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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Left That's a podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Dawn Bridges, who's had a whole

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Speaker 1: career in publicity, mostly corporate publicity. Dawn, I've had a

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Speaker 1: wonderful time in the traditional music industry and the new

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Speaker 1: music industry, UM tech companies, Time Inc. Um, he's a

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Speaker 1: Time Warner. Okay, you covered a lot of ground white publicity.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what else I wanted to do, and

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Speaker 1: I thought about going to law school like everyone else

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Speaker 1: who graduated with a liberal What did you would you

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Speaker 1: what was your degree of communications l A right? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you you graduated from college and this was like

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Speaker 1: late seventies, early eighties, eighty three, and you had no

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Speaker 1: idea what you wanted to do. Well, I knew I

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Speaker 1: always liked music. I actually had an internship at A

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Speaker 1: and M Records and a little bit slower, why did

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Speaker 1: you get an internship at A and M Records? Well,

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Speaker 1: one of the great things about going to school at

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Speaker 1: u CE, oh hey, is there are internships and almost

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Speaker 1: any entertainment company. I mean, just pick it. You want

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Speaker 1: to be in TV, you want to be really yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean because I grew up in the era. I'm

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Speaker 1: a little bit older than you, like ten years older

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Speaker 1: or close to it, and you couldn't even get a

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Speaker 1: job at a record store like Tower Records. It was

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Speaker 1: so hard. So you're going to U c l A.

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Speaker 1: If you say, I want an internship at a record label,

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Speaker 1: is just that easy? Even better, you've got credit for it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you're working there? Uh Gil, is there Gil Freasons

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Speaker 1: running it? Yeah? Gil would have been there. Mike Gormley

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Speaker 1: head Mike Gormley, was it prob? I didn't know that.

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Speaker 1: And I remember the Police album, I mean not the

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Speaker 1: remember the show at the Whiskey where everyone kind of

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Speaker 1: had the bright blonde hair. Go back and google it

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Speaker 1: that the very very first piece was that on that album?

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Speaker 1: Certainly Roxanne. So what did you do with um? Well,

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Speaker 1: those were the days where you actually mailed out um

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Speaker 1: records to journalists. So I stuffed a lot of envelopes.

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Speaker 1: Um you know, I checked people in at shows. I

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Speaker 1: did all the things that aspiring people do. Okay, and

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Speaker 1: that was how long a tenure, I guess about six months? Okay.

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Speaker 1: Good good experience, bad experience. Interesting. I mean it felt

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Speaker 1: very glamorous at the time. You know here you are

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Speaker 1: in the old Charlie chaplain lot um. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: great okay? And after did they give you the time

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Speaker 1: of day? Yeah? No. I thought people were very nice

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Speaker 1: and polite when they had extra tickets to things that

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Speaker 1: would invite me to shows. So and it actually served

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Speaker 1: me well later on when I had interns and departments

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Speaker 1: that that I managed. You know, be nice to your interns, okay,

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Speaker 1: or now the interns have to get paid otherwise, yes

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Speaker 1: they do. Okay, you're at U C l A. How

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Speaker 1: do you get to A and m um, well, I

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Speaker 1: don't know as you have a car. I didn't have

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Speaker 1: a car my first couple of years, so I literally

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Speaker 1: I was a tour gut at the l A Times

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Speaker 1: my sophomore year. So I literally got on the Wilshire

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Speaker 1: bus and went from Westwood downtown to the l A Times.

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Speaker 1: You were a tour guard? Yeah, they used to give

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Speaker 1: tours at the l A Times. What would you see, um? Well,

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Speaker 1: to show you when it was the big finale was

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Speaker 1: ending in the printing presses. It's funny. When I was

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Speaker 1: in grade school, we went once to the brief for

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Speaker 1: post in Connecticut. I remember that was the error of

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Speaker 1: what they said, you know, was it hot? Type letter

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Speaker 1: came down? Yeah, no, that you did all that. And

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Speaker 1: of course the l A Times had so much history

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Speaker 1: you know that I wasn't aware of before I was

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Speaker 1: down there. And I can't remember a whole lot except

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Speaker 1: the chandlers were a big deal and water and um,

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Speaker 1: and it paid extremely I don't remember exactly what I

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Speaker 1: got paid, but it paid two or three times what

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Speaker 1: minimum wage was, so there was a lot of money.

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Speaker 1: It was a lot of more. How did you get

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Speaker 1: that gig? You know? I wish I had a better

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Speaker 1: memory for it. Um, I'm not sure I do. Okay,

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Speaker 1: are you? I mean? But now we hear about the internship.

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Speaker 1: We hear about the job the only times. So you

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Speaker 1: sound somewhat entrepreneurial. Would that be accurate? I guess I

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Speaker 1: would say I was always a self starter and and

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Speaker 1: I had a good sense of perseverance. Um. And I

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Speaker 1: got a much thicker skin as I got older. You know,

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Speaker 1: you have to be comfortable being rejected or having people

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Speaker 1: say no and get back up again. Okay, so you

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Speaker 1: you have that experience, you graduate from U C. L A.

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Speaker 1: And uh, well, in the summer I grew up in

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Speaker 1: Chicago in the summer, I would go back and there

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Speaker 1: was a big music festival called Chicago Fest, and I worked,

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Speaker 1: you know, first as a receptionist. Then they told me,

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Speaker 1: if you learn how to type, you can come back

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Speaker 1: and be the entertainment director's kind of assistant to deal

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Speaker 1: with all the contracts. And that was super glamorous. I

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Speaker 1: mean I remember a hundred thousand people showing up for Journey.

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Speaker 1: I remember the Blues Brothers playing, you know, right on

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Speaker 1: Navy Pier on the water. And through there I met

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Speaker 1: a lot of agents or agents assistants, and through one

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Speaker 1: of them, I was introduced to someone at um Salters

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Speaker 1: Roskin Friedman, which is a big PR agency. At this point,

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Speaker 1: Larry Salter's son is still a PR person Um Lease

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Speaker 1: Alter's son, Larry Salters. That's what I meant to say,

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Speaker 1: Larry is gonna be angry with me. Uh yeah. But

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Speaker 1: that was one of the along with Rogers and Cowan,

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Speaker 1: that was probably the biggest entertainment PR firm. And again

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Speaker 1: I was hired as a secretary of a little bit slower.

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Speaker 1: So you learned them as you found out about them

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Speaker 1: as a result of Chicago Fest. Yes, how did you

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Speaker 1: literally get a job there. Well again, um, PR firms

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Speaker 1: are very low margin and they don't pay very much

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Speaker 1: particular just for my way, it's may not be as

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Speaker 1: sophisticated as you are. Low margin in what way? Um, Well,

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Speaker 1: there's a way to do scale. It's a one on one.

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Speaker 1: So it's not like you, as an account executive can

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Speaker 1: have a hundred clients, because you could not service a

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Speaker 1: hundred clients. Um. And and they were always looking for

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Speaker 1: people to do more work. They were looking for more

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Speaker 1: bodies to raise the gross. Yes, and um I was

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Speaker 1: hired as an assistant. You were doing you were in

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Speaker 1: Chicago in the summers. Okay, so this was a gig

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Speaker 1: with solters at all after you graduated? Yes, okay. Had

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Speaker 1: you in the back of your mind when you were

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Speaker 1: meeting these people at Chicago FESTI say, oh, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to use this to get a job. Uh. Well, I

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Speaker 1: knew I wanted to stay in l A at that point.

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Speaker 1: Um So to the degree that any of the relationships

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Speaker 1: I built there were helpful, um, which they turned out

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Speaker 1: to be. I mean I knew Bobby I met Bobby

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Speaker 1: Brooks then at I c m. Um, I forget who

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Speaker 1: the William Moore's agent was. I mean, those are I

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Speaker 1: guess two big ones that had at least well, I

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Speaker 1: guess I'm trying to get into your personality. Were used

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Speaker 1: basically saying, Okay, I know this person, let me ring them,

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Speaker 1: let me work it, let me see what I can

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Speaker 1: make of myself. Or we just sitting there and all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden you got a phone call. Hey, you

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Speaker 1: know we met you and this you'd be good at

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Speaker 1: our office. Certainly not the latter. I'm not sure. I

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Speaker 1: was just organized for the former, but I was pretty

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Speaker 1: good at figuring out at least target companies, and and

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Speaker 1: again I figured out pretty early that a lot of them,

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Speaker 1: UM needed young people who were basically willing to do

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Speaker 1: anything at anyhing. Okay, so you basically called up the

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Speaker 1: Solters operations that I want to work. I was introduced

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Speaker 1: I think by a junior William Morris agent too, not

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Speaker 1: to lead to someone else. Okay, So you did not

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Speaker 1: know Solters at all from Chicago fest not at all. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you're introduced, you go for meeting. What happens, um, Well,

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Speaker 1: Lee had an office that I'm not sure he ever

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Speaker 1: had filing cabinets. You know, there was the Barber Pile,

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Speaker 1: the Frank Pile, who was a great character. UM. And

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Speaker 1: it was basically, can you write? Do you understand what

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Speaker 1: a column item is? Um? You start next Monday? And

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Speaker 1: again I was hired as an assistant and about three

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Speaker 1: account executives quit in the first month. And it was like,

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Speaker 1: can you be polite? Can you write? Can you figure

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Speaker 1: out what makes a good story? And when you do events?

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Speaker 1: Can you get people to pose for photos? And it

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Speaker 1: was learned by doing. I mean there's no school. How

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Speaker 1: much were you getting paid? I don't remember. Not very

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Speaker 1: much enough to pay your rent and live a life well,

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Speaker 1: or your parents had to help you out. No, my parents,

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Speaker 1: I mean my parents paid tuition UM tuition at U

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Speaker 1: c l A. At that point was not a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of money. I always was responsible, No, I was

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Speaker 1: self sufficient. I did live in Santa Monica in a

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Speaker 1: rent control apartment, so I had very little, you know,

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Speaker 1: housing costs at that point. So what were some of

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Speaker 1: the first things you did? Uh? Well, I remember following

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Speaker 1: Lee around, UM too, Barbara streising events. I think that

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Speaker 1: was maybe the Broadway album. I mean I didn't deal

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Speaker 1: with her directly, but someone always needed helpers you know,

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Speaker 1: carrying the coat or you know, holding the photographers here.

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Speaker 1: And that was also when she did her performance when

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Speaker 1: she hadn't performed for a long time in her house

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Speaker 1: in Malibu for um, the Democratic Party or something, I

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Speaker 1: don't remember specifically what the cause was. And that, of

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Speaker 1: course was so fascinating just to see this sort of

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Speaker 1: legendary person and how an event like that came together.

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Speaker 1: There were a lot of Um, there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of movie premiers, which need a lot of bodies. People

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Speaker 1: have worked the red carpet people you know, to ask

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Speaker 1: stars if they would come talk to entertainment tonight, people

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Speaker 1: to pose photos. Um. They had a big theater practice

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Speaker 1: which I knew nothing about theater, and most of it

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Speaker 1: was centered in New York. Um. But I was given

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Speaker 1: the Carol Channing account, um, which was just a hoop.

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Speaker 1: She was you know, she was lovely. Um. I worked

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Speaker 1: with Morris Day. Um. It was a very David Copperfield,

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Speaker 1: a bunch of Las Vegas acts. Okay, So would you

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Speaker 1: basically assigned and you had to plug wires into holes

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Speaker 1: or did you have to create the opportunities the latter?

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Speaker 1: How did you just how to do that? Well? I've

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Speaker 1: always been a voracious consumer of media. Um. I mean

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Speaker 1: I always read newspapers and a bunch of magazines, So

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Speaker 1: I guess I understood what kind of thing they would

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Speaker 1: cover by just you know, years of reading it, um

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Speaker 1: and again some of it. You know, you can pitch

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Speaker 1: ten things, you know, get nine knowes. You got to

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Speaker 1: just get back up and do. But you would literally say, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I want to be in the l A Times. Let

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Speaker 1: me look who the names are, let me ring them, um,

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Speaker 1: Or let's figure out are we best off in the

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Speaker 1: calendar section? Are we best off in you know, the

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Speaker 1: Sunday magazine. You also need to not just we have

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Speaker 1: a better plan. You would literally call out of the

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Speaker 1: blue and what would you say, Um, we have to

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Speaker 1: figure out what the pitch is, right, What what differentiates

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Speaker 1: your artists from anyone else in that category that makes

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Speaker 1: it interesting enough for the journalists to want to cover it.

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Speaker 1: And that's kind of your job to sort of sort

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Speaker 1: through that. I mean, there's a lot of singers, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of actors, and why should someone care

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Speaker 1: about the one that you're representing? So how do you

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Speaker 1: do it? Give me an example, Oh, you talked to

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Speaker 1: the Um, you talked to the artist a lot, and

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Speaker 1: you try to figure out, again, what's different from this.

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Speaker 1: I don't know country artists and any other country artists.

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Speaker 1: Was it where they grew up? What songs they write? Um? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Their background? Um? And okay, so now you know what

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Speaker 1: you're pitching. You know the artists very well. You're a newbie.

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Speaker 1: No one knows who you are, so you connect in

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Speaker 1: that time it was by phone. You connect with someone

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Speaker 1: who controls as a writer, the media outlet. Did they

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Speaker 1: give you the time of day? Some did? Some? I

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Speaker 1: mean some of the bigger ones were the nicest ones.

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Speaker 1: I mean I didn't deal with Bob Hilburn a lot,

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Speaker 1: but I remember he was completely charming and lovely. Um,

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Speaker 1: and other ones didn't. Again, I guess I had a

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Speaker 1: pretty thick skin because it didn't stick with me. If

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Speaker 1: people just hunt up or not interested or whatever, Okay,

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Speaker 1: onto the next one. So you could literally say I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna call twenty people and if one says yes, doesn't bother?

