Speaker 1: Brought to you by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, committed
Speaker 1: to bringing higher finance to lower carbon named the most
Speaker 1: innovative investment bank for climate change and sustainability by the banker.
Speaker 1: That's the power of Global Connections. Bank of America North
Speaker 1: America member f d i C. This is Masters in
Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. This week on
Speaker 1: the podcast, I have Bruce Tuckman. He helped bring a
Speaker 1: number of US channels overseas, number of television channels like
Speaker 1: Sundance and a m C and MTV and Nickelodeon and
Speaker 1: a bunch of others. Uh. Global Uh. And we really
Speaker 1: have a fascinating conversation, especially when we get loose in
Speaker 1: the podcast portion talking about the future of video and
Speaker 1: what it's gonna look like. Uh. This is an industry
Speaker 1: very much influx with both a rich um collection of
Speaker 1: original content. He describes us at at peak television and
Speaker 1: there's no to go but down from here because it
Speaker 1: is so overwhelmingly excellent. But the nature of television is changing,
Speaker 1: the nature of content distribution is not going to be
Speaker 1: what it used to be, where it's just a fat
Speaker 1: cable or or satellite to your house and you buy
Speaker 1: a package in that that's it. Video on demand, streaming, downloading.
Speaker 1: These are having major changes on how the industry is progressing,
Speaker 1: and it's really in a period of dynamic flux. So
Speaker 1: if you at all are interested in content creation, or
Speaker 1: in how the nuts and bolts of of content gets
Speaker 1: distributed around the world, or really what the state of
Speaker 1: media is gonna look like in five, ten, twenty years,
Speaker 1: I think you'll really enjoy this conversation. So, with no
Speaker 1: further ado, my conversation with Bruce Tuckman. This is Masters
Speaker 1: in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special
Speaker 1: guest today is Bruce Tufman. He began his career as
Speaker 1: an m and a attorney at Scandon Arps before entering
Speaker 1: the world of television, where he helped bring such brands
Speaker 1: as MTV, Nickelodeon, Sundance Channel, and a MC to a
Speaker 1: global audience, taking American content to more than a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty countries around the world. Bruce Tuffman, Welcome to Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Very good to be here. I appreciate your having me so.
Speaker 1: I found your background really fascinating. Um, you're an expert
Speaker 1: on video content on modern television streaming and video one demand.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into Amazon, Netflix and a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of of related companies in a few minutes. But you
Speaker 1: began your career as a corporate m and a attorney.
Speaker 1: How do you go from that to essentially running a
Speaker 1: handful of television networks? Um? It seemed less secuitous. I
Speaker 1: supposed to me. UM. I always had a passion for
Speaker 1: the entertainment business. UM. I also UM had really wanted
Speaker 1: to I. I had taken time after college, I moved
Speaker 1: abroad to Spain to develop some of my international business skills,
Speaker 1: my Spanish language skills. At that point, as a young
Speaker 1: man living in Spain, I decided grad school may make sense.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of taking the GMAT or the l's at.
Speaker 1: It had been a while since I was doing the
Speaker 1: cutting edge math that you need for the GMAT. So
Speaker 1: I took the l's at. And I went to law school,
Speaker 1: and I worked for SCADD and I had a phenomenal,
Speaker 1: phenomenal training ground and learned a lot. But my passion
Speaker 1: had always been the entertainment business. And I reached a
Speaker 1: point in my career there after about five years or so,
Speaker 1: that I thought, I don't have kids yet, not married,
Speaker 1: I could make to shift with less risk, and I
Speaker 1: really started developing this passion, this idea that if you
Speaker 1: if you don't follow with your passion in life, you're
Speaker 1: not going to be happy later in life. So I
Speaker 1: did that and no regrets for that. So, so, how
Speaker 1: do you go from SCAN to MTV? That is not
Speaker 1: a natural career path or is it? Was there a
Speaker 1: transactional relationship with Viacom or anything and suddenly someone said, hey,
Speaker 1: you'd be perfect for this. It's a great question. There
Speaker 1: isn't that and it may not seem natural. But what
Speaker 1: I had been doing back in late eighties early nineties,
Speaker 1: I really focused on international M and A and corporate,
Speaker 1: So I spent a couple of years of my time
Speaker 1: in Scatton's London office. So he's learning a lot about
Speaker 1: cross border transactions. And it just so happened at that time,
Speaker 1: pretty much in the cable and satellite business, these big
Speaker 1: brands from the US were beginning their international expansion and
Speaker 1: they had a lot of great ideas, a lot of
Speaker 1: creative passion, but they didn't really have a lot of
Speaker 1: people who knew how to structure one's presence in an
Speaker 1: international market. How would the media laws and regulations affect
Speaker 1: a business? How do you structure a joint venture with
Speaker 1: a foreign partner? So I had those skills, so I
Speaker 1: came on board originally to spearhead the legal and business
Speaker 1: affairs aspects of MTV and Nickelodeon's launch into the international markets.
Speaker 1: That's quite interest. So really between Spain and London, that
Speaker 1: was your graduate school for taking television brands content brands overseas.
Speaker 1: It was the beginning and I had some really amazing insights.
Speaker 1: I worked on one project in particular, which was the
Speaker 1: restructuring of news Corps debt back in the early nineties.
Speaker 1: That was so that was for scatting in the London office.
Speaker 1: News Corps is at that point not really a behemoth
Speaker 1: in the US, but huge in in the UK and
Speaker 1: also amazingly taken to task for funding Sky. Sky was
Speaker 1: their baby, that was bringing the whole ship down. Um
Speaker 1: now we all know what happened. They restructured and Sky
Speaker 1: is a behemoth and an incredible business. Uh. But it
Speaker 1: was fascinating being there for the early years of Sky
Speaker 1: and seeing what that business came to and it was
Speaker 1: very um eye opening for me. Next along the career path,
Speaker 1: you ended up taking MGM Networks worldwide. Tell us what
Speaker 1: that experience was like, how did that start, What obstacles
Speaker 1: did you run into? What were the surprises along the way? Sure? So,
Speaker 1: after I spent a year doing legal with MTV, and
Speaker 1: then I shifted to Nickelodeon to the business side, and
Speaker 1: I was primarily responsible for spring the growth and the
Speaker 1: launch of international channels all over the world. Again, this
Speaker 1: was a company that I have very few, if any
Speaker 1: channels outside of the US, and with me leading a
Speaker 1: team and a lot of other good people, we launched
Speaker 1: this network plus people. Was it was it all at once?
Speaker 1: You rolled out to a hundred paces Towards six years
Speaker 1: working at and um SO, I learned a lot about
Speaker 1: the international cable and settled business was at its birth
Speaker 1: more or less than um SO. I went to MGM
Speaker 1: after that because I think the challenge I wanted after
Speaker 1: bringing this great kids network all over the world um
Speaker 1: I was really passionate about this business of launching new brands,
Speaker 1: linear what we call linear now PayTV networks. So I
Speaker 1: had this opportunity with MGM, and what I loved about
Speaker 1: it is MGM really did not have anywhere in just
Speaker 1: a couple of places branded TV channels. It's a great brand.
Speaker 1: It's the biggest modern film library in Hollywood, at least
Speaker 1: at the time, and uh that was a gaping opportunity
Speaker 1: UH that hadn't been uh covered by MGM. So so
Speaker 1: before we get too deep into MGM, how do overseas
Speaker 1: markets for television and video differ from from US markets?
Speaker 1: What's the demand like, what is the taste like? And
Speaker 1: how does the regulatory and corporate structure compared to what
Speaker 1: we have here? Great questions. As you can imagine, every
Speaker 1: country may be a little different the international markets. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're probably a generation behind the US in terms of
Speaker 1: just rolling out the physical plan. Give you an example,
Speaker 1: Uh in the nineties when I started bringing channels to India,
Speaker 1: of all places, cable and satellite was just born. There
Speaker 1: were no homes. Now they're more cable and satellite homes
Speaker 1: in India by far than the US. So all this
Speaker 1: stuff developed very quickly. Um, every market's a little different,
Speaker 1: but many many markets. Now you'll find a majority of
Speaker 1: households have pay TV. Not all markets, but many regulatory wise, UM,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine over the years when this business
Speaker 1: just emerged. It was a wild West. There are few regulations.
Speaker 1: Now you look at a lot of markets, it's tougher
Speaker 1: and tougher by the day. In terms of programming, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm Barry rid Hults. You're listening to Masters in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week is Bruce Tuckman.
Speaker 1: He was the head of MGM Worldwide Networks as well
Speaker 1: as MC Global, taking US television networks to over a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty countries around the world. Let's let's before
Speaker 1: we get into a MC let's talk a little more
Speaker 1: about MGM and the massive library of classic and films
Speaker 1: that they had. What are the tastes like overseas? How
Speaker 1: did you find the MGM brands played in Asia and Europe?
Speaker 1: How did that work? Right? I think overseas, again, depending
Speaker 1: on the market, you're gonna have a combination of two
Speaker 1: things that work and pay television. Local content obviously is big,
Speaker 1: and I'd say the more removed people are from the
Speaker 1: English language media markets, the local seen as much bigger,
Speaker 1: so Japan, Korea, India, that's by far the dominant form
Speaker 1: of content will be content produced indigenously in local language.
