When the media publishes the truth about you and you don’t like it, if you’ve got the dough, the next best thing is to produce your own content. And that’s what twice-impeached former President Donald Trump is doing.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which was announced in October, is moving forward. The latest step is a search for creatives to help produce content for the newly launched arm of the company, the TMTG+ streaming service.
The site explains that the TMTG is a “Big Tent” platform offering “broad-based entertainment rooted in free speech,” a social media app called Truth Social, and “a wide variety of non-scripted, scripted, and original content.”
TMTG is currently valued at $1.7 billion and it hopes to reach 10 million subscribers and billions more in revenue, Rolling Stone reports.
Obviously, Trump is looking for a channel that offers an unfiltered stream of MAGA bullshit. I guess Fox News and One America aren’t Pravda enough for him, especially during a third run at the presidency. He hopes to go toe to toe with the likes of Hulu, Netflix, and AppleTV+.
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Rolling Stone reports that much of the push for Trump’s TV demand has to do with his jealousy over the Obamas’ Netflix deal. A former Trump White House official told the outlet that Trump should be getting the big Hollywood deals because he, not former president Obama, understood how to “get ratings.” Trump took to calling it “Obama Netflix.” I guess Trump thinks his time on The Apprentice and as host of Miss Universe counts for a lot more than it does.
Trump has tapped producer Scott St. John, known for his work on game shows such as Deal or No Deal and America’s Got Talent, and according to Bloomberg, TMTG will primarily feature “non-woke” news, entertainment, and podcast programming.
Cory Anotado, founder of BuzzerBlog, a game show industry news website, said of St. John, “I couldn’t begin to tell you what experience he has that would lead to the position he’s in … It feels very out of nowhere.”
St. John is definitely a light-hearted fellow. In a Los Angeles Times profile of the producer, his office was described as “decorated with a headless mannequin in a hula skirt, a Jenny Jones cookie jar, and 50 plastic baby dolls hanging on the wall behind his desk.”
As for Truth Social, Monday, Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company planning to buy the company behind Truth Social, officially filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to go public. If it happens, Trump will be “obligated to make any social media post on Truth Social and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours,” according to the filing. This mostly applies to Twitter—even if Elon Musk allows him back onto the platform, CNBC reports.
Trump was banned from Twitter in January 2021 after the Jan. 6 insurrection “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
He’s vowed he wouldn’t return to the platform even if allowed.
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