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Speaker 1: Is that your personality at large? You rejection rolls off you.

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Speaker 1: Oh I never really thought about it that way. I

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Speaker 1: I guess I'm a realist, and I realized that. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, no one bats a dent um in this

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Speaker 1: kind of role. So if I'm going to do this

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Speaker 1: or for as long as I'm doing it, I'd better

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Speaker 1: be comfortable with what the rules of the road are.

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Speaker 1: So how long do you work with Falters? Four or

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Speaker 1: five years? Okay, at the end of the tenure, what

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Speaker 1: does your job look like. I was a senior account

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Speaker 1: executive and what does that mean as opposed to when

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Speaker 1: you started out? Um, I probably had better accounts. I

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Speaker 1: had junior people, even if they didn't. I mean, there

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Speaker 1: was not a formal organ chart, you know, so it's

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Speaker 1: not like I could say these three people reported to me,

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Speaker 1: but I had, you know, people that were junior that

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Speaker 1: I could have help on accounts. Um. Having afterwards worked

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Speaker 1: in corporate life, it was a pretty loose organization, kind

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Speaker 1: of all out of Lee's head and and feeling. But

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Speaker 1: I didn't know any different then. I mean that was

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Speaker 1: just how much pressure was there. I think that there

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Speaker 1: was a fair amount of pressure at least I felt

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Speaker 1: on myself. Um uh, but I've felt pressure at different

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Speaker 1: just asking because for me, not the top of job.

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Speaker 1: For me, I can't handle that much rejection. And let's

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Speaker 1: use the example of a record promo person. You know

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Speaker 1: they're gonna get the ads and they feel a lot

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Speaker 1: of pressure if they don't get them, however, well hard

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Speaker 1: they're working, their bloss is gonna beat them up. So

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Speaker 1: it was the type of thing we say, well, you

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Speaker 1: know we're working this thing. You've got to get a

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Speaker 1: couple of newspapers, you gotta get the person on TV.

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Speaker 1: And did you feel pressure? Well, I really have to

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Speaker 1: make this happen. Lee was a big believer in column items,

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Speaker 1: and with that Carol Channing pile, he would pull out

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Speaker 1: an old column item and say, just freshen this up,

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Speaker 1: Dawn and see if Liz Smith will use it. So

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Speaker 1: he actually gave you a certain amount of instruction. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he gave a great guidance pr people should never

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Speaker 1: be in the photo. Uh, you want your client posts

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Speaker 1: on the left side. Why is that because when you

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Speaker 1: read the thing, you know you're that the first name. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they're the first name that people read, and not everyone

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Speaker 1: reads all the names. Um no, it was okay, So

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Speaker 1: four or five years go by. How does it end

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Speaker 1: with Lee? Well, I had a few music accounts and

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Speaker 1: PolyGram was looking for someone to head their artist publicity

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Speaker 1: department in New York. My father lived in New York

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Speaker 1: and had since I was a teenager, and I always

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Speaker 1: knew I wanted to be in New York. At some point,

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Speaker 1: you said, your father, both parents, my father, um and uh,

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Speaker 1: and they offered to bring me to New York. Um.

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Speaker 1: And again I knew about music. I didn't know sort

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Speaker 1: of about label life and and um and I had

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Speaker 1: never managed a department, even though there was so much

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Speaker 1: money coming in at that point that, you know, making

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Speaker 1: budgets um uh was not what it ended up being.

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Speaker 1: Um later and I, UM, yeah, I mean PolyGram As

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Speaker 1: you remember, there were six major is at that point,

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Speaker 1: where ninety now. Um. So this is just after what

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Speaker 1: Polygrams on an acquisitions were. They bought A and M,

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Speaker 1: they bought Island. They were owned by Phillips, the Dutch

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Speaker 1: electronics company, and to fund those acquisitions they floated the

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Speaker 1: company and the New York Stock Exchange. So they were

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Speaker 1: the first pure play music group. Nothing about I P. O.

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Speaker 1: S or anything like that at that point. That got them,

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Speaker 1: you know, the billion dollars that paid for A and

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Speaker 1: M and Island they acquired right before I came in Subsequently,

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Speaker 1: they acquired Motown a year or so later, and then

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Speaker 1: another year later half of deaf Jam UM. And it

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Speaker 1: was a lot of sort of integration. And UM PolyGram

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Speaker 1: was traditionally on a global level, the biggest of the

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Speaker 1: six companies right there overseas, but the smallest in the US. UM.

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Speaker 1: But they had, you know, a handful of big stars. UM.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, okay, so you're brought in as the department head. Yes,

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Speaker 1: are some of the people working there feel that they

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Speaker 1: should have had your job because they've been working there

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Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, at least one did. Yeah, what

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Speaker 1: happened there? Um? She stayed for a year or so.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think I didn't have the incentive to

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Speaker 1: get rid of her. I felt like usually that person quits.

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Speaker 1: But in any event, UM, did you feel I mean,

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Speaker 1: you've been working in the trenches for four or five years,

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Speaker 1: but you hadn't worked at a label. Did you feel

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Speaker 1: a little intimidated that you were going to be managing

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Speaker 1: the department? Um? I think less about managing the department

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Speaker 1: more than trying to figure out just the mechanics of

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Speaker 1: how a label worked the various departments. UM, How something

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Speaker 1: comes through the system from recording the record to how

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Speaker 1: much time you need for the setup, to the other departments,

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Speaker 1: the marketing, promotion, sales department. Okay, so PolyGram was an

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Speaker 1: overall umbrella and they had a lot of labels. You

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Speaker 1: were working in New York. What was your responsibility in

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Speaker 1: the beginning when I was hired, A and M and

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Speaker 1: Island weren't integrated yet, so they were still run stand alone.

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Speaker 1: Um I was the old PolyGram So Bungo, VI, Deaf Leopard,

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Speaker 1: Tears Tears, Mercury. Yeah, well then they split it up

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Speaker 1: after I got they split it up between Mercury and

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Speaker 1: they created something called the PolyGram Label Group, which had

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Speaker 1: London and I think some of the Island repertoire um

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Speaker 1: going through. And then yes, I had the Mercury artists

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Speaker 1: and I think so you were literally the record company

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Speaker 1: publicity I was. And then so how much did you

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Speaker 1: still have to do the work that you did at

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Speaker 1: least alters as opposed to farming it out to your people. Well,

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Speaker 1: I remember um my boss saying you've got to deal

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Speaker 1: with Bungo because he's the biggest artist on the label

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Speaker 1: and you're running the department. Um Mellencamp had outside press,

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Speaker 1: but I ended up having a reasonable relationship with him.

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Speaker 1: He's notoriously difficult, even myself. But at that point UM,

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Speaker 1: because you know, all the corporate PR was done out

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Speaker 1: of London, UM, but we were being traded in New

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Speaker 1: York and Alan Levy, who came over from from Europe

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Speaker 1: and was then chairman UM, said get me PR because

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Speaker 1: he needed someone in New York that could deal with

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Speaker 1: some of the corporate stuff. And I tried it upstairs,

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Speaker 1: and I think he made one of those decisions that

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Speaker 1: I would rather have someone that knew the artists and

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Speaker 1: sort of knew the mechanics of the business UM and

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Speaker 1: had trade relationships, and I'll teach them, you know, the

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Speaker 1: business stuff. And I mean I took accounting in college,

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Speaker 1: but I know nothing about sort of finances. I p

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Speaker 1: o s. But at the time, Columbia had a month

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Speaker 1: long live in Finance for Non Financial Executives course and

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Speaker 1: he sent me to that, and it was famous for

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Speaker 1: sending people to courses. But it was such a great

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Speaker 1: gift for me because that's where I wasn'tmidated in the beginning,

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Speaker 1: and all that business stuff. I didn't know the difference,

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Speaker 1: you know, I knew the difference between balanced sheeting, the

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Speaker 1: P and L. But you know how deals were mean

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Speaker 1: any of that stuff. And obviously a month is not

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Speaker 1: like having an NBA or a finance degree, but you

363
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Speaker 1: know what, it's enough where you can talk to the

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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and not feel like an idiot. Okay,

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Speaker 1: when was there an interim period when you were doing

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Speaker 1: both or all the way to the end, All the

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Speaker 1: way to the end. I literally had two titles, two

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Speaker 1: sets of business cards, PolyGram Corps, com Mercury, you know,

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Speaker 1: artist publicity. I had two wardrobes because if I was

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Speaker 1: in a corporate day and then I had a concert

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Speaker 1: at night, you know, I wasn't gonna wear you know,

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Speaker 1: you need to change into my jeans. So what was

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Speaker 1: your mission a corporate level? On a corporate level, explain

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Speaker 1: why people should buy PolyGram stock, Explain how um the

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Speaker 1: labels are being integrated. And PolyGram did two other things

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Speaker 1: that are kind of interesting that seemed obvious now. They

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Speaker 1: started a film come they you know of the company,

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Speaker 1: I think what was film revenues. They bought working title films,

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Speaker 1: which is still around, you know, love actually four weddings

380
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Speaker 1: in the funeral um. They bought propaganda which mostly did

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Speaker 1: music videos but also had films UM California. I don't

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Speaker 1: remember all of them. Uh, and they bought Interscope Films UM.

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Speaker 1: So you had this, you know, truly multi media entertainment

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Speaker 1: company UM. And then they also and now this is

385
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Speaker 1: very obvious and commonplace, but because of PolyGram strength overseas,

386
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Speaker 1: you know, yes, they were always trying to sell you know,

387
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Speaker 1: Shania Twain or Brian Adams or Bunjovie records around the world.

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Speaker 1: But they also put a huge emphasis on local repertoire UM.

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Speaker 1: You know, the Italian artists, it's never going to travel

390
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Speaker 1: outside of Italy. They will sell a boatload of of

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Speaker 1: records or CDs in Italy. UM. And that was I

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Speaker 1: mean not just from a business standpoint, but explaining to

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Speaker 1: investors that that was an important little bit slower. So

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Speaker 1: you take the Columbia course. You're sophisticated enough to talk

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Speaker 1: to UM financial press, do you who do you start calling? Well,

396
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Speaker 1: there's not that many ones that you have. You know,

397
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Speaker 1: you have to build a relationship with the New York

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Speaker 1: Times and with the Wall Street Journal and the Financial

399
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Speaker 1: Times and UM. You know, I mean there were random

400
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Speaker 1: things like the economists, but it's not like the economists

401
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:29,120
Speaker 1: head to beat The l A Times obviously was huge.

402
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Speaker 1: At that point, Chuck Phillips was probably the most important

403
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Speaker 1: music business um person. Um. You know the trades. Um.

404
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Speaker 1: It wasn't always necessarily pitching things. It was more preparation

405
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Speaker 1: of messaging and materials and earnings and reports in English?

406
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Speaker 1: What is that? Well, Um, by pitching, I mean pro acts. No, no,

407
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Speaker 1: the other end the point with preparation. Oh well, okay,

408
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Speaker 1: you're a public company. So every quarter you have to

409
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Speaker 1: issue um of release about how your results were, and

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Speaker 1: then you have to explain why revenues went down and

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Speaker 1: what you're projecting for the next quarter. Um, and you

412
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Speaker 1: know how the company is pitting together, what your competitive

413
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Speaker 1: advantages are. Okay, So there would be a meeting are

414
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Speaker 1: there the release and they would have a meeting with

415
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Speaker 1: the analysts would call in, Yeah, you have a quarterly okay,

416
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Speaker 1: analysts call And then when that ended in the afternoon,

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Speaker 1: you'd put out some kind of press release now product

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Speaker 1: the release before? No, I guess what I guess I didn't,

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Speaker 1: you're right? Would when that ended, would you call the

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Speaker 1: news outlets and try to spin them? Um? Usually they're

421
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Speaker 1: calling you they had specific questions for whatever story they're

422
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Speaker 1: writing about it, and you know, can you explain ABC? Um?

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, maybe I would have checked in,

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Speaker 1: do you have everything you need? Can I help with

425
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Speaker 1: it anything? Um? But you're really the Wall Street Journal,

426
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Speaker 1: And if you've written a good press release for your

427
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: earnings and you know we had really good financial people

428
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 1: and investor relations people, You're not going to convince the

429
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal of something other than what they see

430
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:20,399
Speaker 1: and what they're looking at. You can clarify things, you

431
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 1: can get them more information, but it's not like I'm

432
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: going to go out there and all of a sudden

433
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 1: take you know, black and make it white. Okay. Now,

434
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:35,400
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with UH label publicity, which I think

435
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:38,199
Speaker 1: most people can figure it out. But you say there

436
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 1: are fewer outlets and corporate publicity, and you talked about relationships.

437
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 1: How do you establish and keep up those relationships? Well,

438
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 1: I suppose it's like any kind of relationship. You treat

439
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 1: people with respect, you're polite. Um, you return calls very

440
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:57,399
Speaker 1: quickly because they're on deadline. Um. If you don't know something,

441
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: you don't try to kind of bs your way through it.

442
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 1: It good question don't know. Let me check into it

443
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: and I'll get back to you. And you never ever

444
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:10,479
Speaker 1: ever lie, okay, but let's assume it was off cycle.

445
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: In between quarterly things, would you call in just make nice,

446
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: to keep the relationship and now you have a lunch

447
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: with you know, the key people. I don't know whether

448
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: it was every quarter or every six months, but uh.