Speaker 1: But every market in the world. They there is room
Speaker 1: for Hollywood content. It is very popular and larger or
Speaker 1: smaller degrees, but it's always very popular. Now, what I
Speaker 1: saw with MGM was the opportunity to take a brand
Speaker 1: that arguably has some of the most long term goodwill
Speaker 1: of any brand. I mean, it is synonymous with film.
Speaker 1: How big is that library? Library at the time was forms.
Speaker 1: So the combination of some great films and the brand,
Speaker 1: well that that's what all pay TV was at that
Speaker 1: point in time. If you have a good brand, you
Speaker 1: have good content. That's what subscribers are gonna want and
Speaker 1: what cable operators are gonna want because they don't want
Speaker 1: to get behind unknown brands, unknown content. It's an easy sell.
Speaker 1: MGM meant too many people in the world. MGM means
Speaker 1: great movies, and the movies themselves were great movies. So
Speaker 1: it was a fantastic run and we went from about
Speaker 1: zero channels and in ten years we had tens and
Speaker 1: tens of millions of subscribers in about a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty countries all around. So now let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about AMC, which over the past couple of years
Speaker 1: has become a monster monster brand not just for what
Speaker 1: I I think of them as American movie classics, we're
Speaker 1: kind of where what they began. But for some really
Speaker 1: definitive original content. So how was the AMC brand different
Speaker 1: than MGM and how did it play overseas well? A
Speaker 1: couple of interesting things. So I think for the core demo,
Speaker 1: perhaps that that is right now watching Walking Dead and
Speaker 1: have watched Breaking Bad. Um, don't forget mad Men and
Speaker 1: another one. I'd say, by the way, these are those
Speaker 1: are three pretty much definitive original programs over the past
Speaker 1: ten five you know, Throwing the Sopranos it's hard, and
Speaker 1: then Seinfeld the decade before that. That pretty much dominates
Speaker 1: what what people have been at least talking about. I agree,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't sell games thrown short either, But um,
Speaker 1: it was brand defining obviously for AMC network. And I think,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of the people watching it
Speaker 1: now that demo may not even remember American Movie Classics.
Speaker 1: They think of AMC in those terms. It's Walking Dead
Speaker 1: and Breaking and not bringing up Baby. That's not that's
Speaker 1: not the NADA process, that's correct. So that raises the
Speaker 1: question how important is the development of original content to
Speaker 1: a branded channel like AMC huge. Um. There have been
Speaker 1: um evolutions in this PayTV market. It used to be
Speaker 1: dominated by libraries, second run library content. If you think
Speaker 1: about even HBO and Showtime. In the earlier years, it
Speaker 1: was the second run perhaps it was movies. It was movies,
Speaker 1: and it was stand up comedy specials, and that was
Speaker 1: pretty much it. Correct. So the market got more and
Speaker 1: more competitive, and original programming became necessary to distinguish a
Speaker 1: channel from others and more competitive market, and especially now
Speaker 1: with the slowing and in fact declining subscriber universe. UM,
Speaker 1: you've got to do everything you can to reach a
Speaker 1: big audience. And you just can't cut corners by showing
Speaker 1: cheap reruns anymore. That will not work. UM. So that
Speaker 1: that's the state we are in now with having to
Speaker 1: invest in all this original programming. So a question that
Speaker 1: I had that I think is I imagine other people
Speaker 1: would also is how similar is the taste of consumers
Speaker 1: of film and television watchers overseas to us in the
Speaker 1: United States? Does Don Draper play overseas? Is that the
Speaker 1: sort of thing? Does Walter White have a resonance in Japan?
Speaker 1: You know, these are really definitive US characters on all
Speaker 1: ends of the spectrum. How are how are these shows
Speaker 1: and how are these characters um accepted in other markets? Correct?
Speaker 1: For I'd say the last six or seven or eight years,
Speaker 1: the what we're calling peak TV or the drama renaissance.
Speaker 1: This is global phenomena. Uh, not just here in the
Speaker 1: United States. Not Golden Age of television is in the US,
Speaker 1: and from the age of television may have there. I
Speaker 1: think there's more nuanced to that. But the top quality
Speaker 1: dramas produced in the English language are are really romping
Speaker 1: around the world. Um. So you can go tell us
Speaker 1: what's big overseas right now? Well, I mean Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones is huge, Walking Dead, um, Stranger Things from Netflix
Speaker 1: has done incredibly well in terms of seeing what the
Speaker 1: global demand for that is. Um. Mr Robots doing terrifically. Yes.
Speaker 1: So so these shows are really hot all over the world.
Speaker 1: Now it depends on the market. Do they dominate every
Speaker 1: market like they do in the US? No, not necessarily,
Speaker 1: because as I mentioned before, a place like India has
Speaker 1: an incredible local production industry. They're they're broadcast sting um
Speaker 1: original programming developed in India in a dozen different languages. However,
Speaker 1: these shows breakthrough, these dramas. Breakthrough in every single market
Speaker 1: all around the world may not happen five years from now,
Speaker 1: but we have been in this phase of the business
Speaker 1: for the last i'd say eight or so years where
Speaker 1: this is very was working. Let me throw a curve
Speaker 1: bowl at you. I remember moving out of the city
Speaker 1: to the suburbs a dozen plus years ago and not
Speaker 1: being happy that I couldn't get BBC America, which I
Speaker 1: was used to when I lived in Manhattan for twenty years,
Speaker 1: so I had to go to a satellite instead of
Speaker 1: the local cable. Now it's everywhere, but I recall shows
Speaker 1: like Doctor Who and top Gear really being global phenomenon
Speaker 1: a dozen years ago. Was the BBC the first network
Speaker 1: to really take themselves global? Did they set the uh
Speaker 1: the original model for this? I I think the pioneers
Speaker 1: were both the major Wood studios that have always had
Speaker 1: incredible sales arms for their TV and movie production all
Speaker 1: around the world, and BBC I would also put up
Speaker 1: in that category, especially within the Commonwealth Nations. BBC was
Speaker 1: always an important brand and always had an extensive network
Speaker 1: of channels and programming, and they put a lot of
Speaker 1: money um resources into getting that stuff all around the World.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is Bruce Tuckman. He
Speaker 1: is a former m and a lawyer from Scandon Arps
Speaker 1: who entered television and ended up taking over a number
Speaker 1: of channels UH such as Sundance, am C, MGM and
Speaker 1: bringing them global to over a hundred and forty countries.
Speaker 1: You're on the board of advisors of Parent Analytics. Sure,
Speaker 1: I'm a board member. Board member. Let's talk about what
Speaker 1: it means to try and measure audience UM. In the
Speaker 1: U S. We have Nielsen Ratings, which has been a
Speaker 1: lot of criticism and complaints that it doesn't capture UM,
Speaker 1: time shifting, it doesn't capture a lot of things. What's
Speaker 1: it like trying to measure viewership overseas well? I think
Speaker 1: it's funny even today after the election, we're seeing that
Speaker 1: taking a sample like Nielsen does. Nielsen has thirty thousand
Speaker 1: or so paneled homes only recently stopped using paper to
Speaker 1: document what people are watching, and they're extrapolating from that
Speaker 1: what people are watching. That is part of the basic
Speaker 1: underlying concern about extrapolation based panel based surveying of TV audiences.
Speaker 1: We we get so much information on the web about
Speaker 1: website performance. We could track how long people are on
Speaker 1: a site, where they're coming from, how how quickly they
Speaker 1: bounce off, where they click on the page, how how
Speaker 1: many different things they look at. It would make sense
Speaker 1: that there should be some technology that does that on
Speaker 1: the video so well, sure, and that's what Parrot Analytics
Speaker 1: is doing. So if you think about the internet is
Speaker 1: a huge billion three billion, three point seven billion people
Speaker 1: are using the Internet every day. If you think about
Speaker 1: what you may be doing. If you like a show
Speaker 1: we mentioned Game of Thrones before, you may press a
Speaker 1: like on Facebook. You may read about um John snow
Speaker 1: on Wikipedia. You may follow something I'm reddit post something.
Speaker 1: You may even this happens a lot of markets. Uh
Speaker 1: illegally download four hours. So a company like Parrot Parrot
Speaker 1: is listening and scraping to all of these messages in
Speaker 1: the Internet, listening to everything, but more importantly weighing it all.
Speaker 1: If you download four hours and pirated of Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: you're pretty passionate about a show. If you're liking it
Speaker 1: on Facebook, you like the show, but maybe not as
Speaker 1: much now if you weigh all that together, you could
Speaker 1: come up with a real, um, actual, genuine amount of
Speaker 1: data that people are expressing demand for TV shows, which
Speaker 1: I think is far more compelling than just having surveys
Speaker 1: where you're extrapulating, because but don't we run into potentially
Speaker 1: the same problem that hey, we're not actually measuring votes,
Speaker 1: but we're we're surveying. We're looking at what people say
Speaker 1: and do about candidates, were about shows, and trying to
Speaker 1: draw a conclusion about it from that model the differences,
Speaker 1: there's no conclusion being drawn. It's empirical. It is Okay,
Speaker 1: we've measured now a billion data points. These are powerful computers,
Speaker 1: and this is the facts. No conclusions are extrapolation to
Speaker 1: be drawn. This is what people are saying right now.
Speaker 1: So this is going to revolutionize the business. It's going
Speaker 1: to happen more and more. Obviously, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of these data measurement companies now are good compliments to Nielsen.
