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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 1: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Wednesday, December third, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Lyttleton. I am co

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Speaker 1: editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in

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Speaker 1: la He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around

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Speaker 1: the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,

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Speaker 1: we'll hear from Variety's music chief jam Oswad on how

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Speaker 1: we assemble our annual Hitmakers issue, which is published today

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Speaker 1: in print and online. It's a survey of the artists

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Speaker 1: and the teams behind the year's biggest music hits. The

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Speaker 1: Irrepressible Sabrina Carpenter is the radiance star on our cover.

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Speaker 1: And then we'll catch up on the Warner Brothers Discovery

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Speaker 1: bidding process with Todd Spangler. But before we get to that,

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Speaker 1: here are a few headlines just in this morning that

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Speaker 1: you need to know. This is the best time to

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Speaker 1: be a beatlemaniac since the end anthology series came out.

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Speaker 1: Sam Mendes is working on his four Beatle biopicks now.

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Speaker 1: The BBC and Turbine studios are working on a six

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Speaker 1: part drama revolving around the band's famous early stint in

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Speaker 1: Hamburg in the reaperbaand District. Hamburg Days is based on

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Speaker 1: the memoir of the legendary Bassis Klaus Worman Vorman was

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Speaker 1: a young guy in Hamburg who found himself in the

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Speaker 1: right club at the right time to intersect with history.

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Speaker 1: Mak Shau, everybody's talking about the snaffoos found in the

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Speaker 1: mad Men episodes that have become available on HBO Max.

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Speaker 1: This is a digital age problem of formatting and aspect ratio,

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Speaker 1: and this won't be the last time this happens. Sympathies

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Speaker 1: to mad Men creator Matt Weiner, who poured his heart

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Speaker 1: and soul into every frame. Rip Tammy Rosen, the longtime

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Speaker 1: head of communications for the Tribeca Film Festival and Sundance Institute,

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Speaker 1: has died at the age of forty nine. Rosen was

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Speaker 1: a force of nature, as you have to be to

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Speaker 1: get a film festival off the ground. Deep the sympathies

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Speaker 1: to her friends and family. All of these stories and

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Speaker 1: so much more can be found on Variety dot com

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Speaker 1: Right now. Now it's time for conversations with ridy journalists

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Speaker 1: about news and trends and show business. Jem Oswad, Variety's

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Speaker 1: executive editor of Music, discusses the year long process of

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Speaker 1: doing the research on the unsung heroes behind the pop

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Speaker 1: hits of the year and the challenge of capturing this

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Speaker 1: moment for our cover star, Sabrina Carpenter as she ascends

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Speaker 1: into arena headlining status. Here's a bite with Carpenter from

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Speaker 1: our very fun cover story video that indicates how serious

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Speaker 1: she is about understanding her audience. And that's followed by

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Speaker 1: my conversation with Jim.

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Speaker 2: I really realized on the emails I can't send tour

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Speaker 2: how people value spontaneity in shows and also feeling like

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Speaker 2: they got something different in their city in that night

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Speaker 2: that no other city has gotten, and or just an

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Speaker 2: experience that they felt really special from. And so I

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Speaker 2: wanted to find a way to do that on this tour,

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Speaker 2: and we decided to make our own game of spin

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Speaker 2: the bottle, and instead of everyone kissing each other, we

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Speaker 2: don't do that. We spin the bottle and we sing

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Speaker 2: a different song every night. So it started because I

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Speaker 2: love doing covers. Honestly, if I could just be an

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Speaker 2: abba cover band on the side, I probably would that's

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Speaker 2: not a secret to anybody. But we've done We've done

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Speaker 2: quite a few Abba covers, but the most popular, I

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Speaker 2: would say on the store is Mama Miah.

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Speaker 1: That was just like, by far the most fun for

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Speaker 1: everybody who've done All.

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Speaker 3: Your Love on Me.

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Speaker 1: We did nine to five, that was really fun.

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Speaker 2: We've done kiss Me. We've done some really really great songs.

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Speaker 2: We did Super Freak in LA.

