Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Shut it down. New York is a union down.
Speaker 3: Oh, Sight, shut it down, New York. Oh shut it down.
Speaker 2: New York is down. Oh it's right, shun it down,
Speaker 2: New York Union.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 3: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 3: Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
Speaker 3: guests are my colleagues, varieties crack team of television and
Speaker 3: digital reporters and editors on the ground in New York.
Speaker 3: This team is always working around the clock, but they
Speaker 3: never work harder than they do during upfront Week, that is,
Speaker 3: the mid May frame when the largest media conglomerates present
Speaker 3: their programming plans for the upcoming season. Even and as
Speaker 3: I say that, it sounds anachronistic for the way TV
Speaker 3: works now, but the upfronts are a hi, how are
Speaker 3: you FaceTime tradition for the television business and the advertising industry,
Speaker 3: and I think that's still going to be a hard
Speaker 3: habit to quit in the coming years. The twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three marked an upfront's week like no other. As you'll
Speaker 3: hear in audio clips taken from various events that are
Speaker 3: woven into this podcast. Writers Guild of America pickets were
Speaker 3: out in force, making their voices heard as the Labored
Speaker 3: dispute rages on behind the velvet rope. There were plenty
Speaker 3: of other signs of the industry's difficult transition from linear
Speaker 3: to streaming. So let's dive into our roundtable discussion with
Speaker 3: Varieties Jennifer Mos, Joe Otterson, Todd Spangler, and Brian Steinberg.
Speaker 3: They have highlights and insights from Disney, Netflix, NBC, Universal, Fox,
Speaker 3: YouTube and more. Don't even think about touching that die.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back with all of that after this break.
Speaker 3: So here we are on Friday, May nineteenth, with the
Speaker 3: New York brain Trust of Varieties television coverage. Thank you
Speaker 3: all for the This is Variety's TV Avengers, TV and
Speaker 3: Digital Avengers, and I thank you all for assembling on
Speaker 3: a Friday when you probably just want to lie flat
Speaker 3: and recover after a week of upfronts and all its glory.
Speaker 3: So thank you, Todd, Brian, Joe, Jenny. Let's I throw
Speaker 3: this out as a jump ball for anybody who wants
Speaker 3: to grab it. I am very keenly watching the NBA
Speaker 3: playoffs go Lakers and jump ball for anybody who wants
Speaker 3: to take it. This was an upfront you're like no other.
Speaker 3: What was the mood out there in Midtown around the
Speaker 3: events around you know, inside and outside.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say it's it's a much more that
Speaker 1: the business is changing very quickly and the days of
Speaker 1: one and roses are probably over. These used to be
Speaker 1: very glitzy events where you could, you know, watch it
Speaker 1: for three hours, you know, listening to every every They
Speaker 1: used to fly in every celebrity from every show for
Speaker 1: a personal meet and greet, and he was there to
Speaker 1: serve you shrimp and lobster to your heart's contented afterwards.
Speaker 2: The parts you're fading away.
Speaker 1: The glitz is fading away because the entire business is
Speaker 1: being driven not by linear TV schedules but by digital
Speaker 1: streaming and concerns about how to get bigger audiences. These
Speaker 1: you know, the advertisers who buy TV want to get
Speaker 1: big audiences so they can reach thousands of people in
Speaker 1: one spoop. We not have to spend X number of
Speaker 1: dollars to get one person here and one person there.
Speaker 1: The big things to do that these days are sports
Speaker 1: live spectacles and some streaming stuff. But The idea that
Speaker 1: a drama is in a you know, at ten of class,
Speaker 1: gonna do that for you anymore is kind of gone.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of what the network to produce
Speaker 1: for years, dramas.
Speaker 2: In comedies from eight to eleven. Now prime time is
Speaker 2: anyone's prime time.
Speaker 1: You know, my primetime might be one in the morning
Speaker 1: when I said nothing to Dow versus my kid's prime
Speaker 1: time might be fioclotin afternoon. The networks have to adjust,
Speaker 1: and they are doing so by focusing more on streaming,
Speaker 1: more on algorithms, more on software, and more on technology.
Speaker 2: It helps pinpoint where your commercial should go. Some of
Speaker 2: the creativities coming out of that.
Speaker 1: And it's all about science and technology, and as such,
Speaker 1: it's not as exciting as it used to be.
