Lifestyle
How to tour a haunting Santa Barbara estate that's been frozen in time for half a century
The house, a French palace on a Santa Barbara bluff, stands as undisturbed as a crime scene, a pair of unstrung harps in the music room, china laid out on the dinner table, waves crashing on East Beach below.
This is the mansion that heiress Huguette Clark left behind — well, one of them. For half a century, as Clark (1906-2011) paid an estimated $40,000 per month to keep it unchanged, the coveted estate known as Bellosguardo remained no livelier than the cemetery next door.
A tour group waits to enter Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
But now outsiders trickle in. For the last year and a half, the Bellosguardo Foundation has been quietly offering ground-floor tours for $100 a head, and it may soon open up more of the long-idle estate to visitors.
For anyone fascinated by great estates, robber barons, generational wealth or just human psychology, the tour is a chance to see territory that’s been off-limits for decades. It’s also a haunting illustration of what money can buy and what it can’t.
“We used to come to the cemetery and peek over the wall,” confessed Patti Gibbs, a longtime Santa Barbara resident who was among those on hand for the 10 a.m. tour one recent Wednesday.
“I’ve been waiting for them to let me in since I read the book years ago,” said visitor Peggy Simmons of Ojai.
The book she mentioned is “Empty Mansions,” by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr., which lays out the history of the Clarks and their homes in California, New York and Connecticut.
But stepping into the story is different from reading it. With docents Susan Bush and Cindy McClelland leading the way, Gibbs, Simmons and a handful of other visitors entered the front door.
The dining room, set with dinnerware. One of many custom chandeliers — this one hangs in the mansion’s art studio. A portrait in the estate shows heiress Huguette Clark, who died in 2011 at age 104. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The music room of the estate.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
They examined the telephone room to the left, then the coat room to the right (with a portrait of a French World War I hero on the wall) and the Steinway piano at the foot of the spiral staircase. And they listened closely as the docents addressed the morning’s central questions:
Where did the money come from? And why did Huguette Clark put the mansion on pause?
The first answer is copper, mined, sold and leveraged by a slight, bearded man named William Andrews Clark.
Clark (1839-1925), born in a Pennsylvania log cabin, got rich in copper mining and built his first mansion in Butte, Mont. Later he built a railroad from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, opened banks, mined more copper in Arizona, co-founded Las Vegas (seat of Clark County) and built another mansion, a 121-room behemoth on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. (It has since been razed.)
Clark and daughters Andrée, left, and Huguette visit Columbia Gardens, which he built in Butte, Mont. It was about 1917.
(Montana Historical Society)
“He’s one of the richest men that nobody’s ever heard of,” McClelland told the visitors.
Along the way Clark got married, fathered seven children, lost his first wife to typhoid fever, remarried in his 60s and fathered two additional daughters. He also got caught bribing Montana state legislators, yet served a term as U.S. senator from that state. And his name does endure here and there.
His son, William Andrews Clark Jr., made the donations that started UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Also, you could say the senior Clark inspired Mark Twain.
Clark, Twain wrote, “is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs.”
Much of the Bellosguardo story, however, is about the next generation of Clarks. As the group advanced through the house, admiring custom chandeliers and golden bathroom fixtures, the docents pushed the narrative forward.
A custom-made chandelier dangles in the library of the Bellosguardo Estate in Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
By summer 1923, when Clark and his second wife, Anna, arrived as renters at this 23-acre property above East Beach, he was one of the world’s wealthiest men. But he was in his mid-80s, 39 years older than Anna. Four years earlier, the couple had lost their older daughter, 16-year-old Andrée, to meningitis. Their surviving daughter, Huguette Clark, was now 17.
The Santa Barbara summer went well. By year’s end, the Clarks had bought the place for $300,000. But less than two years later, Clark died, leaving Anna and Huguette with a chunk of his fortune, the Santa Barbara property and the Italianiate villa that stood upon it, nicknamed Bellosguardo, or Pretty View.
So why, then, do visitors today walk through a French palace and not an Italian villa?
Because in 1933, as the country struggled with the Great Depression, Anna and Huguette Clark decided to level the villa (which had been damaged by a 1925 earthquake) and start over. Since they had lived several years in Paris and often spoke French to each other, they liked the idea of something French — a notable change from the Spanish Colonial projects popping up all over Santa Barbara.