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Speaker 1: Because obviously, jam oswad you are not even two hours

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Speaker 1: after landing at LAX coming in for the celebration that

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Speaker 1: is hit Makers, welcome back to LA.

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Speaker 3: Well, thank you for that, and I figure I might

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Speaker 3: as well get started because this is all I'm going

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Speaker 3: to be doing for the next five days.

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Speaker 1: Hit Makers. For the uninitiated, it's one of the biggest

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Speaker 1: print editions of the year that we do. It's one

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Speaker 1: of the biggest data efforts that we do around music

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Speaker 1: every year, where we basically take the measure of the

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Speaker 1: year's top twenty five songs, the most played twenty five songs.

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Speaker 1: And my favorite thing about this issue is that it

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Speaker 1: is consciously, from the moment it was birthed nine years ago,

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Speaker 1: about celebrating the people behind these songs. Of course, the

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Speaker 1: great artists and of course the songwriters. But behind every

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Speaker 1: great song is a team of people pushing the rock

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Speaker 1: up the hill. Nothing becomes a number one hit on

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Speaker 1: its own, and this issue always really looks at the

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Speaker 1: people from marketing and communications, to the producers, to the

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Speaker 1: contributor that made that one suggestion that turned good into great,

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Speaker 1: And when you get to the finish line, we always

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Speaker 1: congratulate you more than once because it's a real achievement.

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Speaker 1: How do you feel about this year's package?

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Speaker 3: The challenge with hitmakers all along has been to keep

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Speaker 3: making it better because, to my continuing astonishment, it gets

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Speaker 3: bigger every single year.

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Speaker 1: Again, I just want to stress there's so much research.

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Speaker 1: There's beat reporting three hundred and sixty five days of

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Speaker 1: the year to know who the power players are here.

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Speaker 1: But it really does show a lot of expertise of

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Speaker 1: our mighty music team, which you lead. So you start

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Speaker 1: by identifying the top twenty five songs. We get help

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Speaker 1: from that from our PMC siblings at Billboard and Luminate,

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Speaker 1: and we're very grateful for that.

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Speaker 3: Quite honestly, I start getting the year to date charts

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Speaker 3: from Luminate starting in March. Usually by early July, I

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Speaker 3: have a general sense of what the charts are going

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Speaker 3: to look like, and by then you pretty much know

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Speaker 3: what the flavor of the year is.

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Speaker 1: Certainly by summer it was looking like a Sabrina Carpenter

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Speaker 1: kind of year. And she also has Espresso. That incredible

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Speaker 1: earworm hit is in fact number twenty five, so it.

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Speaker 3: Was not a hard decision to come to Sabrina Carpenter.

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Speaker 3: This has been a syndrome with the chart this year.

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Speaker 3: There are a lot of songs that have hung in

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Speaker 3: since twenty twenty four. It's something like thirteen songs from

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty four are on the twenty twenty five chart.

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Speaker 3: Four songs that were in the top ten last year

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Speaker 3: are also in the top ten this year.

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Speaker 1: Looking at the chart page here, and you've got Shabouzi

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Speaker 1: and that incredible bar song, and Teddy Swims with Lose

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Speaker 1: Control and Benson Boone with Beautiful Things. But the champion

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Speaker 1: of that has got to be Pink Pony Club from

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Speaker 1: Chapel Roon, which I think general listeners might be surprised

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Speaker 1: to be reminded that that first came out in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty and it had a long, slow but steady march

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Speaker 1: up the charts. It's especially cool to hear it when

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Speaker 1: you're in West Hollywood or driving through West Hollywood. You

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Speaker 1: really feel like you're part of a moment.

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Speaker 3: The song has sort of been the centerpiece of her narrative.

