The apocalypse may be at hand this weekend.
CBS Sunday Morning announced they will have a rare investigative piece. The subject: the Kennedy Center.
For 47 years, CBS has broadcast the Kennedy Center Honors. But with the current catastrophe engulfing the arts institution — and a looming contract negotiation — the network may be ready to face a nasty break.
Norah O’Donnell is talking with Deborah Rutter, fired after more than a decade as president; former National Symphony Orchestra artistic director Ben Folds; and board member Paolo Zampolli, about the Kennedy Center’s future.
Zampolli running the Kennedy Center is maybe the most horrifying aspect of all of this. He’s a Trump real estate crony who ran a questionable modeling agency and boasts to have introduced Trump to now missing wife, Melania.
Zampolli is better known for being on different sides of various lawsuits than arts management. He’s also had a colorful past with the United Nations in a wide range of capacities.
That CBS– not NBC or ABC — is investigating what’s happened at the Kennedy Center indicates one of two things: either they know the end has come to their relationship, or they’re trying to suck up to the new administration to keep the specials going. It’s hard to imagine O’Donnell carrying out the second option, but we’ll never forget her shocking “60 Minutes” piece on Saudia Arabia’s Prince MBS Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in 2018, six months before Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident journalist, was chopped up.
If CBS loses — or gives away — the Kennedy Center Honors, there are plenty of people waiting to take over. Amazon Prime, owned by Jeff Bezos, would be there in a second. Bezos already has deals with Trump and would find this a feather in his cap.
Also ready to step in would be Trump pal Rupert Murdoch, who’d consider the KCH — with Trump as host, as Trump has suggested — a prestigious addition to Fox. Of course, the potential honorees– country singers, right wing athletes, and Christian entertainers — would be right up Fox’s alley.
So this should be a bigger Sunday show than “White Lotus.”