449
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: And also when there were a lot more tickets for shows,

450
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 1: you'd invite them to shows. Okay, And you're doing two jobs. Now,

451
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: when someone does one job in the music business, they

452
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: have no life. How are you doing? What your life

453
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:39,119
Speaker 1: look like doing two jobs? Um? Well, I did have

454
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 1: two departments supporting me. Um. You know, when you're in

455
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: your late twenties early thirties, it's very glamorous. And you know,

456
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,160
Speaker 1: I wasn't married then, I didn't have kids yet. Um,

457
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: so I didn't mind if I was going out five

458
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: nights a week or I enjoyed going out five nights

459
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: a week. And you know, obviously this was pre everyone

460
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 1: having their computer at home or certainly you know, pre

461
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: BlackBerry and and iPhones, so you kind of you know,

462
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,160
Speaker 1: when you finished with The New York Times at six o'clock,

463
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: you were done till the next morning when you picked

464
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: up the paper and you saw what was in there,

465
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: and there was sort of a relief in that you

466
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 1: don't have this twenty four hour cycle of of um

467
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: you know that that we do now? Um? Why were

468
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: to my viewpoint, it seemed like the let me put

469
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: it this way, it seemed like the entry point at

470
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: the label for women was through publicity department. Yeah, okay,

471
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: and probably HR, but you never paid attention to HR.

472
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: Yes okay. UM. I don't know whether it felt like

473
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: a more female thing that you know, you're kind of

474
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: catering to people and you're the one that sets up

475
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: the parties and you know, offers to poor people a drink.

476
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean obviously also you were not

477
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 1: controlling a P and l um, so you weren't on

478
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: an operational UM. I guess driving here was this actually sexism?

479
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 1: Were they basically saying, hey, you can do the publicitist

480
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 1: publicity ghetto, but these other jobs maybe if you prove yourself,

481
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: but you were not going to let you right in. UM.

482
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: I was so happy, as I think many people in

483
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 1: my position, at least in the nineties were to have

484
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 1: a seat at the table and be part of this.

485
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: It didn't even occur to me. I mean that that. Um,

486
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 1: I might have been able to do something else or

487
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: contribute in a different way. I just wanted to do

488
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: my job in the best. Okay, how about the other

489
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 1: end of it. Uh, you're an attractive young woman working

490
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 1: amongst a lot of high power people. Did people abuse

491
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: that relationship? Um? Did I ever have anything horrible happened

492
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: to me? No? Horrible is a little strong. Uh. It

493
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: was different times, and you know I felt very comfortable

494
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: and taking care of myself. Okay at this point in time,

495
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: do you think you have been consistent or you have

496
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 1: a height and awareness and you might not tolerate stuff?

497
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,479
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think everyone does. I mean I mentioned

498
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: this to you. Before we started PolyGram, every year would

499
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: have a very glamorous managing director's conference. I don't know,

500
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 1: two hundred people ten years and we went to Seville

501
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: in Berlin and Vancouver and um, Hong Kong, and out

502
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 1: of two and fifty people, there were three women, which

503
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 1: now that seems so bizarre to me. Three women, Um,

504
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: the same three women by the way, UM, and so

505
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: that's a heavy ratio. What was it like being one

506
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: of those women, Well, we were the junior people, and

507
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: we were kind of, um, the favorite people. Everyone wanted

508
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,719
Speaker 1: to sit with us because there were only three women exactly. Okay,

509
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: so you're rocking it, PolyGram. What's the next step? Uh,

510
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: PolyGram gets sold to Universe. So and that was kind

511
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: of a shock because you know, it was the biggest

512
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: record company in the world, it was still very profitable

513
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: and Napster had not hit yet. Um, and it was

514
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 1: quite a long time to close the deal. Well, actually,

515
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: first I should say I was on maternity leave with

516
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: my second kid, and I came back early, which I

517
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: now also think is stunning. You know, I had one

518
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: second kid and one maternity leave, and all of a

519
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: sudden it became so important to come back after nine weeks.

520
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: And I obviously never got that back, and no one

521
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 1: cared on the other side. It's not like anyone said, oh,

522
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: look at her, she's a saint. She came in after

523
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 1: nine weeks ahead of time. I mean, that's just not

524
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: the way it worked. Um, it was about a year

525
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: to close the deal. And then I mean I kept

526
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: a lot of the label people, you know, le are

527
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: obviously stayed and actually got more you know, when they

528
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: combined Island def JAM UM, but anyone kind of in

529
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: a corporate staff level, UM what was out UM. But

530
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: by them Roger Aames had been run. You know. Levy

531
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: was on top of everything, including the film division, and

532
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: Roger Ames was running of the company UM that that

533
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: was music, recorded music and publishing. And he and I,

534
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: you know, were very close. UM. And he UM was

535
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: talking to Jerry Levin and Dick Parsons about UM because

536
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: as you remember, after the whole sort of thing in

537
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: the mid nineties, UM, with the changes in management at UM,

538
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: what was it It was Morgatto to Fuchs and and

539
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: then they gave it to the film guys Daily and

540
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: Semmel Um Chris Daily and semi brilliant people. But they

541
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: were on the West Coast and Warner Music was an

542
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: East Coast based company. UM, and I think Jerry Um

543
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: and Dick Parsons decided UM they wanted to get a

544
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: music I based in New York and Roger was available. UM.

545
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: It took a while to sort of get the deal done,

546
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,239
Speaker 1: and then when he came in, he brought me in

547
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: and I started. The day that the A O. L

548
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: Time Warner merger was announced Okay, a couple of things.

549
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: You see the end of polygrin. Are you uptight about

550
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do for a living? You just had

551
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 1: another kid. I was very sad because it was it

552
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: was a very important part of my life. It was

553
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: a family to me. I mean, you know, the artists,

554
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: the people I worked with, and it just sort of

555
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: felt like I was being torn away from kind of

556
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: everything I knew, you know, in the bulk of my adulthood. Um. Now,

557
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: at that point, because the economy was good, the music induction.

558
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: You're the type of person, You're a survivor. You're gonna land.

559
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: You believe you're gonna land on your feet, no matter

560
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: what I believe. You have to figure out a way

561
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: to land on your feet. Okay. So ultimately Aims closes

562
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: with Warner and he brings you over. Now this is

563
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: solely as corporate publicity, right Yeah. Well I ended up, yes,

564
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: no artist stuff, but I ended up adding things like

565
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: third party marketing and you know what is Oh, how

566
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: would you explain it? NASCAR wants to do music based programming. UM,

567
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: so you partner with them so that you can expose

568
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: you know, some of your artists and um and then

569
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: they also had all these committees because all of a sudden,

570
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: you know, Time Warner, which was famously siloed after the

571
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: A O L deal happened, they wanted to have synergy.

572
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: So because there was a very small corporate staff, all

573
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was the Synergy marketing person, the

574
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: Synergy philanthropy person, the Synergy advertising person, which served me

575
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: very well because I think there were eight or nine

576
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: divisions then, so I got to know people all across

577
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: all of the Time Warner divisions. Okay, so you started

578
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: on the merger day. What was it like in the office. Well,

579
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: people were in shock, as you can imagine, UM, And

580
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,479
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone from the end I was clearly

581
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: on the Time Warner side. I don't think anyone really

582
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: knew what to think. Um. And not too long afterwards,

583
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: I remember there was an investor day where what it

584
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: would have been Steve Case, Bob Pittman, Jerry live In,

585
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: Dick Parsons and whoever. The Time Warner CFO was UM

586
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: and each of the division heads. It was a whole

587
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: day thing we had to prepare. So this case Roger

588
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: had to give a half an hour of presentation about

589
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 1: why people should love Warner Music. But of course that

590
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:29,479
Speaker 1: was when Napster was starting to show. And of the

591
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: eight or nine Time Warner divisions, the music division from

592
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: a business standpoint, was arguably the most troubled. Um. So

593
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: there's like a big spotlight, and you had all these

594
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: people jostling for position, for power, and even from the

595
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: media standpoint, it was so interesting because as opposed to

596
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: saying from the Wall Street Journal, this is our point person,

597
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: you now had a point person who covered a O

598
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: well and a point person who covered Time Warner. And

599
00:33:56,320 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: you multiply that out against any sort of business outlet um,

600
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: and it was a very leaky organization. Um yeah, every

601
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: everyone was getting their agenda out there. So I mean

602
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: you could kind of look whether it was the New

603
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: York Post or whether it was in New York Times

604
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 1: and figure out who was trying to say what. Um

605
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,919
Speaker 1: yeah it was. So what were some of your experiences there?

606
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,280
Speaker 1: You talked about nine eleven and what happened there? Okay,

607
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: so I was nine eleven. Um, almost all of us

608
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: in the senior level, Um, we're out in l A.

609
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 1: We came out like the last flight out um on

610
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 1: the tent um and it was pouring in la or

611
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 1: pouring in New York. So we were delayed, you know,

612
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 1: didn't get to the hotel until two in the morning. Um.

613
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: Roger was out, Sylvia Rome was out, Valazzoli was out.

614
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: It was a Latin Grammy Awards and it was um uh,

615
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,720
Speaker 1: Madonna's last show of this tour. So Liz Rosenberg was out,

616
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 1: and there was a Mary Lynch conference, so Helen Murphy,

617
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 1: the CFO was out. So all of us were around,

618
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: and you know, we'd all watched this on TV. We

619
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: were all New Yorkers going trying to find our family.

620
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: You know, no cell phone, no New York cell phones worked. UM.

621
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: A very good friend of mine, actually, the woman who

622
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: is my son's godmother, lost her husband in canter you know,

623
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: and she called me and left me a message. So

624
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 1: I and I mean she knew because obviously all you

625
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: had to do was look at the footage, and she

626
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: knew he worked on the top floor. Um. And so

627
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: it all came crumbling down. And I think he had

628
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 1: actually left her message saying you know, um, I think

629
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: he said a bomb went off. UM. So I'm worried

630
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: about one of my best friends in the world. But

631
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,320
Speaker 1: I can't even talk to her because the phones aren't working.

632
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 1: And also, as you remember, they closed um uh, you

633
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: know any commercial flights. So what day? It was a Tuesday,

634
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: And so every day we keep on thinking because time

635
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: Warner than had a big fleet of jets. Okay, well

636
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: we'll head up to Burbank and as soon as they

637
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 1: open up, fly home. And when they came, first they

638
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:06,400
Speaker 1: came and went. And you remember Johnny Barbs, So Johnny

639
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:09,760
Speaker 1: was good friends with Whoopi Goldberg. Evidently Whoopi Goldberg doesn't

640
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: fly or doesn't fly a lot, and she had a

641
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: tricked out luxury bus. So when she used to go

642
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: to New York, she had these two drivers I think

643
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: they were Vietnam vets. One would go for ten hours

644
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: then sleep, next one would go, you know, only stopping

645
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 1: for gas. And they could do it, I don't know,

646
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: fifty hours coast to coast. And so we actually sat

647
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: in the lobby at the Four Seasons, going, are we

648
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: gonna wait for the planes, you know, to be able

649
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: to fly or do we get on a bus now

650
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: with the idea that in two days will be home

651
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: by in l Roger and Sylvie I remember stayed and

652
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: waited for the planes, and they did end up getting

653
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 1: home before we did. The rest of us. Um. Val Um.

654
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: Liz Rosenberg, who didn't have kids, Um, Helen Murphy and

655
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: I decided we'd rather just be moving, you know, because

656
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,479
Speaker 1: otherwise we could be sitting there for another. To top

657
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 1: it all off, the night before, I got food poisoning.

658
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: So I've been up all night long and I'm completely green. Um.

659
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:09,799
Speaker 1: And what we had a nice bed because I was

660
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:14,360
Speaker 1: so sick. They gave me the bed and no, no, no, no, no, no,

661
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: she just gave she and this is out of the

662
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: goodness of her heart. UM. So Liz Rosenberg would come

663
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: in and kind of you know, pat my head down,

664
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: and at night she and I I would say, I

665
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: slept with Liz Rosenberg, you know, going across country. Um. Yeah.

666
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: And they had satellite TV so we could watch CNN,

667
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: but there was still no real communication in time time

668
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: with New York. Um. Yeah, so did the bus drop

669
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 1: you off your front door? You know? The bus dropped

670
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: val off in New Jersey and then the rest of

671
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: us were all Manhattan, Westchester, Connecticut. Um. So they picked

672
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 1: place um in Tarrytone, actually a mall, and you know,

673
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 1: we and they told us beforehand, So we all told

674
00:37:58,000 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: you know, whoever was going to pick us up meet

675
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: us here around this time. And what was it like

676
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: being on the bus with these people for fifty hours? Well,

677
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:07,959
Speaker 1: I mean, like everyone else in America, we were all

678
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,879
Speaker 1: just shell shocked and people were trying to figure it out.

679
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:18,959
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean I had been I'd driven cross

680
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: country before, so that wasn't particularly a novel. But you

681
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,759
Speaker 1: were going that fast without stops. Okay, what were some

682
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: of the experiences there at time at Warner Music? Um,

683
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: what were some of the experiences. Well, what I know

684
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: is it ultimately that Roger was trying to do mergers. Yes, okay,

685
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 1: so that's right. So so when the A O LL

686
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 1: deal was announced, Roger was trying to merge Warner with

687
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: am I part one. Um. So I spent the better

688
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: part of a year, as did many lawyers. That's how

689
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,720
Speaker 1: I got to Dick Parsons quite well, because the bigger

690
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: issue was Brussels, not Washington, d C. European commissioners. So

691
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 1: I learned a lot about European anti trust and you know,

692
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 1: all the things that go into it. And in the end, um,

693
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 1: the European Commission decided that in order to approve the

694
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: A O. L. Time Warner deal, that Time Warner would

695
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: have to give up the E M I deal. UM.

