Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast where
Speaker 1: you'll hear the brightest minds working in the media business today.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrew Wallenstein, co editor in chief of Variety. It
Speaker 1: was my pleasure to sit down with HBO chairman and
Speaker 1: CEO Richard Plepler on May four from the stage of
Speaker 1: Variety's annual Entertainment and Technology Summit in New York. We
Speaker 1: enjoyed a wide ranging discussion on the state of the
Speaker 1: HBO business as Plepler navigates the brand through what's probably
Speaker 1: the fiercest competitive environment he's seen since he came aboard
Speaker 1: way back in but I sh'll hear from him. HBO
Speaker 1: is confident about its position in the marketplace thanks to
Speaker 1: a well stocked cupboard of hit series like Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones and a direct consumer business that is making HBO
Speaker 1: widely available via digital platforms. I hope you enjoy our conversation,
Speaker 1: and if you like this episode, make sure you subscribe
Speaker 1: to Strictly Business. Now here's Richard Plepler. I want to
Speaker 1: are with the elephant in the room, which I know
Speaker 1: you're going to be limited in what you could say
Speaker 1: about a actually less than limited, less than limited about
Speaker 1: a certain court case about a certain pair of companies,
Speaker 1: one trying to acquire the other. All right, so let
Speaker 1: me let me at least ask this. A T and
Speaker 1: T is no stranger to HBO. You guys struck a
Speaker 1: pretty interesting distribution deal in conceptually, what does what do
Speaker 1: these two companies bring to each other? Look, I think, um,
Speaker 1: it's quite axiomatic. Right. They have a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty million connections with consumers. They have a
Speaker 1: huge data analytics reservoir which I think will be very
Speaker 1: useful to us in terms of subscriber acquisition. Um, the
Speaker 1: more information we have, we think, the better we can
Speaker 1: serve the consumer and better serve our customers currently in
Speaker 1: potential customers. And the deal that we did that HBO
Speaker 1: did in the summer two thousand sixteen, which was a
Speaker 1: multilateral deal broadband wireless direct TV, is really kind of
Speaker 1: a microcosm of our distribution strategy at large, right, which is,
Speaker 1: we wanted to make HBO available whenever, however, wherever people
Speaker 1: want it, And we built a multilateral distribution network for
Speaker 1: cable Partner's, satellite partners, Telco Partners, and now Digital Partners.
Speaker 1: And as you well know, because We've spoken about this before.
Speaker 1: When we announced that we were going to build a
Speaker 1: digital platform. The whole concept was we saw the broadband
Speaker 1: owned the universe. When we made that announcement on Investor
Speaker 1: Day in October fourteen, that were probably about three and
Speaker 1: a half million broadband only subs United States. We sit
Speaker 1: here today, uh, there's twenty million, and we knew that
Speaker 1: that was growing, and we wanted to be available to
Speaker 1: people who just had broadband. And it has been a
Speaker 1: terrific addition um to our to our distribution model because
Speaker 1: we now are approaching uh, folks who don't have a
Speaker 1: traditional cable subscription. That said, we're growing in the ecosystem
Speaker 1: as well, for all kinds of different reasons. Ecosystem meaning
Speaker 1: the linear channel traditional distribution system as well and parenthetically,
Speaker 1: and this is interesting. Remember the broadband platforms that Comcast has,
Speaker 1: or that Spectrum has, that A T and T has
Speaker 1: UM they can bundle us as well. So there's all
Speaker 1: different means of getting to the customer and we wanted
Speaker 1: to maximize those, which is why we did what we did, which,
Speaker 1: as you know, UM resulted last year in our biggest
Speaker 1: year of sub revenue growth ever. So I think it
Speaker 1: was a good decision that we did it. We didn't
Speaker 1: think it was going to be cannibalistic, which was uh.