Speaker 4: Outside.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that it was, you know, in my in my
Speaker 5: own limited experience, it was definitely more subdued than in
Speaker 5: years past. It definitely seemed like people were almost holding
Speaker 5: their breath. I mean, just again with everything happening with
Speaker 5: the writer's strike, and like you know, even though like
Speaker 5: Brian said, like you know, the fall schedule isn't necessarily
Speaker 5: the key component that it used to be, but I
Speaker 5: think there was a lot of people kind of wondering.
Speaker 5: It's like, well, what's where are we going to be
Speaker 5: and in three months and six months what is this
Speaker 5: going to look like? And there just wasn't a lot
Speaker 5: of certainty around anything. It's like, of course there's gonna
Speaker 5: be you can have certainty around sports, you can have
Speaker 5: certainty around your own scripted programming.
Speaker 6: But it's just.
Speaker 5: That's not you know, like he said that, that's not
Speaker 5: the glitzy stuff that people really like, you know, really
Speaker 5: want to see. I feel like, you know, there was
Speaker 5: a lot of really good response to some of the
Speaker 5: sports stars and people who came out, but it's just,
Speaker 5: you know, it wasn't quite as fun as when you
Speaker 5: have like actors and comedians kind of out there, like
Speaker 5: working the crowd and kind of having fun with it.
Speaker 5: So I think there was definitely the energy level was
Speaker 5: down compared to past years.
Speaker 1: I mean two of Foxy shows they showed that dramas
Speaker 1: had no clips and no cast attached, just like goodttle montage,
Speaker 1: just a little video montage.
Speaker 2: It could should feel like this, here's a feel for but.
Speaker 3: You trust us it's gonna be great.
Speaker 2: That's not that's not how you get prop and Dale
Speaker 2: will buy your shows.
Speaker 7: But Brian, you're saying that even before the strike, you know,
Speaker 7: this season, the the glitzy shrimp cocktail festivities had been
Speaker 7: on the decline.
Speaker 2: Well, Paramount pulled out before the strike happens. I mean
Speaker 2: that's I think.
Speaker 1: I think this art last year where I think these
Speaker 1: shows are less import than the technology they need to
Speaker 1: serve commercial you know, they serve ads. It's not I
Speaker 1: used to tell you how, you know, adagans was all
Speaker 1: about you know, crazy spokespeople and funny spokes characters and
Speaker 1: jingles and you know, big stunts and they're still there.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's not it's about finding the right
Speaker 1: placement for your ad within with where.
Speaker 8: With digital audiences and interactive technology.
Speaker 9: This year, obviously with the strike it was different, but
Speaker 9: it seemed like early in the week they were very
Speaker 9: heavy with the picket lines. The first and biggest picket
Speaker 9: line of the week was NBC Universal.
Speaker 4: It was the most high profile.
Speaker 9: It was out of out front of Radio City. There
Speaker 9: were about two hundred people. They had some chance that
Speaker 9: were catchy and went with NBCU. And then it kind
Speaker 9: of noticed that it would get smaller throughout the week.
Speaker 9: As it went on, And I think one of the
Speaker 9: reasons for that isn't necessarily that the passion died off
Speaker 9: or like people, but what happened is the focus has
Speaker 9: gone from just like trying to make a statement in
Speaker 9: front of advertisers, they're shutting down a lot of productions.
Speaker 9: And you can't shut down a production.
Speaker 4: From outside of an upfront.
Speaker 9: You can make a statement and be in front of
Speaker 9: advertisers and be in front of cameras, but if a
Speaker 9: lot of the focus is actually on making these companies hurt,
Speaker 9: when they're just kind of trying to do their best
Speaker 9: to ignore you outside the upfront, the way you're actually
Speaker 9: attacking them and getting at them is shutting down these productions.
Speaker 9: So I think they were doing a good job of
Speaker 9: actually putting their resources towards where.
Speaker 4: It was going to make the biggest difference.
Speaker 9: So the strike was still there, the picket lines were
Speaker 9: definitely there, but it got smaller throughout the weekend.
Speaker 3: I also want to ask you in terms of the mood,
Speaker 3: that truly the mood like after the event. Of course,
Speaker 3: the upfronts are an enormous amount of work for people.
