Speaker 1: You're listening to Taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim
Speaker 1: Fox on Bloomberg Radio. Did anybody see Ben Her? Did
Speaker 1: anybody see Star Trek Beyond Teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles two
Speaker 1: Out of the Shadows? Well they all fell short and
Speaker 1: the studio's parent company, Viacom, of course, has been embroiled
Speaker 1: in a boardroom drama for months, leading to the departure
Speaker 1: of the chief executive, Philippe Doman. Here to tell us more,
Speaker 1: Mark patrick Off. He is the co head of Technology, Technology,
Speaker 1: Media and Telecom Group for Hulahan Loki. Mark patrick Off,
Speaker 1: thanks for being with us, my pleasure. Thanks for happing me.
Speaker 1: Have you seen any of those movies? No? No, I
Speaker 1: think you have a lot of company with a lot
Speaker 1: of friends. Yeah, exactly. Give us a little detail on
Speaker 1: the studios right now. Who's running what and who is
Speaker 1: leading the pack so we get an idea of who's
Speaker 1: in a position of strength and who needs to up
Speaker 1: their game. Look, I mean you want to get the Paramount.
Speaker 1: So let's start with Paramount and Icom and think about
Speaker 1: the fact that in a way this should be a
Speaker 1: good new chapter for them because nobody's been running anything
Speaker 1: there for a long long time. I mean there's division heads.
Speaker 1: But I spoke to a friend about six months ago,
Speaker 1: just kind of joking through. He'd worked at Vicount for
Speaker 1: a long time, somebody everybody knows by name who left
Speaker 1: about ten years ago and stays in close touch. And
Speaker 1: he said, when he was there, if he asked something
Speaker 1: the red Stone, what was the secession planned, you know,
Speaker 1: he'd kind of looking and laugh, and I think, Um,
Speaker 1: obviously he hopes and plans to live forever. And that
Speaker 1: really impact of the company terribly. The leadership has been
Speaker 1: you know, keeping hold there for a long, long while,
Speaker 1: and it's troublesome. And certainly if you're like come Stareholder
Speaker 1: and thinking about how do you maximize value, it's a
Speaker 1: very tough time to point to Paramount and say this
Speaker 1: is a great time to do something to monetize that investment.
Speaker 1: The other studios, you don't have their own issues, but
Speaker 1: clearly I'm always a big believer in Disney and feel
Speaker 1: good about their direction. Um, I even like MGM and
Speaker 1: what they've done. They still have, you know, a very
Speaker 1: strong franchise in James Bond that has been under exploited
Speaker 1: in lots of ways. People don't really realize that. But
Speaker 1: not much has been done with James Bond outside the movies,
Speaker 1: So I think that's you know, copies in a strong position,
Speaker 1: and the other guys sort of know how to create
Speaker 1: franchises in a way that clearly Paramount just doesn't at
Speaker 1: least not Sorry, that's okay, So I guess then what
Speaker 1: what happens next time? Looking at our Bloomberg news story today,
Speaker 1: and it has a chart that shows what a turbulent
Speaker 1: year this is for Viacom. This year is recovering from
Speaker 1: a more than five year low in February. So despite
Speaker 1: recent stumbles, there's still somewhat of an uptrend here. Why
Speaker 1: the uptrend and can it continue? What has to happen? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, it can absolutely continue because I think
Speaker 1: of where it started, and I think people knew that
Speaker 1: at some point this year what happened in the last
Speaker 1: few days was going to happen. It was inevitable. And
Speaker 1: I think leadership is going to be stable. I think
Speaker 1: dually is in a good position to keep a good
Speaker 1: to keep the job, and I think they have good franchises.
Speaker 1: MTV and some other assets have performed pretty well. As
Speaker 1: you said from above expectations in the movie business, there's
Speaker 1: no real there's no real you know, it's still an art,
Speaker 1: so it takes a little bit of art along with
Speaker 1: the science to make it work. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think I think steady leadership in the direction and a
Speaker 1: stronger point of view about what the long term plans
Speaker 1: are will show directly in the results and performance of
Speaker 1: the stock talk if you count a little bit about
Speaker 1: what has been and I guess in an ongoing story,
Speaker 1: UH Gawker Media UH sold to Univision after the forty
Speaker 1: million dollar judgment against Gawker. Well, it was a I think,
Speaker 1: by most people's estimation, a surprisingly good outcome last week.
Speaker 1: I think that Univision has had an interest in the
Speaker 1: business for a long time. Obviously with their recent filing
Speaker 1: and what they did with the Onion and needing to
Speaker 1: enhance that digital presences was a really good rational assets
Speaker 1: I'm to acquire at the right price. I think they
Speaker 1: got it a discount. The fact that there was real
Speaker 1: competition certainly helped. I think the Nick Denton, through a
Speaker 1: lot of the public interactions, you know, and private interactions
Speaker 1: with Peterteo and on Panels, etcetera, has a cleared himself
Speaker 1: pretty nicely. I mean think he's learned a lot. He
Speaker 1: will have a great second chapter in his career. I
Speaker 1: believe that. But the business was valued even at that number,
Speaker 1: at a price where the buyer was gonna win. It's
Speaker 1: a profitable company with really good performance across you know,
Speaker 1: seven different brands. Obviously Gawker dot Com or not be
Speaker 1: part of the business going forward, but key employees will
Speaker 1: and all the content that's created will go into the
Speaker 1: other brands. I think Isaac and the team at the
Speaker 1: univisional will run it properly and be very happy they
Speaker 1: bought it. Another big story this month's Time Warner requiring
Speaker 1: a temper since stick in Hulu. You know, it's looking
Speaker 1: at the future of TV. It's second quarter of results
Speaker 1: proved there's still plenty of life in the traditional cable model,
Speaker 1: but they to pun over legions of growing legions in
Speaker 1: fact of court cutters who don't want to pay for
Speaker 1: cable cable or satellite TV. You know, I think the
Speaker 1: whose story is very interesting. I was talking to someone
Speaker 1: the other day about the Time Warner move and thinking
Speaker 1: is that is that a beginning of a step in
Speaker 1: the direction of acquiring the whole business. And obviously there
Speaker 1: are other partners at the table, and you know that
Speaker 1: will have to be figured out. But brands really matter,
Speaker 1: and I think Netflix brand is working and they spent
Speaker 1: a lot of money in original programming. I don't think
Speaker 1: you'll see who who do the same thing. They've already
Speaker 1: you know, tried a bit and not had great success,
Speaker 1: but they've done well with their brand in a way.
Speaker 1: It's it's appointing that they think that the free product
Speaker 1: and the way they integrate advertising worked really well. But
Speaker 1: they're all trying to line up at the starting line
Speaker 1: in a sense, in an equal equal way, so they
Speaker 1: can compete with the cable operators and try to create
Speaker 1: brands that connect directly the consumers. And for years obviously
Speaker 1: HBO never had a direct relationship with their consumers. Now
Speaker 1: they do through their apps. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: you know, it's going to be a race to create
Speaker 1: the biggest best ran. It will be room from one
Speaker 1: to forty years ago, you know, room for multiple networks.
Speaker 1: Mark Patrick, aw thank you so very much. Co head
Speaker 1: of Technology, Media and Telecom at Coolahan Loki. I'm Kathleen
Speaker 1: Hayes along with Pim Fox, This is Bloomberg,