696
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: And Dick Parsons will say to this day we got

697
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: the wrong deal through through Brussels um, and that that

698
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 1: was like a ten month process. But it was also

699
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:29,720
Speaker 1: lovely for me because I got to know Dick quite

700
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: well because by then, you know, Jerry's the CEO and

701
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 1: Cases the chairman, and Bob was running kind of all

702
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: the divisions with the exception of music and film, and

703
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: so you know, Dick was a lawyer, he was you know,

704
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: had political background, and he was responsible for music. UM.

705
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 1: Got on very well with Roger, you know, so he

706
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:53,879
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time trying to shepherd this thing through. Um. Yeah,

707
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Um. And then at one point I think

708
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: Roger explored something with BMG, but were Sony Um, but

709
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: there were. And then when the Sony BMG thing happened,

710
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: obviously it went from five majors to four, which made

711
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 1: it that much more difficult to do another deal. And

712
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:17,839
Speaker 1: when Jeff Bucas decided both because what do they call

713
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: it negative growth um uh, to get rid of them

714
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: the music Company two thousand three two four or printed

715
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: up for sale because you know, given how much it

716
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: was declining, no real light on the horizon, all the

717
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: napster stuff and UM as well as trying to pay

718
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 1: down some of the A O Well debt UM and

719
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: that was kind of floating around for a while. Ultimately,

720
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: as you know, it came down to UM, E, M,

721
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: I and UH and Edgar Bronfman. And in the end,

722
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: I think Jeff made the decision to go with Bronfman

723
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to spend ten months in Brussels

724
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: trying to get any more. Gave it away a fewer

725
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,720
Speaker 1: than three billion dollars two point eight billion. And now

726
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: if you figure Universal and I actually talked to a

727
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 1: banker last night whom validated this, if Universal with the

728
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: ten cent deal is now valued at thirty three billion

729
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: and Warner giver take is about half the size. I mean,

730
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: you can argue about the assets and publishing and everything

731
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: probably worth at least fifteen billion now, so in sixteen years,

732
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,760
Speaker 1: just by continuing to be an operation it was worth

733
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 1: that much. Where does that leave you when uh it

734
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 1: ultimately happens. Well, Roger, you know, had made a boatload

735
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: of money and decided he wanted to move back to London,

736
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 1: and there wasn't probably a seat at the table for him,

737
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 1: at least immediately. UM and Dick Parson said I really

738
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: want you to stay with Time Warner, and about a

739
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 1: week later said you should meet Anne Moore. She's our

740
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 1: new chairman of Time Ink. I think you get along

741
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: with her. She wants her own communications person. And so

742
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: I literally walked half a block from seventy five Rock

743
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: to the Time Life Building met Anne was hired. I

744
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: got my payoff from Warner Music, and I think a

745
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 1: week later started at Time Inc. Um. But it was

746
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: a culture shock. I mean, no one in the music

747
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 1: business ever asked me if I went to college where

748
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: I went to college where I studied. And I'm not

749
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: saying it's a good or bad thing, but all of

750
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: a sudden I'm on the executive floor of the Time

751
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: Life Building, down the hall from where Henry Luce used

752
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: to sit, not the only person without an Ivy League degree. UM.

753
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: Again fascinating, and I walked in by the way at

754
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: the time of the whole Scooter Libby UM Judy Miller

755
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: trial UM, which ended up the Supreme Court didn't hear it,

756
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: but it went up to the court after that, which

757
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: just you know, took over everything. Um because unlike the

758
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 1: New York Times, because the New York Times never published it.

759
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: Judy Miller, you know, was on the hook for it.

760
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 1: But Time Magazine and the Washington um or the White

761
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: House Reporter published something about the league, and therefore Time

762
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: Magazine was also being sued. UM. And Norm Pearlstein, who

763
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: was editor in chief at the time now editor of

764
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: the l A Times, you know, absolutely brilliant, also a

765
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: lawyer by training. Um. You know, it was really running

766
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: a lot of the strategy. But it was super tricky.

767
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: You know, if the highest legal entity says you need

768
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: to do something in this case turn over your notes, um,

769
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 1: it's hard to say, no, I don't agree with you. UM.

770
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: But yet turning over notes are supposed to be confidential

771
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: for journalistic organization is just about the worst you know,

772
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:50,760
Speaker 1: sin you can um, you can have. And again this

773
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: this went on for a long time while the White

774
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 1: House Reporter that was part of this whole thing, you know,

775
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: at a young kid was terrified about getting thrown in

776
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:00,439
Speaker 1: jail in the case of duty Miller and I didn't

777
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: know Judy at all. I mean I sat in some meetings.

778
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 1: The thinking was because she was behind some of the

779
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction, you know, a rocky coverage for

780
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 1: The Times that she sort of wanted to you know,

781
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: make up for that, and if she was gonna you know,

782
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 1: bite the bullet, you know, she would. Um. Ultimately, I

783
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: guess right before they were going to be sentence sentenced.

784
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: And I have no idea why they did this, um,

785
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: but Carl Rose, attorney said, you know you're free to

786
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: do you know, if you need to turn it over,

787
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: turn it over. Uh, and that let us off the hook. Judy,

788
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,799
Speaker 1: I think did go to jail for a couple of months. UM.

789
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: Very interesting stuff. So what was it like, what was

790
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: your role of what was your experience in the belly

791
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: of the beast? Well, um, I mean it got so

792
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: much coverage, I mean every day from so many different outlets.

793
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 1: I mean it was TV coverage. It was if there

794
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: was a court hearing, you know, camera is all over,

795
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: you know. And it wasn't just the New York Times,

796
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, you know, it was Newsweek and UM

797
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 1: and things like the New York Observer. UM, you know,

798
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:14,359
Speaker 1: international papers were looking at this so it was a

799
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:16,799
Speaker 1: big deal and you had to figure you know, you

800
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 1: had to figure out, based on the events of that

801
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,839
Speaker 1: time that that particular day or event, what you were

802
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: going to say, and you would figure it out or

803
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 1: you're you're right it and then ask uh. Well, I

804
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: worked closely with Norman and the other lawyers involved. I

805
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 1: mean I certainly was not in a position to do

806
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: anything laterally in a case that big. I would never

807
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 1: do anything, you know, without a lawyer anyway. Okay, Now

808
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 1: it's ironic that that was run by Ivy League people

809
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: and that created when the music business went up. What

810
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: was that experience for you? Well, in the beginning, remember

811
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:57,719
Speaker 1: Time magazine was one of the premier and one of

812
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:03,240
Speaker 1: the largest and most prestigious media companies of the century. Um.

813
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: And even when I got there, we would still do

814
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 1: talks with with you know, Justice Scalia, Senator Obama when

815
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 1: he was still senator um. Uh. You know, I can

816
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: remember Steve Jobs coming in, you know, the show people

817
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 1: the iPhone. Um. I mean people still cared about those titles.

818
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: And I'm not just talking about Time and Fortune. I

819
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: mean from the entertainment side, obviously, people Entertainment Weekly. Um.

820
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: From a sports side Sports Illustrated. I mean you could

821
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: sort of get to anyone in any area, and publishing

822
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: was still relatively healthy until maybe two thousand seven or eight,

823
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: when you know, both consumer behavior changed, meaning getting their

824
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 1: news from the internet, and advertisers change, meaning you know,

825
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 1: advertising either on social platforms or the internet. Um. And

826
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 1: I felt I felt so much deja vu because I

827
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 1: was like, I've been there before, I've seen this movie,

828
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: and people sometimes would look at me like you see

829
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: around corners. It's it's like, no, I just have kind

830
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: of seen this movie. Because I would say music business

831
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 1: was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption. Well,

832
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: I remember at some time Warner offsite, Um, some of

833
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 1: the film guys were basically you music people, and Roger

834
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 1: was so fired up and he's just like, you know,

835
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:25,879
Speaker 1: you just wait until those pipes are bigger and it's

836
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: going to be your turn to How did the people

837
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 1: at the top when, when and how did they wake up?

838
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: What did that look like? Well, they were very smart people. Um.

839
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: I mean they may not have grown up in internet world.

840
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:47,879
Speaker 1: Um uh, But I remember, um Going Out was then

841
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 1: the All Things deconference, now the Recode conference with Anne

842
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: Moore and it was almost like she got real. I mean,

843
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:55,879
Speaker 1: now all the big media people do it, but at

844
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 1: the time it was a very techy thing and she

845
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: was one of the first traditional media accompany people to go.

846
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: And we you know, at the time time had a

847
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,879
Speaker 1: magazine Business two point oh, and the Business two point

848
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: oh editor worked with her quick study. I mean, you know,

849
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 1: did some Q and A like this and the things.

850
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,839
Speaker 1: You know. Either she didn't get right the first time,

851
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 1: she got right the second time, UM and UM. And

852
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: I think the fact, you know, she kind of raised

853
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: her hand and said, we want to be in business

854
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 1: with you. And whether it's doing deals or you know,

855
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 1: sharing content. Um. You know, she got real credit for that.

856
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 1: I mean, I still remember their special edition was George

857
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: Lucas and more and Steve Jobs, and I thought, okay,

858
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: that's not bad. Okay, did you interact with Steve Jobs

859
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: when Rod Raames was Yeah, because actually, UM, for the

860
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,240
Speaker 1: development of the iTunes store, Warner was the first company

861
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: in and I'm not sure what the historical precedents for

862
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: that was, but I went out two or three times

863
00:48:56,160 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 1: and um to Coopertino just with Roger with the way

864
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: or a digital guy to talk through, and Roger's pitch

865
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:07,359
Speaker 1: two jobs was, it's like the mafia families do not

866
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: try to get all five companies to agree on things.

867
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: You know, you decide what you want, we'll make the

868
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: introduction to Universal. You have number one and two companies. Um,

869
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: And that's what happened. I mean, everyone else was just

870
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 1: goofing around or well, I just Roger told me. He

871
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:28,879
Speaker 1: told Universal, Uh, either you're in or from resigning from

872
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:31,319
Speaker 1: the r I double A. Well he did tell the

873
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: r I double A I am not going to be

874
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: part of suing consumers for illegal downloading until we give

875
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: them a legal option. Okay, but did you actually hang

876
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 1: around jobs? Do you have any insights there? Uh? I

877
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 1: won't say. Well, actually, after Warner Music was sold, he

878
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: asked me to come out and meet the Pixar people

879
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: about working for Pixar. And I only realized afterwards. You

880
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,280
Speaker 1: sort of start with HR and then if you anyone

881
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:01,279
Speaker 1: continue I didn't realize that. And it's kind of I

882
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: think a Silicon Valley thing. And if you pass with

883
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: UM HR, you got I don't know, legal and then

884
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: you go to finance and you know, then you end

885
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:14,919
Speaker 1: up with you know, uh, John Lasseter and UM. And

886
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,399
Speaker 1: then at the end of you know, a long day,

887
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: they said, you know, you should go over to Cupertino

888
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: and UM and meet with Steve again. UM. Now, I'm

889
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 1: not sure that I would have been offered the job,

890
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:30,319
Speaker 1: but I also knew that I didn't want to move

891
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 1: to northern California. I mean, my family was quite young,

892
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: you know, my extended family, most of them were in

893
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: New York. UM. And after while the tunnel in my

894
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: work life, UM, I became very focused on you can't

895
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 1: make work the center and you know if it doesn't

896
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: fit in the rest of your life, because that can

897
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: go away and your rest of your life is not

898
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:54,400
Speaker 1: going to go away. Well, I guess you worked with

899
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 1: an or of experience, a lot of big personalities. What

900
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: did you learn about these titans of the industry. Well,

901
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 1: some of them had um amazing manners. UM. I mean,

902
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:11,359
Speaker 1: Dick was is just the most polite person. I mean

903
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 1: I could send Dick a book and I would get

904
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 1: a personalized thank you note. I mean from from from

905
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:20,799
Speaker 1: the chairman. UM. Rogers, you know, is very blunt but

906
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: also polite in his UM, in his own way. I'm

907
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,839
Speaker 1: certainly not a screamer. You know, I worked a lot

908
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:30,719
Speaker 1: with Chris Blackwell, both in my consulting business and when

909
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:34,320
Speaker 1: he was at Ireland. Um I was so I was

910
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:36,880
Speaker 1: probably more intimidated by Chris and anyone else in the

911
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:39,760
Speaker 1: beginning at PolyGram because to me he was such a legend.

912
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:42,839
Speaker 1: He signed my two favorite artists of all time, which

913
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 1: are two and who by um. And he was so

914
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,399
Speaker 1: cool that before one of these conferences that I told

915
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 1: you about where there were only three women, Golden Eye

916
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 1: hadn't opened yet. He was still his personal home even

917
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: though he was building out the um the Hudson Villas.

918
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 1: He invited the three of us down for the weekend

919
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: before the conference started. I was like, how cool is that? Right? Um? No,

920
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: And he's someone who I guess like Steve Jobs, very

921
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: different personally, but he had a vision. Even if everyone

922
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 1: else didn't agree with the vision, he was going to

923
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: go with that vision. You know, it is to think

924
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:27,839
Speaker 1: different things. Okay, so you were one on one with

925
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs. Uh yeah, but the Pixar thing, Yeah, I

926
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,800
Speaker 1: mean I was how long did that last? Was he blunt?

927
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:39,400
Speaker 1: Was he nice? He was blunt? And he wasn't not nice?

928
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:41,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't say he was warm and fuzzy.

