Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety.
Speaker 1: Today's episode features highlights from two lively and informative panels
Speaker 1: that Variety hosted on September twenty fifth at our annual
Speaker 1: Entertainment and Technology conference in Los Angeles. The day was
Speaker 1: packed with great speakers who got right to the point
Speaker 1: of the day, the intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Last week's Strictly Business episode featured the opening panel of
Speaker 1: the Entertainment and Technology event, a session I moderated with
Speaker 1: the group of heavyweight TV and streaming executives. This week's
Speaker 1: installment opens with highlights from the final session of the day.
Speaker 1: My great colleague Mark Malkin, Vrighty's senior editor of Culture
Speaker 1: and Events, moderated in session with the fabulous representative sample
Speaker 1: of successful digital media entrepreneurs slash Personalities. Then after that
Speaker 1: we'll hear a slice of my conversation with streaming pioneer
Speaker 1: Jack Perry, CEO of ZEM and the inimitable John Stamos.
Speaker 1: The two spoke with me about their partnership on the
Speaker 1: zine's streaming platform, which is in the middle of a
Speaker 1: very ambitious buildout. Mark's conversation with the six Digital multi
Speaker 1: hyphenates ranges widely, and it can be hard to keep
Speaker 1: track of who's who unless you happen to be a
Speaker 1: super fan of all of them. But it's really more
Speaker 1: about listening to the points they make on how younger
Speaker 1: and older millennials view their opportunities in the entertainment arena
Speaker 1: these days. Mark also gets them to talk about their
Speaker 1: own entertainment and social media habits and preferences. Regular listeners
Speaker 1: of Strictly Business know that I love nothing more than
Speaker 1: talking to everyday people at conferences and fan conventions about
Speaker 1: what they watch, how they watch, when they watch at all.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, So enjoy the ride here as Mark converses
Speaker 1: with Nicole Byer, host of Why Don't You Date Me?
Speaker 1: Aaron and Sarah Foster, executive producers of Nobody Wants This,
Speaker 1: and hosts of the world's first podcast, Matt Rogers, host
Speaker 1: of Las Culturistas, Jake Shane, host of therapust and Benito Skinner, creator, writer,
Speaker 1: executive producer and star of Overcompensating and host of Ride.
Speaker 2: Here's the panel, so let's do a little introduction. Nicole
Speaker 2: Bayer host Why Don't You Date Me?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 4: This is their podcast?
Speaker 2: Aaron Foster, Sarah Foster, EP Nobody Wants This and host
Speaker 2: of the World's First podcast, Thanks Sarah.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Aaron Fosser, creator, writer and EP of Nobody Wants This
Speaker 2: and host the World's First Put Put Jake Shane, host
Speaker 2: of Therapists, Benito Skinner, creator writer, EP actor Compensating and
Speaker 2: host Ride. And Matt Rogers He Does Like Everything Also,
Speaker 2: and hosts of Last Say Them All.
Speaker 4: Chapter, Makeup Artists, costume designer, influencer or host Lost Carter Recess.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody. I want to start off with just asking
Speaker 2: about the platforms, the apps that you guys are scrolling
Speaker 2: the most. I want to know where are you looking
Speaker 2: for stories? What are you enjoying the most?
Speaker 5: I love Instagram. I love it so much. Give me pictures,
Speaker 5: give me videos. I'm happy.
Speaker 2: What about you, Sarah?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think Instagram obviously is the place
Speaker 3: that I am the most. It moves the needle the most.
Speaker 3: I think for our businesses. It's football season, so I'm
Speaker 3: on YouTube a lot.
Speaker 5: No, you go on Twitter a lot too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I don't know the algorithm is.
