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    How ‘Yellowstone’ Captured America

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    When the television series “Yellowstone” began in 2018, it was with a chip on its shoulder. HBO had passed on the show, pitched by its writer-director-executive producer Taylor Sheridan as “The Godfather” on horseback, for not quite fitting its prestige-oriented lineup. It was picked up instead by the fledgling network Paramount, which greenlit 10 episodes, to be broadcast on a rebranded version of Spike TV.Since that relatively low-profile debut, “Yellowstone,” now in its fifth season, has gone from cable underdog to becoming one of the most-watched scripted shows on TV, one that has spawned prequels and spinoffs, a cottage industry of merch and a bit of internal drama among its cast members and producers. Most notably, its best-known actor, Kevin Costner, will not return as John Dutton, Yellowstone’s taciturn patriarch, for the show’s final episodes when they begin airing on Nov. 10.The neo-Western wrapped contemporary ideas of rugged individualism inside the soapy drama of a land-hoarding family’s succession planning. As “Yellowstone” prepares to finally reveal whether one of John Dutton’s kids — Beth (Kelly Reilly) or Kayce (Luke Grimes) or Jamie (Wes Bentley) — can take over the family business, we look back at how the series became both a chronicle of America’s culture wars and appointment viewing across the United States.Filling a Red State VoidFor millions of Americans, “Yellowstone” tapped into a deep unease they have about their changing communities.Emerson Miller/Paramount NetworkSometime in summer 2018, my phone rang in Los Angeles. It was my brother calling from Montana, where we both grew up and he still lives. He wanted to talk about a new Western television show called “Yellowstone.”For the first time ever, he said, Hollywood had gotten something right. Everyone in Montana was abuzz about it — his fishing buddies, the local radio hosts, the waitress at Pay’s Cafe down by the livestock auction yards in Billings. What did I think?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Empire: Winnowed, but Still Weighty

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      The music mogul’s business portfolio has shrunk, in part because of multiple sex abuse allegations, but his wealth remains a critical factor as his criminal case unfolds.In arguing to keep Sean Combs in jail until his trial on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, prosecutors have portrayed him as a lavishly wealthy, well-connected music mogul who would be well positioned to flee. In court papers, prosecutors cited media reporting that estimated his wealth at close to a billion dollars.But as Mr. Combs’s reputation has unraveled amid a wave of high-profile lawsuits and criminal charges, so has his business portfolio. Once a major brand ambassador and chairman of a media platform, he has been forced to withdraw from those roles. In June, several months before Mr. Combs was indicted, Forbes estimated his net worth at $400 million, down from $740 million in 2019.Mr. Combs’s fortune has been at the forefront of his public persona since the 1990s, when the success of his hip-hop and R&B label, Bad Boy Entertainment, meant he was known as much for his high-flying, champagne-popping lifestyle as the music he produced.One year ago, Mr. Combs, who is known as Diddy, was at the helm of an ever-growing portfolio: He was a record label founder, a liquor promoter, a cable TV and digital media chairman, a philanthropist and a fashion executive with a label called Sean John.Mr. Combs has gained prominence as a record label executive, a liquor promoter and the founder of a cable TV and digital media platform.From left: Theo Wargo/WireImage, via Getty Images; Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Revolt TV“He was a larger-than-life marketer,” said Dessie Brown Jr., an entertainment consultant who long viewed Mr. Combs as a model for building a career. “He always talked about being like a ringleader in a circus.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      N.B.A. Announces Lucrative Rights Deals With Disney, Comcast and Amazon

