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👋 Good morning! Late night is throwing the closest thing it has to a state funeral. The Jimmys (Kimmel and Fallon) announced they’ll be going dark on May 21 so Stephen Colbert can sign off 'The Late Show' without a competitor in the room. A genuine show of late-night unity, and also a small piece of broadcast history: two networks voluntarily losing a Wednesday is not something the sales decks usually allow. What Colbert has actually planned for the finale remains under wraps.
You've got Dailies. Happy hump day. Here's your mid-week dose of industry intel to power through the rest of the week. 👇
CLOSEUP
🛒 Byron Allen’s buying BuzzFeed…
Media mogul Byron Allen (Gilbert Flores/Getty Images)
Byron Allen is paying $120M for a 52% controlling stake in BuzzFeed and the CEO chair. The comedian-turned-mogul has spent 30 years building Allen Media Group into a multi-billion-dollar media business. BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, who's run the digital publisher behind listicles, quizzes, and Tasty cooking videos since 2006, exits through the side door labeled "President of BuzzFeed AI." (Newly invented for the purpose.)
BuzzFeed used to be a hot ticket: Disney offered $650M for it in 2013, and Peretti said no in what now reads like one of digital media's great unforced errors. By 2016 the company was valued at $1.7B, but it's been a long, steep slide downhill since.
Allen's empire has been built mostly from things nobody else wanted:
The Weather Channel: Bought in 2018 for around $300M, when linear cable was reading its last rites.
Broadcast affiliates: 13 ABC, CBS, and NBC stations across 11 markets, accumulated over years of dealmaking.
FAST networks: Ten 24-hour channels including Comedy.TV, Recipe.TV, and HBCU GO, reaching nearly 275M subscribers.
Late night: 'Comics Unleashed' is set to take Colbert's 11:35 PM slot on CBS starting May 22, with Allen leasing the full late-night block through next season.
Digital media: BuzzFeed (which also owns HuffPost and the Tasty cooking brand), as of this week.
The bigger picture: Allen has had ambitions for a major media empire for a while. He's been a publicly known bidder for BET, Paramount, and ABC, and none of those deals closed. In the meantime, he's been doing it the long way, scooping up the distressed and discarded media assets nobody else wants. With BuzzFeed, the YouTube followings of BuzzFeed, Tasty, and HuffPost (in the tens of millions) are the real prize, and the piece he thinks can finally scale his empire into a top-tier media business.
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🔍 SAG-AFTRA’s full deal is out…
SAG-AFTRA's national board approved the tentative AMPTP deal this week with 89% support, released the full terms (16 pages of them), and kicked it to members for a ratification vote. Here's what's in it:
Pension merger: SAG and AFTRA retirement funds combine Jan. 1, 2028, with a 1% contribution bump. First consolidation since the unions merged in 2012. It’s already controversial: critics are calling it a "bailout," arguing SAG's healthier fund is absorbing AFTRA's weaker one.
Synthetic performers: Studios committed to favoring human performers and can only use fully AI-generated actors if they bring "significant additional value" to a production. Critics are already asking who decides what counts as "significant" (spoiler: it’s probably a studio lawyer). The union can arbitrate violations, but it didn't get the so-called "Tilly tax," a required payment to SAG-AFTRA's pension and health funds every time a synthetic gets used.
Digital replicas: Studios need an "articulable business reason" to scan a performer. Replicas can't cross picket lines during a strike.
Streaming residuals: Contribution to the most-watched streaming fund jumps from 25% to 35% of base residual.
Streaming transparency: Studios must hand over viewership data measured by the same criteria the Success Bonus uses. A long-running guild ask, now in writing.
Minimums: The base rates studios are required to pay union actors go up 3% each year across all four years of the deal.
Microdramas: If any AMPTP studio produces them on more than an "experimental basis," the union can reopen talks to bargain terms.
Choreographers are now covered under the film/TV agreement.