Speaker 6: I'm so curious to see what the I mean, Nicole,
Speaker 6: you're much younger than us two, but we're like the
Speaker 6: young people think of us saying Instagram because I do
Speaker 6: think it makes us seem old, because Instagram is like millennials,
Speaker 6: and it is the only platform I look at. And
Speaker 6: then when I'm feeling like really disgusting and dirty, I'll
Speaker 6: go on the Daily Mail just to like feel really
Speaker 6: bad about myself. And now they've changed it up where
Speaker 6: like most of the interesting things are like exclusives you
Speaker 6: have to pay, and I'm like, I'm obviously not going
Speaker 6: to pay for that. But on a dark day, like
Speaker 6: you never know, I.
Speaker 7: Also read the Daily Mail, but only on like the
Speaker 7: Snapchat daily mail app.
Speaker 5: Yeah, honestly, I think darker.
Speaker 7: It's awesome.
Speaker 5: I guarantee you Aaron does not have a same.
Speaker 7: No, they pick out the they pick out the best stories.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 2: He just read you so much.
Speaker 1: I don't even have Snapchat.
Speaker 7: It's amazing, and I read the ones I'm most interested in,
Speaker 7: but I use TikTok the most probably or sometimes Twitter.
Speaker 7: I just think it's interesting. I like all the charte
Speaker 7: accounts that talk about different pop girls. Yeah, so same.
Speaker 5: I feel like Instagram was my first love.
Speaker 7: I love it so much so that and then I'm
Speaker 7: on TikTok a lot, I would say.
Speaker 8: And then I don't even go near Twitter because I
Speaker 8: can't hate myself more. Yeah, deeply Instagram, I'm the same.
Speaker 8: And also I'm gonna give like a millennial answer too.
Speaker 8: I guess an aging millennial answer here, like the end
Speaker 8: Dell Sleep app is everything, like all sorts of soundscapes.
Speaker 5: And I'm a YouTube person too. I will just refresh
Speaker 5: the YouTube.
Speaker 8: I think I'm part of the problem, like not watching
Speaker 8: TV because I will just refresh YouTube and that's the day.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, do any of you watch TV? Yeah?
Speaker 8: I watched over compensating Sason, one of them run, I
Speaker 8: did it. I saw on Instagram the new trailer where
Speaker 8: nobody wants this today?
Speaker 5: I'm better.
Speaker 9: Hello.
Speaker 2: Obviously all of you are on multiple platforms. How do
Speaker 2: you decide what goes to what platform?
Speaker 5: Length of the clip.
Speaker 6: Well, I was just wondering how many platforms there are,
Speaker 6: like where does it go? Because I don't really know.
Speaker 8: I couldn't think of anything besides Instagram for the app question.
Speaker 5: So I don't know, I like.
Speaker 9: Don't utilize or sorry you go you first.
Speaker 3: I would way rather hear from you about platforms because
Speaker 3: I really.
Speaker 7: Am for Instagram, it usually is just photos. I don't
Speaker 7: really sometimes all do videos, but most I really just
Speaker 7: kind of do the distinction. Well, if it's a photo,
Speaker 7: I'll do Instagram. If it's a video, I'll do TikTok.
Speaker 7: And that's really just as simple as it is for me.
Speaker 1: It's a really scientific method.
Speaker 3: I feel like we have this conversation all the time
Speaker 3: is how best to utilize social.
Speaker 5: Media to our advantage?
Speaker 3: Right, we have a fashion brand, we have a podcast,
Speaker 3: we have you know stuff.
Speaker 9: But the truth is we don't do a good job
Speaker 9: with it.
Speaker 3: We don't have social media managers. Anything you see is
Speaker 3: just us like all right, like let's put it out there,
Speaker 3: but we don't.
Speaker 9: And of course Instagram for favorite daughter.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think we do a very good job
Speaker 3: on actually like utilizing. I think we have ten people
Speaker 3: watching on YouTube.
Speaker 9: Of our podcast.
Speaker 5: Like that's not a joke.
Speaker 10: Like I do this like really cool trick where I
Speaker 10: post the same thing on Instagram and TikTok, so I
Speaker 10: don't have to think.