Architect Reginald D. Johnson, designer of the Biltmore hotel in Montecito, delivered a rigorously symmetrical gray stone building (including one door that opens to nowhere) that paid minimal attention to ocean views. Two stories, 27 rooms, 13 fireplaces.
A sculpture in Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate shows Andrée Clark, a daughter of copper mogul William Andrews Clark who died in her teens. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate include an art studio full of paintings by and of heiress Huguette Clark, who is seen in the work on the easel. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Grounds, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
It’s subdued, but not dull. As visitors see, there’s a circular women’s powder room. Carved maple panels line walls in one room, while 160 carved oak panels dominate another. The building wraps around a stately pond, much of the furniture dates to the 18th century and the walls are hung with paintings of the French countryside and, in just about every room, portraits of Andrée and Huguette as doe-eyed girls.
“Reminds me of Hearst Castle,” said visitor Cherie Visconti, eyeing the dining room.
On the library shelves, Voltaire and George Eliot are joined by Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner, the Ventura lawyer and author who created Perry Mason.
The Clarks never lived here full time. By the foundation’s estimation, the mother and daughter made 14 visits (by train) between 1936 and 1953, staying about 18 months in all.
On those stays, Huguette, known for being shy but smart, played piano and violin, collected dolls and painted, including many portraits and still lives now hanging under the high ceilings of the mansion’s art studio. Having been married and quickly divorced in her 20s, Huguette didn’t date much.
Anna, an accomplished musician, played the harp and sponsored a string quartet (whom she outfitted with Stradivarius instruments).
Dining room, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Portraits in the Music room of Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate include a piano-top photograph of heiress Huguette Clark. She is also shown in the oil painting in the background. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
But by 1953, Anna Clark’s health had become too delicate for the train ride west, and Huguette stayed east as well. After Anna Clark died in 1963, Huguette, now in her 50s, continued to stay away. Later, she said that Bellosguardo held so many reminders of her absent mother that it made her sad. But not sad enough to let it go.
Now without her sister, father, mother, partner or a job, Huguette kept more to herself. She took pleasure in commissioning dolls and dollhouses, sending gifts to artisans, employees and their children. She checked photographs to make sure that staffers were keeping Bellosguardo unchanged, from the doghouse (whose occupant had died years before) to the 1933 Cadillac limousine and Chrysler convertible in the garage.
Then, one day in 1991, after a long spell without medical care, she summoned a doctor to her 42-room New York apartment (which was really three apartments combined). He arrived to find a wraith in her 80s, down to 75 pounds, suffering from multiple cancers that had disfigured her face.
Yet she survived. Once Huguette had been transported to a New York hospital, she responded well to surgeries. Choosing to remain in the hospital and rejecting all suggestions that she move home, she regained her health and lasted until her death more than 20 years, shortly before her 105th birthday.
For all those years, she not only left Bellosguardo empty but also a Connecticut mansion and the Manhattan apartment. From her hospital room, she bought more dolls, commissioned dollhouses, bid at auctions and rebuffed hospital officials when they pressed too often for donations. Meanwhile, she traded calls and letters with friends and employees, showering gifts on her favorites.
Grounds, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Over those last 20 years, authors Dedman and Newell write, Huguette spent an estimated $30 million on gifts (including six homes) for her day nurse, Hadassah Peri, who routinely worked seven-day weeks.
In many respects, they wrote, the Clark family saga is a classic folk tale — “except told in reverse, with the bags full of gold arriving at the beginning, the handsome prince fleeing and the king’s daughter locking herself away in the tower.”
The fighting over her estate persisted for years (she left two wills). In time, the Bellosguardo Foundation was created to operate the Santa Barbara mansion as an arts center. To some degree, this is par for the course in the neighborhood. Casa del Herrero in nearby Montecito has been hosting visitors for years, as has Lotusland, renowned for its gardens. But years passed before the first Bellosguardo tours happened, a delay that sparked complaints from some in Santa Barbara.
Now, the foundation director and docents say, an expansion of the tours is at hand.
Foundation Executive Director Jeremy Lindaman estimated that 100 to 150 people take tours each week. Others visit as part of occasional special events, such as a flamenco dance presentation that took place on the grounds last month during Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta.
