Media Roundup: Trump clashes with Aussie reporter, 2GB's Levy in court, ABC offers pay deal, SCA merger update, and Paramount Skydance bid rejected

Media

Trump clashes with Aussie reporter over Ukraine

Donald Trump has snapped at Australian journalist Latika M. Bourke during Anthony Albanese’s state visit after she asked why he didn’t “end the war in Ukraine tomorrow.”

As Steve Jackson writes in The Australian, the US President cut her off, saying she didn’t know what she was “talking about,” accusing her of oversimplifying the conflict.

Watch the exchange below:

2GB’s Mark Levy caught up in new court case

The broadcaster has been named in a new Supreme Court case involving a loan dispute between Benjamin Yammine and his friend Oliver Joseski, for whom he’s reportedly a guarantor.

As Josh Hanrahan writes in The Daily Telegraph, it follows the collapse of Levy’s Sylvania restaurant, Pronto, which was recently wound up by the court.

ABC offers staff three-year pay deal with extra perks

Capital Brief's John Buckley writes that Aunty is offering staff a 9% pay rise over three years along with improved leave entitlements and pay progression guarantees.

The offer includes 3% annual increases, backdated to 1 October, which the broadcaster says outpaces recent salary movements at rival media organisations.

Companies

Southern Cross chair downplays job cuts amid Seven merger

The company's chairman Heith Mackay-Cruise says jobs are safe despite plans to shave $30 million in costs following the company’s proposed merger with Seven West Media.

According to The Australian Financial Review's Sam Buckingham-Jones, on-air talent, producers and sales teams across Triple M, Hit and LiSTNR are expected to stay put.

Paramount Skydance ups bid, rebuffed again by WBD

Deadline's Dade Hayes, Dominic Patten, Jill Goldsmith report that Paramount Skydance has reportedly been turned down a second time by Warner Bros. Discovery after upping its takeover offer from $20 to $24 a share.

Both companies declined to comment, but the repeated bids suggest Paramount Skydance isn’t ready to walk away from WBD’s vast entertainment empire just yet.

Meanwhile...

Yahoo!Finance's Allie Canal writes that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has dismissed talk of a Warner Bros. Discovery tie-up, saying the streamer isn’t interested in buying “legacy media networks.”

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