Speaker 3: It's exhausting reading up to it and afterwards. But what
Speaker 3: would you say the executives, your contacts and the people executives, producers,
Speaker 3: what was the mood? I gotta believe, you know, it's
Speaker 3: kind of similarly unsettled.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd say I'd say so for the again without
Speaker 5: naming any names, I mean, the few people that I
Speaker 5: spoke with, I mean, they almost just kind of seemed
Speaker 5: to be glad that they were done with everything. You know,
Speaker 5: it's kind of like, you know, we kind of have
Speaker 5: to be here for this. And again not saying specific companies,
Speaker 5: this happened to specific people, but just it was.
Speaker 6: Very much they were very worried.
Speaker 5: More so like it was almost like we're glad we
Speaker 5: got through this without anything worse happening than like, you know,
Speaker 5: like you didn't have like WGA members trying to storm
Speaker 5: the stage or something. I think they were just worried
Speaker 5: there's gonna be some kind of big, embarrassing public spectacle
Speaker 5: with their name attached to it, which obviously, you know,
Speaker 5: like the thing people fear most is a bad headline.
Speaker 9: Talking to people after, they'd be like, we did it,
Speaker 9: we got through it. We finished the presentation that probably
Speaker 9: did not have a lot of talent in it those
Speaker 9: very sports or news focused, as Brian said, and just
Speaker 9: going through it and being like we hit the beast
Speaker 9: that we need to hit. It's over now and we
Speaker 9: can go to the party, or we can we did,
Speaker 9: we checked off the box, we did the presentation, we
Speaker 9: got it done, and now that's over.
Speaker 4: Thank god. That seemed to be the opinion of a
Speaker 4: lot of different people.
Speaker 5: Or if your fox, you can just reopen the bar,
Speaker 5: because they had the bar open and the presentation and
Speaker 5: they reopened the bar afterwards. That's a little mixed there.
Speaker 3: They know, they know their audience. Yeah, Todd, we're talking
Speaker 3: obviously mostly about this past up front week, the week
Speaker 3: of May fifteenth, but I know you ventured out into
Speaker 3: the New fronts a number of times. That was due
Speaker 3: to a couple of you. What would you say? What would
Speaker 3: you say was the mood there? And what would how
Speaker 3: would you what was your impressions from what you gathered
Speaker 3: of the of the traditional broadcast upfronts, which of course
Speaker 3: include a lot more platforms.
Speaker 7: Now the New fronts. Boy, they've really tried to make
Speaker 7: a COVID. It's it's just really penned the uh, the
Speaker 7: redheaded step child of the of the Upfront's big brother.
Speaker 7: So you know this this year. YouTube did a small
Speaker 7: presentation at the New Fronts earlier this month, but they,
Speaker 7: for the second year in a row, wanted to be
Speaker 7: part of the TV up Front Week, so they you know,
Speaker 7: had their event at Lincoln Center David Geffen Hall on Wednesday.
Speaker 7: By the way, I was looking for for writers, strikers,
Speaker 7: no picket line, nobody in sight, because YouTube creators aren't unionized.
Speaker 7: I mean maybe some of them are, and there have
Speaker 7: been attempts to have you know, Internet creator unions, but
Speaker 7: those those, as far as they know, haven't really gone anywhere.
Speaker 7: But the YouTube is is an outlier in this group, right,
Speaker 7: I mean, even compared with net Flix. And I'm sure
Speaker 7: we'll talk a little bit more about Netflix in a second,
Speaker 7: but YouTube doesn't really produce content. They rely on their creators.
Speaker 7: I mean, they did have kind of a traditional feeling
Speaker 7: upfront thing because Roger Goodell walked out on stage and said.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm a the NFL Fanfare and you.
Speaker 7: Know, he said his candor marks and you know, try
Speaker 7: to get people excited about not just buying ads in
Speaker 7: Sunday ticket but in the live NFL games. But you know,
Speaker 7: The pitch from YouTube is you can buy football, you
Speaker 7: know in all of these different channels right on YouTube
Speaker 7: creators who they're going to send you know, they're sending
Speaker 7: mister Beast into the locker room of some of these
Speaker 7: NFL teams too, and he's got one hundred and fifty
Speaker 7: three million followers, so.
Speaker 3: I hope they tell the players.
Speaker 7: Yeah. The interesting thing to me, the takeaway that I
Speaker 7: had from YouTube was like, it's like YouTube. I mean,
Speaker 7: YouTube is like TV used to be. They have this
Speaker 7: tremendous reach. They have one hundred and fifty million viewers.