Bellosguardo tours
What: 90-minute tours led by a volunteer docent. Visitors must be at least 14, and no indoor photography is allowed.
When: Usually offered Wednesdays through Sundays, two or three per day.
Where: Bellosguardo, 1407 E. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara
Cost: $100
Info: For details and to sign up to be notified of tour openings, visit the Bellosguardo Foundation website
By late fall, Lindaman said, he’s hoping to add a second tour that covers the mansion’s more intimate quarters, including bedrooms and service areas. A coffee-table book is in the works, as well.
“Everything that was here when she died is still here,” Lindaman said.
But booking a tour is a two-step exercise. Instead of offering direct booking through the Bellosguardo website, the foundation asks would-be visitors to sign up for notification. Every two months, an email goes out and tour slots fill quickly.
Thanks in part to this process and the price, Bellosguardo remains a well-kept half-secret. For many in Santa Barbara, the family’s most visible legacy is not the mansion but the Andrée Clark Bird Refuge, a 42-area city park and lagoon just north of Bellosguardo, that Huguette Clark paid to create and maintain in her sister’s name.
Yet among those who get inside Bellosguardo’s gates, Huguette Clark and her family are still sparking speculation.
Walking the rooms, “You just feel that family,” said Penny Simmons. “Sad things happened around here.”
“I didn’t know she was such a fine artist,” Patti Gibbs said at the end of her tour.
“We think she lived the life she wanted to live,” said her docent guide, McClelland.
“She was not crazy,” said Peter Higgins of Oxnard. “She knew what she was doing right up until the end.”
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
On a 75-mile cliff-hugging stretch of highway in California, traffic is way up, despite soaring gas prices. And locals expect the busiest summer in years.
The road is Highway 1 in Big Sur, which reopened in January after three years of repair and reconstruction following a pair of landslides. Drivers can once again embark on the state’s most famous road trip, covering the 100 miles between Cambria to the south and Carmel to the north without leaving the two-lane coastal highway. And they’re heading out in big numbers.
Caltrans estimates that as of May, Big Sur restaurant and retailer guest counts are up 40% from last year, and that northbound traffic at Ragged Point, the southern gateway to Big Sur, has risen 900% year-over-year.
People pose for photos near Bixby Bridge. Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors voted to explore a 12-month ban on parking around the bridge.
Safety cones prevent parking along Coast Road near the Bixby Bridge.
“Take your time,” said Kirk Gafill, co-owner of the popular Nepenthe restaurant and president of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce, offering advice to travelers. “You’re going to be sharing the road with a number of people.”
As travelers rediscover the road, the cost of driving has been shooting skyward. California’s average gas price ($6.11 per gallon as of May 26) is up 26% from the year before. In early April, rates hit $9.99 at the isolated gas station in the Big Sur community of Gorda.
For spring and summer travelers, these numbers would seem to pose a stark question: Stay home and save money, or head for the coast because the road is finally open and it’s still cheaper than flying?
So far, the latter answer is winning big.
Fog lingers off the coast of Highway 1.
“We are definitely seeing a huge uptick in our reservations,” said Megan Handy, assistant general manager at the upscale Treebones resort. She estimated that bookings are 30% or more ahead of last year, and rates are unchanged since then. But “it’s still not feeling super crowded, which is nice. Everything still feels kind of calm.”
But added traffic has raised some anxiety. On May 19, Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors voted to explore a 12-month ban on parking at Bixby Bridge, one of the region’s top photo spots.
Over the years, the number of cars parking near the bridge — often illegally, sometimes impeding emergency vehicles — has risen. The proposed parking moratorium won’t take effect until the supervisors discuss it further.
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Busy as things are, several business owners pointed out that many international travelers have not yet returned — perhaps because most make their plans more than six months ahead, perhaps because of global politics, perhaps a little of each.
The biggest challenge for businesses during this resurgence? “Restaffing and retaining,” said Handy at Treetops.
At Nepenthe, Gafill said his business has seen a 45% boost in guest volume since the road’s reopening. Gafill said he would have expected a 35% pickup, “simply by virtue of reopening the highway.” The additional 10%, he said, might be “all that pent-up demand,” aided by “a very beautiful and very dry winter,” followed by a mild spring.
A lunch crowd dines at popular restaurant Nepenthe.
Another possible factor: Nobody can be sure how long the road will remain open.