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      The league rejected a bid by Warner Bros. Discovery to match Amazon’s offer.The National Basketball Association announced new rights agreements with Disney, Comcast and Amazon on Wednesday after rejecting a rival bid by Warner Bros. Discovery that would have kept games on its TNT network, which has broadcast the N.B.A. since the 1980s.The companies will collectively pay more than $76 billion over 11 years, according to four people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the financial details. That will substantially increase the league’s annual revenue and reflects the continued importance of live sports programming even as streaming has reconfigured the entertainment industry.In making the announcement, the league said it had rejected Warner Bros. Discovery’s bid this week to match Amazon’s offer for its share of the package.“Throughout these negotiations, our primary objective has been to maximize the reach and accessibility of our games for our fans,” the league said in a statement. “Our new arrangement with Amazon supports this goal by complementing the broadcast, cable and streaming packages that are already part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal arrangements.” (NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast.)“All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience,” the statement added.The new deals, which include N.B.A. and some W.N.B.A. games, will take effect with the 2025-26 season and are more than two and a half times the average annual value of the league’s current rights agreements.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      HBO Falls to Third at the Emmys for the First Time Since 1996

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      The last time HBO ranked in third place among television outlets in total Emmy nominations, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole were gearing up for a presidential election and the “Macarena” was sweeping the nation.On Wednesday, HBO, as well as its accompanying streaming service Max, earned 91 Emmy nominations, down from its massive haul last year (127), and trailing both Netflix (107) and FX (93) this year.For the first time since 1996, before “The Sopranos” or “Sex and the City” even premiered, HBO finds itself neither in first nor second place.For the better part of the last year, the network has encountered an unusual fallow period.Ever since “Succession” wrapped up in May 2023, HBO released several series that failed to connect with critics or a broad audience. That includes the expensive music drama flop, “The Idol”; the Kate Winslet limited series, “The Regime”; and the now canceled “Winning Time.”For some time, HBO executives have been telegraphing that if the network had a down year at the Emmys, production delays caused by last year’s double strikes would be to blame. An Emmy voter favorite like “The White Lotus,” for instance, might have premiered already if not for last year’s walkouts. Still, every outlet was severely affected by the strikes, not just HBO.Emmy recognition has long been of outsize significance to HBO executives, providing key evidence that it remains the pre-eminent home for quality television. In 1997, HBO became the first cable network to lead all networks in nominations. And for the better part of the last two decades, HBO has been the heavyweight. It previously ranked first every year in total Emmy nominations since 2001, except in 2018 and 2020. (HBO finished in second place each of those two years, behind Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Anything Can Happen, and Usually Does, on ‘Watch What Happens Live’

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      Two miniature horses, Aidan and Pearl, stood on the terrace of a tiny TV studio in SoHo earlier this month on a sweltering evening, one more equine guest than the producers of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” anticipated. They were part of a bit for taping the late-night talk show’s 15th anniversary special and, apparently, booking a horse requires also booking it an emotional support horse.Andy Cohen, the show’s host and creator, brought his two children Ben, 5, and Lucy, 2, to meet the mini horses as producers whispered questions about the surplus. He soon headed back inside to provide emotional support of a different kind for the show’s humans. Gliding effortlessly between posing for photos with guests, including Sonja Morgan, a mainstay of “The Real Housewives of New York” who arrived in a diamond-studded (she said they’re fake) tiara, Cohen listened to instructions from his producers while also recording behind-the-scenes footage for social media.It was a lot of wrangling, even for Cohen — the core moderator and pot-stirrer of “W.W.H.L.,” the recap show that somehow manages to lure A-list celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Lawrence to marvel at the antics of the stars in Bravo’s ever-expanding reality universe. Five nights a week, viewers can see Oscar-winners re-enact scenes from “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”; so-called Bravo-lebrities dish about just-aired dirty laundry; or Cohen and Hillary Clinton drink from a shotski, a ski with shot glasses glued to it that allows multiple people to simultaneously knock one back.Cohen backstage with Bravo cast members (and Jerry O’Connell).Hunter Abrams for The New York TimesThe show, and the reality TV universe it obsesses over, delight in outrageous behavior that is under scrutiny as Bravo currently faces multiple lawsuits. Former cast members from several series accused the network and producers of racial discrimination, running an alcohol-fueled workplace and failing to respond properly to reports of harassment and assault. After an internal investigation, the network said it cleared Cohen of claims made against him by two former Housewives, including those detailed in a lawsuit from a former cast member who said the show’s producers had encouraged her to relapse to boost ratings. Cohen also apologized for sending one former cast member a video message that she said constituted sexual harassment.Many of the regular bits on “W.W.H.L.” are related to alcohol: Each episode begins with Cohen revealing a word of the night for viewers to drink to every time it’s uttered; each ends with him encouraging the audience to drink responsibly. Regardless, Cohen and his team maintained that drinking on set was optional and not essential to the show.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Patrick Gottsch, Champion of Rural TV Programming, Dies at 70

