Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
Speaker 1: guest is Chef Jeffrey Zacharyon. Zacarion landed in the sweet
Speaker 1: spot where culinary and TV fame meat about a decade ago.
Speaker 1: When he became a judge, John chopped and he won
Speaker 1: the coveted Iron Chef title. For the past four years,
Speaker 1: Zacarion has steadily been expanding his activity as a content producer.
Speaker 1: He founded corner Table Entertainment with partner Jared Keller in
Speaker 1: that put him in a good position to produce content
Speaker 1: for Food network parent Discovery and the fledgling Discovery Plus streamer,
Speaker 1: which has a voracious appetite for shows. Zacarion, in our
Speaker 1: interview discusses the differences between launching a restaurant and launching
Speaker 1: a TV In his mind, there's no question about which
Speaker 1: task is harder. He also reveals that the company has
Speaker 1: cameras on the ground working on a documentary with Tribeca
Speaker 1: about the pandemics devastation of New York's restaurant scene or
Speaker 1: capturing it as it actually happens, he says, and that's
Speaker 1: all coming up today on Strictly Business. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Strictly Business. Here's Jeffreys, a Carrion chef, entrepreneur and head
Speaker 1: of Corner Table Entertainment, a bustling production company that is
Speaker 1: right there in the nexus of food and content. Jeffrey,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Cynthia.
Speaker 1: It's lovely to talk to you. We've talked before and
Speaker 1: it's always it's always a pleasure. I love you had
Speaker 1: your finger, the true finger on the pulse of what's
Speaker 1: happening in the world of media, because it's an all
Speaker 1: important world that you know, no one seems to be
Speaker 1: able to live without, especially today. It is it is
Speaker 1: just like the food world. It is an incredibly dynamic
Speaker 1: business where you never know where the next hit, the
Speaker 1: next great idea is coming around the corner. I've always
Speaker 1: been a fan of your appearances on Food Network. I
Speaker 1: always really get the sense that you are speaking as
Speaker 1: a as a both as a as a culinary as
Speaker 1: a decorated chef, but also as a businessman. And it's
Speaker 1: in that context that I wanted that we want to
Speaker 1: talk about um your evolution as a TV personality and
Speaker 1: as now for the last couple of years been increasingly
Speaker 1: active as a producer behind the scenes with Corner Table Entertainment,
Speaker 1: and would I would love to start by just asking
Speaker 1: you what you obviously have become one of the most
Speaker 1: recognizable faces on a food network, and I can only
Speaker 1: imagine that that has been good for your business overall.
Speaker 1: But what was it that made you in seen? What
Speaker 1: is it that made you decide to plant your flag
Speaker 1: and launch Corner Table Entertainment and start your own production entity.
Speaker 1: Well that's um. I don't know if it doesn't all,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work seamlessly like that. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: comes in bits and pieces. So I can only get
Speaker 1: telling you that as a TV chef, and as someone
Speaker 1: has been on a lot of shows Chops since two
Speaker 1: thousand I believe ten or whenever White started, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: And then we've had so much success with those shows.
Speaker 1: What happens is, um Cynthia, as you you start to
Speaker 1: get in everyone else's head and you start giving your
Speaker 1: opinions on what will work and what won't work. Correct,
Speaker 1: So as you're asked by the producers, what did you
Speaker 1: like about this? What did you like about that? That
Speaker 1: that airs well? This areed well, this didn't do so well.
Speaker 1: I think we should do more of that. And what
Speaker 1: happens is you have this sort of conversation with the
Speaker 1: people around you and the producers and the executive producer
Speaker 1: and EP be how's your talent and you're not back
Speaker 1: on the scene. You're right up there and they want
Speaker 1: to know how it felt and they see the results
Speaker 1: from from the from the ratings right, And what happens
Speaker 1: is you're actually then producing or co producing. You're like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have this idea. What do you think you
Speaker 1: run up by your test that you do it? So
Speaker 1: that's it's as simple as that. Honestly, it's just things work.
Speaker 1: You're asking more direction, you're asking more, you know more,
Speaker 1: what you think works, Like, tell me why you would
Speaker 1: like to do this? This work better? That was great,
Speaker 1: it was a great idea. Let's do it again in
Speaker 1: different ways. So it really is a creative process based
Speaker 1: upon doing a couple of things right and getting good
Speaker 1: feedback right. That's the base of everything. And like you said,
Speaker 1: TV is the Food Network and everything else, but especially
Speaker 1: food is all about content. If you don't have content,
Speaker 1: a story of beginning to lead a competition, show stand
Speaker 1: and stir um uh, some sort of holiday theme. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of things. But you know, the Kitchen
Speaker 1: is evergreen and extent that every year and follows the season. Uh.