929
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 1: I also at that time this would have been I

930
00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:49,280
Speaker 1: guess two thousand three or four ish. Because I didn't

931
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:51,400
Speaker 1: come from a tech world. I didn't realize that Steve

932
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 1: Jobs was like this. I mean, I know, a big deale.

933
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: Apple was a big deal, but Apple was not not

934
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:58,239
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, the most valuable company in

935
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 1: the world. Steve Jobs wasn't mus around the world that

936
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 1: way outside of you know, kind of a business and

937
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:09,000
Speaker 1: tech community. Um. So I didn't know enough to be intimidated.

938
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:16,759
Speaker 1: I guess, Okay, So how does it end with time? Uh?

939
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: The chairman retired after thirty seven years. And she was

940
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,760
Speaker 1: an interesting story. I mean, she spent her Harvard Business School.

941
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:26,360
Speaker 1: Right out of Harvard Business School, first class of women.

942
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: There weren't even female bathrooms when she was there. Um

943
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: gets offered thirteen jobs, lowest paying, most time, inc And

944
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,760
Speaker 1: again she liked magazine. She didn't want to be a banker,

945
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:39,960
Speaker 1: and she went there and made more money than she

946
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 1: would have anywhere else. And she was kind of known

947
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 1: as the launch queen. You know, she developed in style

948
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:49,839
Speaker 1: with the idea that um, you know, women don't just

949
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:52,759
Speaker 1: want the aspirational Vogue. Look, they want the practical work,

950
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 1: and I buy it. How much does a cost? Which

951
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: became incredibly successful, not just in the US but around

952
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:03,720
Speaker 1: the world. Um, she launched and more. She launched Real Simple.

953
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,960
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that the average American woman spends

954
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,399
Speaker 1: twenty minutes a day looking for something. If you can

955
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 1: help them organize their life, you give them time back,

956
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: which is more valuable than anything. Um. She changed people

957
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 1: from black and white to color because who wants to

958
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: look at black and white oscar dresses? Um? Uh? And

959
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:27,000
Speaker 1: she had um this is before my time. But when

960
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 1: she was general manager of Sports Illustrated and I guess

961
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 1: this would have been late eighties early nineties, they told

962
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 1: her because she was a woman, she was never going

963
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:38,720
Speaker 1: to be president publisher of Sports Illustrated. UM. And Timing

964
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: also like to move people around, so it wasn't the

965
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:43,920
Speaker 1: end of the world. But at that point ESPNO just launched.

966
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 1: She's like, we should take a piece of this because

967
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:49,720
Speaker 1: this is s I on TV. And they didn't listen

968
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:54,919
Speaker 1: to her, so she resigns. Oh, she retires, I mean um.

969
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: And then Jeff brought in a guy, Jeff Bukus, who

970
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: was so CEO Dick had retired a few years before

971
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:06,240
Speaker 1: as as Time Warners CEO, Jeff Road and a guy. Um.

972
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:11,040
Speaker 1: And you know, Jeff's focus was never publishing, and publishing

973
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 1: was starting to decline. So I think he just wanted

974
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 1: was an m B A. You know, he went to Yale.

975
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:21,440
Speaker 1: Jeff went to Yale. They were not like stylistically at all. Um.

976
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: And as people do, this guy came in and kind

977
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 1: of took everyone out on that senior level, um, particularly

978
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 1: women and the only black man I will say at

979
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 1: the senior level. Um. But it was done in such

980
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:39,240
Speaker 1: a ham fisted way that after five months he was fired.

981
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a euphemism about pursuing other opportunities. It

982
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: was like, now this didn't work out, bad culture fit me.

983
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure he got a very big check, um. But

984
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 1: I do give a lot of credit for Jeff that

985
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:54,480
Speaker 1: he didn't double down, you know, with more people leaving

986
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 1: in more damage. Um. Yeah, tid is it in with

987
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:01,919
Speaker 1: you with that new Yeah. So I got I got

988
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:04,120
Speaker 1: a you know, like a bunch of people um that

989
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:09,800
Speaker 1: he wanted to replace us. I got another substantial check. Um.

990
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:11,680
Speaker 1: And because I had always gone from corporate job to

991
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 1: corporate job. And I had about a month or two

992
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:16,880
Speaker 1: of like cleaning up at Time Inc. And I started

993
00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 1: getting phone calls. The Harvard Business Review is run by

994
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: some x Time guys, and they're like, you know, we'd

995
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: love it if you work with us for six months

996
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:28,480
Speaker 1: and we have some junior people and just kind of

997
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 1: give us a template and organize things. And then UM,

998
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: the general counsel of Sony, Julie Swidler, is a good

999
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:40,360
Speaker 1: friend of mine and UM. At the time, Rob Stringer

1000
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:42,719
Speaker 1: was at Columbia and he had to stand, I'm sure

1001
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 1: you got it right. The hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Columbia,

1002
00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:48,120
Speaker 1: that big beautiful book, and you know it was a

1003
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,759
Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize winning author Sean Lens that wrote it, and

1004
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:53,800
Speaker 1: and Rob really had a vision. They didn't want this

1005
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: to be a promotional thing. That he wanted it to

1006
00:56:56,160 --> 00:57:00,040
Speaker 1: really speak to the legacy and artistry of Columbia and

1007
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: its artists and you know those event at the Grammy Museum.

1008
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:08,279
Speaker 1: And so I worked with him on that. UM and

1009
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 1: then the best one was I got a call just

1010
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: from someone I knew, UM that knew Ken Parks Um

1011
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:16,919
Speaker 1: saying you should go in and meet Ken Parks because

1012
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:20,360
Speaker 1: Spotify is going to launch here. And the PR the

1013
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 1: woman that ran PR in London who since left, but

1014
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:25,960
Speaker 1: um Angela Watt, brilliant, but she was sitting in London

1015
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: and it was launching in the US UM and she

1016
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: came back and forth a lot. At the time. I

1017
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: think they didn't have headcount or couldn't afford a full

1018
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 1: time person in the US, so they wanted someone essentially

1019
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 1: for the equivalent of three days a week to help

1020
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 1: them with the launch, and someone who had good US

1021
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: media contacts, and someone who understood the traditional music industry,

1022
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 1: the players, the business. And so before I even walk

1023
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: out the door, I've got these three great clients. And

1024
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:56,600
Speaker 1: I never thought of myself as a consultant, and I

1025
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 1: always liked the idea of having a structure in the

1026
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:02,480
Speaker 1: office camaraderie. But this was also so interesting to me

1027
00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 1: because there was nothing that I was hearing about that

1028
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 1: was more interesting than the combination of these things. And

1029
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:10,720
Speaker 1: other things came in and out. When the Harvard business

1030
00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:15,240
Speaker 1: went away, I got pulled into Martha Stewart, which was interesting.

1031
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: No after that, Lisa Gersh was running it at the time.

1032
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:26,400
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I like I decided I liked having the

1033
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 1: variety and and and and the combination and two thousandleven

1034
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: and it also and I don't think I articulated it

1035
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:39,440
Speaker 1: to myself for anyone at the time, but in retrospect,

1036
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: it's like, sometimes when these things happen, you have to

1037
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: figure out how to reinvent yourself. And I tried to

1038
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:51,880
Speaker 1: reinvent myself from a traditional you know, big company, traditional

1039
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:55,919
Speaker 1: media person to someone kind of on this nexus of

1040
00:58:55,960 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 1: whether you want to say media or entertainment and tech um,

1041
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 1: which was where a lot of the future was going

1042
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 1: at this point in time. Do you troll for work

1043
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 1: or the clients find you? No, I don't really troll

1044
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: for work. UM. Uh, you know people. Okay. When Ken

1045
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:21,840
Speaker 1: Parts left Spotify after um, you know, four years later,

1046
00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 1: and he went to um another digital startup, Pluto TV,

1047
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: which is a free ad supported service, you know, he

1048
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: brought me in as a consultant. Um. You know. So

1049
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:35,920
Speaker 1: it's all sort of the relationships stuff. UM. The SA

1050
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:38,200
Speaker 1: Sack people hired me for a while because they wanted

1051
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 1: some help. They were doing some rebranding and UM okay,

1052
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: but let's stop with okay, Uh, what did you actually do?

1053
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 1: They were rebuilding their website. So some of it too

1054
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 1: was I was no longer just a publicist or even

1055
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:57,080
Speaker 1: just a corporate communications person. It became broader in terms

1056
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 1: of you know, branding, communication shans and whether that meant materials,

1057
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 1: you know, websites, one sheet, whether that meant events. UM,

1058
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:10,920
Speaker 1: you know, figure out what was right for the client

1059
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:13,440
Speaker 1: and what they needed and what they wanted. What do

1060
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 1: you do for Spotify? Um? Well, for Spotify in the beginning,

1061
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 1: as I said, they didn't have anyone in the US. UM.

1062
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: And right off the bat we had UM big, big

1063
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 1: feature in in Business Week and Daniel was supposed to

1064
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 1: be on the cover. He did a photo shoot with

1065
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:32,600
Speaker 1: Christina Aguilara. I went to Irving and said, this is

1066
01:00:32,640 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 1: great for her, and she's been all these magazine covers.

1067
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 1: I think it was just when the Voice was launching. UM,

1068
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 1: you know, she'll look cool. This will be good for everyone.

1069
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:45,640
Speaker 1: UM an eight page feature. Unfortunately, it was the week

1070
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 1: that the Murdoch um uh scandal broke about um uh

1071
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:55,280
Speaker 1: the news of the world stuff and UM. Josh Terangel,

1072
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: who was then the top editor at Business Week, called me.

1073
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:01,520
Speaker 1: He said, I love the story. You're gonna love this story.

1074
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to tell you it's not going to be

1075
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:07,080
Speaker 1: the cover anymore because we're Business Week and the business

1076
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:12,760
Speaker 1: story of the week is Rupert Murdoch. Um. Okay, So

1077
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:18,280
Speaker 1: at this late date in corporate publicity, is it the

1078
01:01:18,520 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 1: same usual suspect outlets? Well, I think some of kind

1079
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: of following by the wayside, and I think social obviously

1080
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:29,280
Speaker 1: means a lot more. You have to have a social

1081
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: strategy and someone who understands that, um much more cycle. No,

1082
01:01:36,520 --> 01:01:39,919
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot more blogs. I'm actually first

1083
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 1: talking about your role, okay, because you're more in corporate publicity. Okay,

1084
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:49,800
Speaker 1: so certainly with regular publicity the whole game has changed.

1085
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:52,240
Speaker 1: But I think corporate I mean I would count you

1086
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:56,520
Speaker 1: as someone, whether you want to say influencer or um,

1087
01:01:57,600 --> 01:01:59,800
Speaker 1: if I was trying to, you know, work on this

1088
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:05,240
Speaker 1: story that had some kind of connection to the music industry,

1089
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:09,320
Speaker 1: if not the wider entertainment industry. I mean, you're the

1090
01:02:09,440 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 1: kind of person that that I would go to because

1091
01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:14,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people, um, I don't know, you know

1092
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: how many people read you, but a lot of important

1093
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:19,920
Speaker 1: people read you. Um, and a lot of people who

1094
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:23,080
Speaker 1: care a lot maybe who care more than the people

1095
01:02:23,120 --> 01:02:24,920
Speaker 1: who read the New York Times. Well, let's go droll

1096
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:26,960
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper. What do we know it used

1097
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 1: to be? If it was in the New York Times,

1098
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:34,080
Speaker 1: everybody knew. Okay, as a result of the right denigrating

1099
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:36,400
Speaker 1: the New York Times and as a result of so

1100
01:02:36,560 --> 01:02:40,160
Speaker 1: many media outlets, it's in the New York Times a

1101
01:02:40,400 --> 01:02:43,240
Speaker 1: smaller percentage of people, because don't forget that's an influencer.

1102
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 1: New York Times is not only an influence. So it's

1103
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 1: when the evening news is built off of right exactly.

1104
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 1: But there's no longer one outlet that can reach the

1105
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:54,720
Speaker 1: country at large. Yes, New York Times will be reach

1106
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 1: everybody in Washington and people there. So how do you

1107
01:02:58,160 --> 01:03:01,520
Speaker 1: approach the game now? Well, I think let's stick with

1108
01:03:01,600 --> 01:03:05,320
Speaker 1: your New York Times. Um idea. You get a story

1109
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:07,840
Speaker 1: in the New York Times. And even if this person,

1110
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 1: whether they're in Detroit or whether they're down the street

1111
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:16,040
Speaker 1: here in Hollywood, um, you know, doesn't read the New

1112
01:03:16,120 --> 01:03:19,280
Speaker 1: York Times. We didn't see it. That's why you place

1113
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:23,160
Speaker 1: it on your social channels or you blasts out an email. Okay,

1114
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:27,480
Speaker 1: let's be very specific. If it's a business story. Do

1115
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:30,440
Speaker 1: you say, well, you know, if I get in New

1116
01:03:30,520 --> 01:03:32,480
Speaker 1: York Times, I get a business week, it covers my

1117
01:03:32,560 --> 01:03:35,000
Speaker 1: target market. Or do you actually go to socials on

1118
01:03:35,080 --> 01:03:38,040
Speaker 1: a business story? Oh? No, you definitely go to socials. Um,

1119
01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:42,280
Speaker 1: what is what is the thinking? Um? Because a lot

1120
01:03:42,360 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 1: of people get their information from socials? Are those people

1121
01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 1: you need to reach on a corporate level? I'm not

1122
01:03:47,560 --> 01:03:50,760
Speaker 1: sure that we know? It was interesting? Is you know?