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      After a career as a satellite dish installer, he found success with RFD-TV, a 24-hour cable channel aimed at farmers and ranchers.A tractor-pulling contest in Rockwell, Iowa. “The Big Joe Polka Show.” A veterinarian discussing how to keep flies off cows. A rerun of a 1982 episode of “Hee Haw.”Those were some of the recent offerings on RFD-TV, a 24-hour channel created by Patrick Gottsch, a satellite-dish installer who had the idea to start a network aimed at the farmers and ranchers who were his customers.Its programing may not be the stuff of must-see television in urban and suburban America. But RFD-TV, which also carries gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Future Farmers of America convention, occupies an enduring, if narrow, niche on the television spectrum.Mr. Gottsch, whose spinoff properties include the Cowboy Channel, the Cowgirl Channel and Rural Radio, Channel 147 on SiriusXM, died on May 18 in Fort Worth. He was 70.His death, at a hotel in the city’s historic Stockyards district, was unexpected. His daughters Raquel Gottsch Koehler and Gatsby Gottsch Solheim said that the family was awaiting a medical examiner’s report to learn the cause, but that it was probably related to his history of diabetes.Mr. Gottsch, who grew up on a farm in Nebraska, fought tenaciously to prove that TV programming about agriculture, horses, the rural lifestyle and traditional country music could be viable — especially in his company’s early years, when, he liked to recall, investors and media executives told him that it was a “stupid idea” or that “farmers don’t watch TV.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Sean Combs Sells Stake in Revolt, the Media Company He Founded

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      After a wave of lawsuits accusing Mr. Combs of sexual assault, the two are “completely separated and dissociated from each other,” the company’s chief executive said.Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who has been facing mounting legal scrutiny over allegations of sexual and physical abuse, has sold his majority stake in Revolt, the media company that he founded, the organization announced Tuesday.The largest shareholder group at Revolt, a private company, is now made up of employees, its chief executive, Detavio Samuels, said in an interview ahead of the announcement.Now known best for popular video podcasts such as “Drink Champs,” “The Jason Lee Show” and “Caresha Please,” Revolt was started by Mr. Combs more than a decade ago as a music industry-focused cable channel meant to boost Black representation on television.In January, after a wave of lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs, he agreed to start the process of separation from Revolt, Mr. Samuels said.Mr. Combs’s business empire has shrunk significantly since November, when Casandra Ventura — his former girlfriend, who performs music as Cassie — filed a lawsuit accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The suit was settled in a day, but five more followed from women who accused Mr. Combs of sexual assault.Mr. Combs, 54, who is also known as Puff and Diddy, said last year that the lawsuits contained “sickening allegations” from “individuals looking for a quick payday.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alice Stewart, a CNN Political Commentator, Dies at 58