Speaker 1: Some people's dig on us was a we wouldn't. We
Speaker 1: didn't have the tech DNA, We couldn't do it and
Speaker 1: be if we did do it to be cannibalistic, yes,
Speaker 1: we could know it wasn't. And our proposition was pretty simple,
Speaker 1: which was the pie was going to get bigger and
Speaker 1: that was going to be good for the consumer. It
Speaker 1: was gonna be good for distributors, it was gonna be
Speaker 1: good for us. So when you say you've got this
Speaker 1: subscriber growth, forgive me for being a little skeptical. Is
Speaker 1: it possible that, Okay, you guys have tapped now a
Speaker 1: market that you were never able to tap, that always
Speaker 1: needed to buy basic cable before they got Hbo. Now
Speaker 1: they can go directly to Hbo. Okay, so you got
Speaker 1: I don't know, three four or five million. How many
Speaker 1: more of those people could there be left? So we
Speaker 1: think um our penetration, which has always been about a
Speaker 1: third of the country, we think we can get and
Speaker 1: that's ambitious, it is ambitious. But we we look at
Speaker 1: our better performing affiliates and those better performing affiliates UM
Speaker 1: are close to that, and so for us, when we
Speaker 1: looked at the opportunity in the marketplace, basically what we
Speaker 1: said was pretty simple, which is, you know what, there's
Speaker 1: a huge undecided vote out there, and we've shored up
Speaker 1: our base pretty well. There's obviously there going to be
Speaker 1: people who aren't going to subscribe because either they feel
Speaker 1: they have enough or they don't like the programming. But
Speaker 1: there is a big market of an additional fifteen or
Speaker 1: twenty million homes out there that we're going after in
Speaker 1: both the broadband ecosystem in the traditional ecosystem. So we
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of growth left and we're going
Speaker 1: to attack it. And the key to doing that is
Speaker 1: to continue to make great content, curate that content, and
Speaker 1: make sure that our brand promise of excellence continues to
Speaker 1: be sustained. If we do that, I think last year
Speaker 1: is an indicator of of what's ahead. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that content in a bit. But you know, another distribution question,
Speaker 1: what is the primary growth driver? I know there is
Speaker 1: HBO now as a standalone. I know I could get
Speaker 1: it through Amazon or Hulu. Is there any one of
Speaker 1: those that's going to be the real driver. It's multifaceted,
Speaker 1: and I would say this over the course of the
Speaker 1: last five years. Just to your point about growth, a
Speaker 1: couple of things. Over the course of the last five years,
Speaker 1: HBO has realized thirty five For companies forty five years old,
Speaker 1: we've realized thirty five pc of our growth in the
Speaker 1: last five years. So I think that shows how robust
Speaker 1: the brand is. Also, over the last five years, as
Speaker 1: multi channel homes have declined seven percent, excuse me, we've grown.
Speaker 1: And so the fact is we were under penetrated over
Speaker 1: the course I think of of the last decade, and
Speaker 1: we want to get that penetration up to what we
Speaker 1: think is an appropriate level, which is about half the country.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, you sound incredibly confident that you could
Speaker 1: do this, which is interesting. GIF. I'm not telling you
Speaker 1: it's easy. I'm just telling you that, uh, we're we've
Speaker 1: seen the momentum of our sub growth. We believe that.