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Speaker 3: They insisted on releasing it in her original record deal

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Speaker 3: with Atlantic Records. They released it in twenty twenty. It

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Speaker 3: was right around the beginning of the pandemic and she

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Speaker 3: was really at least from a record contract. Shortly after

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Speaker 3: that they managed to retain the rights to the song,

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Speaker 3: and I saw chapel Roone at the end of February

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. It was when this current arc was

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Speaker 3: just beginning, and I wrote this article that you can

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Speaker 3: find right now. It was just basically Chapel Rone meets

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Speaker 3: her moment because I was so blown away. I knew

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Speaker 3: a couple of her songs, but it was just like,

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Speaker 3: something is really going on here. You do this long enough,

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Speaker 3: you walk into a room and you're like, something's happening.

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Speaker 1: Here, jem I cannot resist. Something is happening, and you

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Speaker 1: do know what it is, mister oswod Back to our

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Speaker 1: cover star, the challenge of doing a cover profile with

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Speaker 1: somebody like Sabrina carpenter who is in a white hot moment,

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Speaker 1: is that she gets a lot of coverage and in

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Speaker 1: the age of social media, there's not a lot of

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Speaker 1: mystery about people's lives. But at the same time, Sabrina

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Speaker 1: has been in the thick of things. And there was

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Speaker 1: of course quite a hubbub about her the original album

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Speaker 1: cover for her new album, Man's Best Friend, So there

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Speaker 1: was a lot for Salome hilu Ark fantastic correspondent to

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Speaker 1: unpack as she sat down with her in New York.

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Speaker 1: And it's a great conversation. I won't spoil it, but

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Speaker 1: she addresses the Man's Best Friend desta directly and a

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Speaker 1: lot of other things. It struck me reading it that

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Speaker 1: this is a person that is maturing as an artist.

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Speaker 3: The thing that was remarkable to me is that she

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Speaker 3: was on our cover fourteen or fifteen months ago. And

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Speaker 3: when you're doing the kind of in depth cover stories

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Speaker 3: that we do, that's a challenge. But Sabrina is that

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Speaker 3: much farther along in her career. I mean, this is

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Speaker 3: really her growth period as a headlining artist, and I

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Speaker 3: wondered how we were going to do it differently. We

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Speaker 3: assigned a different writer to it, obviously, but what was

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Speaker 3: very interesting is that Sabrina was at the beginning of

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Speaker 3: the arc that she's on now. It was pegged to

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Speaker 3: when Short and Sweet had just come out. It was

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Speaker 3: much more about her career, it was much more about

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Speaker 3: her past. But this time Slome was very interesting. I

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Speaker 3: said to her that this article felt like a glimpse

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Speaker 3: into a gen Z girl's world in a way, because

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Speaker 3: she observed fans in the girl's room at Sabrina's Madison

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Speaker 3: Square Garden concert on Halloween and what they were talking

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Speaker 3: about and the fact that she and Sabrina were the

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Speaker 3: same age made for a connection and an understanding.

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Speaker 1: It's always about casting that writer. Well again, congratulation, thank

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Speaker 1: you for all the labor on this issue. You did

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Speaker 1: it well and on deadline and so appreciative. And you're

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Speaker 1: not done yet though. You have MC duties on Saturday

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Speaker 1: when we have the awesome hit Maker's Brunch, which is

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Speaker 1: truly one of my favorite events on the calendar, and

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Speaker 1: I know for the music biz from all the unsung

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Speaker 1: heroes behind all these hits. It's a really fun community

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Speaker 1: thing just as we ease into the December holidays, and

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Speaker 1: you are a great host and Before we sign off

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Speaker 1: after all this talk about hitmakers, we have to give

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Speaker 1: a shout out to Variety's former music editor Shirley Halprin,

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Speaker 1: who's now Coeic of Rolling Stone. She is the mother

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Speaker 1: of hitmakers this when she was with us, and we

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Speaker 1: are grateful that she built such a sturdy franchise that

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Speaker 1: Jem You and the team have expanded on.

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Speaker 3: What's become really a very special event for the music community.

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Speaker 3: People like the fact that it's kind of chill. It's

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Speaker 3: a brunch on a Saturday, it's invite only, people get

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Speaker 3: dressed up, and it's really just an opportunity to celebrate everybody.

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Speaker 1: And now we'll check in with Variety Business editor Todd

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Speaker 1: Spangler on round two of bidding for Warner Brothers Discovery.