Speaker 2: And apparently if you post it on LinkedIn, you're only
Speaker 2: supposed to do it once a week.
Speaker 3: LinkedIn is not trying to see a bunch of posts.
Speaker 5: I've never had a real job. I don't know what
Speaker 5: LinkedIn is.
Speaker 9: LinkedIn is such a mystreet to me?
Speaker 10: Oh no, I went from Lane Bryant to the TV.
Speaker 5: You guys can be batting.
Speaker 6: LinkedIn is actually thriving, though i'd actually descriving. It's not
Speaker 6: like Facebook, like with where you're like, oh, who's on there,
Speaker 6: my aunt?
Speaker 5: No, it's like LinkedIn.
Speaker 3: I'm building another business right now and I have single
Speaker 3: handedly put all the pieces together through LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: Where do you see your storytelling going? Someone says to you,
Speaker 2: whatever you want to do, it's greenlit. You have all
Speaker 2: the money in the world. What story would you tell
Speaker 2: and how would you tell it?
Speaker 8: Well, mine definitely wouldn't be about myself.
Speaker 5: I think that that's one thing I'm like done with
Speaker 5: is I feel like that's like out there already.
Speaker 8: And I do think that that's one thing that is
Speaker 8: a little bit of a bummer of when you tend
Speaker 8: to pop off as a like a an Instagram not Instagram,
Speaker 8: a podcast situation or that type of deal is because
Speaker 8: they're like, oh, we love you, we want more of you,
Speaker 8: and it's kind of like you got me girl, like
Speaker 8: i'd be I can't say another thing. You ask me
Speaker 8: who I follow, and I'm like, what have I not
Speaker 8: already said? You know, I would love to do something
Speaker 8: that was very different from me, so and I plan to.
Speaker 1: I really want to tell.
Speaker 6: More relationship stories from different perspectives and kind of I
Speaker 6: don't know if you guys feel this way, but I
Speaker 6: think when one thing really takes off, it makes you
Speaker 6: feel like you not in a way to chase something,
Speaker 6: but that you want to prove to yourself you could
Speaker 6: do it again, you know, on purpose instead it's not
Speaker 6: a fluke. And so I have that for sure in
Speaker 6: my head.
Speaker 3: But I feel like for us, like through our production company,
Speaker 3: we've always been like what's our flea bag? You know,
Speaker 3: like Aaron's like Phoebe waller Bridge, and we're kind of
Speaker 3: like I think we've spent a lot of our lives
Speaker 3: sort of resisting maybe who we are a lot and
Speaker 3: trying fighting to be taken seriously, and you know, I
Speaker 3: fought to be taken seriously as an actress for so
Speaker 3: long it never really happened.
Speaker 5: And it could still. It could still happen.
Speaker 3: But we talk about this all the time, like we're
Speaker 3: living in such hustle culture, right, It's like when is
Speaker 3: enough enough? It's like you got to have the podcast,
Speaker 3: you gotta have the brand. Oh you didn't sell any shows.
Speaker 5: That's bad, you know.
Speaker 3: It's just like it's like when when can you actually
Speaker 3: sit back and go okay, like I want to I
Speaker 3: want to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Speaker 1: Like it's all literally what.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, I was gonna say.
Speaker 6: It just made me think that something that people don't
Speaker 6: talk about enough is that work life.
Speaker 5: Balance is really important to me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I only like to work with other people
Speaker 6: who respect work life balance. And when you go home
Speaker 6: and you're in bed with your partner by yourself watching TV,
Speaker 6: I have a baby at home, and it's really shaken
Speaker 6: up what I prioritize. And there's this culture of bragging
Speaker 6: on how little sleep you got or responding to everything
Speaker 6: in real time. And I've gotten more comfortable where if
Speaker 6: I get a text at eight thirty at night, I
Speaker 6: am not afraid to say guys, I'm watching Real Houswards
Speaker 6: of Miami with my husband and that's our me time
Speaker 6: and I'll get back to you at eight am tomorrow
Speaker 6: and everything will be fine. And I don't want to
Speaker 6: feel embarrassed by that. And I think the more you
Speaker 6: do it and prioritize your life, the more it gives
Speaker 6: other people permission to do that. And I just think
Speaker 6: we need to spend time with our friends and family
Speaker 6: and by ourselves and not be so obsessed with always
Speaker 6: being on, because it's a recipe for a really unhealthy
Speaker 6: mental state.