Speaker 1: You know, here's an interesting I think this is an
Speaker 1: interesting paradox about what's happening out there in this very
Speaker 1: rich content driven culture of ours, which is there there's
Speaker 1: somewhere around nine thousand hours of programming. There's about four
Speaker 1: eighty seven hours of scripted programming, which accounts to five
Speaker 1: thousand hours. It's about seven hundred and fifty hours non
Speaker 1: scripted programming, it's about four thousand hours. Uh, there's only
Speaker 1: eight thousand, seven d and sixty hours in the year.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean. It means you can't keep
Speaker 1: track of everything. And brands matter more than ever because
Speaker 1: when people a brand, essentially as a promise. Our promise
Speaker 1: is the curation of quality. Other people are going to
Speaker 1: do good work. That's fine. As long as we continue
Speaker 1: to curate excellence, and we do it across a lot
Speaker 1: of different categories, we're going to continue to grow. So
Speaker 1: that's what we think about. How do we make sure
Speaker 1: that inside the HBO brand, whether it's docues, whether it's sports,
Speaker 1: whether it's half hours hours mini series, we are putting
Speaker 1: together in an array of quality that can become addictive
Speaker 1: to an even broader part of the consumer ration and
Speaker 1: so and that's what we're doing for them. I understand
Speaker 1: your bullishness, but let's take a step back and say,
Speaker 1: the reality is the undeniable. The undeniable reality is is
Speaker 1: the competitive landscape you're facing right now is like nothing
Speaker 1: you've ever seen Netflix alone spending at probably, you know,
Speaker 1: possibly double what you guys are doing on just original content,
Speaker 1: not talking about licensing. Amazon right behind them, Apple coming.
Speaker 1: Your incumbent competitors like Showtime and Stars aren't fading fast
Speaker 1: anytime soon. So how are you going to be able
Speaker 1: to compete, especially when you're being outspent by a lot
Speaker 1: of these new players, not a lot, you know, our
Speaker 1: brand um is a magnet for talented people in the
Speaker 1: creative community. I feel like Ted Surrando says the same
Speaker 1: thing he he he does, and he's welcome to say it,
Speaker 1: and there's some truth to it, and they do very
Speaker 1: good work. And I've said publicly and I'm I've said
Speaker 1: it to them directly. Anybody who doesn't tip their hat
Speaker 1: to what those guys have accomplished in the last seven
Speaker 1: ten years just isn't being fair. They've done a terrific job.
Speaker 1: Our job is to play our game to our fullest capacity.
Speaker 1: And so the blessing of our brand, the blessing of
Speaker 1: u HBO, is that the line at our door in
Speaker 1: in in May of two thousand eighteen is even bigger
Speaker 1: than the line at our door when I was co
Speaker 1: president in two thousand seven to two thousand twelve. The
Speaker 1: line was pretty big that so it's it's interesting despite
Speaker 1: all this surfeit of content, we have more extraordinary writers
Speaker 1: and producers and directors who want to work at HBO
Speaker 1: than ever before, and so we we have that embarrassment
Speaker 1: of riches. And you know, every Friday we know of
Speaker 1: three or four different projects that Monday morning when we
Speaker 1: came in we didn't know about. And that's very exciting.
Speaker 1: So our job is pick well, work with people with
Speaker 1: whom we have a shared vision. We have more programming
Speaker 1: coming next year than at any time in our history,
Speaker 1: working with a wide range of people, um from you
Speaker 1: know j J Abrams to Issa to a prequel of Thrones,
Speaker 1: which were uh, we're looking at a range of different
Speaker 1: pilots right now, uh damon. Linda law from has come
Speaker 1: back with a project called Watchman. There is absolutely no
Speaker 1: shortage of extraordinary work being done for us. Our job
Speaker 1: make the right bets and if we do that then
Speaker 1: this is not binary. Doesn't mean there isn't going to
Speaker 1: be a good show on Netflix or a good show
Speaker 1: on Amazon. None of that has interfered with our growth.
Speaker 1: And I think the proof is in the pudding. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: despite the intensity of this competition, we grew more last
Speaker 1: year than in any year in our history, and we're
Speaker 1: growing and on track for terrific double digit sub revenue
Speaker 1: growth this year as well. So wouldn't you say, our
Speaker 1: game well and curate quality, and we will continue to grow.