To cope with the influx of people, Gafill said, “everybody is trying to recruit and retain their existing staff.”
At the Ragged Point Inn, where rates dropped as low as $149 nightly last fall, rates are back over $200 and staffers are suggesting that customers book at least six months ahead. The inn has reopened its snack bar for the first time since early 2023, and management is investing in capital upgrades and staging live music on weekends throughout the summer.
Business “is up over 100%,” said Diane Ramey, whose family owns the inn. “I know not all of our neighbors are having the same lift, but everybody is doing better.”
Traffic approaching Bixby Bridge.
A visitor poses in an oversized chair at Big Sur River Inn.
Even at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, a Benedictine monastery above Lucia, the road’s reopening and coming summer season have made a difference. Bookings are up an estimated 30% at the hermitage, which rent rooms and cottages (for two nights or more) to visitors who agree to its requirement of silence.
Big Sur business owners advise visitors to travel on weekdays for less traffic and the best hotel rates, and to get on the road as early as possible.
Since its opening in 1937, the highway has been vulnerable to landslides and shifting ground, operating on a longstanding cycle of landslide, closure, repair, reopening and then another landslide, or sometimes a fire. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified the Big Sur coastline as one of the most landslide-prone areas in the western United States. The 2023-2026 closure was the longest in the highway’s history.
Over time, road crews have used increasingly sophisticated strategies. In the most recent efforts, Caltrans said, it used drones to help survey the slopes and remotely operated bulldozers and excavators to reduce risks to workers.
During the closure, no traffic was allowed on 6.8-mile span from just north of Lucia until about a mile south of the Esalen Institute. Drivers detoured inland by way of U.S. 101.
Correspondents of CBS’ 60 Minutes pose for a portrait in 2023. From left to right, they are Sharyn Alfonsi, L. Jon Wertheim, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega, and Anderson Cooper. Former Executive Producer Bill Owens sits on the far right. Only Wertheim, Whitaker and Stahl remain at the program.
CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images/CBS
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When CBS fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday night, the new 60 Minutes executive producer, Nick Bilton, told Pelley it was for insubordination at a staff meeting the day before.
The veteran correspondent argues he was defending the DNA of 60 Minutes and the integrity of its journalism.
The battle royale over the network’s most prestigious and profitable news program is part of a broader fight over the direction of CBS News.
And given CBS’s acquisition by a billionaire family whose business interests have become intertwined with the political interests of President Trump, it reflects a larger war over control of the media in the current moment.
That father and son, Larry and David Ellison, bought CBS’ parent company, Paramount, last summer. In January, they became co-owners of TikTok’s U.S. operations. Now they’re seeking approval from Trump’s regulators to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN.
A glamorous show shorn, for now, of most its stars
CBS fired Cecilia Vega, a correspondent, and Tanya Simon, the executive producer, from 60 Minutes last week. They are shown in this photo at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
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Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images/Variety
But the specifics of this individual episode matter — for 60 Minutes, CBS, its audience of millions, and even the news business itself.
The program has been the most glamorous post in broadcast news. The correspondents are the stars of the show. And now, there are just three of them.
Anderson Cooper left last month, concerned over the direction of the network’s coverage. Last week was a virtual bloodbath: correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi were fired. So were a producer and two show executives — including Tanya Simon, a longtime staffer who had stepped up as executive producer when her predecessor resigned in protest before the Ellisons’ takeover.
With Pelley’s ouster, only correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim remain. Now they are considering whether to resign, according to two associates with knowledge.
Their brand-new boss, Bilton, was previously a tech reporter for The New York Times and an investigative reporter for Vanity Fair. He executive-produced a documentary for Netflix about a couple accused of laundering Bitcoin and has been a producer on several other films.
Notably, he has no experience in television news.
Neither does Bari Weiss, whom David Ellison installed as the network’s editor in chief last October. The Ellisons also bought her center-right views-and-news site, The Free Press.
She has maintained that the network of Walter Cronkite needs a makeover for the digital moment. She has also contended for years that CBS, along with the rest of mainstream media, is too reflexively anti-Trump, anti-Israel, and too woke.
A rejection of CBS News executives’ overtures
The new executive producer of 60 Minutes, Nick Bilton, has been a tech journalist and documentary filmmaker, but lacks experience in broadcast news.