Speaker 1: And some shows like Chopped or really every green we
Speaker 1: could you know, you can send you know, other than
Speaker 1: throwing a Christmas show on in July, you can show
Speaker 1: show this chop any time of the year. So for us,
Speaker 1: it's just a very you know, Jared and I launched
Speaker 1: it in two thousand and SEVENTI is a natural sort
Speaker 1: of ideation about all this creative stuff we've been talking
Speaker 1: about with our executive producers and Food Network, Like we
Speaker 1: talked with David Zaslaw, Kathleen Finch, and Courtney White. They
Speaker 1: run it, and you know, they need all this content
Speaker 1: for Discovery Plus, and they need all this content for
Speaker 1: Food Network. So it's just we've been around so long
Speaker 1: and we've been doing this, we know it works, what
Speaker 1: doesn't work. So they asked us to help with content,
Speaker 1: and we decided to just like put it out there.
Speaker 1: And we actually had a great run with the telephones
Speaker 1: that we did in the pandemic. It was just the
Speaker 1: timing and we like, you know, we just did it
Speaker 1: um and we produced it like everyone else did. And
Speaker 1: it was sort of like a nice test, a way
Speaker 1: to test the production keeping abilities and what worked and
Speaker 1: what didn't work. We found out some partners how to
Speaker 1: edit and all that stuff. So ow and behold. We
Speaker 1: raised two an a half million dollars with to one national,
Speaker 1: one local, and you know, now we have this production company.
Speaker 1: So it's it's not how we sat down and said,
Speaker 1: what's the five year goal. It was not that at all.
Speaker 1: It was like, we have these ideas, let's let's start
Speaker 1: like writing them down on paper and pitching them because
Speaker 1: they need content. So it all comes down to that.
Speaker 1: But I love that part of it because that's still creating,
Speaker 1: you know. So you like the you like the idea stage.
Speaker 1: You like being in the at the germ of the
Speaker 1: idea of that what you're going to execute. It's so wonderful.
Speaker 1: And everyone anyone else that does this for a living,
Speaker 1: what I do in that same in a different profession,
Speaker 1: we'll tell you the same thing. Say creating music, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's writing a script, and it's it's so fun to
Speaker 1: sort of collaborate and then see it happen and then
Speaker 1: either fix it or do more of it. So that's
Speaker 1: sort of what we're really loving. And what's great about it, Cynthia,
Speaker 1: is that I was allows me to continue to cook,
Speaker 1: continue to do the shows, have a behind the scenes
Speaker 1: sort of inventory of stuff that like, oh boy, this
Speaker 1: would work right here, this would be a great way
Speaker 1: to like take one of these shows that we haven't
Speaker 1: on Brain and let's do a segment on the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Let's do a seven minute segment. Let's try it and
Speaker 1: see what happens. You know, we don't have to spend
Speaker 1: any money. We're all there. Let's just do it. You
Speaker 1: have their own incubation lab right there. So that's what like,
Speaker 1: we're doing a lot of and you know, we we
Speaker 1: just shot a sizzle. We're doing a restaurant documented with
Speaker 1: Trybic of Productions. Were very excited about that. Um And
Speaker 1: it's all because of just this natural sort of consultation
Speaker 1: with the producers and the people there, because ultimately, your
Speaker 1: boss now is now your collaborator because they need content,
Speaker 1: unique content to stay in the year. You love to
Speaker 1: do content. You're a professional. That's been doing Cookie for
Speaker 1: forty years. You've seen just about everything, and you've been
Speaker 1: working on a show that's very current. So how do
Speaker 1: we keep how do we put into a beak or
Speaker 1: shake it and come up with a great new cocktails.
Speaker 1: So that's that's really what we do and what we're doing.
Speaker 1: So UM, we're very excited about it. Um and you know,
Speaker 1: I were just at the beginning. You know, we haven't
Speaker 1: even started. I mean, Bobby Flay has been uh producing
Speaker 1: his shows sort of I think fifteen years or twelve
Speaker 1: years at least. M What was it? Was it the
Speaker 1: kind of thing did you have to get it? Did
Speaker 1: it sort of start very small? Or did you line up?
Speaker 1: As you said, you did not have a five year plan,
Speaker 1: but did you was it the kind of thing you
Speaker 1: had to line up some backing or some financing? Did
Speaker 1: did food? And we just partnered with with bstv Um
Speaker 1: one of our partners in the in the kitchen, and
Speaker 1: they sort of helped us along and we showed us
Speaker 1: the rope and we just went, you know, we did
Speaker 1: these ideation meetings and we just came up with some
Speaker 1: great shows and we do sizzle reels and it's a
Speaker 1: very simple process because it was so already are you
Speaker 1: doing it? So basically it was we didn't have to
Speaker 1: really raise all this capital, like let's just start real small.
