Latest On Charter Spectrum & Disney Negotiations As Sports-Packed Weekend Leaves Some Unable To View
A company representing nearly 15 million cable subscribers and The Walt Disney Co. blamed each other Friday for a dispute that has cut off Disney-owned stations to viewers on the eve of a big sports weekend for the U.S. Open tennis and college football fans. The dispute between Disney and Charter Communications Inc. resulted in ESPN, ABC, FX, National Geographic and Disney-branded stations going abruptly dark for Charter’s Spectrum TV subscribers. ABC-TV was also cut in seven markets, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
We update listeners on why Charter and Disney have had issues in negotiating, as well as look into its greater context in broadcast rights. Today on AirTalk, Larry is joined by Deadline business editor Dade Hayes and Joe Flint, L.A.-based media reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
With files from the Associated Press
Taking A Peek At The L.A. Public Library’s New Collection Of Never-Before-Seen Photos: Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, Harrison Ford, Bruce Lee, And More
The Los Angeles Public Library is hard at work cataloging and digitizing a largely unpublished collection of celebrity photographs purchased at auction last May for $144,000. The 12,500 slides span from 1961 to 1990 and feature some of Hollywood’s biggest stars throughout the decades, from Audrey Hepburn to Aretha Franklin to Winona Ryder.
The collection was shot by John Verzi, a post office worker who loved stars and knew where to find them (including the Hollywood Unemployment Office) – but instead of mass selling his photos of the rich and famous, he kept them with him in his Las Vegas trailer until his death in 2018. Now, L.A. Public Library archivists are working to identify the people and places he photographed to paint a fuller picture of Los Angeles in the golden age of movie stars.
Christina Rice, senior librarian of the L.A. Public Library’s photo collection, is the person who first alerted the City Librarian to the collection. She joins Larry to talk about the auction, the expansive slide collection, and its unexpected photographer.
To Stand Or Sit? To Capture The Moment Or Be In The Moment? Those And Other Concert Etiquette Questions
Singing sensation Adele sparked a heated debate after one of her concerts when she told a security guard telling a fan to sit down to leave said fan alone. So it sounds like Adele is team stand at a concert and many agree. Standing evokes energy and dancing and fun. But some say it isn't fair to the fans who want or need to sit. This isn't the only etiquette debate happening. Country singer Miranda Lambert recently called out fans for taking selfies during her concert. So let's talk concert-going etiquette and best practices. Joining is Nick Leighton, journalist, etiquette expert and host of the weekly etiquette podcast “Were You Raised by Wolves?”. Listeners also share their thoughts and experiences about standing (or sitting) at concerts.
How Did We All Get So Mean To Each Other?
The American psyche has transformed over the last century — and according to New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks, it hasn’t been for the better.
He writes that we’re in the middle of a culture war between people who want to make every institution or environment a safe space for everyone… and people who think those other people need to toughen up, lamenting the loss of manhood in the country. Both sides feel like victims of their circumstances – and according to Brooks, this has led to “an immature public culture” he characterizes as “impulsive, dramatic, erratic and cruel.”
Brooks sits down with Larry to talk about how we got here, and how focusing less on ourselves can help us all become more mature.
Could A Virus Actually Be Good? Meet The Phage: Important, Relatively Unknown, And A Potential Key To Medical Innovation
We tend to think of viruses as generally bad, and if we’re being honest, the recent global coronavirus pandemic didn’t help their reputation. And maybe with good reason, as many of our interactions with viruses are in negative contexts -- namely ourselves or someone else getting sick. But as author and science journalist Tom Ireland explores in his new book “The Good Virus,” there is one tiny virus out there that may offer us a different perspective on the power of viruses -- the phage. Phages, full name bacteriophage, are everywhere. But most people have probably never heard of them, or if they have, they may not know much about them. But Ireland writes, these biological entities are not only the most abundant and diverse on the planet, but they could also hold keys to innovation in medicine and biotechnology.
Today on AirTalk, Tom joins us to talk about his new book about the relatively unknown phage, its history and its potential to be a force of good in medical innovation.