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Speaker 1: Will there be around three we'll discuss the state of

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Speaker 1: play for the three contenders, Ara, Mount, Comcast and Netflix.

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Speaker 1: Tad Spangler, thanks for joining me. Hello, Hello, There's a

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Speaker 1: lot going on. The Warner Brothers Discovery situation is kind

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Speaker 1: of a follow a bouncing ball. They are running a

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Speaker 1: tight ship. It's taken a while for a Variety and

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Speaker 1: other publications to really crack the details of what those

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Speaker 1: second round bids are but we are seeing some signs

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Speaker 1: of light as to what's in the bid, what people

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Speaker 1: are asking for, what they're not asking for. Let me

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Speaker 1: start by asking you dot catch us up in terms

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Speaker 1: of what's the state of play here.

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Speaker 4: So we know that Netflix, Comcast, and Paramounts Guide Dance,

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Speaker 4: they all came back with higher bids. We don't know

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Speaker 4: what they're offering in terms of the dollar amount, but

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Speaker 4: what we do know is that Paramount's Guide Dance, which

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Speaker 4: just was created in August through skuy Dances take over Repairmount,

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Speaker 4: they up their bid and they're now going to Warner

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Speaker 4: Brothers Discovery with an offer for the entire company with

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Speaker 4: backing from three of these Middle Eastern sovereign well funds.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that was an interesting development today, and not to

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Speaker 1: be labor this point, but our terrific correspondent in Rome,

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Speaker 1: Nick Vivrelli, and yourself reported about a week ago that

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Speaker 1: such a deal was in progress. At the time that

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Speaker 1: was met with some pretty fierce resistance from the Paramount's

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Speaker 1: Guidance camp. It sometimes does happen in reporting that you

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Speaker 1: can be a little ahead of the news when it's real,

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Speaker 1: and of course in deal making, nothing's done till it's done,

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Speaker 1: But we also knew there was more to the story,

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Speaker 1: and this morning there was that more to the story.

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Speaker 1: So what's significant about this beyond the fact that Paramount

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Speaker 1: has some serious financial muscle.

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Speaker 4: Well, so this would be an all cash offer. We

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Speaker 4: understand that Netflix and Concasts would be mostly cash but

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Speaker 4: some equity as well, so obviously an all cash bid

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Speaker 4: is more attractive to the seller. The Ellisons have gone

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Speaker 4: to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi to say, hey,

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Speaker 4: would you join this bid and own a piece of

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Speaker 4: the new company if the bid is successful.

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Speaker 1: We certainly know from covering the wide world of media

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Speaker 1: and entertainment that Saudi Arabia, Qatar their Middle Eastern countries

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Speaker 1: are very, very eager to become much bigger players on

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Speaker 1: the world stage of media than the region has been

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Speaker 1: in the past, and certainly especially in Saudi Arabia, we

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Speaker 1: know that there is this awakening that it could be

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Speaker 1: hampering the country's growth and it's emergence on the world

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Speaker 1: stage not to have a more robust media sector. In

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Speaker 1: the last decade, they have been trying to change that,

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Speaker 1: so it comes as no surprise that they would be

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Speaker 1: interested in these assets. I mean, that is a lot

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Speaker 1: of financial firepower. It seems to me like David Ellison

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Speaker 1: is really trying to make the Warner Brothers Discovery board,

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Speaker 1: because that's who will decide this. He's trying to make

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Speaker 1: them an offer they literally can't refuse.

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Speaker 4: Yes, that's been a strategy from the get come.

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Speaker 1: And there is some I do know there is some

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Speaker 1: frustration in the c suite at Warner Brothers about that,

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Speaker 1: because I believe that their preference would be to have

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Speaker 1: continued with the plan They had planned to go forward

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Speaker 1: and separate sometime next year the Warner Brothers studio and

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Speaker 1: the HBO and HBO Max streamer from the existing cable channels,

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Speaker 1: the same process that NBC Universal is in the process

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Speaker 1: of now splitting off from now, MS Now and CNBC

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Speaker 1: and all of those channels. And I think if you

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Speaker 1: asked internally, the Warner Brothers preference would be to go

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Speaker 1: through with that. But David Ellison had other ideas and

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Speaker 1: has really forced this auction. And then what is your

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Speaker 1: sense of the Comcast of it all.

