1
00:00:00,880 --> 00:00:03,880
Speaker 1: You're listening to Taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim

2
00:00:03,960 --> 00:00:09,120
Speaker 1: Fox on Bloomberg Radio. Did anybody see Ben Her? Did

3
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:15,000
Speaker 1: anybody see Star Trek Beyond Teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles two

4
00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:18,080
Speaker 1: Out of the Shadows? Well they all fell short and

5
00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:21,680
Speaker 1: the studio's parent company, Viacom, of course, has been embroiled

6
00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:25,640
Speaker 1: in a boardroom drama for months, leading to the departure

7
00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:29,000
Speaker 1: of the chief executive, Philippe Doman. Here to tell us more,

8
00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:33,000
Speaker 1: Mark patrick Off. He is the co head of Technology, Technology,

9
00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:37,480
Speaker 1: Media and Telecom Group for Hulahan Loki. Mark patrick Off,

10
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:40,320
Speaker 1: thanks for being with us, my pleasure. Thanks for happing me.

11
00:00:40,479 --> 00:00:45,559
Speaker 1: Have you seen any of those movies? No? No, I

12
00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:47,400
Speaker 1: think you have a lot of company with a lot

13
00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:51,240
Speaker 1: of friends. Yeah, exactly. Give us a little detail on

14
00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:55,600
Speaker 1: the studios right now. Who's running what and who is

15
00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:58,080
Speaker 1: leading the pack so we get an idea of who's

16
00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:00,520
Speaker 1: in a position of strength and who needs to up

17
00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:04,600
Speaker 1: their game. Look, I mean you want to get the Paramount.

18
00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:07,199
Speaker 1: So let's start with Paramount and Icom and think about

19
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:09,440
Speaker 1: the fact that in a way this should be a

20
00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:12,240
Speaker 1: good new chapter for them because nobody's been running anything

21
00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:14,680
Speaker 1: there for a long long time. I mean there's division heads.

22
00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:17,320
Speaker 1: But I spoke to a friend about six months ago,

23
00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:19,680
Speaker 1: just kind of joking through. He'd worked at Vicount for

24
00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:22,440
Speaker 1: a long time, somebody everybody knows by name who left

25
00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:25,080
Speaker 1: about ten years ago and stays in close touch. And

26
00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:27,199
Speaker 1: he said, when he was there, if he asked something

27
00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:29,360
Speaker 1: the red Stone, what was the secession planned, you know,

28
00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:31,880
Speaker 1: he'd kind of looking and laugh, and I think, Um,

29
00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:34,840
Speaker 1: obviously he hopes and plans to live forever. And that

30
00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:37,240
Speaker 1: really impact of the company terribly. The leadership has been

31
00:01:37,319 --> 00:01:40,200
Speaker 1: you know, keeping hold there for a long, long while,

32
00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:43,880
Speaker 1: and it's troublesome. And certainly if you're like come Stareholder

33
00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:47,440
Speaker 1: and thinking about how do you maximize value, it's a

34
00:01:47,520 --> 00:01:49,880
Speaker 1: very tough time to point to Paramount and say this

35
00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 1: is a great time to do something to monetize that investment.

36
00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:55,120
Speaker 1: The other studios, you don't have their own issues, but

37
00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 1: clearly I'm always a big believer in Disney and feel

38
00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:01,680
Speaker 1: good about their direction. Um, I even like MGM and

39
00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:03,480
Speaker 1: what they've done. They still have, you know, a very

40
00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:06,360
Speaker 1: strong franchise in James Bond that has been under exploited

41
00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:08,320
Speaker 1: in lots of ways. People don't really realize that. But

42
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:11,240
Speaker 1: not much has been done with James Bond outside the movies,

43
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,360
Speaker 1: So I think that's you know, copies in a strong position,

44
00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:16,280
Speaker 1: and the other guys sort of know how to create

45
00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:19,200
Speaker 1: franchises in a way that clearly Paramount just doesn't at

46
00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:22,800
Speaker 1: least not Sorry, that's okay, So I guess then what

47
00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:27,920
Speaker 1: what happens next time? Looking at our Bloomberg news story today,

48
00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:30,639
Speaker 1: and it has a chart that shows what a turbulent

49
00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:33,680
Speaker 1: year this is for Viacom. This year is recovering from

50
00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:37,120
Speaker 1: a more than five year low in February. So despite

51
00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:40,320
Speaker 1: recent stumbles, there's still somewhat of an uptrend here. Why

52
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:44,239
Speaker 1: the uptrend and can it continue? What has to happen? Well,

53
00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:46,480
Speaker 1: first of all, it can absolutely continue because I think

54
00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:48,400
Speaker 1: of where it started, and I think people knew that

55
00:02:48,440 --> 00:02:51,239
Speaker 1: at some point this year what happened in the last

56
00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:54,080
Speaker 1: few days was going to happen. It was inevitable. And

57
00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:57,320
Speaker 1: I think leadership is going to be stable. I think

58
00:02:57,400 --> 00:02:59,040
Speaker 1: dually is in a good position to keep a good

59
00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:02,040
Speaker 1: to keep the job, and I think they have good franchises.

