Walt Disney Co. has held initial talks about a potential sale of its ABC broadcast network to Nexstar Media Group, the largest owner of television stations in the country, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

A source familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg that no specific valuation has been discussed as talks are still preliminary. Neither company confirmed the report.

ABC News is preparing to replace Nate Silver and rejigger his election forecasting model, which the 538 founder is taking with him when he leaves the news organization at the end of his contract.

According to two sources with knowledge of the situation, ABC executives were slow to realize that the company only owned some of the models that 538 used to forecast major elections, and that many were on rent from Silver as part of the initial deal to bring the data journalism site to ESPN ten years ago.

FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver is exiting ABC News as The Walt Disney Company ramps up layoffs, Variety has confirmed.

ABC News will hold onto the FiveThirtyEight brand with plans to streamline the statistics-driven news and analysis site. The network plans to create a more efficient structure for FiveThirtyEight leading into the 2024 presidential election and beyond.

While the broadcast networks have largely turned a blind eye to the reported “rapidly deteriorating” mental state of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA), the pressure has been turned up for them to report something after some of her Democratic colleagues have made public pleas for her to resign after being absent for two months as she reportedly recovers from shingles. But while CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today show ran segments on Thursday regarding the calls for her to resign, ABC’s Good Morning America kept their viewers in the dark.

During former President Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday following his arraignment in a Manhattan courthouse, ABC News blurred out the message written on his podium.

“TEXT TRUMP to 88022” was displayed as a way to fundraise for his presidential campaign, but the news organization did not want their viewers to see this in what critics say is a case of “election interference.”

ABC News did not blur out the Biden campaign's 30330 number displayed on the podium when he spoke during 2020, however.

Television news producer Kristen Hentschel was doing precisely what journalists should do on a searing hot day in Stuart, Fla., in July 2018: She confronted a politician with unwelcome questions.

Microphone and ABC News business card in hand, Hentschel rushed up to a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives before a debate, the candidate recalls, and asked him about 20 dead gopher tortoises that were reportedly found at a nearby construction site. Florida designates the species as threatened.

The “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC dedicated extensive time Tuesday morning to the stunning news that former President Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home of Mar-a-Lago was raided Monday night by the FBI with a search warrant reportedly pursuant to a possible Presidential Records Act violation. 

Sen Marco Rubio, R-Fla., blasted the Jan. 6 House panel for hiring a network executive to produce its prime-time hearing set for Thursday night.

Axios reported Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's partisan select committee — comprised of Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans — had employed former ABC News President James Goldston to produce the prime-time hearing.

ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl praised Fox News on Sunday, saying its coverage through “much” of the coronavirus pandemic was “very responsible.”

Karl had been asked, during a panel discussion with former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace hosted by the group Common Ground Committee, about the media’s role in shaping the tense political environment around the pandemic during former President Trump’s time in the White House.

Disney will not make political donations in the state of Florida pending a review, and oppose legislation modeled after the state’s Parental Rights in Education bill in other states, CEO Bob Chapek said in a letter to employees on Friday.

“Thank you to all who have reached out to me sharing your pain, frustration and sadness over the company’s response to the Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill,” Chapek wrote in the letter, which was posted on Disney’s website. “You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down. I am sorry.”