The big picture: This is the labor framework through 2030, and AMPTP is methodically writing checks for labor peace. WGA ratified its deal April 24 and the post-2023 pattern is locked: longer contracts, health and pension top-ups, and AI language vague enough to keep arbitrators busy for years.
Looking ahead… Members vote tomorrow through June 4. The DGA, meanwhile, began its own talks with AMPTP on Monday. Christopher Nolan in the chair, presumably with extensive notes.
ICYMI: CANNES
⚡️ Cannes quick hits…
The 2026 Cannes jury at the festival’s opening press conference (Kate Green/Getty Images)
📽️ The Cannes opener mostly disappointed, as is tradition. Pierre Salvadori's 'The Electric Kiss,' a 1920s romance about a fake psychic and grieving painter, landed somewhere between charming and the “worst festival opener in a decade,” depending on which critic you ask. The opening slot remains a tough room.
🤖 Demi Moore got the AI question and recommended surrender. Fighting the tech is "a battle that we will lose," the jury member said, since resistance just "breeds against-ness." Working with AI is the more valuable path, she argued, because what it can't replicate "comes from the soul." Mood: terms of surrender.
🏆 The Academy added a side door to its International Feature category. Palme d'Or winners now auto-qualify, alongside top prizes from Berlin, Venice, Sundance, Toronto and Busan. Last year, Iran's Jafar Panahi needed France to adopt his Palme winner because his own government wouldn't submit it. The new rule fixes that.
📈 Cannes is drawing record numbers despite a Hollywood-light year. Some 40,000 industry pros are at the festival, with 16,000 registered for the Marché du Film market from 140-plus countries. Japan, this year's Country of Honour, leads the surge with registrations up nearly 50%.
LAST LOOKS
Cannes Market 🇫🇷
Liam Neeson, John Cleese and Matthew Modine are starring in fantasy dramedy 'The Splendid Thing,' with Modine also directing. (more)
Vicky Krieps is joining Rooney Mara as her lover in Paris-set drama 'Quest For Love.' (more)
Mckenna Grace, Paul Walter Hauser and Louis Partridge are starring in 'The Official Mistress,' a rom-com set in the French monarchy's final days. (more)
Florence Pugh is starring in and producing 'The Midnight Library,' the Matt Haig adaptation with Garth Davis directing. (more)
Jean-Claude Van Damme is playing a submarine captain in WWII action epic 'Raid Pacific.' (more)
Felicity Jones is playing Agatha Christie opposite Vincent Cassel in 'Eleven Missing Days,' about the author's real-life disappearance. (more)
Film Development 🗒️
‘Westworld’ is getting a new Warner Bros. film adaptation with David Koepp writing the script. (more)
Finn Wolfhard is starring in a new Neon crime drama from Matt Johnson. (more)
Taika Waititi's Sundance family film 'Fing!' landed at Angel for a 2027 theatrical release. (more)
Netflix is adapting 'The Remembered Soldier' with 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' filmmaker Olivia Newman. (more)
Bong Joon Ho's animated feature 'Ally' has lined up a voice cast of Ayo Edebiri, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista and Werner Herzog. (more)
TV Development 📺
'Fast & Furious' is expanding into a live-action TV universe at Peacock, with Vin Diesel executive producing. (more)
'Wordle' is becoming an NBC game show hosted by Savannah Guthrie and produced by Jimmy Fallon. (more)
'Ahsoka' is returning to Disney+ in early 2027, more than three years after the Rosario Dawson-led Star Wars series' first season. (more)
'The X-Files' reboot has added Amy Madigan, Steve Buscemi and Ben Foster in guest spots. (more)
'Fourth Wing' officially landed its Prime Video series order from Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society and Kilter Films. (more)
'Reacher' is renewed for S5 at Prime Video ahead of its S4 premiere. (more)
'The Rookie: North' got a series order at ABC, setting up crossovers with the mothership 'Rookie.' (more)
‘Jury Duty’ is renewed by Amazon for S3. (more)
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-The Dailies Team