Speaker 1: So basically, Jarrett um Tower, myself and my wife Margaret
Speaker 1: and the four of us, we just did it. We
Speaker 1: you know, just huddled, got it together, wrote it up,
Speaker 1: met with someone who's who has all the capability of
Speaker 1: doing that, just like we did the telephone. You have
Speaker 1: to find someone that is actually in the editing booth
Speaker 1: and has all you know, people on the grounds and
Speaker 1: people doing the documentaries, you know, boots on the ground,
Speaker 1: and so that's how we started. At one point in time,
Speaker 1: we're gonna probably have boots on the ground also probably
Speaker 1: a big fancy office if they ever open. But in
Speaker 1: the meantime, you know, we're just going along with what
Speaker 1: really is important, which is this content, you know, the
Speaker 1: idea and how to get that idea to the film
Speaker 1: because there we all give we all have you know,
Speaker 1: expertisees and the people that in the editing who's not
Speaker 1: necessarily understand what we're talking about and what we're talking
Speaker 1: about we don't necessarily understand when when production telling us
Speaker 1: about like the budget and how we work it over
Speaker 1: four days and how you know breaks and how we
Speaker 1: have to do it, and how we have to shoot
Speaker 1: it in the state because of this and not going
Speaker 1: in overtime. So it's all that sort of like nice
Speaker 1: shared value and shared common cause that we don't have
Speaker 1: to be an expert in everything. Well, we're really good
Speaker 1: at content and really good with ideation. So that's that's
Speaker 1: why we're very excited about it. Do you, um, how
Speaker 1: would you compare the process of you know, assembling that team,
Speaker 1: executing on you know, just settling on ideas, you know,
Speaker 1: setting the goal, executing to those goals. How would you
Speaker 1: compare launching a show or a telethone like the telethone
Speaker 1: that you've done, to launching a new restaurant or setting
Speaker 1: up setting up a new business that was in the
Speaker 1: you know, in the in the core cooking world. Well
Speaker 1: and in a restaurant, you know, it's it's far more
Speaker 1: difficult to get the ball across the line. For the
Speaker 1: very re and is you have one goal. You you
Speaker 1: come up with a piece of paper, a plan, You've
Speaker 1: sold it to someone that has investment. It's gonna put
Speaker 1: three million dollars stay in a restaurant. That's all you're doing.
Speaker 1: It's that one thing, and if it doesn't work, you're screwed.
Speaker 1: So if they don't like one show, we have another one,
Speaker 1: and then have another one. You might do three or
Speaker 1: four pilots and none of them, none of them get
Speaker 1: picked up. But it's a very fluid um sort of roll.
Speaker 1: So I would say the pain is far greater and
Speaker 1: the physical um you know, brick and mortar world of
Speaker 1: opening a restaurant. And I mean that because you're literally
Speaker 1: on your feet a hundred hours a week. The first
Speaker 1: three months are like having a wisdom tooth pulled every minutes. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's crazy, nutty and volatile, and you know,
Speaker 1: rife with problems and and legal stuff and lawsuits and
Speaker 1: all this stuff that comes at you. Uh, because people
Speaker 1: are just like, you know, crazy in this world of restaurants.
Speaker 1: But that's the way they're so exciting. But what they
Speaker 1: do provide is they provide a vivid, sort of peaky
Speaker 1: dish of possible content that you can't imagine is gonna
Speaker 1: be there until you actually see it happen. So this,
Speaker 1: you've you've created this, this I don't know vacuum where
Speaker 1: stuff happens. Now you're managing it. Now it's a full
Speaker 1: time job. Now you're waiting for the critics to come.
