NY Mag‘s Gabriel Sherman reports that CNN and CBS News are “in advanced negotiations about signing a news-gathering partnership.”
Writes Sherman: “The talks are still fluid, which means that executives would speak only on condition of anonymity,” and these fluid talks are also “deep talks,” according to one of Sherman’s unnamed sources.
While such talks have happened in the past, Sherman writes, “[t]his time around, television executives speculate that the economics make too much sense.” Sticking points, as in the past, include “issues like how marquee talent at each network would be shared across the combined entity or which channel would retain control of editorial decisions,” and what “one executive” called “huge structural issues, like who would be on the air.”
(And, in case anyone was worried, 60 Minutes would apparently be “exempt from any CNN partnership.”)
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.