Speaker 1: There are sixty billion dollars of transactions going down based
Speaker 1: on Nielsen. But at some point the data has to
Speaker 1: come in and form a little bit. So so let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that big data. How can
Speaker 1: we use big data and analytics to figure out how
Speaker 1: valuable specific content is. You can because you can see
Speaker 1: what people are saying out there. And it's not only
Speaker 1: see what people are saying empirically, you actually can see
Speaker 1: who they are, what their demographics are. You can find
Speaker 1: out what products they like. You can say, Wow, this
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones person, I can see this person. I
Speaker 1: can see this person also likes Lincoln Motors and also
Speaker 1: likes Dan and yogurt Um. So we're only at the
Speaker 1: beginning of all of that, and I think over the
Speaker 1: long run, a paper based survey is still based on
Speaker 1: essentially UM Johannes Guttenberg's ideas, it's gonna be very different.
Speaker 1: Is is the technology UM consistent between the US and overseas?
Speaker 1: Can you generate the same sort of analytics and is
Speaker 1: it as accurate there as here or vice versa? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean it's a global phenomena, the web. There's
Speaker 1: no cultural differences from the US to Europe to Asia. No.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're just measuring what people are watching
Speaker 1: by using the Internet and using these sources where people
Speaker 1: are expressing their demand for TV, you're just finding what
Speaker 1: people are really saying. UM. So it's It's young, this industry,
Speaker 1: but it's powerful. Each year it evolves even stronger and stronger.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry rid Halts. You're listening to Masters in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. My guest today is Bruce Tuckman. He
Speaker 1: has taken a number of US television channels worldwide, over
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty countries. Let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about streaming, UH and video on demand and what that means.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was a kid, we had the
Speaker 1: three networks and a handful of syndication, and by the
Speaker 1: time I got to high school, this thing called HBO
Speaker 1: came along, and UH we had movies and curse words
Speaker 1: and stand up it was. It was revelatory. Today there's
Speaker 1: content from everywhere. You have not only the networks but
Speaker 1: all the pay channels. There seems to be everybody producing
Speaker 1: their own content. I'm a huge fan of of f X, UM,
Speaker 1: am C, I f C. There's a whole run of
Speaker 1: shows that are spectacular. That's before we get to Netflix,
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime. I'm sure I'm forgetting others. There's just an
Speaker 1: embarrassment of riches when it comes to original programming. Is
Speaker 1: this really a golden age of television? And how long
Speaker 1: can this last? For? Yeah, it's They call it peak TV,
Speaker 1: but I call peaked TV in a way that it's peaked. Um,
Speaker 1: it's already peaked. Well, I think it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of time, and I'll explain why. Um, there's about five
Speaker 1: original narrative drama is going to be produced in the
Speaker 1: US this year. Five You can never absorb all that.
Speaker 1: That's probably around three times as much as when Madmen
Speaker 1: came out seven or eight years ago. Really, yeah, so
Speaker 1: what there is? Like any business, I suppose there's a
Speaker 1: copycat phenomena because the success of a MC ffects even
Speaker 1: what HBO and then Showtime and Stars Encore is doing.
Speaker 1: People have realized quality dramas not only rate, they define brands,
Speaker 1: they start the conversation in the morning. They add incredible value.
Speaker 1: So everyone's rushing to it. Is that sustainable, as the question?
Speaker 1: I don't think it's sustainable because people aren't watching all
Speaker 1: of the stuff anyway. You're finding overall, with a few
Speaker 1: exceptions like perhaps Walking Dead or UM Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: you're seeing ratings decline. You're seeing the overall cable universe decrease.
Speaker 1: By now, what's becoming scary significant single digit percentages each year, UM.
Speaker 1: And you're seeing advertising go down. So the economic basis,
Speaker 1: especially for basic cable TV, the overall revenue pool is declining.
Speaker 1: To keep investing in this high quality drama is not
Speaker 1: going to be sustainable, so to shrink what what is
Speaker 1: this the chord cutting phenomena of basically the millennials UM,
Speaker 1: who who aren't enthralled with the whole run of channels
Speaker 1: they get with a cable package. They just want internet
Speaker 1: service and they'll buy what they want on demand and
Speaker 1: that work. What does this mean to the future of
Speaker 1: the content industry? And is this why you think we're
Speaker 1: we're post peak TV? Yes? I think so. I think
Speaker 1: the basic cable bundle is under the most pressure because
Speaker 1: there's cord cutting, chord shaving. You've seen chord shaving, meaning
Speaker 1: you don't fully cut it, but you just go to
Speaker 1: the base one less stuff. Why do I want all
Speaker 1: the three premium movie services when maybe I just want
Speaker 1: HBO and I'll get Netflix or you know that that
Speaker 1: could be one thing or new household formation. Younger people
Speaker 1: aren't bothering UM. But the fact just that it's shrinking,
Speaker 1: even by single percentage digits. This is an industry that
Speaker 1: has never seen that before. It's gonna it's a very
Speaker 1: hard learning curve to learn how to adapt to that.
Speaker 1: And this isn't gonna get better. This is only gonna
Speaker 1: get worse as the millennials, as the pig moves through
Speaker 1: the python. So it's gonna get worse. And and for
Speaker 1: Basic Cable, nothing's looking good in the right direction because
Speaker 1: there's too many Basic cablers in this original narrative drama space.
Speaker 1: Their revenue base is shrinking, the competitions intense, and at
Speaker 1: the same time it the format isn't so great. When
Speaker 1: you're breaking a show for commercials every fifteen minutes. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you're conforming your storytelling to what maybe a very antiquated
Speaker 1: format eight minutes, six minutes. Yeah, so you've got to
Speaker 1: build a little peak and then you go away for
Speaker 1: four minutes. Now, if you look at what's going on
Speaker 1: Amazon or Netflix, they don't care about the length of
Speaker 1: this show, right, I mean it's not they're telling. You're
Speaker 1: telling a story, and the stories are compelling and they
Speaker 1: don't break off. So I think both from a creative standpoint,
Speaker 1: business model standpoint, Basic Cables in big trouble. The Ola
Speaker 1: Carte networks. The streamers are much better shape, and younger
Speaker 1: people seem to find them convenient, but so do older
Speaker 1: people as well. I have to ask a question about
Speaker 1: the commercials and what you've defined. I mean, other than
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, I don't remember watching a commercial in
Speaker 1: the past decade. Every television has a DVR on it.
Speaker 1: They're now four thousand hours big, they're giant. Um. I
Speaker 1: assume everybody else uses DVRs. And all you do is
Speaker 1: if you want to start something, even if it's not
Speaker 1: on DVR, you pause it. You do fifteen minutes worth
Speaker 1: of yours, and now you have no commercials to worry about. Certainly,
Speaker 1: live viewing is shifting more and more each year to
Speaker 1: DV yars or getting catch up on demand on your
Speaker 1: cable system, downloading something from my tunes that you've missed. Um,
Speaker 1: that's happening more and more there. It's gonna be it's
Speaker 1: really gonna be hard to to stop that. Um. That
Speaker 1: that is a challenge. That that's profound for the industry,
Speaker 1: and there doesn't seem to be a solution around that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the DVD for for you young guns
Speaker 1: out there. They actually used to put video content on
Speaker 1: these round silver discs. I think you could still buy
Speaker 1: them at various stores. Is that over or is the
Speaker 1: DVD finished? Or is this going to be a format
Speaker 1: and blue ray and and four K and and everything else?
Speaker 1: Is this gonna have any sort of legs? Sure? Um,
Speaker 1: it will get harder and harder obviously in smaller quantities
Speaker 1: to manufacture at economies of scale this kind of technology. However,
Speaker 1: I look at some markets like Japan. I mean, Japan
Speaker 1: really has a robust DVD business and seems to be
Speaker 1: a part of a lot of people's lifestyle. Go to
Speaker 1: the corner DVD store each night and pick something up.
Speaker 1: So don't they have a robust album like an LP
Speaker 1: uh full thirty three's? I think that's and as well
Speaker 1: as CDs. They haven't moved away from the physical und
Speaker 1: There is that, and let's face it, there's very few
Speaker 1: forms of predecessor media that completely vanishes. People are still
Speaker 1: buying radios, right, They still do. It's not as big
Speaker 1: a business. You can go though, into any best buy
Speaker 1: or radio check around here and probably buy a transistor radio.
Speaker 1: Now they're gonna have to produce less at better prices,
Speaker 1: So I don't think it necessarily goes away right away,
Speaker 1: but but it's obviously fading and it will over time.
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about the difference between streaming versus downloading.
Speaker 1: So when you download something you essentially own it or
Speaker 1: rent it for a period of time, versus just streaming
Speaker 1: on demand. How are those two businesses different? And as
Speaker 1: either of those um likely to become the dumb and
Speaker 1: in methodology or are they going to co exist? They
Speaker 1: have to coexist, and I think download is getting um
Speaker 1: a dangerous short shrift, by which I mean it used
Speaker 1: to be my personal frustration as a guy on the
Speaker 1: planes A lot is with Netflix. I can't download anything,
Speaker 1: I can't watch anything, I can't stream in an airplane.
Speaker 1: We all get frustrated about that. But that is, let's say,
Speaker 1: an elitist problem. Maybe that's very much a first world issue,
Speaker 1: but you know what, it's a bigger third world issue.
Speaker 1: You know what I'll tell you, because think about this.
