especially the Super Bowl because it’s such a global thing. Are people globally going to tune in and pay to watch the Super Bowl when they’re seeing it over network television?”

In presenting Thursday Night Football regular season games exclusively on Amazon Prime Video – an OTT service – the Supreme Court has not determined whether the congressional decision applies in this instance. Nonetheless, Amazon Prime Video streamed NFL playoff games in two of the last three seasons. However, those were merely simulcasts of a linear broadcast available in the home markets of the two teams. This year, Amazon Prime Video will be the home to the league’s first Black Friday game between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins.

The amended deal with Peacock follows a season where ratings were considerably behind those of traditional broadcast television and an ostensible experimentation by the league as to future endeavors in this sector. Whether the Super Bowl is exclusive to an OTT platform next remains to be seen.

“When the NFL does something, I go, ‘Oh, that’s not going to make sense,’ and they just make gobs of money over it,” Carman said. “But it’s the one thing that I do think it’s a bridge too far of, ‘Okay, what’s your return on it?’”

‘Handful’ of Fox News Employees Have Discussed Joining Tucker Carlson on Twitter, Report Says

BNM Staff
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After his bombshell revelation that he would move his nightly show to Twitter, Tucker Carlson may not be the only Fox News host to join the platform.

A report from Variety’s Tatiana Siegel claims a “handful of Fox anchors have reached out to Carlson directly or had their surrogates contact him to say they are eager to join whatever venture he starts on Twitter when their contracts are up”.

The report goes on to say that while Twitter owner Elon Musk has claimed that there is not a deal in place between the social media outlet and the former Fox News host, the pair have been in “constant communication”.

Carlson is expected to launch the programming within the next month, with Justin Wells — who was also ousted from Fox News — on board to serve as the program’s executive producer. The show will originate from Carlson’s home in Maine, where he holds a full production studio.

Siegel’s report goes on to claim that, as has been speculated, Carlson’s departure was an unspoken agreement between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News as part of its $787.5 million settlement. The report claims Carlson’s departure was a dealbreaker for Dominion, saying that if he was not removed from the network, the settlement was off and the lawsuit would go to trial.

However, both Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems have denied the insinuation.

“As the Fox principals who negotiated the settlement well know, Dominion made no demands about Tucker Carlson’s employment orally or in writing,” a Dominion spokesperson said. “Any claims otherwise are categorically false and a thinly veiled effort to further damage Dominion. Fox should take every effort to stop these lies immediately.”

Brian Stelter: ‘Great Television Is Not Great Journalism’

BNM Staff
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After Donald Trump made his town hall appearance on CNN, much of the reaction was centered upon the job of moderator Kaitlan Collins and also what the event meant for the future of Trump’s candidacy. Former CNN host Brian Stelter has argued that Trump isn’t going away, so it is time for news organizations to understand how to deal with the former President.

During an appearance on GBH News in Boston, Stelter argued that while Trump makes for great television, that doesn’t mean the public at large is necessarily served when he does those interviews.

“Sometimes, great television is not great journalism,” Stelter said. “That is the challenge in covering Donald Trump. Frankly, I thought the town hall was great television. I watched it, was fascinated by it, but it’s not always great journalism, because of the challenge of interviewing him and the challenge of rebutting his lies.”

Stelter went on to say that the New Hampshire event — which was described as “disastrous” by some critics — may preclude Trump from appearing on CNN again. However, in Stelter’s view, that doesn’t mean Trump doesn’t have other avenues to get his message across.

“Even if Donald Trump is never on CNN again — and after the town hall, I’m not sure he will be back on CNN during this primary cycle — he’ll always have Fox, he’ll always have Newsmax and Rumble,” Stelter concluded. “He’ll always have these far-right outlets. He’ll always have ways to reach his voters.”

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