Speaker 2: Nicole, what's your project? What's that dream project?
Speaker 10: My dream project obviously centered around myself. I love who
Speaker 10: I am. I think I'm fun. My best friend is
Speaker 10: to shar Zameida and we work together a lot. So
Speaker 10: I think a dream would be show or like a
Speaker 10: movie that we have written or created and we get to,
Speaker 10: you know, be in charge of it.
Speaker 5: I like telling love stories. I also love interviewing people
Speaker 5: about love.
Speaker 9: Jake.
Speaker 7: I think my dream would be to like write a
Speaker 7: show similar to you about myself and see where that goes.
Speaker 7: Meet like a definitely a comedy, dream coast star, dream coastar.
Speaker 7: I would love to do like improv alongside like Meg's altar.
Speaker 7: I think that would be awesome.
Speaker 2: Time's up, Thank you guys.
Speaker 1: Next up, we'll hear from ziem's Jack Perry and John Stamos.
Speaker 1: Stamos is a multi hyphenate who will, of course forever
Speaker 1: be a pop culture icon for his long run on
Speaker 1: ABC's nineteen ninety sitcom Full House. As such, Stamos was
Speaker 1: the perfect pitch man to star in a cheeky Super
Speaker 1: Bowl ad this year that was taken out by ZEEM
Speaker 1: to tout its broad offering of local TV station streaming signals.
Speaker 1: Stamos was impressed by the company and Perry's track record
Speaker 1: as a broadcast and technology pioneer. Stamos now serves as
Speaker 1: zem's Chief Innovation Officer. ZEEM right now is on a
Speaker 1: big push to offer live streamed original content built around comedians, musicians,
Speaker 1: and other types of performers. Here, Perry and Stamos talk
Speaker 1: about how they became partners, and they talk about all
Speaker 1: the promise that they see in this growing company.
Speaker 9: I met Jack and got introduced at ZEEM when they
Speaker 9: had me do Super Bowl a couple of years ago.
Speaker 9: I did a thing where I was saying we don't
Speaker 9: need We don't need gimmicks. Zem works so well by itself.
Speaker 9: And I'm sort of walking through and there's fire and
Speaker 9: I'm in a pool, and like, I'm not trying to pander,
Speaker 9: but I was really pandering. And then after I got
Speaker 9: to know Jack on that shoot, I said, let's.
Speaker 5: Do something else.
Speaker 9: We did like an eight minute sort of a sort
Speaker 9: of a Christopher guest style, a little ten minute thing
Speaker 9: about the two of us in zee.
Speaker 5: A little mockumentary.
Speaker 1: Actually, that's right, Jack, it's at the table for us
Speaker 1: about what zeem is and the two major polls of
Speaker 1: your business.
Speaker 11: Sure. So I started Zeem in two thousand and nine
Speaker 11: after I had sold my prior company, which wrote the
Speaker 11: authentication technology that sits between the satellite companies and the
Speaker 11: networks and all the local affiliates and really just make
Speaker 11: sure you get the right local channels. And so I
Speaker 11: thought looked at that and thought, well, streaming is next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in two thousand and nine, not many of us
Speaker 1: were saying streaming is next. We were just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to work YouTube well.