Speaker 1: And now you hope it works. Now you hope it
Speaker 1: makes money. Now you have to try to pay your
Speaker 1: investors back. So there's so much content that you get
Speaker 1: out of that. Plus you get a marquee that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily have if you weren't in brick and mortar.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that you can't be in the restaurant business,
Speaker 1: and it can be in a production business and not
Speaker 1: being a restaurant business. But if you're in the restaurant business,
Speaker 1: the movement to the restaurant the producing business is a
Speaker 1: far more fluid and creative and fun experience because it's
Speaker 1: very little downside other than getting rejected all the time,
Speaker 1: which is normal, you know, right, just like I said, no,
Speaker 1: that's a no, that's a yes. And if it hits,
Speaker 1: it hits, you know. But you I would imagine that
Speaker 1: that experience of of launching your own businesses in the
Speaker 1: in the circumstances and the fraud nature that you described,
Speaker 1: like that that is training for combat. That is training
Speaker 1: for the the insanity and and you know the one
Speaker 1: thing producers have to do most is think on their feet.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you've you've been there, uh you know
Speaker 1: back there. You know you've been there with the line cooks,
Speaker 1: and you've been there at the front of the house.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had had all those experiences. And
Speaker 1: you know, the funny thing is is with a restaurant,
Speaker 1: you open up with the menu right and you you
Speaker 1: you go through these tortuous processes of getting in a
Speaker 1: chef and a menu and you think it's great to
Speaker 1: food and all that, and you know, and then someone
Speaker 1: in the restaurant said, you know what I really want
Speaker 1: to gott can I have like a I've just wanted
Speaker 1: to a piece of You know, you have this, man,
Speaker 1: You've done right, it's tested, it's prompted. What it means.
Speaker 1: You test everything and you bring it and you make
Speaker 1: five hundred of them. You've got the recipe done that
Speaker 1: you order to that recipe, so you have not no
Speaker 1: ship left over in the box. You know your inventory
Speaker 1: is perfect. You don't have you know, poor crimes when
Speaker 1: you don't in the inventory where you don't need poor
Speaker 1: pranks as it's money, so money, very perishable money. To
Speaker 1: be one of these books, because it's two d fifty dollars. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's like, you don't need the books that you're
Speaker 1: not gonna read, so get rid of half of them. Right.
Speaker 1: So you know, you do all this work, you get
Speaker 1: the man. You think it's brilliant and unbelievable, right, and
Speaker 1: then someone comes to a very valued customer summon. That
Speaker 1: is someone that you who has a restaurant or someone
Speaker 1: that is in sort of a business that he goes
Speaker 1: out a lot and he orders, like you know, he's
Speaker 1: on a diet or something whatever, and he orders, can
Speaker 1: I just have a grill piece of chicken with some
Speaker 1: some French fries? I want a chicken free? And it's
Speaker 1: not so as a chef, I make it. I'm like, sure,
Speaker 1: I'll do it, no problem. So you make it and
Speaker 1: then that guy sees you eat it, and then guy,
Speaker 1: can I have that? Can I have this? And then
Speaker 1: that becomes the best seller. You gotta put it on
Speaker 1: your menu. You had no intention of it, and this
Speaker 1: thing you thought was gonna go gangbusters, cells you know,
Speaker 1: so there's no telling how the restaurant works, and you
Speaker 1: need to react to the customers. So the customers starts.
Speaker 1: Using a restaurant is more of a barring grill versus
Speaker 1: fine dining. It's a bar and grill. Now, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna force someone fine dining. You didn't see it. It
Speaker 1: didn't see it coming. The time was such they really
Speaker 1: felt more comfortable as this, and they used it the
Speaker 1: order and started to get different. And so they hit
Speaker 1: these seven, seven out of twenty items with them big sellers.
Speaker 1: They had nothing to do with your fancy pants. Right,
Speaker 1: So you do. You've gotta listen to that and get
Speaker 1: off your high horse. It's very that's what you do
Speaker 1: in the restaurant world. Right, So your customer is always right, Well, no,
Speaker 1: they're they're always going to use the restaurant their way
Speaker 1: they want to use it. So you have to be
Speaker 1: available to change that. It's far. There's two different things.
Speaker 1: That's a great point brought up. The customers ares right.
Speaker 1: The customer when sort of putting forth in opinion or
Speaker 1: putting forth a critique of something. I'm talking about asking
Speaker 1: for something they want to eat. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: that's that thing, that's that that's the make it and
Speaker 1: give it to them. I'm talking about the critique or
Speaker 1: this or this is not right or right that I
Speaker 1: want to like this, and blah blah blah. The customers
Speaker 1: usually you have to treat them like they're always right,
Speaker 1: but they're usually misinformed. Right, I want my soup hot.
Speaker 1: I wanted boiling hot. You can't eat boiling hots. You know,
Speaker 1: that's not a critique, that's just just that just doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense because you you pale it your tongue wild
Speaker 1: scorch okay, even at a hundred and twenty degrees which
Speaker 1: is very warm. It's fine stuff like that. You have
Speaker 1: to be really intuitive and that's what you have to
Speaker 1: do in producing. So with trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: the customer is intuitively going to be drawn to. That's relevant,
Speaker 1: it's fun, and it's watchable on the first five minutes
Speaker 1: because that's the key. You gotta ground. And then they're
Speaker 1: there at the last five minutes when there's a finale
Speaker 1: or the reveal they call it. You know, advertisers look
Speaker 1: at the first ten. In the last ten, they don't
Speaker 1: give a shit about the rest of it. They don't really.