Speaker 1: It's not a zero sum game. I was exactly the
Speaker 1: exact phrase I was going to use. Don't you think
Speaker 1: even if you manage to do well while competitor B
Speaker 1: does very well, that competitor F, G and H may
Speaker 1: actually fall out. Aren't we, in this consolidating world coming
Speaker 1: to a place where well, the lower brands are not
Speaker 1: going to make it? Listen, I do think that. Um,
Speaker 1: if you just look at your own lives and you
Speaker 1: look at you know, you have only a certain amount
Speaker 1: of leisure time, a certain amount of time you can
Speaker 1: watch movies, watch television beyond the computer you make, you make,
Speaker 1: you make judgments, you make picks, and Um, the key
Speaker 1: for us is to keep the halo on our brand
Speaker 1: so that when people do have discretionary time, they are
Speaker 1: comfortable that we are fulfilling our honest to deliver excells
Speaker 1: and they come they might not love everything but they
Speaker 1: certainly think that for fifteen dollars a month, three thousand
Speaker 1: hours of library, the wide range of programming which we
Speaker 1: make for Hollywood movie studios, people end up saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's a pretty good price value proposition. And
Speaker 1: they're delivering what they say they're going to deliver. And well,
Speaker 1: I and I can't watch everything. There's three or four
Speaker 1: things on every month on HBO that I think are terrific.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're in love with John Oliver, maybe Bill Maher,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Vice, Maybe it's our docuse, maybe it's the movies,
Speaker 1: maybe it's Silicon Valley, whatever it is. I want to
Speaker 1: be a part of this because it's worth it. That's
Speaker 1: what we think about all the time. Are we building
Speaker 1: addicts and are we developing and enhancing our curation making
Speaker 1: more and more consumers um decide that they want to
Speaker 1: be a subscriber. So you know, job one, of course,
Speaker 1: is putting on the hits. You just mentioned Game of Thrones. Uh,
Speaker 1: these prequels that are in in development, Where do things
Speaker 1: stand there? I mean, is that going to be the
Speaker 1: next big hit? Well, look, as you well know a
Speaker 1: student that nobody knows what the next big hit is
Speaker 1: you know the the when I when I started, uh
Speaker 1: back in oh seven and the Sopranos was going off
Speaker 1: the year. Um, the first question when I sat up
Speaker 1: at the tc A you may have even been there, was,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Sopranos is up there? What's the next Sopranos?
Speaker 1: And I answered it then by saying, there is no
Speaker 1: next Sopranos. There's the next great range of programming. And
Speaker 1: in came Alan Ball with True Blood, and in came
Speaker 1: Lean had done him with Girls, and in came you
Speaker 1: know this, this this British writer named Amandui and Nuci
Speaker 1: satirizing American politics would be. And these two guys who
Speaker 1: had never really done television, who nobody had heard of,
Speaker 1: David benny Off and Dan Wise with Thrones. So what
Speaker 1: you want to do is create an environment, which we're
Speaker 1: very proud of, UM, where talent wants to work. And
Speaker 1: if you do that, UM, it's it creates a certain
Speaker 1: catalytic momentum because talent shows up and m and then look,
Speaker 1: we're pretty damn good brand ambassadors. We believe in our brand. Um,
Speaker 1: we're very proud of it. But the best brand ambassadors
Speaker 1: for us are the talent themselves because Nicole Kidman has
Speaker 1: an experience, or Reese Witherspoon has an experience, or David
Speaker 1: Kelly has an experience. They're then repeating that to their colleagues,
Speaker 1: and they're saying, you know, uh, look, I've worked in
Speaker 1: a lot of places. I've never had the kind of feedback.
Speaker 1: I've never had the kind of response. I've never been
Speaker 1: treated that way. My product is marketed beautifully, it's promoted beautifully.
Speaker 1: That's an experience I want to repeat so well. People
Speaker 1: can say a lot of different things, and everybody is
Speaker 1: perfectly within their rights to celebrate and brag about their brands.