1123
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:54,960
Speaker 1: The Billboard Power Issue came out this week and just

1124
01:03:55,080 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 1: scrolling through Instagram, I was surprised at how many people

1125
01:04:00,640 --> 01:04:04,000
Speaker 1: that were named in the Power Issue printed up on

1126
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 1: their feeds. If you were named in the Power Issue,

1127
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:13,720
Speaker 1: would you put it on your feed? I'm I'm pretty

1128
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:15,440
Speaker 1: sure I've never thought about that, and I don't think

1129
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:17,560
Speaker 1: I will be named to the Power Issue. Um, I

1130
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: guess what I'm saying. Do we live in an era

1131
01:04:20,240 --> 01:04:24,160
Speaker 1: in the old area? You worked at Time inc? Self publicity?

1132
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:28,439
Speaker 1: Self promotion was pooh pooh? Is that completely flipped? Well?

1133
01:04:28,520 --> 01:04:32,320
Speaker 1: Self promotion was pooh pood? But you had maybe at

1134
01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:37,120
Speaker 1: the fifteen thousand employees three thousand journalists. Journalists all have

1135
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:40,560
Speaker 1: friends to their journalists, all of whom are very good

1136
01:04:40,600 --> 01:04:43,960
Speaker 1: at telling stories. So I mean, when I was at

1137
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:46,760
Speaker 1: Warner Music, if the Wall Street Journal called, I don't

1138
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 1: think anyone would want to pick up the call because

1139
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:50,280
Speaker 1: they would just feel like all I can do is

1140
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:53,440
Speaker 1: just muck this up. You're at time ink and whatever

1141
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:56,800
Speaker 1: the official line is, you had three thousand people with

1142
01:04:57,040 --> 01:05:00,280
Speaker 1: varying opinions, all getting out there on background find you,

1143
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:04,400
Speaker 1: but all getting out there. Okay, So let's say a

1144
01:05:04,560 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 1: corporate when you worked with Spotify and not granted that

1145
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:11,560
Speaker 1: started two thousand eleven, maybe that's not a good example.

1146
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:16,600
Speaker 1: When you work with Pluto TV, did you uh use socials?

1147
01:05:17,400 --> 01:05:20,920
Speaker 1: I didn't personally because they had someone in house. I

1148
01:05:20,960 --> 01:05:22,960
Speaker 1: don't know whether it was part of the marketing department

1149
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 1: that was assigned that uh. And I don't feel like

1150
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:28,680
Speaker 1: I have a particular expertise and social I just believe

1151
01:05:28,760 --> 01:05:31,800
Speaker 1: that you have to have UM for a business or

1152
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:36,760
Speaker 1: an entity, consistent messaging. You should use best practice with

1153
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:42,040
Speaker 1: how often you post on various UM on various platforms UM.

1154
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:45,240
Speaker 1: You should have some kind of goal, whether it's you

1155
01:05:45,320 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 1: want to increase you know, viewers or users on x

1156
01:05:49,000 --> 01:05:52,160
Speaker 1: y Z platform. You should focus probably on no more

1157
01:05:52,200 --> 01:05:56,040
Speaker 1: than two platforms. UM Uh, you know, I don't believe

1158
01:05:56,160 --> 01:05:58,640
Speaker 1: in trying to do Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and

1159
01:05:58,840 --> 01:06:04,240
Speaker 1: YouTube and because question, Um, I think you kind of

1160
01:06:04,520 --> 01:06:09,160
Speaker 1: delude things. And I think in most most companies there's

1161
01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 1: a more natural fit. Um. You know, I don't know,

1162
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:16,200
Speaker 1: I'm making this up. Maybe more mainstream you would use Facebook,

1163
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:20,120
Speaker 1: maybe more insider. Okay, I use the example got Time

1164
01:06:20,200 --> 01:06:22,680
Speaker 1: Flies By. It's probably two thousand and eight, maybe even

1165
01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:26,240
Speaker 1: a couple of years later. Tom Petty had a new album. Now,

1166
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: someone who's paying a lot of attention to media, it

1167
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:35,120
Speaker 1: was in every media outlet, I mean every are you

1168
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:40,160
Speaker 1: writing about that? I'm offended, okay, by the same token people. Well,

1169
01:06:40,240 --> 01:06:42,680
Speaker 1: the average person is not paying as much attention as

1170
01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:46,800
Speaker 1: I am. So is carpet bombing publicity a good thing

1171
01:06:46,960 --> 01:06:55,360
Speaker 1: or a bad thing? Um? Well, I I don't think

1172
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: there's one answer to that. I think it depends on

1173
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 1: what the person or the project is. And I would

1174
01:07:01,760 --> 01:07:05,160
Speaker 1: say being authentic has always been important, but being authentic

1175
01:07:05,320 --> 01:07:07,800
Speaker 1: is more important now than ever. And people can really

1176
01:07:08,160 --> 01:07:12,680
Speaker 1: smell of fake. Um. And where's the audience that you're

1177
01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:16,120
Speaker 1: trying to reach yourself to? Um? And if they're not

1178
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,760
Speaker 1: on this platform or in this outlet, I would put

1179
01:07:19,880 --> 01:07:22,440
Speaker 1: more energy into places where you're going to find people,

1180
01:07:22,560 --> 01:07:25,600
Speaker 1: whether you're existing people or your new people, would be

1181
01:07:25,720 --> 01:07:29,920
Speaker 1: my philosophy. Okay, let's start from the very beginning of today.

1182
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:32,919
Speaker 1: What we know is we live in a cacophonoust tower

1183
01:07:33,000 --> 01:07:37,040
Speaker 1: of Babel society. Okay, and it's as I believe, people

1184
01:07:37,240 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: know more than they've ever known before because they have

1185
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:44,680
Speaker 1: the device in their hand, but a great percentage of

1186
01:07:44,760 --> 01:07:46,800
Speaker 1: them don't know single things. I use an example of

1187
01:07:46,800 --> 01:07:52,360
Speaker 1: the music business Spotify top top fifty. They believe everybody

1188
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:55,680
Speaker 1: knows Drake Salt if everybody knows Taylor's wist songs. But

1189
01:07:55,800 --> 01:07:58,600
Speaker 1: never in the history of modern pop music have fewer

1190
01:07:58,720 --> 01:08:04,480
Speaker 1: people been familiar with the so called hits. So how

1191
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 1: do you get a message across ro just say I'm

1192
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:11,080
Speaker 1: gonna jump in the water like everybody else. I can't

1193
01:08:11,120 --> 01:08:13,280
Speaker 1: give you to me. It's out of one size fits

1194
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:18,599
Speaker 1: all answer. It's what's your product, service, person, artist, um

1195
01:08:19,120 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 1: and what do you want to try to do? You

1196
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:24,040
Speaker 1: want to maintain existing, you want to grow you're existing?

1197
01:08:24,360 --> 01:08:28,480
Speaker 1: You want to get new audiences. Who are those new audiences?

1198
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:32,639
Speaker 1: Where are they? Are they demographic? Are they geographic. Um.

1199
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:36,599
Speaker 1: I think you need to ask yourself that, um. Kind

1200
01:08:36,680 --> 01:08:39,720
Speaker 1: of every time is you're looking at where you want

1201
01:08:39,760 --> 01:08:41,439
Speaker 1: to put your effort. I mean, going back to your

1202
01:08:41,479 --> 01:08:45,760
Speaker 1: Tom Petty example, I mean Tom Petty only has so

1203
01:08:45,840 --> 01:08:50,960
Speaker 1: many hours to devote to doing media, So let's figure

1204
01:08:51,000 --> 01:08:54,040
Speaker 1: out what the priorities are. Well, let's use an example.

1205
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:56,080
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been using this for a while, but

1206
01:08:56,080 --> 01:08:58,920
Speaker 1: everybody says, if we if I kill somebody out in

1207
01:08:58,960 --> 01:09:01,479
Speaker 1: the street and it's in the afternoon. Now, but let's

1208
01:09:01,479 --> 01:09:03,760
Speaker 1: assume it's nine in the morning, that will be news

1209
01:09:03,800 --> 01:09:08,559
Speaker 1: told about one o'clock and something else will happen thereafter. Okay,

1210
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:12,600
Speaker 1: how do you keep something top of mind? Well, I

1211
01:09:12,640 --> 01:09:15,400
Speaker 1: think that's a problem that people have shorter attention spans, um.

1212
01:09:16,360 --> 01:09:19,680
Speaker 1: And we've seen that even with Trump, right, I mean,

1213
01:09:20,200 --> 01:09:22,479
Speaker 1: you know, he tweets something outrageous when he wants to

1214
01:09:22,520 --> 01:09:27,760
Speaker 1: take attention away from something else. Um. Uh. People go

1215
01:09:27,920 --> 01:09:31,439
Speaker 1: to the media or the outlets that reflect what they think, um,

1216
01:09:32,439 --> 01:09:35,599
Speaker 1: and therefore reinforce what they're already thinking. I mean, it's

1217
01:09:35,720 --> 01:09:37,920
Speaker 1: it's a problem issue. I I don't have an answer

1218
01:09:37,960 --> 01:09:42,559
Speaker 1: for that one. Okay. Now, they're also things that everybody

1219
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:46,320
Speaker 1: will know for a day and forget about. So are

1220
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:50,320
Speaker 1: you better off with a slow burn campaign or you know,

1221
01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:55,240
Speaker 1: all hands on deck campaign? Well, okay, from an artist

1222
01:09:55,320 --> 01:09:59,200
Speaker 1: publicity standpoint, um, Certainly in the nineties the rule of

1223
01:09:59,320 --> 01:10:01,559
Speaker 1: thumb was, you know, ever put anyone on David Letterman

1224
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:04,840
Speaker 1: until the CDs in the store, because if someone decides

1225
01:10:05,479 --> 01:10:08,120
Speaker 1: they loved that song they heard last night and they

1226
01:10:08,200 --> 01:10:11,120
Speaker 1: go the next day to Tower Records and it isn't there,

1227
01:10:11,360 --> 01:10:15,200
Speaker 1: that it is out of mind. Um. I think that's

1228
01:10:15,240 --> 01:10:18,600
Speaker 1: probably changed in a streaming world where everything is so

1229
01:10:18,760 --> 01:10:22,599
Speaker 1: available at your fingertips. But I think it's a good

1230
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:28,639
Speaker 1: thing to think about, for um as you approach those things.

1231
01:10:28,720 --> 01:10:31,040
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I guess a slow burning being there longer,

1232
01:10:31,200 --> 01:10:33,920
Speaker 1: or maybe figuring out how you phase things. You know,

1233
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:36,800
Speaker 1: what's phase one, what's phase two, what's phase three? Well,

1234
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:38,880
Speaker 1: that's one thing, you know. I think they're revolving. But

1235
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:43,200
Speaker 1: that's what the music business doesn't understand, certainly with streaming

1236
01:10:43,280 --> 01:10:46,200
Speaker 1: paying forever assing you're being listened to. If you could

1237
01:10:46,360 --> 01:10:50,400
Speaker 1: weave a magic wand over the media industry, what would

1238
01:10:50,400 --> 01:10:55,920
Speaker 1: you want to change? Oh my gosh, Bob, I may

1239
01:10:56,000 --> 01:10:57,479
Speaker 1: have to write you back on this because I want

1240
01:10:57,520 --> 01:11:00,679
Speaker 1: to be very thoughtful and I'm not I've ever thought

1241
01:11:00,840 --> 01:11:03,560
Speaker 1: of waving a magic wand even though it is a

1242
01:11:03,680 --> 01:11:07,519
Speaker 1: lovely thought, UM, I'm not going to whip out and pass.

1243
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:10,320
Speaker 1: I will write you on that. Well. I guess let

1244
01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:12,600
Speaker 1: me look at it this way. What are some of

1245
01:11:12,680 --> 01:11:16,439
Speaker 1: the flaws in the system that could be fixed? Fixed?

1246
01:11:16,520 --> 01:11:18,960
Speaker 1: This isn't necessarily a flaw, but I've been thinking about this.

1247
01:11:19,720 --> 01:11:22,240
Speaker 1: I had lunch with a friend who's at Netflix yesterday,

1248
01:11:22,760 --> 01:11:25,640
Speaker 1: um and and just kind of reading some of the

1249
01:11:25,800 --> 01:11:30,320
Speaker 1: people like you, um who you know cover the film industry,

1250
01:11:30,360 --> 01:11:32,680
Speaker 1: and all the studios are so mad because you know,

1251
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:34,680
Speaker 1: Netflix is spending all this money and they're kind of

1252
01:11:34,720 --> 01:11:36,320
Speaker 1: trying to have their cake and eat it too, and

1253
01:11:36,720 --> 01:11:39,040
Speaker 1: you know, should marriage story be up for an oscar?

1254
01:11:39,800 --> 01:11:43,160
Speaker 1: And you know, and Netflix is sitting there just laughing

1255
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:46,040
Speaker 1: because they have how many millions of people, you know

1256
01:11:46,360 --> 01:11:49,880
Speaker 1: as subscribers. They're still growing at whatever rate and you

1257
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:52,240
Speaker 1: know what times change. I mean, that's like the music

1258
01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:56,160
Speaker 1: industry in in two thousands saying this napster thing is

1259
01:11:56,240 --> 01:12:01,679
Speaker 1: really unfair. And I think again, even as the consumer

1260
01:12:01,800 --> 01:12:04,960
Speaker 1: going to the going to the movies as a hassle. Um,

1261
01:12:06,320 --> 01:12:08,479
Speaker 1: gotta drive, you gotta park a lot of times the

1262
01:12:08,560 --> 01:12:12,120
Speaker 1: movies I want to see aren't playing anywhere near me. Um,

1263
01:12:12,600 --> 01:12:15,720
Speaker 1: the food is terrible. You watch twenty minutes of commercials,

1264
01:12:15,920 --> 01:12:19,639
Speaker 1: people talk or text through it. I'm going, how few

1265
01:12:19,800 --> 01:12:21,880
Speaker 1: movies do I want to see? And I think I

1266
01:12:21,920 --> 01:12:24,200
Speaker 1: said once a time in Hollywood in the theater and

1267
01:12:24,280 --> 01:12:25,760
Speaker 1: I saw Little Women because I wanted to go with

1268
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:27,639
Speaker 1: my daughter, and I figured that was about holiday movie

1269
01:12:27,680 --> 01:12:30,320
Speaker 1: and it got good reviews. Everything else it's like why

1270
01:12:30,360 --> 01:12:32,679
Speaker 1: not wait? Or why not watch what's on Netflix tonight?