Speaker 7: Well that was in the month of December. Who knows
Speaker 7: how long they're watching or what they're watching, because you know,
Speaker 7: it's not really directly comfortable to Nielsen TV ratings. But
Speaker 7: here's YouTube saying, look, we've got every kind of content
Speaker 7: that people want to watch, and that includes you know
Speaker 7: the YouTube TV, traditional pay TV packaged Oh hey, advertisers,
Speaker 7: you can also buy that inventory with us, and you
Speaker 7: know that's clean and that's a well lighted space, and
Speaker 7: we're going to sell you the top five percent most engaged,
Speaker 7: most viewed content on YouTube and it's and you're getting
Speaker 7: the reach and frequency that used to get on and
Speaker 7: broadcast TV way back in the day.
Speaker 3: But that is an interesting packaging those two things, like
Speaker 3: the old guard of old linear you know, basically linear
Speaker 3: cable but delivered virtually. Well, that segues into kind of
Speaker 3: my next to my next sort of theme that I
Speaker 3: wanted to talk about the cell. Did anybody we don't
Speaker 3: have to go net, we don't have to go upfront
Speaker 3: by upfront, but just your impression. Did anybody impress you
Speaker 3: in terms of how they sold themselves, how they either
Speaker 3: sold their wares or talked to advertisers about they all have.
Speaker 3: They all come up with here's our new program that
Speaker 3: has a clever name, and you know, but was there
Speaker 3: anybody that just impressed you at like how they packaged themselves,
Speaker 3: how they sold here's our profile, here's our audience, Here's
Speaker 3: what this network goes for versus that network.
Speaker 2: I thought Disney probably did the best job. They just
Speaker 2: had a car hit sports. You want big audience, says
Speaker 2: here they are. Here's Peyton Manning, Here's Serena Williams.
Speaker 1: Here's Mode Night Football super Bowls coming in twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Then they segued into scripted, but everything that was sent
Speaker 1: with a streaming outlet. So FX's shows ron Kulu and
Speaker 1: Here's Marvel and here Star Wars.
Speaker 2: On Disney Plus.
Speaker 1: So even even their their scriptive stuff had a streaming component.
Speaker 1: So I think they hit sports news. Even the segment
Speaker 1: on local station, which I think is very unusual for
Speaker 1: the upfront. They had the New York w ABC anchors
Speaker 1: come out for a spot, which is I think almost
Speaker 1: unheard of at the upfront to have the local anchor
Speaker 1: talk for a while.
Speaker 2: I thought Disney.
Speaker 1: I think Disney knows this is what's selling right now,
Speaker 1: big audiences and.
Speaker 2: Then precise strupped up through streaming. We don't need to
Speaker 2: talk about ABC or free Form or or FX. Let's
Speaker 2: as get them what they.
Speaker 1: Want, which is audiences, big, big audiences, and then precision
Speaker 1: to follow.
Speaker 7: And well, you gotta think that Netflix, for all their protests,
Speaker 7: are going to have to look at sports at some point.
Speaker 7: Exactly what you just said.
Speaker 3: Don't even think about touching that dial. We'll be right
Speaker 3: back after this break. I hope that pause was refreshing,
Speaker 3: and now back to varieties upfronts round table. Jenny and Joe,
Speaker 3: what impress you? You guys know, you guys are so
Speaker 3: finger on the pulse of these fandoms. Do you think
Speaker 3: anything impressed you there, like any any new potential, anybody
Speaker 3: impressed you as like they get their fandoms, they know
Speaker 3: how to talk to their fandoms.
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's like Brian said, I mean, I
Speaker 5: think Disney did the best job just in terms of
Speaker 5: spectacle at this sort of a thing. I mean, like
Speaker 5: you said, they had Serena Williams, they had Peyton Manning,
Speaker 5: they had you know, DeMar Hamlin came out to a
Speaker 5: standing ovation which I've never seen in an upfront.
Speaker 3: Before go Bills.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But then just but then, since there wasn't really much
Speaker 5: scripted content to talk about given everything going on with
Speaker 5: the strike, the fact that they were able to bring
Speaker 5: out Kevin Figee Kathleen Kennedy to come talk about big
Speaker 5: upcoming Marvel shows like Secret Invasion, big upcoming Star Wars
Speaker 5: shows like.
Speaker 6: Skeleton Crew, like The Acolyte.