Speaker 1: We've delivered on it for a long time, and I
Speaker 1: think the talent speaks about it authentically and and that
Speaker 1: that has its own virtuous circle. But as we saw
Speaker 1: with Big Little Lies, the cost of that talent is
Speaker 1: going up. The cost of production has been driven up
Speaker 1: dramatically for a lot of different genres, and then you've
Speaker 1: got I hate to go back to the Netflix of
Speaker 1: it all, but when you see the Ryan Murphy's and
Speaker 1: the Shonda Rhymes getting sort of just peeled out and
Speaker 1: put back into that streaming service, I mean, don't you
Speaker 1: have to worry about holding onto talent on both sides
Speaker 1: of the camera when it seems like they can get
Speaker 1: more easily poached than ever. Well, look, we understand that
Speaker 1: the cost of content has gone up, and we understand that, um,
Speaker 1: there's a premium on that, and there's a multiple, and
Speaker 1: we have to pay it. But we're more than willing
Speaker 1: to do it because the return on that investment is
Speaker 1: as strong as it is. You know, we are operating
Speaker 1: income last year, I think report he was somewhere very
Speaker 1: close to two and a half billion dollars. We were growing,
Speaker 1: and we're making money, and we're investing, and we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to invest more and more in content because
Speaker 1: that's the heart and soul of the brand. So we're
Speaker 1: perfectly comfortable making the kinds of invest monts and the
Speaker 1: kinds of bets we need to make to have a
Speaker 1: panoply of shows on our network that are going to
Speaker 1: be compelling. And I think talent knows, because this is
Speaker 1: a whole different conversation. There are back end opportunities for
Speaker 1: talented HBO UH people who come and have uh a
Speaker 1: full and rich experience at HBO. From the creative side,
Speaker 1: if the show does well, they do very well. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you go talk to people who have
Speaker 1: worked with us, who have a lot of options to
Speaker 1: go a lot of different places, they're coming back over
Speaker 1: and over again to work at HBO. I think that
Speaker 1: speaks volumes about our brand in the experience that people
Speaker 1: have there. So is it competitive? Of course it's competitive.
Speaker 1: Are we more than up to the competition? I think
Speaker 1: we are. Do you how do you you know when
Speaker 1: you're in the room wooing the biggest and best talent
Speaker 1: and those talents are getting wooed elsewhere, you know, do
Speaker 1: you do you point out things like kind of look,
Speaker 1: Netflix has this, They have so much volume there they
Speaker 1: don't even know how to handle it, whereas maybe we
Speaker 1: take a little more of a and in Glover pro
Speaker 1: what I don't think it's necessary to you know, we
Speaker 1: don't get into speak in derogation of Netflix or of Showtime.
Speaker 1: People come to HBO because they know that we are
Speaker 1: very good at adventizing programming. Our marketing is superb. Our
Speaker 1: communications team is superb. We know how to take things
Speaker 1: and lift them up into a very crowded culture. And again,
Speaker 1: don't listen to me about this. Don't listen to my
Speaker 1: colleagues about this, listen to the talent talk about this.
Speaker 1: So what we do is again the line at the
Speaker 1: door is a long one and that is a blessing
Speaker 1: for us. And when people come in, they're very enthusiastic
Speaker 1: from the first hour about developing with us because our
Speaker 1: development team is also fantastic and people know what it
Speaker 1: is to work inside UM. You know, with our development teams,
Speaker 1: whether it's on a half hours or hours or minis
Speaker 1: so a lot of the pedigree that we bring to
Speaker 1: the creative process UM, I think is a great advantage
Speaker 1: to to to our competitive side. Let's go back to
Speaker 1: the distribution side of the house, because I think one
Speaker 1: under appreciated piece of the HBO business is international, and
Speaker 1: I think people don't even buy a large understand how
Speaker 1: big a footprint that is. And that also is making
Speaker 1: this sort of streaming evolution and lots of different interesting ways.
Speaker 1: So where's that all going. So we have just as
Speaker 1: our distribution strategy domestically is multilateral, it is uh internationally multilateral.