Speaker 1: In a developing world, it costs a lot of money
Speaker 1: to stream. Bandwidth is actually really slow, yet on demand
Speaker 1: contents really valued. So what a lot of people are
Speaker 1: doing in countries that represum one two three billion people.
Speaker 1: They'll go, for instance, to a mall where there's free WiFi,
Speaker 1: they watch there, but where they can download, that's where
Speaker 1: they download. So they download everything for free, go home
Speaker 1: and watch it. So the idea of even emporary downloads
Speaker 1: is so necessary for the long term health of the
Speaker 1: streaming business, and not just to please your consumers. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're in Dubai or if you're in Thailand and
Speaker 1: you're paying forty dollars and data charges to download, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be upset at your provider. But I would also
Speaker 1: say for the studios, the producers of content themselves and
Speaker 1: get wigged out about downloads. If you don't offer temporary
Speaker 1: downloads to your paying streaming customers, it'll be pirated then
Speaker 1: the next day. So you make the choice really well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because if something is available at a reasonable cost, you're
Speaker 1: already subscribing to a streaming service and it's their day
Speaker 1: and day with the debut of the show in the US,
Speaker 1: you'll get it on your streaming service and everyone gets
Speaker 1: paid in the value chain. And if it's not there
Speaker 1: or you can't download it, and you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: pay a fortune to streaming and you're never gonna do
Speaker 1: it because the quality of streaming is bad anyway, someone
Speaker 1: just gonna go home on their connected broadband and pirated.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about piracy. How significant is piracy? How
Speaker 1: serious do you think piracy is? Um to the content
Speaker 1: producing side of the world. Look, it's huge and there's
Speaker 1: all different stats on measurement um, but it hasn't stopped
Speaker 1: um the producer of the Game of Thrones being in business.
Speaker 1: They're making a ton of money. It's just how much
Speaker 1: more money should they be making? I don't know, nor
Speaker 1: does anyone know the answer, but some of the solutions
Speaker 1: are For instance, I think iTunes did a great job
Speaker 1: of offering really an easy interface, a fast download at
Speaker 1: an affordable price, which kind of made it almost a
Speaker 1: no brainer. You know, I don't care. Let's not rip
Speaker 1: it off because it's it's really painless. A couple of bucks,
Speaker 1: five bucks for a movie. Why wouldn't you do that?
Speaker 1: And it's for a song? Um, the the video business
Speaker 1: has to be doing that. You have to offer people,
Speaker 1: most importantly, big shows literally simultaneously, day and date, all
Speaker 1: around the world. If Game of Thrones is here at
Speaker 1: ten pm one night and they're doing this now, it's
Speaker 1: got to be shown everywhere. Otherwise someone's pirated here and
Speaker 1: send it over there, right yeah, or pirate it over
Speaker 1: there because it's it's all connected. Now we've been speaking
Speaker 1: with Bruce Tuckman. He used to run MGM Global and
Speaker 1: AMC International, bringing a number of US channels to a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty different countries around the world. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation about video streaming and on demand,
Speaker 1: be sure and stick around for a podcast extras where
Speaker 1: we keep the tape rolling and continue chatting about all
Speaker 1: things television. Be sure and check out my daily column
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg View dot com or follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at rit Halts. We love your comments and feedback. Be
Speaker 1: sure and write to us at m IB podcast at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry Rihults. You've been listening to
Speaker 1: Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio, brought to you by
Speaker 1: Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Seeing what others have seen,
Speaker 1: but uncovering what others may odd. Global research that helps
Speaker 1: you harness disruption. Voted top global research firm five years running,
Speaker 1: Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated. Welcome to the podcast, Bruce,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this. This is really
Speaker 1: quite interesting when when we first met and talked about
Speaker 1: what you did. I was very much intrigued, not just
Speaker 1: because I'm kind of a classic film fan and and
Speaker 1: really a television idiot, but the idea of taking us
Speaker 1: content and saying, let's turn this into an international business
Speaker 1: is really quite fascinating. So, UM, let's see what questions
Speaker 1: I missed before we jump into our favorites. Um. Oh, Sundance.
Speaker 1: We really didn't talk about Sundance Channel, which I wanted to.
Speaker 1: So the original Robert Redford sun Dance Festival eventually became
Speaker 1: a channel, and I kind of remember the line something
Speaker 1: about honoring Robert Redford's mission to celebrate distinctive storytelling from
Speaker 1: independent voices. Is that more or less the That's correct,
Speaker 1: and I think he's always said it best. Um, and
Speaker 1: I would add to that because what he's always also
Speaker 1: said is that's another not otherwise being heard in the
Speaker 1: mainstream media. That makes sense. That's what drove me in
Speaker 1: terms of the Sundance International expansion. They're doing different things
Speaker 1: now in the US that I didn't run I won't
Speaker 1: speak to, but um, that propelled justin three years I
Speaker 1: was able to take with my team that channel from
Speaker 1: a couple of countries to about eighty countries around the world.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, when you think about it, Uh,
Speaker 1: the US majors are producing maybe a hundred twenty films
Speaker 1: a year and that's what dominates the pay movie TV
Speaker 1: channels all over the world. Yet at Sundance alone, there's
Speaker 1: thousands of independent films that are submitted, So so it
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty US mainstream films per year feature
Speaker 1: film and just submitted to the festivals over thousand, thousands, thousands,
Speaker 1: And that's just Sundance. So what's I think happening, and
Speaker 1: what Robert Redford was speaking to is so much more
Speaker 1: content is being produced independently and it's not getting it's
Speaker 1: let's say, strict fair share of the air time. Now,
Speaker 1: some of the content may not be great, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the Hollywood film content it's not great either,
Speaker 1: But I think what allowed us to expand so much
Speaker 1: and get so much real estate with cable operators are
Speaker 1: all around the world was just simply that premise. You're
Speaker 1: missing a lot of great content and it's actually not
Speaker 1: that expensive compared to what you're paying for some of
Speaker 1: the Hollywood film content, and it's just going to add
Speaker 1: to diversity of voices, and we'll bring in a lot
Speaker 1: of and what we did a lot around the world.
Speaker 1: We've run a lot of local independent films. So when
Speaker 1: I think of Robert Redford, he's an I an icon.
Speaker 1: Um here we are post election, everybody had on Twitter
Speaker 1: had the shot of the candidate, which was a very
Speaker 1: famous film of his. You know that. Now what do
Speaker 1: we do now? Right? That's exactly it. So I saw
Speaker 1: that last night. Go around, Um, they're butch casting the
Speaker 1: Sundance kid. Go down the list of films, um that
Speaker 1: he was active in. They're just an amazing run of movies.
Speaker 1: But it's such an American brand. Does that play overseas
Speaker 1: or or am I imagining that people overseas are are
Speaker 1: are more different from us than perhaps I should? It
Speaker 1: plays overseas and that if there's any brand that's anonymous
Speaker 1: with independent film, it's Sundance. Now will your run of
Speaker 1: the mill guy walking down the street in some country
Speaker 1: two thousand miles away, No, Sundance. Maybe maybe not, but
Speaker 1: I think everyone, Uh, there's there's a big market wherever
Speaker 1: you go for independent film, especially independ in film that
Speaker 1: features stories and characters from your own country. That isn't
Speaker 1: just the mass package, commercialized stuff you're getting out of Hollywood. Um,
Speaker 1: so that helps. But particularly in this business of channels,
Speaker 1: you're you're selling to usually big cable operators, and the
Speaker 1: people running these big cable operators and very sophisticated. They've
Speaker 1: been to Sundance, they're very familiar with it. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about AMC a little bit. We were talking earlier
Speaker 1: about Walking Dead and mad Men and Breaking Bad. By
Speaker 1: the time you joined AMC, I'm doing this from memory.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing mad Men had already been in production for
Speaker 1: a while, Breaking Bad was just starting, and then towards
Speaker 1: the ladder end, that's when Walking Dead came exactly. So
Speaker 1: as this comes first comes out, do you have any
Speaker 1: idea what sort of a giant cultural impact these are
Speaker 1: going to have and how do you think about taking
Speaker 1: that and applying it to overseas me that's a great question. Um.
Speaker 1: Madman certainly was, by the way, that is such an
Speaker 1: again iconic, like just when you think of that late
Speaker 1: fifties early sixties era and Don Draper has become an
Speaker 1: arch type now, that arch type of of you know,
Speaker 1: the hard drinking three martini launch, smoking womanizing sort of guy. Again,
Speaker 1: does that play overseas or is it such a cliche
Speaker 1: that they eat it up over it plays overseas? And interestingly,
Speaker 1: that guy now and and his acolytes won the election
Speaker 1: last night. I don't mean him. I was thinking, by
Speaker 1: the way, it's as I was saying that I was
Speaker 1: going to say something witty about that sort of hard drinking,
Speaker 1: heart smoking womanizing. Although Trump doesn't drink, you know, he
Speaker 1: famously is a teetotaler, but that sort of presidential candidate,
Speaker 1: and I thought better of it. But since you brought
Speaker 1: it up. Uh, When Bush was president and you traveled
Speaker 1: over the overseas, there was a sense that he was
Speaker 1: really looked at as a cowboy. He's from Texas, goes
Speaker 1: from the gut, invades various countries. There was really a
Speaker 1: stereotypical American, uh, perception of Bush that way. So so
Speaker 1: how do you use how the world perceives the United States?