Speaker 5: And then the one that really got me was they
Speaker 5: had this incredible presentation for the FX show Showgun based
Speaker 5: on the book that's been that you know, that's a
Speaker 5: passion project of John Langrass that's been in the work
Speaker 5: at that network since twenty eighteen, and then they just
Speaker 5: had this huge thing with all these performers coming out
Speaker 5: in like samurai armor, having like this big mock sword
Speaker 5: battle going up through the aisleways onto the stage.
Speaker 6: And I mean it's Disney.
Speaker 5: I mean, so they can they can kind of afford
Speaker 5: to do something like that, But I mean, no one
Speaker 5: else came close in terms of the spectacle for something
Speaker 5: like that. I mean because I mean again, like I
Speaker 5: have a pretty good sense of like what's happening, like
Speaker 5: what's coming out in TV at any given time. I
Speaker 5: had completely forgotten about Showgun, you know, and now I'm like,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, check that show out when it comes out.
Speaker 6: That was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But then that's the kind of thing upfront where it
Speaker 1: used to be known for how spectacle. This is why
Speaker 1: you buy with us, you know, these are the experiences
Speaker 1: that that everyone wants to hear about. We think to
Speaker 1: take a different world, and I think Disney had it,
Speaker 1: but many others did not.
Speaker 7: Do you think Netflix would have been more interesting and
Speaker 7: impressive in person?
Speaker 2: I do, especially for the first time. I think the
Speaker 2: other networks you can you.
Speaker 1: Kind of know what you're gonna get with something the
Speaker 1: Fox and ABC, But Netflix, I.
Speaker 2: Think the in person would have helped.
Speaker 1: Especially they hand the Russale Brothers and Anthon some very
Speaker 1: big products coming out.
Speaker 2: They have a lot in the can that that is
Speaker 2: probably there.
Speaker 1: They are edge against the networks who are all worried
Speaker 1: about how much kind of has to lay everything right.
Speaker 2: Yourn's out. Netflix has got a ton in the off
Speaker 2: thing Stranger Things Finale.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of stuff there and I
Speaker 1: think I'm close and personal with the buyers, might have
Speaker 1: done more.
Speaker 2: For them this year.
Speaker 9: Well, one thing that I think Earners did do that
Speaker 9: that Disney did to and you know, not to continue
Speaker 9: to talk about Disney, but I appreciate the moments where
Speaker 9: they banked what they did have as news to give
Speaker 9: as news.
Speaker 4: Right, So, like Joe said.
Speaker 9: Having Kevin Draggy and Kathleen Kennedy be able to come
Speaker 9: out and announce premier dates or announce things in show
Speaker 9: first looks were the Discovery had a decent number of
Speaker 9: announcements too. They have two Food Network shows with Selena Gomez.
Speaker 9: That's something slashy that you can announce there and not
Speaker 9: everyone had a lot in the way of big announcements
Speaker 9: to make.
Speaker 4: Like Fox, Fox got to say it's.
Speaker 9: Losing time on one but p that you know, there
Speaker 9: weren't a lot of big moments. One thing I'll say,
Speaker 9: and this needs like a giant asterisk next to it
Speaker 9: because it wasn't an upfront but the SEW.
Speaker 4: Really impressed me.
Speaker 9: And it could be because it was Thursday and I
Speaker 9: was tired by the end of the week, but it
Speaker 9: was an exciting one to go to because so many
Speaker 9: people had the question of what is the CW when
Speaker 9: we've been waiting so long to hear Dennis Beller and
Speaker 9: Bradswords like actually sit down in front of press and
Speaker 9: answer questions about what they're.
Speaker 4: Going to be And Joan and I had the privilege.
Speaker 9: Of sitting down with them privately afterwards and talking to them,
Speaker 9: and I left that feeling like pretty impressed that they
Speaker 9: do have a plan and that it's not apparent immediately
Speaker 9: because they, like everyone else, have a very strike proof
Speaker 9: fallse schedule. It's very acquisition heavy, but they're in production
Speaker 9: on a lot of things, and they have a lot
Speaker 9: of stuff in development. I'm not going to say any
Speaker 9: of it because my colleague is not tracking it, but
Speaker 9: they did make me feel like we're we've all be
Speaker 9: kind of wondering what they're doing. We still give them
Speaker 9: a hard time, but they have a strategy and they
Speaker 9: have a plan.
Speaker 5: Like Jenny said, I mean I left that presentation thinking, like,
Speaker 5: you know, this actually in terms of delivering a profit,
Speaker 5: you know, to shareholders and like and like actually making
Speaker 5: this thing successful in the traditional sense of a business,
Speaker 5: this actually does make a lot of sense.