Speaker 11: And I learned the value of local there. And that's
Speaker 11: where John and I really bonded in the beginning is
Speaker 11: everybody is somewhere, they're from somewhere, they're going somewhere. There's
Speaker 11: things happening somewhere. So local news just made sense to
Speaker 11: lean in on that, and so we wrote the backbone
Speaker 11: to start streaming. We literally had no idea what the
Speaker 11: business model was going to be. But after about a
Speaker 11: year we had four hundred local TV stations on our
Speaker 11: backbone and they were just streaming to themselves because there
Speaker 11: was no business figured out yet. And so when you're
Speaker 11: watching local on Paramount Plus, and we power lots on
Speaker 11: Hulu and Fubo and lots of platforms, it's our backbone
Speaker 11: that goes into those local TV stations, pulls the broadcasts
Speaker 11: out and make sure you can stream them.
Speaker 5: That sounds simple, but it is not.
Speaker 8: No, it's not.
Speaker 9: And you know, I when they asked me to the commercial,
Speaker 9: I was like, what is this, zeam. I don't get it,
Speaker 9: you know, And it took me a while to sort
Speaker 9: of understand it. Just talking like that. It's sort of
Speaker 9: broad right now. We have an app on the phone
Speaker 9: and he has we broadcast local news and sports from
Speaker 9: all over the country. So if you want to see
Speaker 9: what's going on, in you know, your hometown, whatever, you
Speaker 9: go there, and then we're doing some you know, original programming.
Speaker 9: But we've really been kicking to the live situation.
Speaker 11: You know, local is the one constant no matter what
Speaker 11: business models rise up, you're always going to need local news, weather, sports.
Speaker 11: So on that side, we're just going to make a
Speaker 11: brain dead simple to get all your local channels. And
Speaker 11: I don't care if it's the CTV companies or the streamers.
Speaker 11: You want local come to us, We'll make it inexpensive
Speaker 11: and easy from there, that's where we're starting to build
Speaker 11: on the local original content side of things. We're pushing
Speaker 11: the envelope. We've done things as crazy as a ice
Speaker 11: fishing shanty in the middle of a national forest in
Speaker 11: the Upper Peninsula Michigan and live streaming. You know, two
Speaker 11: people sitting in a shanty ice fishing and we had
Speaker 11: people tuning in watching it.
Speaker 1: You think nothing's on folks ice fishing right there? Is
Speaker 1: that something you kind of did to see if you
Speaker 1: could do it?
Speaker 2: In part?
Speaker 11: Yes, But we also you know, as John and I
Speaker 11: started more about the content opportunity, it was clear to
Speaker 11: us live is the next great frontier and the more
Speaker 11: we can do live the better, and so we've got destination.
Speaker 11: John is leading on Destination Music.
Speaker 9: We have a studio in New York as well, on
Speaker 9: close to Times Square that we go in there on
Speaker 9: tour with the Beach Boys couple months ago, and I
Speaker 9: grabbed a few of the guys. I said, that's going
Speaker 9: to the studio. We flipped the switch and then we
Speaker 9: went on for an hour and just played acoustically, and
Speaker 9: you know, it was really a special thing. So there's
Speaker 9: so much going on with ZEEM.
Speaker 5: It is complicated.
Speaker 9: It's hard to wrap your head around. But I think
Speaker 9: there's so much opportunity there, especially as a creator and
Speaker 9: have a lot of creative friends over signing deals with people.
Speaker 9: There's a young comic that who I love, and we're
Speaker 9: going to do a live talk show with him and
Speaker 9: a late night talk show. We're doing Destination comedy. He's
Speaker 9: got a van to a three sixty van that goes live.
Speaker 9: We're doing music, and we're doing comedy and fishing in
Speaker 9: a hole somewhere.
Speaker 1: Can you sketch out those specifically, what you did with
Speaker 1: the Destination Comedy event, Explain why you did it and
Speaker 1: what you hoped it would represent for your capabilities.
Speaker 11: So I wanted to push the envelope on the technology.