Speaker 1: As much as they may on occasion criticize us or
Speaker 1: dislike us or argue with us about different things, they
Speaker 1: seem to overseas seems to love American culture. They love
Speaker 1: American content. It's been interesting in my career because my
Speaker 1: international career started with Reagan in office, So Reagan and
Speaker 1: Bush and I suppose Trump. It does become difficult just
Speaker 1: in casual conversations with people. Um often it wasn't like
Speaker 1: meaning meaning. So my personal experiences is you fly into
Speaker 1: Berlin from New York and when when or I flew
Speaker 1: recall trips to London as well, and there was a
Speaker 1: very diffident if that's the right word. Cool oh an
Speaker 1: American like a real at customs. Yeah, Canadians were always
Speaker 1: nice to go to Montreal, Vancouver or you know, they
Speaker 1: seem to be very um uh friendly to Americans, but
Speaker 1: the Europeans were certainly post uh the Iraq invasion. There
Speaker 1: was definitely a little bit of a chill, and part
Speaker 1: of you was like, am I imagining this? And then
Speaker 1: once Obama was elected and you went overseas, it was
Speaker 1: a completely different come on in it was it was
Speaker 1: a whole different attitude. And I was like, I recall
Speaker 1: going back to Berlin and back to London and thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't my imagination. They're much nicer now
Speaker 1: than they were the last time I was here, when
Speaker 1: when it was a different president. So we have no
Speaker 1: idea what the rest of the world is going to
Speaker 1: be like when it comes to Trump, other than I
Speaker 1: think we have a good idea because you hear a lot.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of friends abroad, I do a
Speaker 1: lot of business abroad. Um, I often find you have
Speaker 1: to defend and explain u S policies for good or
Speaker 1: for bad. Bill Clint was also very popular. Um, that's
Speaker 1: just what it is. But when we're in that position
Speaker 1: of people think there's bad developments in the US, that does,
Speaker 1: from time to time wind up impacting the political environment
Speaker 1: of a country you're operating, which sometimes bleeds into the
Speaker 1: regulatory environment, which sometimes makes it a little harder to
Speaker 1: get your stuff done. So that I imagine that, and
Speaker 1: then part of me again it's like, now you're being paranoid.
Speaker 1: That's not really well, okay, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: So okay. So the EU, especially with the UK out,
Speaker 1: I imagine, is going to get more line with the
Speaker 1: French and German point of view in terms of regulation
Speaker 1: of meat it which is much stricter than where the
Speaker 1: Brits have always been, where the Americans always been. That
Speaker 1: will get tighter and tighter. You need diplomacy between the
Speaker 1: US and the EU. If that's lacking, and they're not
Speaker 1: going to listen to our entreaties to say, loosen up
Speaker 1: these rags. Loosen up. It's not gonna happen. So that's
Speaker 1: that's what are the regulations like. And so just between
Speaker 1: the US and the UK, we know they're libel laws
Speaker 1: are very different. They're much stricter. In the United States.
Speaker 1: If you're slandering a public figure, you actually have to
Speaker 1: show malicious intense. You know, it's an excuse to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I was innocently wrong, I read it on Facebook or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: In the UK, there isn't that. It's a much stricter
Speaker 1: you're telling me. Go to France and England and it's
Speaker 1: even stricter. Well, what I was talking about was content
Speaker 1: restrictions or licensing regulations rather than liable. I can't speak
Speaker 1: to libel, so let's talk about about content. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about privacy. On the other hand, they're much stricter.
Speaker 1: Well you've seen that with Google, with Google searches, you
Speaker 1: have to delete people's searches in France, which is certainly
Speaker 1: not the case here. I don't know how Facebook deals
Speaker 1: with that in Europe, right, So I think as we
Speaker 1: try to harmonize these regimes, especially for technology, and that
Speaker 1: knows no borders, less strict regime here in the US,
Speaker 1: more strict within the EU EU. I don't know which
Speaker 1: way Trump will go on this, but the point is
Speaker 1: governments have to talk about that. And if governments are
Speaker 1: not getting along, they don't agree with each other. And
Speaker 1: that's a big challenge that we face. That's really fascinating. Um.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, ironically things make it easier.
Speaker 1: With Russia, which has become very regulated in terms of media,
Speaker 1: didn't used to be that way. Um. If when one
Speaker 1: savings grace, I I don't know that US sets everything else. Well,
Speaker 1: when you say regulated, do you mean you know, killing
Speaker 1: journalists or do you mean their actual So just for
Speaker 1: my business linear TV business, funny quick story in or seven,
Speaker 1: I believe I did a deal. I launched the Nickelodeon
Speaker 1: channel in Russia. In Russian and they're emerging pay TV
Speaker 1: businessman's a million two million subscribers. Are so proud of that.
Speaker 1: I went there for launch. Really meant a lot to me.
Speaker 1: And at that time I didn't need a broadcast license.
Speaker 1: I didn't need any interference at all or anything to
Speaker 1: do with the media authorities. Now twenty years later, you
Speaker 1: need several broadcast licenses. You cannot own a majority of
Speaker 1: your own brand. And the reason so all of these
Speaker 1: regulations over time have gotten stricter and stricter. What gets
Speaker 1: them less strict or more accommodating to US interest is
Speaker 1: really through our trade reps are diplomats who try to
Speaker 1: negotiate things that work across the board. So my kind
Speaker 1: of joke is it makes it easier with Russia, because
Speaker 1: that's about it. That that's a but that's a really
Speaker 1: interesting point. And we really haven't talked about the eight
Speaker 1: pound guerrilla in the room, which is China. What's it
Speaker 1: like bringing television to China? Do they want us content?
Speaker 1: How easy are they to deal with? Piracy? Seems to
Speaker 1: be rampant there? Tell us about China. US content too,
Speaker 1: is hugely popular in China. Local Chinese content is more popular.
Speaker 1: But China has a fascinating business which no one even
Speaker 1: appreciates and you don't see in other countries. But I
Speaker 1: call it a vod or advertising video on demand or
Speaker 1: free video on demand. How does that work? There are
Speaker 1: five or six different sites you can put on your laptop.
Speaker 1: You can get an app for your TV. You can
Speaker 1: watch on your mobile device. You go. You literally it's
Speaker 1: free and it features first run day and day programming
Speaker 1: often from US studios and everything else, and you watch
Speaker 1: and it's ad supporting really so instead of like Netflix,
Speaker 1: And it could be that. So that's the YouTube model,
Speaker 1: or or theoretically the Yahoo model. It is the YouTube
Speaker 1: mode as its ad support. It's the only market that
Speaker 1: can probably do that because it's so big and nobody
Speaker 1: so it makes sense. It's you have to have volume
Speaker 1: in the U again, first world issue. We would rather
Speaker 1: pay up for the premium model or the technology like
Speaker 1: a DVR to go bypass the advertising. They're happy to
Speaker 1: take it because it's free. I think that's that. That
Speaker 1: could be it. Yes, absolutely it is. Now as they
Speaker 1: start to make more money, are they are they going
Speaker 1: to have the same issue that we have where a
Speaker 1: little bit of wealth and people become impatient. Then I
Speaker 1: want to watch to be determined. But what's happening in
Speaker 1: China now because the wealth really has to get there.
Speaker 1: A lot of this viewing is on um probably even
Speaker 1: better working show me devices, you know, very good hand
Speaker 1: set tablets, and a lot of people are watching that way,
Speaker 1: especially a lot of the young people, they may not
Speaker 1: have two or three TVs in their homes, so that's
Speaker 1: how a lot of content is being watched. And they
Speaker 1: have more money. They have more time than money, so
Speaker 1: they're happy to do it if it's free. Sure, huh,
Speaker 1: that's that's quite fascinating. What before we get to our
Speaker 1: standard questions, Let's let's what else can you tell us
Speaker 1: about China that we probably don't know? I think, um,
Speaker 1: there's questions obviously about the macro economy and China the
Speaker 1: banking system, but at least what I say, huge amounts
Speaker 1: of debt. But I mean from from what you do,
Speaker 1: what do you see that booming, booming, entertainment booming? Uh?
Speaker 1: It was it will soon be the largest movie market
Speaker 1: in the world. That's it's not already. I just assume
Speaker 1: given the number of people, it's about to cross that threshold.
Speaker 1: Obviously that has already changed so much if you think
Speaker 1: about what's being shown in our own theaters. I read
Speaker 1: a while ago that because the overseas um rights are
Speaker 1: so valuable that very often when there is a expensive
Speaker 1: film to be made, even the storyline has to be
Speaker 1: built so that it's going to be a Winner in China,
Speaker 1: and you you pre sell the foreign rights before you
Speaker 1: even make the film. So where it used to be
Speaker 1: perhaps that the Chinese was the bad guy, now it's
Speaker 1: a Cold War enemy, it's the Koreans, it's the Russians,
Speaker 1: it's somebody not Oh, it's evil China. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: have that made. If you're producing a mass market movie
Speaker 1: where you want to break the bank in terms of
Speaker 1: box office, if you're not thinking about how things are
Speaker 1: gonna go over in China, you've just cut off nearly
Speaker 1: half of your potential revenue, or at least that's the
Speaker 1: way we're going. So why would anyone make that business
Speaker 1: decisions sort of like making a car and deciding I
Speaker 1: will not ever put the driver's the wheel on the
Speaker 1: right side for the driver. So just you give up
Speaker 1: the UK, you give up Japan, you give up any
Speaker 1: of the UK former territory right way that they still are.