Speaker 6: And then you just have to see where they take
Speaker 6: it beyond this.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, obviously the writer's strike is impacting everything,
Speaker 5: you know, and Brad Schwartz had this great line where
Speaker 5: he says, you know, people keep people keep knocking us
Speaker 5: for these cheap acquisitions, and he's like, first of all,
Speaker 5: these are not cheap acquisitions. Second of all, a good
Speaker 5: show is a good show. I mean, if it airs
Speaker 5: on if it aired in Canada prior to this, what's
Speaker 5: the difference. If it's a good show and people watch it,
Speaker 5: that's what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to
Speaker 5: be putting stuff like that on the air. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I definitely I definitely left that more more impressed than
Speaker 5: I thought I would be. But like Jenny said, it
Speaker 5: was also a Thursday. My brain was basically mush and
Speaker 5: they served us waffles.
Speaker 3: There is a whole world of television stations that sometimes
Speaker 3: gets very much lost in the in talking about global
Speaker 3: streaming platforms and all of our focus on network. A
Speaker 3: lot of the actual cold, hard cash that is made
Speaker 3: in television comes through local stations. And I think Next
Speaker 3: Star is a company I've been waiting for them to
Speaker 3: sort of you know, we keep waiting for the magical, like,
Speaker 3: what is the bigger thing that you're doing with this platform.
Speaker 3: I'm starting to realize that what the bigger thing that
Speaker 3: they're doing with this platform is running. They're they're doubling
Speaker 3: down in the old fashioned business. They're running local and
Speaker 3: national network prom you know, their business is a balance
Speaker 3: of local television and national network programming.
Speaker 9: Not to go off on a different cagent, but Casey
Speaker 9: Bloyse was one of the few executives who did make
Speaker 9: a statement about the writer's strike, like on stage and
Speaker 9: was like made a note of that. Mark Lazarus did
Speaker 9: it at NBCU as well, and they're not everyone did
Speaker 9: bring it up.
Speaker 4: Not everyone talked about it.
Speaker 9: But the people who did I also felt like that
Speaker 9: was good over all strategy to acknowledge it in some
Speaker 9: way and move forward, because if you didn't, it kind
Speaker 9: of made it more awkward because it was one of
Speaker 9: the beats that all of us, at least as journalists
Speaker 9: were waiting for in the room, and then if it
Speaker 9: didn't happen, it was weird. But yeah, we're in the discovery.
Speaker 9: I think using it because there wasn't as much you
Speaker 9: can do right now to wow people, to kind of
Speaker 9: shift the focus to Max, which isn't a giant ad
Speaker 9: driver for them but is very timely for them, was
Speaker 9: a good use of what could have otherwise been a
Speaker 9: very lame presentation because there's not as much to talk
Speaker 9: about it, no smart.
Speaker 2: I'll weigh in.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I thought maybe because my expectations were pretty low,
Speaker 7: but I thought Netflix did a pretty good job. I mean,
Speaker 7: Jenny identified immediately that they had they had queued up
Speaker 7: this sort of TV style fall announcement here or are
Speaker 7: some of your favorite shows coming back in the in
Speaker 7: this fall?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: And I mean even though you know, again as we've
Speaker 7: been talking about, they don't sell a times, they don't
Speaker 7: sell time slots. They're selling they're not selling day parts,
Speaker 7: you know. There, and they had this really interesting I
Speaker 7: mean it's unique where they they will sell you on
Speaker 7: a day to day basis, on a country by country basis,
Speaker 7: the top ten titles in each of those markets. That's
Speaker 7: super interesting, and that's something TV networks can't really do right.
Speaker 7: They can't say, Okay, you're going to get the top
Speaker 7: ten shows that are on today. That's just not how
Speaker 7: traditional TV works. So I thought it was really interesting.
Speaker 7: And then you know, Surrandus and the other executives talked
Speaker 7: about you know, they did a little bit of crystal
Speaker 7: balling and and a little bit of you know, in
Speaker 7: the tech business you call it vapor ware. It's it's
Speaker 7: not real. But you know, Sarandas maybe Brian you talk
Speaker 7: a little bit about it. But he had this notion
Speaker 7: of like a thirty minute or an hour long commercial
Speaker 7: that would follow the individual viewer across the different things
Speaker 7: they watch over the courses several days or a week,
Speaker 7: so that you know, it's this kind of really interesting
Speaker 7: idea of narrative advertising storytelling. So I thought they exceeded expectations.