Speaker 11: I wanted to get creative folks involved that had a
Speaker 11: network of their own that could then tell their friends
Speaker 11: to tune in and their contacts tune in. And I
Speaker 11: wanted to try to live stream for five straight days
Speaker 11: twenty four to seven. And I said, when you go
Speaker 11: to bed at night, park the van so it can
Speaker 11: see a logo of any kind. I don't care what
Speaker 11: it is. It could be a Marriott.
Speaker 9: Logo, it'd be Adidas for YouTube.
Speaker 11: The next time we'll have it pointed out Adidas shoes.
Speaker 11: Because if you look at well, you know we have
Speaker 11: an ad technology that you know, since John came out
Speaker 11: of the Flaming Pool and our Super Bowl commercial, we've
Speaker 11: done maybe seven billion ads that we've inserted into streams.
Speaker 11: We know that the advertising community is saying, hey, there's
Speaker 11: got to be something more, not just dynamic ad insertion,
Speaker 11: but what are the live branding opportunities we can participate in.
Speaker 11: So yes, when we unleashed the technology on a couple
Speaker 11: of comedians, we've said, go out there and do everything
Speaker 11: that you possibly can do so we can then go
Speaker 11: on the next generation of this programming and bring in
Speaker 11: advertisers ahead of time that are not necessarily looking for
Speaker 11: dynamic ad insertion, but to be a part of the
Speaker 11: Destination comedy family.
Speaker 1: Is there a world John where a touring comedian could
Speaker 1: monetize a.
Speaker 9: Tour that, yes, that's a good question. What I always
Speaker 9: chipped these guys with and girls is that he invented
Speaker 9: the technology called ads Sync that places ads throughout the
Speaker 9: day and all these local markets, so if a comic
Speaker 9: or a musician is going to be playing. We did
Speaker 9: it with the Beach Boys just to test out with
Speaker 9: a QR code, and we sold a lot of tickets
Speaker 9: at Jones Beach I think it was. But he went
Speaker 9: and got ten seconds here, fifteen seconds here that were
Speaker 9: not being used so for free. So that's what we
Speaker 9: would do with the comics of the touring musicians as well.
Speaker 9: That makes sense.
Speaker 11: So one of the things we did with Jeff Ross
Speaker 11: was we created one thirty second spot because he's done
Speaker 11: the take a Banana for the Ride tour on Broadway
Speaker 11: and so we took it. We said, just shoot a
Speaker 11: fun ad, send it to us. And I'm sure everyone
Speaker 11: here is familiar with the dreaded slate We'll be back
Speaker 11: in a moment, you know, enjoy this moment or whatever.
Speaker 11: That's because the ad wasn't sold, and so what we
Speaker 11: did in the case there was our ad Sync technology
Speaker 11: would then condense the ads. So because at the end
Speaker 11: when you see that slate, it's because there isn't an
Speaker 11: ad that fits.
Speaker 5: That feels like failure, honestly.
Speaker 11: Right, So we wrote something that very quickly said all right,
Speaker 11: grab the Jeff Ross ad. Take it from a thirty
Speaker 11: to or fifteen or fifteen down to six seconds, and
Speaker 11: then we placed it in there as well, and that
Speaker 11: actually proved very effective at increasing the fill rates for
Speaker 11: those ads, and you wouldn't see the slates.
Speaker 1: With your more original efforts. Are you actively trying to
Speaker 1: promote the Zeen brand or are you looking at like
Speaker 1: social as the kind of the vehicle to get your
Speaker 1: content out.
Speaker 11: I mean, that's a nice inflection point that we're at today,
Speaker 11: is you kind of get the social piece for free.
Speaker 1: Right, What do you think that a service like this
Speaker 1: can do in terms of just putting a spotlight on
Speaker 1: talent that may be very far away from New York
Speaker 1: or LA or Chicago comedy clubs or or any kind
Speaker 1: of performers. Do you feel like this could be a
Speaker 1: vehicle for discovery of talent?
Speaker 9: Yeah? Absolutely, I've been finding so many talented people on Instagram.