Speaker 1: You gotta you gotta adapt. Yeah. Um. I think it
Speaker 1: was in Guila where we rented a car and they
Speaker 1: pull them around and I'm like, oh, that's right, and
Speaker 1: you ever drive that for the first time? Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you just basically my rule of thumb was um, just
Speaker 1: make sure that you're you're What was worse was we
Speaker 1: were driving a left hand drive on the oh that
Speaker 1: was that was the car showed up where they pull
Speaker 1: up on the wrong side of the road with the
Speaker 1: left hand So my thing was just make sure that
Speaker 1: the curb is next to me. So in the US
Speaker 1: the curb is next to the passenger. Now you have
Speaker 1: to be so wherever you go and and left and
Speaker 1: right's got to be a little confusing. It's released. I'm
Speaker 1: still amazed that they will let you drive instantly because
Speaker 1: I think for people who haven't done it before, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if there were drivers drunk or if there
Speaker 1: worth doing that. It's very just gonna say sober. It's
Speaker 1: not difficult. But you go to dinner, you have not
Speaker 1: even drunk. You have a drink or two with dinner,
Speaker 1: and you're a little I we went to this place
Speaker 1: and I drove back from it, and the first five
Speaker 1: minutes of the drive back, I'm on the U S
Speaker 1: side of the road, and I was sober enough clear,
Speaker 1: you know, a drink with dinner is not gonna someone
Speaker 1: my size is not gonna make me that compromise. But
Speaker 1: for the first it feels like five minutes was probably
Speaker 1: the first thirty seconds. Oh gee, I'm on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of the road. I have to get out. But
Speaker 1: by the way, what country was it Sweden that they
Speaker 1: stopped at noon and reversed the sides right? I don't
Speaker 1: remember if it was Sweden or somewhere else, but literally
Speaker 1: everybody stopped one day. And but my point is a
Speaker 1: drunken person driving in the US all right, is shouldn't
Speaker 1: be driving, and they're dangerous. And a neophite person who's
Speaker 1: never driven on the other side of the road in
Speaker 1: the UK is also dangerous president and they quite as dangerous,
Speaker 1: but it could be closed. And then trying to shift, well,
Speaker 1: the stick shift is easy, but you make the turn,
Speaker 1: and you know, your brain goes through a set of
Speaker 1: muscle memories, especially right, a left turn here, is a
Speaker 1: right turn there, and it's just too easy to make
Speaker 1: the turn and end up on the wrong So that's
Speaker 1: how I ended up in the wrong side of the road.
Speaker 1: You come out of a driveway and it makes sense
Speaker 1: from a restaurant, makes sense to stay. But I digress.
Speaker 1: So so um, I don't know how we got to
Speaker 1: that point, but it's the Chinese film market and how
Speaker 1: volcanic you can't encounter it comes. This is really gonna
Speaker 1: drive content. China's going to help drive content for the future.
Speaker 1: So I know I only have you for a finite
Speaker 1: amount of time. Let's let's jump to our standard questions.
Speaker 1: And you know I only briefly talked about you at
Speaker 1: Scanton Arps. So you're at Scanton Arms, you're doing M
Speaker 1: and A work. How did you end up? What was
Speaker 1: the transition from lawyer to television channel executive? How did
Speaker 1: that come about? Um? You know, you become a more
Speaker 1: senior associated as I have been doing, and you get
Speaker 1: to the point if you're doing well, you run your
Speaker 1: first or second big deal and it's exciting. You learn
Speaker 1: a lot and a lot of people, meet a lot
Speaker 1: of people. But then you realize, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be doing this around the clock for another
Speaker 1: four or five years if I can become partner. I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot and UM, but I've always been driven
Speaker 1: just by passion and I didn't want to give up
Speaker 1: that opportunity. So it took a determined effort. This was
Speaker 1: before the internet. I sent out cold really yeah, I really, UM,
Speaker 1: and you have done enough television related work that you
Speaker 1: had expertise in it and you could talk about beast
Speaker 1: Guy B and everything else. Yeah, but more so I did.
Speaker 1: I did a lot of international work, which I think
Speaker 1: was even more valued because there's plenty of people, you know,
Speaker 1: television at the time, at least in terms of TV
Speaker 1: branded channels that warning out a lot of people who
Speaker 1: knew how to set things up internet. So you sending
Speaker 1: mail out, you're coming from a firm with a great reputation.
Speaker 1: Who was the first entity that that? So I got
Speaker 1: a MTV Networks among others, said come on in, and
Speaker 1: I was thrilled. As a young man, I was thirty
Speaker 1: maybe and I'm like, this coolest thing happening to maybe
Speaker 1: back way back in the eighties and nineties, MTV was
Speaker 1: his hip posit. I just wanted the business card. I
Speaker 1: just wanted that business card. And uh, I tell my
Speaker 1: kids now, because things are different, I say it was
Speaker 1: the Google. Then you just gotta understand, it's like, what
Speaker 1: do you think that in terms of hipness that that
Speaker 1: might be. There was a period of time where MTV
Speaker 1: was was huge, absolutely huge, and around that time was
Speaker 1: when you um took them into national Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I I helped that. I was more I was coming
Speaker 1: up in my career then, so I was part of
Speaker 1: a team that really did that. But it was great
Speaker 1: work because MTV was so influential in my life because
Speaker 1: it came right at that, you know, seventeen or so
Speaker 1: when it came out, and uh, it's about right, we're
Speaker 1: about the same manage, and that was you know, that
Speaker 1: was my home base for years up until I probably
Speaker 1: had kids, and then it became news channels. But um
Speaker 1: so what do you kids find cool and hip today?
Speaker 1: That's the MTV of of the modern era? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it Snapchat? Is it things like that? Or? I
Speaker 1: hope my my thirteen year old won't get mad at
Speaker 1: me for this story. But she once said to me, Dad,
Speaker 1: I want a TV in my room. I go, why
Speaker 1: you don't watch TV? She goes, well, Jordan, her older
Speaker 1: sister has one. Go yeah, but you don't ever watch it? Um, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I just want a big iPad on my wall. And
Speaker 1: that's what she's looking at. Yes, So they're every Really
Speaker 1: there's so little linear watching going on. And it's just
Speaker 1: not my kids. It's it's the generation. There's no generation.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. So you mentioned you are
Speaker 1: part of a team. Let's let's talk about your mentors.
Speaker 1: Who who mentored your career? Um? You know, I had
Speaker 1: a lot of a handful of people have really inspired
Speaker 1: me throughout my career. So UM, I wasn't one of
Speaker 1: those kind of people who have traveled from my companies
Speaker 1: with the boss who got moved to these other companies.
Speaker 1: I forged that on my own. But big inspirations to
Speaker 1: me at Scattered. There were two attorneys in particular, guy
Speaker 1: named Finn Fogg who was a big m and a
Speaker 1: guy from the eighties and nineties just not just a
Speaker 1: brilliant lawyer, but I learned from him how to be
Speaker 1: cool as a lawyer, just how to be charismatic, what's important,
Speaker 1: what isn't Um, they don't teach that in law school.
Speaker 1: They don't teach that in law school. So I really
Speaker 1: learned a lot from him. Another attorney there, Nancy Lieberman,
Speaker 1: really taught me the value of how hard you have
Speaker 1: to work for perfection. It's not good enough that you
Speaker 1: can't have a type. You shouldn't have a type of
Speaker 1: people are paying you a lot of money, not just
Speaker 1: for your substance, but everything else. I learned a lot
Speaker 1: from her, UM I think UM. I was also inspired
Speaker 1: a lot by when I worked at MGM Alex uman Agian,
Speaker 1: who was Kirk Korian's right hand man who ran the studio.
Speaker 1: That just a very good faith man who believed a
Speaker 1: lot in the principles he has spoused, looked out for
Speaker 1: his people, but also challenge people. UM and had a
Speaker 1: just ran a tight and a smart ship. UM. Tom
Speaker 1: Freston inspired me at MTV Networks because I just think
Speaker 1: is the first time I saw someone who who always
Speaker 1: put creative first. But that made sense because you know,
Speaker 1: these are a lot of people treat the media business
Speaker 1: like their businesses. They get too focused on the balance
Speaker 1: sheet and the p n L without realizing you've got
Speaker 1: to make the product hot, and you gotta make the
Speaker 1: brand hot, and you've gotta value those kind of people
Speaker 1: who can figure that out. I I just finished reading
Speaker 1: We'll get two books in a few minutes. But I
Speaker 1: just finished reading two Pixar and be and by the
Speaker 1: former CFO who was Lawrence Levy was recruited UM by
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs to basically come rescue Pixar, and amongst other things,
Speaker 1: he said their secret source was how the corporate side,
Speaker 1: how the finance side essentially left the creative alone, and
Speaker 1: it was actually built in to the corporate culture and
Speaker 1: the entire structure. Hey, the geniuses who are creating toy story,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna you can't mess with that. No notes, No,
Speaker 1: you know movie executive saying hey, can we can we
Speaker 1: bring in a girl to this, uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: toy to be Woody's friend or whatever. It is the
Speaker 1: sort of nonsense that you hear about with that. It's
Speaker 1: that same concept of of you have to to keep
Speaker 1: the creative side separate. Still aren't. And I would ask
Speaker 1: you look at any media company right now and their
Speaker 1: story and where they are and their revolution in their arc,
Speaker 1: and more often than not you can explain it as
Speaker 1: to whose rule in the house is that the right
Speaker 1: brain or the left brain side of the brain. Um. So,
Speaker 1: when you see a mediocre television show, when you see
Speaker 1: a film, do you ever look at it and say, oh,
Speaker 1: you could see the the accountants messed around with this. Definitely,
Speaker 1: you can see all the compromis, the suits got suits
Speaker 1: or whatever, or when it becomes so obvious why they
Speaker 1: skimped on this character or they put that in or whatever.