1271
01:12:32,960 --> 01:12:34,600
Speaker 1: Or I mean, I think this is going to be

1272
01:12:34,800 --> 01:12:37,120
Speaker 1: very fascinating for people watching the next year. And it's

1273
01:12:37,120 --> 01:12:39,960
Speaker 1: slightly off topic. But you have Netflix that's so entrenched.

1274
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:43,320
Speaker 1: You have Disney which anyone with a kid under chan

1275
01:12:43,439 --> 01:12:46,679
Speaker 1: as we spent seven bucks a month. You have Apple

1276
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:49,840
Speaker 1: that can bundle this, you know, whether it's with music

1277
01:12:50,400 --> 01:12:56,720
Speaker 1: or um yeah or free. But in any case, you know,

1278
01:12:56,800 --> 01:12:58,640
Speaker 1: if they can use this as a lost leader or

1279
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:02,360
Speaker 1: marketing thing. Um, you know for a long time, and

1280
01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:07,000
Speaker 1: so I'm fascinating. You know, the compast is taking a

1281
01:13:07,040 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 1: different approach obviously, you know, free, free, free, free and

1282
01:13:10,680 --> 01:13:13,040
Speaker 1: back to the Pluto TV. There's enough people that want free,

1283
01:13:13,200 --> 01:13:15,680
Speaker 1: and we've got you know, the office, and we'll have

1284
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:19,639
Speaker 1: sports and late night TV. Um, so free. I sort

1285
01:13:19,680 --> 01:13:25,679
Speaker 1: of set aside because it's a different I never subscribed

1286
01:13:25,720 --> 01:13:27,400
Speaker 1: to Hulu, and I'm sure it's great for people who

1287
01:13:27,479 --> 01:13:30,639
Speaker 1: like those shows, but I think most people agree there's

1288
01:13:30,680 --> 01:13:32,960
Speaker 1: a window of how many of these services you're going

1289
01:13:33,040 --> 01:13:36,160
Speaker 1: to do. Again. I look at my former company and

1290
01:13:36,280 --> 01:13:39,080
Speaker 1: I never worked for HBO, but I mean I was

1291
01:13:39,120 --> 01:13:41,680
Speaker 1: a huge Richard Pleppler fan, and I think that was

1292
01:13:41,840 --> 01:13:45,360
Speaker 1: one of the great brands companies, you know, of the

1293
01:13:45,520 --> 01:13:49,679
Speaker 1: last twenty years and what they've created. And I don't

1294
01:13:49,680 --> 01:13:53,479
Speaker 1: know about you. I'm really confused. Okay, Hbo HBO now

1295
01:13:53,760 --> 01:13:59,080
Speaker 1: HBO Go, HBO Max. I couldn't agree more. And you know,

1296
01:13:59,280 --> 01:14:02,439
Speaker 1: I still get tradition cable TV, so I get HBO.

1297
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:05,000
Speaker 1: Does that mean I can get HBO Max? You know,

1298
01:14:06,479 --> 01:14:08,519
Speaker 1: as I say, I remember, I don't use my iPad

1299
01:14:08,640 --> 01:14:10,640
Speaker 1: that much, but I was out a ton of the

1300
01:14:10,720 --> 01:14:14,759
Speaker 1: iPad and you know, is it HBO Go or HBO Max?

1301
01:14:15,040 --> 01:14:18,680
Speaker 1: And they're exactly they were all the icons where you know,

1302
01:14:18,760 --> 01:14:21,280
Speaker 1: all the apps were there and I'm wasting time to

1303
01:14:21,280 --> 01:14:23,160
Speaker 1: figure out which one works, and then you have to

1304
01:14:23,240 --> 01:14:25,960
Speaker 1: go through jump through hoops under the best of circumstances

1305
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:28,720
Speaker 1: just to get it to play. But okay, I'm not

1306
01:14:28,800 --> 01:14:32,320
Speaker 1: sure the point you're making. Well, just that the things change.

1307
01:14:32,720 --> 01:14:35,760
Speaker 1: And you know what we talked about the music was

1308
01:14:35,880 --> 01:14:37,640
Speaker 1: the canary in the coal mine. But you look at

1309
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:40,280
Speaker 1: all these other forms of media and you have to

1310
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:43,600
Speaker 1: adapt to change, whether it's a person like me or

1311
01:14:43,800 --> 01:14:47,519
Speaker 1: whether it's an industry, and you can't sort of look

1312
01:14:47,600 --> 01:14:49,599
Speaker 1: back and say the good old days. And I want Okay,

1313
01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:51,920
Speaker 1: let's let's drill down a little bit with this person

1314
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:56,439
Speaker 1: from the film business yesterday. Could you wake them up?

1315
01:14:56,600 --> 01:15:00,560
Speaker 1: Or they just too far intoxix? So she's at the

1316
01:15:00,600 --> 01:15:03,240
Speaker 1: winning side. Okay, So if you were with the on

1317
01:15:03,360 --> 01:15:05,439
Speaker 1: the movie people, what would you tell them to do?

1318
01:15:06,680 --> 01:15:11,839
Speaker 1: Um Embrace change and mitigate your losses. There will be losses,

1319
01:15:11,920 --> 01:15:16,240
Speaker 1: whether it's losses forever or losses short term, but you're

1320
01:15:16,240 --> 01:15:20,880
Speaker 1: not going to turn back time. So, so you're a

1321
01:15:21,040 --> 01:15:28,200
Speaker 1: corporate publicity person, consultant, has that world grown or shrunk? Well,

1322
01:15:29,479 --> 01:15:32,160
Speaker 1: I'm not that deep in Silicon Valley, but my you know,

1323
01:15:32,479 --> 01:15:35,040
Speaker 1: sort of touching it. My feeling is that a lot

1324
01:15:35,120 --> 01:15:40,360
Speaker 1: of them when they start out use PR as a

1325
01:15:40,479 --> 01:15:43,000
Speaker 1: marketing tool as opposed to spending. It's not like they

1326
01:15:43,040 --> 01:15:47,040
Speaker 1: have big advertising campaigns or anything. Um. So I I

1327
01:15:47,200 --> 01:15:50,720
Speaker 1: think in that segment there also, I think a lot

1328
01:15:50,800 --> 01:15:54,000
Speaker 1: of people are concerned about overhead. You know, if you

1329
01:15:54,200 --> 01:15:57,639
Speaker 1: hire me, you're not paying for my health insurance, you're

1330
01:15:57,680 --> 01:16:00,320
Speaker 1: not paying for my office space, you know, or any

1331
01:16:00,360 --> 01:16:04,439
Speaker 1: of the other things. And so you get my brains,

1332
01:16:04,560 --> 01:16:09,679
Speaker 1: my ideas, you know, my contacts. UM. Obviously not full

1333
01:16:09,760 --> 01:16:13,200
Speaker 1: time as a consultant unless it's agreed upon, you know,

1334
01:16:13,280 --> 01:16:17,240
Speaker 1: on a project basis, um. And maybe that's all you need.

1335
01:16:17,400 --> 01:16:19,320
Speaker 1: I mean, in a number of cases I've come in

1336
01:16:19,400 --> 01:16:21,600
Speaker 1: where they say, we love the person we have, but

1337
01:16:21,680 --> 01:16:24,160
Speaker 1: she's twenty five years old and we need someone to

1338
01:16:24,320 --> 01:16:28,800
Speaker 1: give him or her some guidance. Okay. So it's like

1339
01:16:28,960 --> 01:16:31,280
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, we're moving to an outsourcing

1340
01:16:32,240 --> 01:16:38,959
Speaker 1: gig economy. Yeah, I'm I mean, personally, I think I'm

1341
01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:41,080
Speaker 1: not sure that we're moving completely. And I think there

1342
01:16:41,080 --> 01:16:43,360
Speaker 1: will always be a place for in the house people,

1343
01:16:43,479 --> 01:16:46,599
Speaker 1: certainly at least in big companies. UM. But I think

1344
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:51,720
Speaker 1: this feels more Um, this feels easier, especially for startups

1345
01:16:51,760 --> 01:16:54,759
Speaker 1: and smaller companies. It's okay, you're rutting your own business.

1346
01:16:55,400 --> 01:16:57,240
Speaker 1: You're not. You make a deal with someone to be

1347
01:16:57,280 --> 01:17:01,240
Speaker 1: a consultant. It's not full time. How do you manage

1348
01:17:01,320 --> 01:17:05,720
Speaker 1: the compensation in time? You dedicate well. I before I

1349
01:17:05,800 --> 01:17:09,040
Speaker 1: take on a project or an account, I try to

1350
01:17:09,160 --> 01:17:11,799
Speaker 1: understand what are your goals in the best case scenario.

1351
01:17:11,840 --> 01:17:14,120
Speaker 1: If we're sitting here three months from now or six

1352
01:17:14,160 --> 01:17:16,320
Speaker 1: months from now, and if they tell me I want

1353
01:17:16,360 --> 01:17:18,160
Speaker 1: to be on the cover of Fortune, I want a

1354
01:17:18,240 --> 01:17:21,559
Speaker 1: ten minute segment on the Today's Show. And it's something

1355
01:17:21,680 --> 01:17:24,400
Speaker 1: that I think that's completely unrealistic. I think, you know,

1356
01:17:24,680 --> 01:17:26,200
Speaker 1: you're not going to be happy at the end of

1357
01:17:26,280 --> 01:17:28,599
Speaker 1: this period. I'm not going to be happy because I'll

1358
01:17:28,640 --> 01:17:32,080
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not delivering for you. Um. But if

1359
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:35,320
Speaker 1: you can sort of start by saying what are the goals,

1360
01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:38,320
Speaker 1: and even if the person can articulate the goals, working

1361
01:17:38,360 --> 01:17:40,760
Speaker 1: with them to say, okay, so do we need to

1362
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:43,800
Speaker 1: change your website, get your messaging in shape? Do we

1363
01:17:43,880 --> 01:17:47,080
Speaker 1: need to do any media training? Are there are conferences

1364
01:17:47,160 --> 01:17:49,960
Speaker 1: we should be at, you know, speaking opportunities, what media

1365
01:17:50,000 --> 01:17:51,960
Speaker 1: outlets are you're most interested in, where do you want

1366
01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:55,360
Speaker 1: to build your relationships? Come to an agreement there, and

1367
01:17:55,439 --> 01:17:58,960
Speaker 1: then the next part is both for me to figure

1368
01:17:59,000 --> 01:18:01,599
Speaker 1: out this. This look like a two day a week project.

1369
01:18:01,640 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 1: I mean the equivalent of two days. Uh. You know

1370
01:18:04,200 --> 01:18:05,920
Speaker 1: if I wake up at six in the morning, which

1371
01:18:05,960 --> 01:18:08,719
Speaker 1: is you saw this morning, you know that that counts

1372
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:10,000
Speaker 1: to it too, and you can you can kind of

1373
01:18:10,080 --> 01:18:13,040
Speaker 1: work from any word any time. Um, but I try

1374
01:18:13,080 --> 01:18:15,479
Speaker 1: to figure out it is it a two day project,

1375
01:18:15,560 --> 01:18:17,880
Speaker 1: three day project? You know? And agree. I don't like

1376
01:18:18,000 --> 01:18:21,000
Speaker 1: to do stuff really under six months because it just

1377
01:18:21,120 --> 01:18:24,360
Speaker 1: takes a while to get into the rhythm of understanding

1378
01:18:24,479 --> 01:18:26,880
Speaker 1: the people in the business and kind of coming up

1379
01:18:26,920 --> 01:18:29,840
Speaker 1: with ideas and a lot of it's sitting around and

1380
01:18:29,960 --> 01:18:32,840
Speaker 1: bouncing things off of each other. Okay, let's assume it's

1381
01:18:32,840 --> 01:18:35,760
Speaker 1: two days a week. But the person calls your five

1382
01:18:35,840 --> 01:18:39,679
Speaker 1: days a week and you've already put in fifteen hours. Okay, well, okay,

1383
01:18:39,760 --> 01:18:42,040
Speaker 1: then I should have added. The other thing I said

1384
01:18:42,080 --> 01:18:44,320
Speaker 1: is when we come to an agreement about a price

1385
01:18:44,439 --> 01:18:47,280
Speaker 1: and two days a week, I said, let's re examine

1386
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:51,160
Speaker 1: this after a month or two months, and if I

1387
01:18:51,320 --> 01:18:53,640
Speaker 1: feel like I'm pretty more into it. I'd like to

1388
01:18:53,720 --> 01:18:56,400
Speaker 1: come back and talk to you about renegotiating. In turn,

1389
01:18:56,479 --> 01:18:59,200
Speaker 1: if I feel like either you're in a slow period

1390
01:18:59,560 --> 01:19:01,519
Speaker 1: or there isn't a whole lot I can do until

1391
01:19:01,520 --> 01:19:04,479
Speaker 1: the summer, you know, you can come back. That should

1392
01:19:04,520 --> 01:19:06,760
Speaker 1: not be at etchton Stone. I mean, I'm pretty okay.