Speaker 1: Then you know that once you hear it here, you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna watch the whole thing. That's what's the measure
Speaker 1: of engagement. It's kind of the fascinating part that I've
Speaker 1: learned is that's you really have to have that. So
Speaker 1: you have to have a wow and a reveal, but
Speaker 1: you have to have a wow in the reveal. Be authentic, right,
Speaker 1: So when the customer comes in, if you feel them
Speaker 1: complaining and they're authentic, you take it seriously because you
Speaker 1: know that five or ten or fifteen more people are
Speaker 1: saying the same thing. And you can lose customers out
Speaker 1: of like not listening to that one critique that you
Speaker 1: you've you heard it and it was authentic and you
Speaker 1: check it out and they were right. Most customers don't
Speaker 1: just complain to complain. Most customers have a legitimate misinformation,
Speaker 1: a complaint, or something is actually wrong. There's those three things.
Speaker 1: So you have to learn about all of those. And
Speaker 1: the best way to get customers that are piste off
Speaker 1: back is a call them up or email them say
Speaker 1: come on back, we made a mistake. We're so sorry
Speaker 1: that right away. If you let it sit, they're never
Speaker 1: coming back. Once they come back. Once they come back,
Speaker 1: your best customer, now they know the chef that's to
Speaker 1: make you good fun. I'm like, come on, I'll make
Speaker 1: you and they spend money and they're happy like they're
Speaker 1: your best customers. So that's is a big difference in
Speaker 1: the two, but not really. I mean, I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to keep that customer happy by balancing the relevance, their experience,
Speaker 1: the lighting, the music, and keep them coming back. It's
Speaker 1: all entertainment. It's all It's like Hollywood, You're just you.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a movie. There's three breakfast luncheon, did
Speaker 1: a three Curtains shows a day. There's no difference. So
Speaker 1: that's why it's such an easy sort of jump. We
Speaker 1: need to take a quick break, but we'll be back
Speaker 1: with Jeffreys A. Carrion discussing the details of the new
Speaker 1: documentary he's working on for Tribeca. And we're back with
Speaker 1: Jeffreys A. Carrion. What was it that made TV happen
Speaker 1: for you? Was it something that you aspired to as
Speaker 1: you got successful? I guess I was in two thousand seven, Um,
Speaker 1: so that's an eight. I got it. I got it.
Speaker 1: I was in a restaurant, you know, I had great
Speaker 1: reviews and I was working in restaurants. Food that was
Speaker 1: was going gangbusters. It was about I mean now it's
Speaker 1: still was thirty years old, so it was about ten.
Speaker 1: So it's like it was about eighteen years old, seventeen
Speaker 1: years on Flay and you know, um uh Emeral Lagassi
Speaker 1: and you know there's some Tyler of Florence. There was
Speaker 1: some mon key players, and that it really hadn't gotten
Speaker 1: nuts yet, but it was on the on the verge. Sure,
Speaker 1: Iron Chef had started. And in two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: I I Can approached some and said, we know, we'd
Speaker 1: like a judge on we we're casting for the show
Speaker 1: called Chopped. And I'm sort of like on the show,
Speaker 1: I'm very serious, but I'm not a serious character at all.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have fun. Then the kitchen is really
Speaker 1: who I am. That the Chopped is like, you know,
Speaker 1: show them, you know, to serious show and we have
Speaker 1: to be serious. Yeah, but they as it chopped and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I heard the word. That's sort of like
Speaker 1: it was like a little juvenile. First, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: what's the premise. I'm like, well, four people will get
Speaker 1: a basket of foreign reading. I gotta make an appetize
Speaker 1: in twenty minutes if they you know, whoever, losers gets
Speaker 1: chopped in there's three and two and one and whoever
Speaker 1: wins get tent oil of dollars the winner, and I'm like, like, okay,
Speaker 1: I thought it was corny and cornball. I really didn't
Speaker 1: like it. And then they said, and the host, and
Speaker 1: it's a dog. In the original uh pilot they did
Speaker 1: there was a dog really not kidding they fed the
Speaker 1: losing dish to the dog. Wow. I wonder why that
Speaker 1: never took off, never made it didn't even get it,
Speaker 1: didn't even get to the sizzle reel. So offut of
Speaker 1: it comes, Jeff. I would imagine the chefs on the
Speaker 1: set were like, what the heck? I think I did
Speaker 1: the pilot with Alexe Born and Shelley Rock and dispirit
Speaker 1: over myself. I think those are the three my brain
Speaker 1: is gonna probably it's one of the I know is
Speaker 1: Alex and Rocco or me and Rocco and Alex. I
Speaker 1: know Alex was there. They might even Scott Conan too,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure. Well over a few days and
Speaker 1: I was paid nothing. It was like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to be on the show, it's like two
Speaker 1: fifty dollars, but that's if they pick it up. So
Speaker 1: I needs he said no, um, and then I want
Speaker 1: to show. And I was the guy that was very
Speaker 1: chef be because I was the I think one of
Speaker 1: the most experienced chefs on the show. And I was
Speaker 1: the serious one. So I had the glasses and I
Speaker 1: was I was the one. Every one something was mean
Speaker 1: and so I mean it works. So I just kept
Speaker 1: being like mean and tough and you know, I don't
Speaker 1: care about your story and the food sucks, You're out. Um.