Speaker 1: And and that's the challenge from movies because sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: it looks that way, not always. I have one other
Speaker 1: great mentor though, in TV business, guy named Bruce Paisner,
Speaker 1: who's the CEO and president of the International Emmy Organization
Speaker 1: long term hearst executive. I mean for years he has
Speaker 1: just been a good friend of mine and a great
Speaker 1: leader and incredibly gracious and wonderful sounding board. UM. So
Speaker 1: those have been my mentors. And so so let's talk about,
Speaker 1: um certain business bull who influenced, um, your concept? Who
Speaker 1: who affected how you look at running a studio, running
Speaker 1: a channel, running a bringing a US property international? Um?
Speaker 1: What was creat about the opportunities I've had. I was
Speaker 1: really there at the first wave of bringing these channels abroad,
Speaker 1: and um, we had invented as we went along. So
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, but I often learned by
Speaker 1: other people's mistakes, people who may came a year or
Speaker 1: two before me, or who were hired before I got hired,
Speaker 1: And at first bringing these channels abroad for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, this was a financial bath, much like it is. Really.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm stunned. I would have thought that this
Speaker 1: would have been a gold mine. It took years to
Speaker 1: become a gold mine. It did. Now it's going to
Speaker 1: fade again because linear is fading. How so wait, let me,
Speaker 1: let's digress a little bit. How long of the process
Speaker 1: was it. Did this go from g was spending a
Speaker 1: ton of money and we're not seeing anything to wow,
Speaker 1: we put X number of years and and the money
Speaker 1: is just rolling. So no one who copped to it,
Speaker 1: But I'd say overall longer than expected for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. A lot had to do with people started
Speaker 1: launching before the markets were even there, so it seemed
Speaker 1: like a no brainer. Cable and satellite or cable big
Speaker 1: in the US, so it's gonna be eventually in Europe
Speaker 1: and it's going to be eventually. Was it better to
Speaker 1: be early than late? Do you run into a competitive disadvantage?
Speaker 1: Or those people who hung in there started early, had
Speaker 1: four site and said I'm gonna lookive fifteen years. Of
Speaker 1: course they've done well. They have the best position in
Speaker 1: the market right now. So yes, And there were people
Speaker 1: and I admire some to Redstone for things like that,
Speaker 1: for hanging in there and wanting to just keep going
Speaker 1: at it. Those people at foresight and not everyone else did.
Speaker 1: How long did it take before this actually became profitable?
Speaker 1: The pends on the channel and the market. Some people,
Speaker 1: if I said five years, am I out of line?
Speaker 1: Five years seemed to have been the normal business plan projection.
Speaker 1: But honestly, with some of the businesses I launched, we
Speaker 1: gotten the first year profitability. Others took a lot longer,
Speaker 1: and still others for other people may not have made
Speaker 1: money to this day. So let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about books. Everybody always loves this segment. I get questions
Speaker 1: quest all the time, Hey, what what were the books?
Speaker 1: As somebody recommended? So tell me some of your favorite
Speaker 1: books that either relate to this field or wholly unrelated.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fiction guy. Uh huh. So I jotted
Speaker 1: down those guys who's really influenced me throughout my life
Speaker 1: when I was a young person. Jersey Kazinski, who my
Speaker 1: mind that was being there and Painted Bird by the way,
Speaker 1: Being There eventually becomes the Peter Seller's movie correct Painted Bird.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what became of that, but that was
Speaker 1: a big book. Yeah. Escaped young boy who escaped the
Speaker 1: Holocaust and led a group of refugees, um but gripping intense,
Speaker 1: and at the time there were not a lot of
Speaker 1: books like that other than uh nonfiction UM descriptions of
Speaker 1: what happened UM. I was really influenced as a team
Speaker 1: by Garcia Marquez A Hundred Years of Solitude. I still
Speaker 1: consider that my favorite novel. UM. I love Philip Roth.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm very happy Bob Dylan got the Nobel
Speaker 1: play before Let's Let's go back before you um so again,
Speaker 1: same same age, same demographic background. I was a little
Speaker 1: annoyed at Portnoy's complaint for writing my autobiography before I
Speaker 1: had a chance to write it, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if you had a similar I read as a teenager
Speaker 1: right right, I was. I was literally a teenager on
Speaker 1: the beach when I read it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: how is somebody allowed to even write this stuff? It's
Speaker 1: amazing and hilarious. One of the funniest books I've ever read.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's today, if a seventeen role
Speaker 1: picked up that book, if it would be as funny
Speaker 1: to them as it was to It's not, but it
Speaker 1: established the genre. No one was talking with that kind
Speaker 1: of profanity personally about sex, and there would be no
Speaker 1: Woody Allen. If it wasn't even for that book, that's
Speaker 1: somewhat true. I could certainly see that that that progression,
Speaker 1: there would be a hilarity saved for that book. I
Speaker 1: think he started it all. But then if you look
Speaker 1: at his transformation, if you look at some of his
Speaker 1: later ones, like Indignation, they could be too totally different
Speaker 1: human beings. Um, what's the most recent book he just
Speaker 1: put out? I guess would it be Indignation? I mean
Speaker 1: they just made that into it? What was the one
Speaker 1: right before that? Every? Okay? So uh, you know these
Speaker 1: last several books have been thinner, sparer moving plot against America.
Speaker 1: You know everyone's been pointing to that as what foreshadow
Speaker 1: what happened last night? Um? So I think he really
Speaker 1: was and is the most worthy author of the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 1: And um, one day he'll get his due. I really
Speaker 1: like a French offer Michelle Welbeck, who's just mind blowing,
Speaker 1: and just his last couple not so much. But um,
Speaker 1: what what's your favorite title of this? I like a
Speaker 1: lot of people like Adamized, but mine is Platform is
Speaker 1: a novel he wrote which really blew me away. Just
Speaker 1: I think he he's fearless he broke a lot of
Speaker 1: norms with that. UM a nonfiction book which really moved me,
Speaker 1: and I gotta say probably really recommend anyone is Zuned
Speaker 1: by Dave Eggers. This is about someone who survived Hurricane Katrina,
Speaker 1: Muslim man. What happened to him? Muslim building contractor who
Speaker 1: and this is nonfiction nonfiction zits z Tun the fellow's
Speaker 1: last name. Great guy who was saving people at businesses
Speaker 1: and treated quite unfairly by the authorities. Who he was.
Speaker 1: UM that movements one can imagine how that plays out.
Speaker 1: That moved me. UM. I really liked UM. I just
Speaker 1: read Jonathan Saffran Four's new novel here I Am. I
Speaker 1: liked a lot, especially as it went on. It was
Speaker 1: very thought provoking. UM. Sacred Games is a Man Booker
Speaker 1: Prize runner up from India from Chandra that really someone
Speaker 1: else referenced victim genre and I don't remember who it was.
Speaker 1: I'll have to have to take a closer look. Great
Speaker 1: novel and I really liked it. Really, I still think
Speaker 1: about it's so creative that the Yiddish Policeman's Union, the
Speaker 1: Shabon book where it's an alternative history. My wife read it.
Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't gotten so after the war World
Speaker 1: War two, Israel is not created and instead the US
Speaker 1: gives homeland to Jews and and sit Calaska, and how
Speaker 1: that all develops, and there's a there's a fuse on
Speaker 1: it because they it's gonna end after I think it
Speaker 1: was fifty years the gift of the franchise, so um.
Speaker 1: But the world he created the way he wrote that
Speaker 1: that book. Really, you know, there's been a run of
Speaker 1: alternative historical realities. The frame of reference for me has
Speaker 1: always been Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle,
Speaker 1: which a talk show host wakes up and the is
Speaker 1: surprised to discover that World War Two didn't play out
Speaker 1: the way we all recall. The US lost to Germany
Speaker 1: and Japan, who have divided up the US and are
Speaker 1: um in the process of absorbing it to the parent
Speaker 1: company countries. And it's just he's infamous for multiple layers
Speaker 1: of reality. But I love the concept. I just started
Speaker 1: watching it a couple of months ago, and it's I
Speaker 1: thought the quality of of how it looks in the
Speaker 1: set design, and they really didn't admit you could see
Speaker 1: there's some real money beyond. We were talking about this earlier.
Speaker 1: They are not afraid to spend money on stuff and
Speaker 1: it and that made the difference because you know what,
Speaker 1: if you cheaped out on showing graphically what this alternative
Speaker 1: universe would not have worked. You had to get a
Speaker 1: certain tone and a certain tenor, and the way it
Speaker 1: looks and feels, and the way they do the maps
Speaker 1: and some of the I conography, and the way like
Speaker 1: they the Nazi symbols are Nazi symbols, but it's not
Speaker 1: just black and red swastika's. It's yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: little it's much more interesting and sophisticated. Then I think
Speaker 1: they nailed it. I mean to me that after seeing that,
Speaker 1: that's when I really started developing this theory. It's not original.