Speaker 9: In fact, we replaced one of the drummers in The
Speaker 9: Beach Boys a couple of years ago. I found the
Speaker 9: guy on Instagram. And you know, I have no problem
Speaker 9: at dming someone saying I'm a fan. I really like
Speaker 9: what you're doing, and I have.
Speaker 5: To believe people are like, this is not Jon. Times
Speaker 5: they alway.
Speaker 1: Takes a minute to convince them, no, I really am
Speaker 1: John's Damen. Yeah.
Speaker 9: That was with the Beach Boy guy. I DM him
Speaker 9: and said, hey, what are you doing this summer? You know?
Speaker 9: And he says, is this really you? And I filled
Speaker 9: my face time I said, we're looking for a drummer
Speaker 9: for the Beach Boys. Oh, you know, we're crazy. So
Speaker 9: I find more probably online than I do out in
Speaker 9: the world. But the talent is so incredible, and to
Speaker 9: reach out to someone and go, hey, you want to
Speaker 9: come over here and play in our sandbox and see
Speaker 9: what you got going over here. I've had so many
Speaker 9: mentors in my life, to start with the Jack Klugman
Speaker 9: and Gary Marshall and Don Rickles, and so I find
Speaker 9: myself being put in that position and sort of a
Speaker 9: pay it forward position really, and I'm just loving it.
Speaker 9: And now I have an avenue to go come over
Speaker 9: here and do this with us and come up with idea.
Speaker 1: And it seems like all your skills and your connections
Speaker 1: are coming into play in terms of being creative.
Speaker 9: Well one hundred percent. Yeah, we've met with a lot
Speaker 9: of the creative friends and also people in the business.
Speaker 9: Went over to Netflix and talk to them about what
Speaker 9: we're doing live and if we could be part of
Speaker 9: what they're doing. And we've met with a lot of
Speaker 9: agents and a lot of management companies, and everybody's very interesting.
Speaker 9: It's just they got it to figure out how can
Speaker 9: I fit into this world? And the more we get
Speaker 9: out there and pitch it, the more people are coming
Speaker 9: around going what about this?
Speaker 2: What about that?
Speaker 1: Well, the architecture of monetization, I'm sure helps helps with
Speaker 1: those conversations.
Speaker 5: Let's close by a little crystal.
Speaker 1: Ball gazing, all right, John, chief Innovation Officer, pressures on
Speaker 1: what's exciting you? What in the future is like, what
Speaker 1: in the near future are you excited to get your
Speaker 1: arms around and start playing with.
Speaker 9: One of the first things I said to him was like,
Speaker 9: I would love to see ZEEM as your home channel
Speaker 9: you turn on the TV instead of LG or whatever.
Speaker 9: You know, Apple, it will be it will be Zee
Speaker 9: and it would it would. I want something that would
Speaker 9: curate what I watch, what my wife watches, what I
Speaker 9: watch with our kids, and not have to pit there
Speaker 9: for twenty minutes on every platform and try to figure
Speaker 9: out how you do it and like a half hours
Speaker 9: gone by, and the hell, I'll just go to.
Speaker 5: Sleep, wind up watching Full House three runs. I do
Speaker 5: that a lot.
Speaker 9: But it would would just to have a link and
Speaker 9: it would just go hit the show, go to Netflix,
Speaker 9: go to Apple. And I don't think anybody's doing that.
Speaker 9: So that's my dream is to see it be your
Speaker 9: home screen and your place where you start in the
Speaker 9: morning and a place where you end it night.
Speaker 1: There is still an enormous opportunity in navigation.
Speaker 5: I will will watch ZEM to see how how you
Speaker 5: guys tackle That sounds good.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
Speaker 1: at the podcast platform of your choice.
Speaker 5: We love to hear from listeners.
Speaker 1: Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for
Speaker 1: the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to
Speaker 1: tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business
Speaker 1: s