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      She had appeared onscreen as a conservative voice since the 2016 presidential race. A political strategist, she had worked for Republican presidential candidates.Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist and political commentator on CNN, has died. She was 58.Her death was announced by CNN. The company said the police found Ms. Stewart’s body outdoors in Northern Virginia early Saturday morning. The authorities said they believe that she had a medical emergency but did not provide a cause.Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, described her in an email to staff members as “a political veteran and an Emmy Award-winning journalist who brought an incomparable spark to CNN’s coverage.”Ms. Stewart had appeared on the cable news outlet as a conservative commentator since the 2016 presidential race. Before then, she had worked on several Republican presidential campaigns.She was the communications director for the 2008 presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, and went on to serve in similar roles for Republican candidates in two following elections, including those of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz.Ms. Stewart was the deputy secretary of state in Arkansas and was a fellow in 2020 at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. She had also done work for the Republican Party and conservative organizations.At CNN, Ms. Stewart viewed herself as a faithful promoter of conservatism while the Republican Party reshaped itself under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump.“I don’t think everything that he does is great, and I don’t think everything that he does is bad,” Ms. Stewart said of Mr. Trump in a 2020 interview with Harvard Political Review. “My position at CNN is to be a conservative voice yet an independent thinker.”In an opinion piece published on CNN last year, Ms. Stewart asked Republican voters to reconsider their unconditional support for Mr. Trump’s 2024 election bid given the various criminal charges he faced.“This is a campaign about self-preservation, not selfless public service,” she wrote. “I’m not convinced that’s how you Make America Great Again.”Before transitioning to politics in 2005 with a job as press secretary in the administration of Mr. Huckabee, Ms. Stewart was a news anchor and reporter for seven years at an NBC television affiliate in Little Rock, Ark.“I loved covering politics. I loved courts. I loved breaking news,” Ms. Stewart said in a 2020 interview with Harvard International Review. “But, several years ago, I just realized that there might be something different for me to do.”She was born on March 11, 1966, in Atlanta and earned a degree in broadcast news and political science from the University of Georgia.Ms. Stewart last appeared on CNN on Friday on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” Information on her survivors was not immediately available. More

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      Sean Combs’ Cassie Lawsuit Settlement Was Only the Beginning of His Troubles

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      The hip-hop mogul denied sexual assault accusations in a bombshell suit in November. As more allegations piled up, his business empire, and reputation, faltered.It took just one day for Sean Combs to settle a bombshell lawsuit in November that accused him of rape and physical abuse. For a moment, it may have seemed that the hip-hop mogul’s lawyers had managed to quickly contain the reputational damage he faced.But it turns out that Mr. Combs’s problems were only beginning.For years, accusations of violence trailed Mr. Combs, who since the 1990s has been known as Puff Daddy and Diddy. The accusations had little impact, however, on his public persona as a raffish celebrity who was a fixture in gossip columns, a personal brand crystallized by the name of his music label: Bad Boy. But the suit in November, filed by his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura — who makes music as the singer Cassie — seemed to open the floodgates.A string of other lawsuits followed, accusing him of various forms of sexual assault and misconduct. Mr. Combs, 54, has vehemently denied all the allegations, but the graphic and detailed complaint by Ms. Ventura — and the headlines that followed — changed that narrative to a degree that now imperils Mr. Combs’s business empire and has made him a pariah in the music industry. And a raid by federal authorities at two of his homes on Monday suggested that authorities are considering possible criminal charges.Police officers blocked off the road during a raid of a home in Los Angeles tied to Mr. Combs on Monday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesAs the allegations against Mr. Combs have accumulated, his lucrative business dealings — which, besides music, have included fashion, two liquor brands, a cable television channel and an e-commerce platform — have been threatened. And the employee ranks at Combs Global, his company, are now a fraction of what they were less than a year ago.A deal with the spirits giant Diageo was the source of much of Combs Global’s income and Mr. Combs’s wealth. But even before the recent accusations, there were signs that the collaboration was fraying. Mr. Combs sued Diageo last May, accusing the company of racism and failing to support a tequila brand they were partners in — allegations that Diageo denied in court papers. The suit was settled in January, after multiple sexual assault suits had been filed, with Diageo saying it had severed all ties with him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More