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Speaker 4: What we've known for several weeks now is Comcast is interested,

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Speaker 4: like Netflix, in just the HBO Max and Warner Brothers

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Speaker 4: Studios side of it. So in that scenario, the idea

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Speaker 4: is that you would merge basically Peacock with HBO Max

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Speaker 4: and you would combine the studio operations into Mega's studio.

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Speaker 4: That you know, combines everything under the Universal umbrella with

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Speaker 4: everything under the Warner Brothers umbrella. So that would be

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Speaker 4: the plan there. For Netflix, we don't know what the

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Speaker 4: thinking is in terms of do they merge HBO Max

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Speaker 4: into Netflix proper, do they keep them separate brands for

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Speaker 4: some reason for a period of time. Those certain details

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Speaker 4: aren't clear just yet.

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Speaker 1: We've heard speculation that the Netflix deal is also largely cash,

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Speaker 1: and it's into interesting because if one of the three

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Speaker 1: could use stock as currency, you'd think it would be Netflix.

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Speaker 4: That's right.

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Speaker 1: What is your hunch on the prospect that the Warner

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Speaker 1: Brothers board goes through this perhaps even another round and says,

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Speaker 1: you know, these just aren't compelling. We think we're going

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Speaker 1: to continue on with our plan and we will be

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Speaker 1: able to do better when these assets are discrete. Do

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Speaker 1: you have any sense of like, is that a path

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Speaker 1: that is still viable for them?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I think that is a possibility. But again, what we

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Speaker 4: don't know is what is the premium that these three

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Speaker 4: bidders are offering. And it gets a little bit apple

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Speaker 4: store oranges when you're saying, what is the valuation of

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Speaker 4: Warner Brothers sliced off from the linear TV business? And

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Speaker 4: then how do you value that against a paramount skuidance

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Speaker 4: bid for the entire company? It gets tricky, right if

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Speaker 4: the Warnerer Discovery board feels that they have more upside

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Speaker 4: and going it alone making an acquisition play of somebody else,

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Speaker 4: If they believe that that's a stronger hand, they'll stick

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Speaker 4: with the split and go that way for sure.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, we all know the words fiduciary duty,

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Speaker 1: and if the Ellisons throw a ton of money at

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Speaker 1: the company at a time when media asset valuation is

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Speaker 1: very volatile, it will be hard for them on a

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Speaker 1: purely fiduciary duty if they just put up a ton

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Speaker 1: of money. And when you're aligning not one, not two,

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Speaker 1: but three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, I'm guessing you're

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Speaker 1: lining up a fair amount of coin.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but to your point, they could decide, Hey, we

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Speaker 4: want to control our own destiny and we think it'll

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Speaker 4: be better for investors if we go it alone.

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Speaker 1: So much to watch, well, Todd, that keeps us all employed.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for your.

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Speaker 4: Time, Thanks Cyndia.

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Speaker 1: As we close out today's episode, here's a few things

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Speaker 1: we're watching for. Here comes Variety's Actors on Actors Season

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Speaker 1: twenty three. The rollout of the bi annual video interview

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Speaker 1: Leonardo DiCaprio. Congrats to my coeic Ramin Setuta, who leads

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Speaker 1: the charge on this great franchise. Don't miss my colleague

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Speaker 1: Brian Steinberg's interesting report on a commercial coming to the

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Speaker 1: we go. Congrats to Ethan Hawk, the great actor and

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Speaker 1: star of FX's The Lowdown, will receive the Career Achievement

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Speaker 1: Honor at the Palm Springs Internet National Film Festival on

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Speaker 1: January three. Thanks for listening. This episode was written and

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Speaker 1: reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from jem Oswad

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Speaker 1: and Todd Spangler. Stick snickt Hick Picks. Please leave us

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