Speaker 1: So we have owned and operated networks in sixty countries
Speaker 1: as you know, in Latin America, in in Eastern Europe
Speaker 1: and Asia. We have directed consumer products in Nordics and
Speaker 1: in Spain and now in Poland and and and uh,
Speaker 1: and we're thinking about other markets as well. And then
Speaker 1: we have what we call home of HBO, which are
Speaker 1: licensing deals with Sky, with Foxtel, with Bell Media, which
Speaker 1: are very very very um uh you know, high marginal,
Speaker 1: lowris revenue deals. And the question for us, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: has always been with those don't get counted as subscribers,
Speaker 1: even though we have you know, eighty five million subscribers internationally.
Speaker 1: Those don't get counted. But Sky Sky Italia home of HBO,
Speaker 1: Sky Deutscheley and home of HBO, um Sky Atlanta home
Speaker 1: of HBO Bell Media in Canada, those are all HBO subs.
Speaker 1: They're just put under an overall licensing deal. So we've
Speaker 1: made up till now the decision to do those kinds
Speaker 1: of licensing deals home of deals. UM. Whether that evolves
Speaker 1: in the future is an open question. I hate to
Speaker 1: sound like a broken record, but Netflix, Amazon full Court
Speaker 1: Press globally. UM. It's interesting hearing you guys take this
Speaker 1: customized approach region to region. At some point, though, do
Speaker 1: you need to go head to head with Netflix and
Speaker 1: Amazon and others in the same way that you're doing domestically. Well,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't look at it as are we going to
Speaker 1: go head to head with Netflix or head to head
Speaker 1: with the Amazon. I would look at it, what is
Speaker 1: the proper way to maximize um our brand over a
Speaker 1: ten year time rising. Remember we have been UM you know,
Speaker 1: managing our our business and and tethered to a corporation
Speaker 1: which was running uh an earnings model for you know,
Speaker 1: a long time. And when you're at that end of
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Avenue, you have one set of demands. When you're
Speaker 1: my inde Pennsylvania Avenue, you know, you may be thinking
Speaker 1: slightly differently. So I think the good thing is that
Speaker 1: our technology has evolved. UM we now have one global platform.
Speaker 1: We've merged our tech stacts between HBO Go and HBO now.
Speaker 1: And what's exciting for us is if we wanted to
Speaker 1: pivot internationally like we did in Nordics, like we did
Speaker 1: in Spain, like we just didn't, we can do that
Speaker 1: and that will be a decision and that we make.
Speaker 1: You know, over the coming years. What I wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that we had and what thankfully we have
Speaker 1: built is optionality and UM you know, where we pivot
Speaker 1: and how we pivot, stay tuned, got it. Uh. Also
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about technical infrastructure, what you're doing through
Speaker 1: you know, HBO's digital expression. I mean, you guys went
Speaker 1: through an evolution there where you know there was some
Speaker 1: trial and error bam tech. Uh, bam Tech wasn't trial
Speaker 1: and error before that. Well, we were building from a
Speaker 1: stand I wouldn't even call that trial in here. We
Speaker 1: were building from a standing start, a a tech strategy.
Speaker 1: And what we concluded very quickly was the fastest way
Speaker 1: for us to build digital capacity was to rent our
Speaker 1: back end. And that's what we did with BAMTech. I
Speaker 1: think it was proved to be um the right decision.