60
00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:04,360
Speaker 1: MTV and some other assets have performed pretty well. As

61
00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,359
Speaker 1: you said from above expectations in the movie business, there's

62
00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:10,600
Speaker 1: no real there's no real you know, it's still an art,

63
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:13,800
Speaker 1: so it takes a little bit of art along with

64
00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:15,800
Speaker 1: the science to make it work. And you know, I

65
00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:19,120
Speaker 1: think I think steady leadership in the direction and a

66
00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:21,480
Speaker 1: stronger point of view about what the long term plans

67
00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:25,239
Speaker 1: are will show directly in the results and performance of

68
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:28,840
Speaker 1: the stock talk if you count a little bit about

69
00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:32,280
Speaker 1: what has been and I guess in an ongoing story,

70
00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:39,360
Speaker 1: UH Gawker Media UH sold to Univision after the forty

71
00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:46,600
Speaker 1: million dollar judgment against Gawker. Well, it was a I think,

72
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:50,560
Speaker 1: by most people's estimation, a surprisingly good outcome last week.

73
00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:54,920
Speaker 1: I think that Univision has had an interest in the

74
00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:57,960
Speaker 1: business for a long time. Obviously with their recent filing

75
00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:00,559
Speaker 1: and what they did with the Onion and needing to

76
00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:04,280
Speaker 1: enhance that digital presences was a really good rational assets

77
00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:06,600
Speaker 1: I'm to acquire at the right price. I think they

78
00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,119
Speaker 1: got it a discount. The fact that there was real

79
00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:13,080
Speaker 1: competition certainly helped. I think the Nick Denton, through a

80
00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:16,400
Speaker 1: lot of the public interactions, you know, and private interactions

81
00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:19,680
Speaker 1: with Peterteo and on Panels, etcetera, has a cleared himself

82
00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,080
Speaker 1: pretty nicely. I mean think he's learned a lot. He

83
00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:23,920
Speaker 1: will have a great second chapter in his career. I

84
00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:27,960
Speaker 1: believe that. But the business was valued even at that number,

85
00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:31,240
Speaker 1: at a price where the buyer was gonna win. It's

86
00:04:31,279 --> 00:04:34,599
Speaker 1: a profitable company with really good performance across you know,

87
00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:37,960
Speaker 1: seven different brands. Obviously Gawker dot Com or not be

88
00:04:38,080 --> 00:04:41,320
Speaker 1: part of the business going forward, but key employees will

89
00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:44,160
Speaker 1: and all the content that's created will go into the

90
00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:46,480
Speaker 1: other brands. I think Isaac and the team at the

91
00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:48,960
Speaker 1: univisional will run it properly and be very happy they

92
00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:52,200
Speaker 1: bought it. Another big story this month's Time Warner requiring

93
00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:54,440
Speaker 1: a temper since stick in Hulu. You know, it's looking

94
00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:56,680
Speaker 1: at the future of TV. It's second quarter of results

95
00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,119
Speaker 1: proved there's still plenty of life in the traditional cable model,

96
00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:02,000
Speaker 1: but they to pun over legions of growing legions in

97
00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:03,880
Speaker 1: fact of court cutters who don't want to pay for

98
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,600
Speaker 1: cable cable or satellite TV. You know, I think the

99
00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:11,720
Speaker 1: whose story is very interesting. I was talking to someone

100
00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:14,480
Speaker 1: the other day about the Time Warner move and thinking

101
00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:17,000
Speaker 1: is that is that a beginning of a step in

102
00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:19,839
Speaker 1: the direction of acquiring the whole business. And obviously there

103
00:05:19,839 --> 00:05:21,839
Speaker 1: are other partners at the table, and you know that

104
00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:24,240
Speaker 1: will have to be figured out. But brands really matter,

105
00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:27,840
Speaker 1: and I think Netflix brand is working and they spent

106
00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:29,680
Speaker 1: a lot of money in original programming. I don't think

107
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:31,520
Speaker 1: you'll see who who do the same thing. They've already

108
00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:33,760
Speaker 1: you know, tried a bit and not had great success,

109
00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:36,160
Speaker 1: but they've done well with their brand in a way.

110
00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:38,240
Speaker 1: It's it's appointing that they think that the free product

111
00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:41,200
Speaker 1: and the way they integrate advertising worked really well. But

112
00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:43,320
Speaker 1: they're all trying to line up at the starting line

113
00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:46,080
Speaker 1: in a sense, in an equal equal way, so they

114
00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:48,400
Speaker 1: can compete with the cable operators and try to create

115
00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:51,719
Speaker 1: brands that connect directly the consumers. And for years obviously

116
00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:54,360
Speaker 1: HBO never had a direct relationship with their consumers. Now

117
00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:56,800
Speaker 1: they do through their apps. I mean, I think that

118
00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,239
Speaker 1: you know, it's going to be a race to create

119
00:05:59,279 --> 00:06:01,360
Speaker 1: the biggest best ran. It will be room from one

120
00:06:01,400 --> 00:06:05,120
Speaker 1: to forty years ago, you know, room for multiple networks.

121
00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:07,559
Speaker 1: Mark Patrick, aw thank you so very much. Co head

122
00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:12,600
Speaker 1: of Technology, Media and Telecom at Coolahan Loki. I'm Kathleen

123
00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:15,080
Speaker 1: Hayes along with Pim Fox, This is Bloomberg,