1393
01:19:06,800 --> 01:19:10,000
Speaker 1: So let's assume the company is realistic and they come

1394
01:19:10,080 --> 01:19:12,040
Speaker 1: to you and they say, well, in the next three months,

1395
01:19:12,320 --> 01:19:14,120
Speaker 1: even though a six month deal, I want to be

1396
01:19:14,240 --> 01:19:15,840
Speaker 1: on the cover of Fortune and I want to be

1397
01:19:16,560 --> 01:19:20,719
Speaker 1: on some news program. Can you deliver that? It depends

1398
01:19:20,760 --> 01:19:25,320
Speaker 1: on who the person is. Do you have those relationships? Yeah?

1399
01:19:25,360 --> 01:19:29,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, so you have those. So basically, any

1400
01:19:30,000 --> 01:19:33,120
Speaker 1: media outlet you have somebody there that you can pitch.

1401
01:19:33,320 --> 01:19:35,320
Speaker 1: I can't tell you any media outlet, and some of

1402
01:19:35,360 --> 01:19:39,880
Speaker 1: the TV stuff, UM, I probably don't, but I know

1403
01:19:40,040 --> 01:19:43,960
Speaker 1: someone that can introduce me. Okay, what is the number

1404
01:19:44,040 --> 01:19:49,560
Speaker 1: one for a business story? The number one TV outlet? Well, CNBC,

1405
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:54,320
Speaker 1: you know means a lot to people. Um, I'll tell you.

1406
01:19:54,439 --> 01:19:57,240
Speaker 1: And this is a little bit of people miss this.

1407
01:19:57,960 --> 01:20:00,759
Speaker 1: You know. One of the only successful parts of Yahoo

1408
01:20:00,840 --> 01:20:05,559
Speaker 1: is Yahoo Finance, and they get eighteen million uniques a month,

1409
01:20:05,800 --> 01:20:07,720
Speaker 1: and they, sir were the guy who runs it used

1410
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:13,080
Speaker 1: to Runfortune and he's built this great, great business within Yahoo.

1411
01:20:13,400 --> 01:20:16,160
Speaker 1: And they now do like six hours of video a day.

1412
01:20:16,280 --> 01:20:19,040
Speaker 1: And I've had people on there, and because so many

1413
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:22,640
Speaker 1: people still go to Yahoo, you know, for stock information

1414
01:20:22,840 --> 01:20:25,680
Speaker 1: or whatever, there's a lot of good feedback. I'm not

1415
01:20:25,720 --> 01:20:29,680
Speaker 1: saying that's necessarily number one, but it's, um, you know,

1416
01:20:29,800 --> 01:20:32,000
Speaker 1: it's also finding things like that. So if they have

1417
01:20:32,120 --> 01:20:34,800
Speaker 1: that much video a day, how hard is it to

1418
01:20:35,240 --> 01:20:39,120
Speaker 1: get something on? You know? Sometimes I've told yes, sometimes

1419
01:20:39,160 --> 01:20:41,680
Speaker 1: I've told no. Okay, Well if you're told no, when

1420
01:20:41,720 --> 01:20:46,400
Speaker 1: you go back, ah, if I can make the story better, okay?

1421
01:20:46,800 --> 01:20:51,680
Speaker 1: And then print what is the best place? Well, a

1422
01:20:51,800 --> 01:20:54,240
Speaker 1: lot of people still care a lot if they have

1423
01:20:54,360 --> 01:20:57,080
Speaker 1: any international footprint. The ft is sort of the gold

1424
01:20:57,200 --> 01:21:01,160
Speaker 1: standard financial times and then um, you know, the New

1425
01:21:01,240 --> 01:21:03,400
Speaker 1: York Times and Wall Street journals still count a lot.

1426
01:21:03,800 --> 01:21:06,120
Speaker 1: I mean I always tell everyone I think the New

1427
01:21:06,200 --> 01:21:09,320
Speaker 1: York Post is super important because a lot of people

1428
01:21:09,360 --> 01:21:12,920
Speaker 1: at least in New York read it absolutely. Howard Stern

1429
01:21:13,080 --> 01:21:15,920
Speaker 1: is talking about I mean Dick Parsons. When he would

1430
01:21:15,920 --> 01:21:17,840
Speaker 1: get picked up, he'd always tell me at the Times,

1431
01:21:17,920 --> 01:21:20,000
Speaker 1: the journal in the post, because the post is where

1432
01:21:20,000 --> 01:21:22,840
Speaker 1: you get your finger on what people are talking about. Um.

1433
01:21:23,040 --> 01:21:25,200
Speaker 1: And they have a good business section, again held to

1434
01:21:25,240 --> 01:21:28,360
Speaker 1: a different standard and following somewhat different stories. But they're

1435
01:21:28,439 --> 01:21:31,960
Speaker 1: smart people and good reporters. So what is the future

1436
01:21:32,000 --> 01:21:36,280
Speaker 1: of print? I think the New York Time was sick

1437
01:21:36,360 --> 01:21:38,240
Speaker 1: with our favorite, The New York Times. I think they've

1438
01:21:38,320 --> 01:21:42,040
Speaker 1: shown that they've figured out a reasonable digital model. UM.

1439
01:21:42,080 --> 01:21:44,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know all the numbers, but they're growing,

1440
01:21:44,280 --> 01:21:46,559
Speaker 1: both in terms of members and in terms of revenue.

1441
01:21:47,320 --> 01:21:50,880
Speaker 1: I think the big will get bigger and the small,

1442
01:21:51,120 --> 01:21:54,000
Speaker 1: sadly will probably fade it with Well, let's put it

1443
01:21:54,080 --> 01:21:57,960
Speaker 1: this way. I'm voracious news consumer. I get the physical

1444
01:21:58,080 --> 01:22:01,880
Speaker 1: newspapers too, so and I pour over them. But I'm

1445
01:22:02,000 --> 01:22:06,439
Speaker 1: checking the apps innumerable times a day, and you cannot

1446
01:22:06,560 --> 01:22:09,439
Speaker 1: get into the depth on the app, and you miss

1447
01:22:09,520 --> 01:22:11,519
Speaker 1: things on the app that you will see exactly what

1448
01:22:11,600 --> 01:22:13,360
Speaker 1: I tell people, You know, if they look at me

1449
01:22:13,479 --> 01:22:15,880
Speaker 1: like I'm, you know, a ludic for still getting the

1450
01:22:16,720 --> 01:22:19,280
Speaker 1: print issues, I say, there's a sense of serendipity of

1451
01:22:19,360 --> 01:22:22,680
Speaker 1: things that I don't even know that I'm if I'm

1452
01:22:22,800 --> 01:22:25,559
Speaker 1: turning every page and I do. I read those three

1453
01:22:25,600 --> 01:22:29,120
Speaker 1: papers every day and the Financial Times on the weekend. Um,

1454
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:32,479
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, I mean sometimes I

1455
01:22:32,520 --> 01:22:35,280
Speaker 1: look at different magazines. Obviously, sometimes I dive in if

1456
01:22:35,280 --> 01:22:39,040
Speaker 1: I see something online that interests me. Um. But I

1457
01:22:39,120 --> 01:22:41,400
Speaker 1: think you can kind of cover a lot of important

1458
01:22:41,439 --> 01:22:43,840
Speaker 1: stuff if you deal with those Well, I guess I'm

1459
01:22:43,920 --> 01:22:48,080
Speaker 1: going the other way when print goes away. If you

1460
01:22:48,160 --> 01:22:51,439
Speaker 1: get a story on the app and it's buried, will

1461
01:22:51,479 --> 01:22:54,360
Speaker 1: anybody see? I mean, they're big stories, like I don't think.

1462
01:22:54,439 --> 01:22:58,559
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is in Well, the New

1463
01:22:58,640 --> 01:23:01,160
Speaker 1: York Times have a print, should know, but maybe they

1464
01:23:01,200 --> 01:23:05,479
Speaker 1: will figure out a different way presenting it so that

1465
01:23:05,920 --> 01:23:08,600
Speaker 1: for people like us, you get more of the you know,

1466
01:23:08,720 --> 01:23:13,639
Speaker 1: serendipitous discovery. Um, I don't. I think the New York

1467
01:23:13,680 --> 01:23:16,840
Speaker 1: Times has even said it's print is not going away

1468
01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:19,639
Speaker 1: for us, you know, in the near term. What about

1469
01:23:19,640 --> 01:23:24,960
Speaker 1: Apple News Plus? Um? Apple News Plus. I love as

1470
01:23:24,960 --> 01:23:27,800
Speaker 1: a consumer because I'm not sure I want to pay

1471
01:23:27,800 --> 01:23:31,120
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars for the Hollywood Reporter or for Business Week.

1472
01:23:31,880 --> 01:23:34,400
Speaker 1: But I like being and when I was, you know,

1473
01:23:34,560 --> 01:23:36,400
Speaker 1: I would find they were just stacking up and then

1474
01:23:36,439 --> 01:23:39,240
Speaker 1: I go. There's too much work to go through this, um,

1475
01:23:39,800 --> 01:23:41,800
Speaker 1: but I love having the access to it. Either if

1476
01:23:41,800 --> 01:23:45,160
Speaker 1: there's a certain story I'm following, or you can enter

1477
01:23:45,360 --> 01:23:47,840
Speaker 1: something you know you want to go back and read

1478
01:23:47,920 --> 01:23:51,120
Speaker 1: what they said about you know, Rupert Murdoch. Here, Um,

1479
01:23:51,600 --> 01:23:53,320
Speaker 1: just type it in. You know, You've got the last

1480
01:23:53,320 --> 01:23:55,759
Speaker 1: seven years of archives, which I think is a great gift.

1481
01:23:56,240 --> 01:23:59,599
Speaker 1: The question I think for Apple News is how did

1482
01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:05,280
Speaker 1: the providers feel and are they getting um compensated to

1483
01:24:05,400 --> 01:24:08,400
Speaker 1: the degree that they feel. The one thing for sure

1484
01:24:08,520 --> 01:24:12,880
Speaker 1: is h subscriptions are amazingly low and they were all frontloaded. Uh,

1485
01:24:13,200 --> 01:24:17,479
Speaker 1: but I'm interested. Do you check Apple News Plus on

1486
01:24:17,560 --> 01:24:22,960
Speaker 1: any specific device? Usually my iPad? Yeah, because I say,

1487
01:24:23,080 --> 01:24:25,840
Speaker 1: I'm on my phone a lot and News Plus doesn't

1488
01:24:25,880 --> 01:24:28,280
Speaker 1: work that much. Now. I don't like anything I have

1489
01:24:28,400 --> 01:24:30,599
Speaker 1: to read. I don't I don't like on my phone. UM,

1490
01:24:30,920 --> 01:24:33,000
Speaker 1: I like the bigger screen. So what's the future for

1491
01:24:33,080 --> 01:24:38,439
Speaker 1: you personally, the future of my media consumption or media

1492
01:24:38,520 --> 01:24:43,720
Speaker 1: career career? Uh, I'm not sure I ever plotted out

1493
01:24:43,800 --> 01:24:46,479
Speaker 1: my future, and I'm not sure that I am now.

1494
01:24:46,680 --> 01:24:49,400
Speaker 1: I I feel very lucky that I had the experiences

1495
01:24:49,439 --> 01:24:53,640
Speaker 1: and met the people that I have and UM, you know,

1496
01:24:53,680 --> 01:24:55,360
Speaker 1: I told you I've got a twenty four year old

1497
01:24:55,400 --> 01:24:58,000
Speaker 1: and twenty two year old, So I feel you know,

1498
01:24:58,360 --> 01:25:00,240
Speaker 1: not only do I love them, but I got two

1499
01:25:00,280 --> 01:25:04,280
Speaker 1: great kids out of two great colleges, both working. Um.

1500
01:25:05,800 --> 01:25:08,479
Speaker 1: I like the flexibility too, of traveling. I mean, this summer,

1501
01:25:08,560 --> 01:25:10,240
Speaker 1: my daughter and I wanted to go to Croatia. We

1502
01:25:10,280 --> 01:25:13,120
Speaker 1: went to Croatia. You know, my son turned Next year

1503
01:25:13,120 --> 01:25:14,719
Speaker 1: he wants to go to Japan. We'll go to Japan.

1504
01:25:14,800 --> 01:25:17,240
Speaker 1: I mean that to me is a gift because I

1505
01:25:17,320 --> 01:25:19,200
Speaker 1: didn't have that flexibility for a long time. I did

1506
01:25:19,240 --> 01:25:21,559
Speaker 1: a lot of traveling, both for work and for fun,

1507
01:25:21,960 --> 01:25:24,519
Speaker 1: but it wasn't just like Okay, let's go now and

1508
01:25:24,600 --> 01:25:28,120
Speaker 1: I can. Okay, you have a client, you go to Croatia,

1509
01:25:28,439 --> 01:25:33,160
Speaker 1: what do you tell him, Um, I'm going to be gone.

1510
01:25:33,200 --> 01:25:35,519
Speaker 1: I'll tell okay, email once a day, once a day,

1511
01:25:36,439 --> 01:25:42,679
Speaker 1: maybe more. Okay, So you feel fulfilled very much? So okay,

1512
01:25:42,760 --> 01:25:44,479
Speaker 1: don this has been great, Thanks so much for talking

1513
01:25:44,520 --> 01:25:48,080
Speaker 1: about Okay, until next time. This is Bob left Sex