Speaker 1: They did a terrific job for us, and as we
Speaker 1: were doing that, we a proficiencies. We built our engineering team,
Speaker 1: and we created the capacity for us to move on
Speaker 1: our own. But we couldn't have done that and moved
Speaker 1: as fast as we did into the digital space. So
Speaker 1: we rented what we needed to. We grew and we built,
Speaker 1: and we are where we are now, which is independent
Speaker 1: with our own with our own tex stat I mean,
Speaker 1: as you look across the media landscape, do you see
Speaker 1: that brands like yourselves are sort of like ingesting that
Speaker 1: technical DNA and that's what's necessary to get to the
Speaker 1: next level. Well, you certainly want the kind of tech
Speaker 1: proficiency and engineering proficiency to improve your I improve your US,
Speaker 1: be able to do customization, personalization, all those things. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I had one of our senior engineers um in from
Speaker 1: Seattle yesterday and I said to him, when when you
Speaker 1: talk about recruitment, which is obviously very competitive in the valley,
Speaker 1: what is the number one recruitment tool for you when
Speaker 1: you're bringing people into our house, Because you know there's
Speaker 1: there's obviously many many places for talented engineers to go.
Speaker 1: And you said, the brand, And it's a terrific opportunity
Speaker 1: um for engineers to come into HBO and to move
Speaker 1: the needle um in a way that's quite dramatic over
Speaker 1: a short period of time, which they've done and they've
Speaker 1: been quite brilliant at it, and and we're improving all the
Speaker 1: time as you look out. Also on the landscape right now,
Speaker 1: we can't talk about, you know, what's going to be
Speaker 1: the future of your corporate parentage, but elsewhere it's you know,
Speaker 1: with CBS, Viacom, other things. The consolidation of this world
Speaker 1: what does it mean for HBO when so much around
Speaker 1: it is bulking up the way it is. You know,
Speaker 1: we've all remember we've always been an Ala carte play,
Speaker 1: so we've always lived in an Ola carte universe where
Speaker 1: whatever the bundle was, we were sold on top of
Speaker 1: that bundle. And I think one of you asked early
Speaker 1: on about our growth the potential. I think one of
Speaker 1: the interesting things about our potential is we've always been
Speaker 1: kind of underpenetrated, I think, and we're now moving that
Speaker 1: penetration up. When you've been fully penetrated, it's it's a
Speaker 1: much it's a much harder dynamic when I think there's
Speaker 1: been nine million people over the course of the last
Speaker 1: few years who have who have cut the cord. So
Speaker 1: I think brands are, as I said earlier, matter more
Speaker 1: than ever and are you delivering to the consumer something
Speaker 1: unique because the optionality that is out there for consumers
Speaker 1: is greater than ever and so your brand has to
Speaker 1: stand for something and deliver on that promise so that
Speaker 1: people feel they are buying they are acquiring differentiation. We've
Speaker 1: always believed we're good at that. I think we've become
Speaker 1: better and better at it. And um that's our brand promise.
Speaker 1: And I think the talent, the writers, the producers who
Speaker 1: come into work with us, they want to deliver on that.
Speaker 1: And the first thing we hear all the time if
Speaker 1: you sit in pitch meetings is you don't hear repetition
Speaker 1: in a pitch meeting at HBO. You hear innovation at
Speaker 1: a pitch meeting at HBO. No one's coming in and
Speaker 1: saying I want to do this differently. They're coming in
Speaker 1: and saying I have a new idea. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're not perfect. We make mistakes, but we have pretty
Speaker 1: darn good aboutting average. But you know, at a time
Speaker 1: when you guys, for instance, are doing and I think
Speaker 1: this is smart. You know Game of Thrones prequels, isn't
Speaker 1: there something to be said, especially as a media environment
Speaker 1: and everyonething is getting reboot crazy about sticking to the
Speaker 1: try it and true, don't get too innovative, find the
Speaker 1: shore things. No. I think that the brand has always
Speaker 1: at our best. Artists have come in and done things
Speaker 1: that have never been done before. David Chase did something