Speaker 1: I guess that in that kind of format, with that
Speaker 1: kind of money, where you're not doing commercials where you
Speaker 1: could do it a a hundred eighteen minute episode or whatever,
Speaker 1: they're just taking storytelling the whole different place than Basic cable,
Speaker 1: and certainly that broadcasts can Season two is kind of
Speaker 1: On December, I was gonna say, I'm almost done with
Speaker 1: season one, and uh, I'll binge it over the holidays
Speaker 1: and and get ready for season two. I've also loved
Speaker 1: some of the comedies like Catastrophe, which is so interesting
Speaker 1: and just not anything you would ever see on on
Speaker 1: US television. And I used to love these shows on
Speaker 1: on BBC, like Coupling was this hilarious. You always thought
Speaker 1: Friends was kind of toothless. It was just a randy,
Speaker 1: funny version of a uniquely British version of of of
Speaker 1: six young people engaging and everything they engage in, and
Speaker 1: they tried to do in the United States and they
Speaker 1: just and then they actually turned that concept. If you've
Speaker 1: watched the Matt LeBlanc Show episodes, it's about bringing over
Speaker 1: this really intelligent, well written show from London, uh in
Speaker 1: in a a boys school with all the class issues
Speaker 1: and everything else, and they bring it over the US
Speaker 1: and they make the headmaster into a hockey coach, like
Speaker 1: they couldn't dumb it down anymore. And then it's about
Speaker 1: the battle between the writers the actors, and it's very
Speaker 1: much a I loved Larry Sanders show. This is very
Speaker 1: much long the uh but I'm supposed to be asking
Speaker 1: you about books, not talking about television. UM, any other
Speaker 1: books you want to reference, nonfiction or fiction? UM, that's
Speaker 1: that's a good run. Yeah, I'm reading the Association of
Speaker 1: Small Bombs. Is that the novel that was also I
Speaker 1: think a man Booker runner up? Was it this year
Speaker 1: or that last? I just started it. See, I wish
Speaker 1: I had more time for novels. What I read is
Speaker 1: non fiction or biography, your history or or market related.
Speaker 1: But um, I have a list of novels. I'm just
Speaker 1: dynastis you know the travel I had to do that.
Speaker 1: I traveled so much abroad twelve hours. This is the
Speaker 1: only reason I've been able to read. And this is
Speaker 1: the only reason that I literally is flying back from Asia.
Speaker 1: And I'm not boasting or maybe I sound pathetic, but
Speaker 1: I watched all ten episodes of Man High Castle, all
Speaker 1: of them. I'm one trip back. I watched ten hours
Speaker 1: worth of it. I couldn't put it down. That that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. Are you using physical books or is it
Speaker 1: a kindle or no? I really, um, if it's important
Speaker 1: to me, especially fiction, I'll only it's gonna be my
Speaker 1: old school little thing. I'm always only going to use
Speaker 1: the physical book. I have a kindle in my my briefcase.
Speaker 1: But if I'm home and I want to read something
Speaker 1: like you're traveling, I don't. I used to go vacation,
Speaker 1: I bring eight books. I'd read four of them. You're
Speaker 1: dragging like a whole suitcase full of books. Now that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. You have a vacation, you bring a kindle,
Speaker 1: but it's still not the same as if it's not
Speaker 1: the same, and I'd like finishing the book. I like
Speaker 1: putting in my bookshelf. We're doing that for years, you know.
Speaker 1: In in some ways, I suppose it's like people who
Speaker 1: do deals and they want their loose sight que. You know,
Speaker 1: it's your loose cue if you read it, I remember
Speaker 1: read it, and uh, I hope we don't know that.
Speaker 1: Um alright, So beyond books, we we talked about what's
Speaker 1: changed in the industry. What do you think the next
Speaker 1: shifts are going to be in in streaming video, video
Speaker 1: and demands and just generally in in entertainment and content creation.
Speaker 1: So I was at a conference recently and I was
Speaker 1: in a minority. They said, will TV be all apps? Apps?
Speaker 1: All apps? All apps? And I said yes, And people say,
Speaker 1: that's that's far fetched. But let me explain by what
Speaker 1: I mean. UM, right now, he's proprietary, non internet technologies
Speaker 1: to not stream but but transmit cable to your household,
Speaker 1: broadcast or or these are not scalable efficient technologies. They're
Speaker 1: going to come under more pressure as the markets decline
Speaker 1: because you just because of cost, because of cost, and
Speaker 1: because of scale, because less and less people are going
Speaker 1: to be using it. Now streaming is uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: self improving every day. If you want to improve your
Speaker 1: cable network overnight and do a whole bunch of things,
Speaker 1: you may have to take out boxes, rip out chords.
Speaker 1: Internet's very different, it's becoming very robust. So the future,
Speaker 1: which I think is not too long from now, everything
Speaker 1: will be streamed. It may look like you can watch
Speaker 1: CNN and it looks like linear and at whatever. But
Speaker 1: soon I think the whole technological base of TV will
Speaker 1: be based on IP protocol. So in a sense that
Speaker 1: is an app alright, you may not have to download.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like you buy it in the it's
Speaker 1: not it's not the same. It's not the same, and
Speaker 1: it's I P. And that will lead us to a
Speaker 1: whole world where uh, you can do You'll be able
Speaker 1: to do amazing things with your channel, not even watch
Speaker 1: a channel. You'll be able to watch the on demand elements,
Speaker 1: the social commentary elements. I think that's where it's all going.
Speaker 1: So that's why I say the world is going to
Speaker 1: be looking more like apps then it looks today. And
Speaker 1: and my last two and favorite questions. If if a
Speaker 1: millennial or recent college grad came to you and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in a career in television and video and content,
Speaker 1: what sort of advice would you give that, I'd say
Speaker 1: digital social marketing is whoever figures that out and knows
Speaker 1: it the way. Don Draper new advertising is going to
Speaker 1: do really well in life because that conventional way of
Speaker 1: advertising is going gone with that next generation. Um, that's
Speaker 1: a big business, UM, I think. And then content creation
Speaker 1: and just really being on the cutting edge of that, UM,
Speaker 1: we'll continue. People are always gonna want to see good
Speaker 1: TV in the US tends to except excel at that
Speaker 1: are are the difference between US and a lot of
Speaker 1: other places in the world aren't as big as it
Speaker 1: was twenty years ago because the technology is now closing
Speaker 1: that gap and allowing people to you know, go into
Speaker 1: a Mac and and create things that would have required
Speaker 1: a twenty million dollar investment in an Avid and a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other things back ten years ago. So, um,
Speaker 1: I think those are the two areas. And then in
Speaker 1: my final question, what is it that you know about
Speaker 1: content video overseas licensing today that you wish you knew
Speaker 1: when you started this career path twenty plus years ago? Um,
Speaker 1: I would have gone much much even though we knew
Speaker 1: the Internet everyone says is gonna eat our launch. Um,
Speaker 1: you eventually will. I would have personally gone much bigger
Speaker 1: into all of these stocks back in the mid nineties. Um,
Speaker 1: despite the dot com crash. Yeah, yeah, you gotta hang
Speaker 1: in there if you believe, because I think so. We
Speaker 1: always my whole career have been talking about how the
Speaker 1: Internet is really going to change everything. But now we're
Speaker 1: seeing it, and I think people thought it's going to
Speaker 1: profoundly change everything. But in my view, in the next
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's five, ten or fifteen years,
Speaker 1: it is going to be everything. And so how far
Speaker 1: along the transition from analog to digital from I love
Speaker 1: the expression meat space to online. How far along that
Speaker 1: process are we? So you know there used to be
Speaker 1: the last mile that there was the last hundred feet,
Speaker 1: there's less ten feet, which is about six seven years ago,
Speaker 1: and then that was breached. Now I call it the
Speaker 1: last three seconds of patients. That's it, because now you
Speaker 1: get these apps and your TV. It's kind of confusing,
Speaker 1: but each new generation TSE makes a lot and lot
Speaker 1: more seamless. The minute becomes entirely you don't even have
Speaker 1: to think about what you're pressing, and you don't know
Speaker 1: if it's Netflix or if it's CNN Live. That changes everything,
Speaker 1: And you know what, that's the easiest part. It took
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars to wire the world with fiber optics.
Speaker 1: That was the last got you the last mile. Then
Speaker 1: to get you to that last ten feet, people were
Speaker 1: digging up your driveways. I remember FiOS was in my
Speaker 1: house for a week and a half. I don't know
Speaker 1: how they ever made money off of putting me onto files.
Speaker 1: But now this last thing, this is gonna be This
Speaker 1: is happening right now, and someone's gonna really figure out
Speaker 1: how to integrate all of these experiences seamlessly over your
Speaker 1: television set, over your devices, and it's game over and
Speaker 1: it's a different game. Then that's where it's all going. Bruce,
Speaker 1: thank you for doing this and being so generous with
Speaker 1: your time we've been speaking with Bruce Tuckman. He was
Speaker 1: with MGM International, amc UM Global and a number of
Speaker 1: other channels he helped bring worldwide. If you enjoy this conversation,
Speaker 1: be sure you look up an inch or down an
Speaker 1: inch on Apple iTunes and you could see the other
Speaker 1: hundred and something plus UH shows we've done. Uh. Be
Speaker 1: sure and right us. We love to hear your comments,
Speaker 1: feedbacks and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss if I
Speaker 1: did not thank Taylor Riggs, our booker, and Michael Batnick,
Speaker 1: our head of research, for helping to produce everything you've
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