Speaker 1: I wasn't Gordon Ramsey, but I was a more genteel
Speaker 1: version version of him. Um. Uh So that was two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, and you know that we've just done let me,
Speaker 1: we've done on my uh seven hundred episodes we've filmed
Speaker 1: and I just got booked for two more and um,
Speaker 1: you know there's twelve judges. All the original judges are
Speaker 1: still there. Uh. So it's been like a juggernaut. And
Speaker 1: then you know it's one of the highest rated shows
Speaker 1: on on TV. And I think just the ad Reverend
Speaker 1: Malone in the last ten years has been extraordinary for
Speaker 1: Discovery and that which was um Script Scripts, which was
Speaker 1: now Discovery. That's basically the intro to that. And then
Speaker 1: from that show two years later, I was I was
Speaker 1: asked to do Iron Chef. Did you find the work
Speaker 1: of being on TV, being on camera, speaking, speaking in
Speaker 1: temp extemporaneously did you find that Did you find that easy?
Speaker 1: Was that? Was that a learning curve for you to
Speaker 1: be on TV? It was a learning I found it easy,
Speaker 1: but I got better at it because I learned how
Speaker 1: to forget about the camera. And when I saw some
Speaker 1: pictures of myself just doing like, you know, not even
Speaker 1: when I cameras rolling, I didn't know it was rolling.
Speaker 1: It was actually I was like, well that's very natural.
Speaker 1: Let's do more of that. And so I started to
Speaker 1: just like become myself. And I worry about like anything
Speaker 1: other than authenticity because people really see it now and
Speaker 1: I think that they understand the authenticity. That's what they
Speaker 1: like it. Because I speak to like their mistakes. I
Speaker 1: speak to like my shortcomings. I speak to like like
Speaker 1: I'm really lazy. I don't want to do all this
Speaker 1: prepping and it just it's not worth it and play golf,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I talked to people
Speaker 1: like they like to be. They want to hear because normal,
Speaker 1: most normal people are gonna actually spend three hours a
Speaker 1: day prepping a meal. Okay, unless you're in Italy and
Speaker 1: you have nothing else to do, right, and you have
Speaker 1: all this produce and you can take time to do it.
Speaker 1: So I think it for busy Americans and for busy people. Um.
Speaker 1: I it was authentic, but I learned that, I mean
Speaker 1: it sounds weird, and learned to be authentic. I learned
Speaker 1: to relax authentic at the same time. Um, but it
Speaker 1: took time. I was very natural speaking because I have
Speaker 1: a lot of information that I want to get out.
Speaker 1: That's easy for me. But the being authentic and then
Speaker 1: being authentic under pressure, and then be authentic under pressure
Speaker 1: on the show live what people are interrupting you is
Speaker 1: the hardest part of everything. You know, you really need
Speaker 1: a sense of humor because you'll get in your own
Speaker 1: head and you'll you'll you're a short circuit. You'll forget,
Speaker 1: you know, that's just what happens. What's it been like
Speaker 1: being at Food Network in the last couple of years
Speaker 1: after the Discovery deal went down, enlarged, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of just enlarged the scope of the bigger company. And
Speaker 1: they've been doing a lot with streaming of Food Network
Speaker 1: content specifically, and now they have Discovery Plus, of which
Speaker 1: Food Network and Cooking is a huge, huge cornerstones of
Speaker 1: how have you got any sense of what that could
Speaker 1: mean long term for Food Network for your brand? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know David zazzels have it, has a vision, he's
Speaker 1: a real is one of the smartest people I've ever met.