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Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
Bilton attempted to set a conciliatory tone at Monday’s meeting — his first with the show. Pelley, a formidable veteran correspondent and former CBS Evening News anchor, wasn’t having it.
Pelley called Bilton unwelcome and unqualified. And Pelley said that Weiss was attempting to “murder” the program.
In firing Pelley on Tuesday, Bilton said the journalist had hijacked the meeting and rejected overtures to work constructively through their differences. (NPR obtained a copy of the firing notice.) Bilton wrote that Pelley’s “antipathy to the future of the show came through loud and clear.”
In his own statement late Tuesday evening, shared with NPR, Pelley accused CBS’s new news leadership of killing 60 Minutes‘ DNA and pushing him “to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and “to include assertions that are unverified.”
The accusations, to which CBS has not yet responded, echo those made by Alfonsi and Vega, the two correspondents fired last week.
Earlier this year, Alfonsi publicly complained after Weiss held one of her stories at the last minute, and kept it frozen for weeks, demanding an on-camera interview with a Trump White House official that never played out. It ran, unchanged from the intended version, with additional statements from the administration tacked on to the end.
After being fired, Vega said in a statement obtained by NPR that her team had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories.”
“Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both censorship and self-driven” Vega continued. “It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”
Weiss previously rejected Alfonsi’s and Vega’s allegations. (CBS said Vega’s claims, for example, were “not based in reality” while expressing appreciation for her work.)
Weiss and Bilton say digital threat requires a 60 Minutes overhaul now
In a meeting this morning, Weiss said that Pelley chose his own path — that is, to be fired rather than to find a way to work through his concerns, according to attendees. The network and Weiss have not yet publicly addressed Pelley’s accusations of interference.
Bilton and Weiss say they respect the show’s traditions, its accomplishments and its legacy of enterprise reporting, extended interviews and visual storytelling. It rose in the ratings 9% over the past season under Simon.
The two news leaders say, however, 60 Minutes needs to be overhauled before it becomes increasingly irrelevant in the era of streamers and other sources of news, information and entertainment in the digital age.
Interviews with 12 current and former CBS News staffers, from producers to executives, suggest great reservations and suspicions remain about Weiss’ judgment and her ability to handle the prominent and even famous journalists on whom her division relies.
Weiss had initially sought to reinvent the CBS Evening News, dropping a two-anchor format that had sagged in the ratings. Cooper turned down Weiss’ overtures to anchor it and left the network altogether, concerned about her approach, according to associates. (They spoke on condition of anonymity because Cooper has not chosen to speak publicly on the matter.)
David Ellison became chairman and CEO of CBS’ parent company, Paramount, after buying it last year.
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Noam Galai/Getty Images for Paramount/Getty Images North America
The ratings have continued to sag under new anchor Tony Dokoupil. And some CBS journalists, including producers who have left the Evening News, have publicly accused Weiss of making editorial decisions driven by politics. She has rejected those claims.
The decision to take on overhauling two key shows — one listing, one highly profitable, both high profile — carries significant risks for Weiss and the network, even apart from other considerations.
But the Ellisons’ presence cannot be ignored.
When Shari Redstone was negotiating the sale of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, to the Ellisons’ Skydance Media last year, the network announced the end of Stephen Colbert’s late night show. He had been one of the president’s most biting and acerbic critics.
David Ellison also made a series of concessions directly to Trump’s chief broadcast regulator, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, gutting CBS’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and appointing a conservative ombudsman to field complaints of bias against its news reporting.
Carr and other regulators approved the Paramount deal last summer.
The accommodations echo those made by other media titans.
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos remade the editorial pages of the Washington Post, which he owns, into a far more hospitable zone for Trump at the outset of his second term. So did Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a noted medical device inventor. Amazon and Blue Origin have multi-billion dollar contracts with the federal government. Soon-Shiong’s medical research firm routinely has patent applications up for review with federal regulators. One was approved Tuesday.
The Ellisons are hoping to win approval from federal regulators next month for their purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at more than $110 billion. It would include Warner Bros. Studio, HBO and CNN, among other properties.
As Weiss routs CBS News’ old guard, the question of what role she might play at CNN — and what changes that portends at CBS — hangs over journalists at the two networks. The fate of 60 Minutes serves as a high-stakes case study for both.
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