Speaker 1: that had never been done before. I think Alan Ball
Speaker 1: did something with six ft under that had never been
Speaker 1: done before. True Blood. You know, when we green lit
Speaker 1: True Blood that was not such an obvious pick of
Speaker 1: vampire show on HBO. That was a bit pulpy in
Speaker 1: that way. And when when I did my second UH
Speaker 1: t C A UM, the first t C A is
Speaker 1: Sopranos has gone, what are you gonna do? Who the
Speaker 1: hell are you? And can this? How the hell is
Speaker 1: this gonna work? And the second t is was, Mrs Butler,
Speaker 1: how did you presage the rise of the vampire phenomenon
Speaker 1: in the United States? And of course the answer to
Speaker 1: that was we pre sade you nothing. We just bet
Speaker 1: on Alan and um were we were right. So look
Speaker 1: at Bill Hayter, who comes in with you know, with Barry,
Speaker 1: which has done phenomenally well for us from might judge
Speaker 1: with Silicon Valley, UM J J and Jonah and Lisa
Speaker 1: Joy pitching West World. When and when they pitched Westworld,
Speaker 1: the whole uh kind of cultural understanding and marination in
Speaker 1: aid wasn't as dynamic as it is now. They were
Speaker 1: way ahead in seeing, um, both how dynamic that could
Speaker 1: be and how entertaining that could be. So now I
Speaker 1: think part of the DNA for us is that writers
Speaker 1: know that they can take risks and they can make
Speaker 1: big bets there. There's no fear at our network about
Speaker 1: doing something that we think has a strong and differentiated
Speaker 1: creative voice. And the blessing for us is that talent
Speaker 1: knows that, and I think we're the great beneficiaries of
Speaker 1: those of that kind of risk take. Are there genres
Speaker 1: right now that you're cool too that you think need
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe need to lay follow you know?
Speaker 1: I think that we we have when when somebody comes in,
Speaker 1: we have a totally open mind. Um, we want to
Speaker 1: hear the vision, we want to hear their point of view,
Speaker 1: we want to hear why they think this can break
Speaker 1: new ground. I think it's very you know, if somebody,
Speaker 1: if some when benni Off and Wise came in to
Speaker 1: pitch thrones, remember that was a fantasy showed. David's comment
Speaker 1: to me was, you're nervous about this. There's dragons in it.
Speaker 1: It's in to see. This isn't typical aga we And
Speaker 1: the way he pitched it was he said, look, this
Speaker 1: is about power, and it's about archetypal power, and it's
Speaker 1: it's Shakespearean, it's biblical, and if you just forget where
Speaker 1: you are, you could you could be in tenth century France,
Speaker 1: you could be in fifties. That doesn't really matter. And
Speaker 1: we we believed their vision. So it's not closing what
Speaker 1: once you start saying, we're not going to do fantasy
Speaker 1: or you know, uh, you know, the whole gestalp of
Speaker 1: Westworld was something nobody had ever seen before. Um, and
Speaker 1: I think, uh, they they've done just a remarkable job.
Speaker 1: Jesse Armstrong's Succession, which is coming this summer, a remarkable
Speaker 1: piece of work, I believe, differentiated from anything we've seen. Uh,
Speaker 1: a drama about a media company. Do you sort of
Speaker 1: do you spark to something like that? For obvious reasons?
Speaker 1: The pitch it's actually it's actually not so much about it.
Speaker 1: It's about family, and it's about Faustian deals inside families,
Speaker 1: and it's about fathers and sons, and it's about the
Speaker 1: complexity of dynasties and families. And um, they happen to
Speaker 1: own a media conglomerate. But that's just the subtext. It
Speaker 1: sounds a little like a real world analog think of
Speaker 1: but as you can appreciate, it is hardly specific to
Speaker 1: any one family, but it is. Uh, it's I've seen
Speaker 1: eight out of the ten and hopefully this weekend we'll
Speaker 1: see the other two. They've done just a splendid time.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that, good luck with a lot more,
Speaker 1: and thanks for coming to us a pleasure any thanks
Speaker 1: for having anytime, Thanks for listening to yet another episode
Speaker 1: of Strictly Business. Make sure you subscribe and you'll get
Speaker 1: more episodes every week. Tune in next week when we'll
Speaker 1: have the CEO of Group nine Media and Leer. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next week.