Nonagenerian Viacom owner Sumner Redstone, who has trouble speaking and is allegedly suffering from some form of dementia, just removed five Viacom board members, including CEO Philippe Dauman. The board and Dauman believe that Redstone's previously estranged daughter Shari is manipulating Sumner. What makes this kind of corporate soap opera possible is Viacom's stock structure, which gives Redstone more power than his board. It's a setup similar to what Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have done at Facebook and Google.
[Emily Steel | The New York Times]
T-Mobile is working on adding Facebook video to its Binge On partners (which include Netflix and HBO), whose apps don't count against users' data caps. Such a move would very likely piss off net neutrality advocates.
[Ina Fried | Recode]
On the new Too Embarrassed to Ask podcast, The Verge's Lauren Goode and Dieter Bohn go through all of Apple's big announcements at the Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this week: Apple TV, the new macOS and, most significantly, what Apple plans to do with messaging.
[Eric Johnson | Recode]
Microsoft wasn't the only one looking to snap up LinkedIn. The company's winning $26.2 billion bid beat out Salesforce, whose CEO Marc Benioff told Recode that he talked with Goldman Sachs about pursuing a deal.
[Kara Swisher | Recode]
Donald Trump has reportedly discussed parlaying his presidential run into a "mini-media conglomerate," which Vanity Fair is dubbing "Trump News." A pivot to some sort of moneymaking venture would make sense for Trump, whose sky-high unfavorables and threadbare campaign operation suggest he doesn't have a great shot at beating Hillary Clinton.
[Sarah Ellison | Vanity Fair]