Speaker 7: Maybe that's the way to put it.
Speaker 3: It sounds like they used the time to really showcase Okay,
Speaker 3: here's here here where Netflix, Here's how we're different.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I can't even imagine thinking about the human and machine
Speaker 3: learning that it's going to take to like monitor all
Speaker 3: those you know, advertising is about verification. Oh my god.
Speaker 3: At least at least there's some jobs coming, Brian.
Speaker 7: Well, then they're working with Microsoft. So that's one of
Speaker 7: the other questions about, you know, for the for the business.
Speaker 7: When do they have to you know, bring that technology
Speaker 7: in house because and that dilutes you know, any earnings
Speaker 7: they're getting from it advertising, because they have to split
Speaker 7: it with Microsoft as their partner the one other thing,
Speaker 7: you know. So it's baby steps for Netflix, right, But
Speaker 7: in the in six months, it was interesting to see
Speaker 7: how fully formed the story is at this point. And
Speaker 7: not quite five million subscribers. I mean that's in advertising terms,
Speaker 7: not very big, you know, call it three and a
Speaker 7: half million in the United States. Is that going to
Speaker 7: turn people's heads? No, but you know they're the biggest
Speaker 7: streaming service in the world, and so people wanted to
Speaker 7: see what they had to say and where they're headed.
Speaker 6: I was open to duck out without you asking me.
Speaker 5: No, I think in terms of what impressed me the most,
Speaker 5: I mean I still have to I hate to say it,
Speaker 5: but not I hate to say I should to that,
Speaker 5: but I mean Disney I think was the best, just
Speaker 5: because I mean, they've been around for so long. They're
Speaker 5: this massive legacy company. They have an incredible breadth of content.
Speaker 5: Like I said, they were really the only ones to
Speaker 5: have any big, like scripted content like spectacle to share
Speaker 5: with anybody.
Speaker 6: I think they did it.
Speaker 5: I think they really, you know, hit the nail on
Speaker 5: the head with that one in terms of other people.
Speaker 5: I think NBCU struggled a little bit in my mind,
Speaker 5: simply because I still think they're still struggling to define
Speaker 5: what the brand of Peacock is as a service, because
Speaker 5: you know, they showcase some of their new things, like
Speaker 5: they had this twisted metal show coming out with the
Speaker 5: Anthony Mackie pretty soon. They have some other things that
Speaker 5: have launched, but just haven't really seemed to connect in
Speaker 5: a in a deeper cultural way. And I mean it
Speaker 5: seems to me at least that you know, the most
Speaker 5: popular show on Peacock is not an NBCU show.
Speaker 6: It's Yellowstone. It's a paramount show.
Speaker 5: So I still think they're struggling to kind of make
Speaker 5: audiences take that one as seriously and I was also
Speaker 5: very surprising to me, you know, given the obviously you know,
Speaker 5: I guess they have the rights deals are coming up.
Speaker 5: But they didn't feature any WWE talent really in the
Speaker 5: NBCU presentation, which surprised me just because it's such a
Speaker 5: it's such a huge part of the Peacock offering that
Speaker 5: they have this massive, you know, WWE library to share.
Speaker 6: So I was a little surprised by at I think.
Speaker 3: The ww folks are always so colorful, you know, they
Speaker 3: add a little sizzle exactly.
Speaker 5: I mean, you have somebody come out, get put through
Speaker 5: a table, everybody claps. I mean, what's that's to love
Speaker 5: about that? But I did think I agree with Jenny
Speaker 5: about Warner Discovery. I think they definitely did it did
Speaker 5: a good job about kind of showcasing what they have coming,
Speaker 5: especially with the rebrand of HBO Max to Max.
Speaker 3: I will close by thanking you, first of all, thank
Speaker 3: you for your impressions. You all being in the trenches
Speaker 3: are are invaluable. I will just close by saying that
Speaker 3: I am old enough to remember begging my parents to
Speaker 3: let me stay up to watch the original Showgun because
Speaker 3: that was the chatter on the playground Richard Chamberlain oomed
Speaker 3: the miniseries Business back then own.
Speaker 7: I was not allowed to watch it.
Speaker 5: I thought you were going to say you begged your
Speaker 5: parents to go to your first upfront.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
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Speaker 3: in next week for another episode of Strictly Business