Speaker 1: And he and Kathleen Finch and Courtney White, I mean
Speaker 1: Courtney and Kathy had been there for years. I have
Speaker 1: a great relationship with him. And then when he came
Speaker 1: in and he's pushing Discovery Plus in the streaming, he
Speaker 1: did it all coalists around this timing, and it's been
Speaker 1: just an incredible ride, I'm sure for the stock and
Speaker 1: for the company, But I think that what he brings
Speaker 1: to us is this this horizontal integration of HDTV and
Speaker 1: all the shows. So like you know you have you know,
Speaker 1: you can build a home, and then the home comes
Speaker 1: in the friend is the home, let's stock it right
Speaker 1: over the pantry at home and the home goes over
Speaker 1: here and like we're gonna demolish the home. Another HB
Speaker 1: TV show and then you know there's another home that
Speaker 1: comes through here, Well, we're gonna electoral party, and this
Speaker 1: one on this so we have all these people around
Speaker 1: us that are basically fomenting lives around the household and
Speaker 1: and and and you know, landownership and and homesteading, you know,
Speaker 1: and so we're in the homesteading business. And David realizes that.
Speaker 1: So he's tying empty together and he's trying to cross Polly,
Speaker 1: HDTV and the twenty seven channels just in that in
Speaker 1: that genre, there's so many. So we can have some
Speaker 1: Discovery personalities now on um the food you have a
Speaker 1: guest from you know, Vanilla Ice and the Vanilla Ice
Speaker 1: Project comes on because he loves the cookies, come making
Speaker 1: wings on the kitchen. But this, this integration is fantastic.
Speaker 1: There's clearly a deadliest cash for network crossed over just
Speaker 1: waiting to happen. It is, it is, and it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You can just see it. And then we have Shark
Speaker 1: Week and all that. So that that's what David has done.
Speaker 1: And you know, he's he doesn't mess around. This guy
Speaker 1: goes at warp speed, you know, literally, so he makes
Speaker 1: breat mistakes too. I don't know what they are, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are. We don't worry about it. But
Speaker 1: this Discovery plus it's like, you know, you see it's
Speaker 1: everywhere there's you know, seventy five or sixty five episodes.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like unbelievable. I'm on a programming content,
Speaker 1: so it's the same thing. It's like, but you we're
Speaker 1: on a rocket ship because of where we're placed in
Speaker 1: that whole Discovery world. And like I said before, the
Speaker 1: one thing we're lacking is we're always lacking new Town
Speaker 1: new content. So it's just so it's like it's like
Speaker 1: a voracious animal just keeps eating up the content because
Speaker 1: like keep beating the thing and it never gets fat,
Speaker 1: just always coming more and more and more. It's like
Speaker 1: a marathon run, right. So it's I need more, I
Speaker 1: need more. I need more than five people, and there's
Speaker 1: twenty people, and there's a hundred people that need more,
Speaker 1: and so we're at a hundred two thousand people that
Speaker 1: need more stuff all the time. And it's so hard
Speaker 1: to get one thing off the ground. One thing takes
Speaker 1: probably unless it's so unless it's a remake of something
Speaker 1: that work before, you just plug and play and you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it again, because it was it's twolve
Speaker 1: years ago worked and we we shelve it. Let's let's
Speaker 1: let's put some new bells and whistles on it. Let's
Speaker 1: try that. We do that once in a while, but
Speaker 1: the real good things take time. Is a meeting, and
Speaker 1: there's another meeting, there's another meaning, then there's okay, what
Speaker 1: do you think on the show? Is a sizzle, and
Speaker 1: there's a green light, and then there's a production and
Speaker 1: that's like two years, you know, and so it's like
Speaker 1: it's like writing a book from you need a lot
Speaker 1: of balls in the air to keep that, to feed
Speaker 1: that here. And so they have we have reduced the
Speaker 1: time because they need to reduce the time. So, you know,
Speaker 1: before it's like two years to find Now it's like
Speaker 1: in two months, if you don't have a sizzle, it's like,
Speaker 1: let's go. So what we love that because that's like
Speaker 1: sometimes you think too much, you know, Like I said,
Speaker 1: a person with the chicken fries, just put a chicken
Speaker 1: frying of manu and they're gonna sell. I do know that.
Speaker 1: Obviously in the wider world, and particularly in the culinary world,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of pain in this pandemic, a
Speaker 1: lot of shutdowns, a lot of painful job losses. Do you.
Speaker 1: I know you've done great work with your telepons on
Speaker 1: the hunger issue. What is it? Does America need a
Speaker 1: martial plan? Does there's something that that you can think of,
Speaker 1: can that can help the sector that is so beloved
Speaker 1: and so important to the fabric of communities? Any any thoughts?
Speaker 1: You know, that's great that you let off with that, that
Speaker 1: that we're on both sides of the coin. I'm sharing
Speaker 1: of U the food counts for City Harvests and I'm
Speaker 1: on the board and a wonderful organization. That's great, almost
Speaker 1: ten years that I'm doing that. And you know, when
Speaker 1: you can do a telephone and raise a couple million
Speaker 1: dollars and deep people that day or the day after,
Speaker 1: that's job. I mean there's people who may thybe get
Speaker 1: fed right away. So City Harvest has done a hundred
Speaker 1: million pounds this year, which is like double what they
Speaker 1: normally do in the whole year last year. So it
Speaker 1: was like incredible what they did. Um And so all
Speaker 1: we have to do is try to feed the beast
Speaker 1: and give more money to him if we can do,
Speaker 1: because it's expensive to hire trucks and coreguration. But you know,
Speaker 1: in the mean and in the midst of all that
Speaker 1: they had to move their location. Who knew the pandemics
Speaker 1: a getting hit and it was supposed to move in
Speaker 1: artist you know, like oh my god, and all that
Speaker 1: fell through. So it's been a real mess. But that
Speaker 1: was a job one. Just get some food to people,
Speaker 1: good food, vegetables. That's our mantra, no crap. We actually
Speaker 1: reject a lot of stuff. We've talked about you can have,
Speaker 1: you can have the like the you know, the the
Speaker 1: sugar laden cereals. We don't need those, um. So that's
Speaker 1: great that we have to do that. The other side
Speaker 1: of it is, um, you know, we're producing this documentary
Speaker 1: with Rebecca Um, which we're doing so that we really
Speaker 1: tell the story of why this restaurant industry is so vital,
Speaker 1: and I tell it from a New York standpoint. We
Speaker 1: hired Mathamelely to do it. We did, you know, crazy
Speaker 1: about Tiffany's and pays had the car Alisle was too great,
Speaker 1: the documentaries um, and you know, Kate karg is involved
Speaker 1: and all that. So it's been really this it's a
Speaker 1: love letter. It's a love letter to New York with
Speaker 1: a real sharp needle to poke people into seeing look
Speaker 1: what's happened. This is this can't go on you. Something
Speaker 1: has to be done because they shut the switch out
Speaker 1: on us. We didn't you know, we didn't have a flood.
Speaker 1: You know, eleven was one monster's day and maybe a
Speaker 1: monster's month. But then everything went like this because you
Speaker 1: had finality, and finality coupled with money and the grid
Speaker 1: of the Americans and people in New York City just
Speaker 1: went like this. This is pandemic shutting off. It was
Speaker 1: worse than anything I've seen in forty years. Come back,
Speaker 1: no finality. You don't want to. You know, you're on
Speaker 1: your you're in your out, you're off your cup, you're
Speaker 1: on your clothes, you're open, you're inside your outside. You can't.
Speaker 1: It's just a disaster. So we're trying to document this
Speaker 1: and show what how beautiful restaurants are, what they've fulfilled
Speaker 1: the people, and just you don't feed people feed their
Speaker 1: souls is like what people take all their angst out.
Speaker 1: They just where they put all their passion. That's where
Speaker 1: they spill the beans. That's where they fall in love
Speaker 1: and signed contracts that they do all this stuff in
Speaker 1: conjunction to us feeding And what's more intimate than giving
Speaker 1: people food that they putting them up. Know any other
Speaker 1: profession as that intimate, maybe some some forms of acting,
Speaker 1: but this is substance, a very basic in the jobs
Speaker 1: is form some jobs in New York alone, restaurant is
Speaker 1: it's the largest employer. So we're writing a documentary. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be. It's happening right now. People are on the
Speaker 1: boots with with with cameras. We started about twelve weeks
Speaker 1: ago and again quick turn around, a couple of meetings, boom,
Speaker 1: let's get cameras. We've get some heat, seed capital, go
Speaker 1: out in the streets. Who we talking on We called chefs.
Speaker 1: Of course they all said yes, and you have these
Speaker 1: incredible vin Yes, I saw it. I was touched, and
Speaker 1: that's just like a little bits and pieces. I saw it,
Speaker 1: but um uh, you know, it just captures such a
Speaker 1: critical moment. So we are capturing as it actually happens,
Speaker 1: and we so hope to be on the other side
Speaker 1: when it comes out. I think point to I think
Speaker 1: that's what little really come to do. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: We love to hear from listeners, and please tune in
Speaker 1: next week for another episode of Strictly Business