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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 1: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, September fourth, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Lyttleton. I am co

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Speaker 1: editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in

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Speaker 1: LA he's in New York, and Righty has reporters around

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Speaker 1: the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk to Eric Sandler, chief strategy officer for Pushkin Industries,

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Speaker 1: a purveyor of fine podcasts. And we'll hear from jem

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Speaker 1: Ales Wad, Variety's executive editor of Music, on his recent

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Speaker 1: sit down with the inimitable David Byrne. But before we

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Speaker 1: get to that, here are a few headlines just in

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Speaker 1: this morning that you need to know. Plan B is

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Speaker 1: making big moves after being acquired by France's Media One.

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Speaker 1: The new owners of Brad Pitt's production Banner have set

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Speaker 1: up Plan B Europe. Baby Reindeer producer Ed MacDonald will

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Speaker 1: run it out of London. Parents, mark your calendars. Disney

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Speaker 1: and BBC Studios have dated the Bluey feature film for

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Speaker 1: release on August six, twenty twenty seven, and Roku has

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Speaker 1: tapped Lisa Holme as head of content. She was most

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Speaker 1: recently with Peter Churnan's North Road Company. She's also worked

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Speaker 1: in strategy and content licensing for Warner Brothers, Discovery, and Hulu.

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Speaker 1: All of these stories and so much more can be

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Speaker 1: found on Variety dot com right now. Now we turn

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Speaker 1: to conversations with Variety journalists and industry leaders about the

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Speaker 1: business of entertainment. Today, my guest is Eric Sandler, chief

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Speaker 1: strategy officer for Pushkin Industries. He's here to talk about

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Speaker 1: the company's slate of new shows. They include Revisiting The

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Speaker 1: Big Short with author Michael Lewis and a new season

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Speaker 1: of Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell. If you are a

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Speaker 1: fan of great narrative podcasts, you know this sound Pushkin.

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Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, chief strategy Officer for Pushkin Industries, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for joining me.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. I'm e's SciTE to be here.

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Speaker 1: I'm a Pushkin fans. You do my kind of podcast,

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Speaker 1: very thoughtful, deep dives into corners of history that I

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Speaker 1: didn't know about. Eric, you have some news, you have

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Speaker 1: a broad new slate, some really interesting stuff coming. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk first about the macro podcasting environment. Where

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Speaker 1: are you seeing the most pockets of growth, the biggest

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Speaker 1: opportunities for your top titles.

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Speaker 2: The industry has been around for quite a few years now,

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Speaker 2: but in some ways it still feels really new. You

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Speaker 2: still have people who have never listened to a podcast,

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Speaker 2: even though that percentage is shrinking at this point. What

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Speaker 2: we find is that quality matters, right, The more quality

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Speaker 2: storytelling you put out, the more audience you will grow

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Speaker 2: from there. But there's been some turmoil in the industry

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Speaker 2: and some changes to the models of how things are consumed.

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Speaker 2: We continue to see more and more people come to

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Speaker 2: this medium and because of the intimacy of it. Malcolm

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Speaker 2: Gladwar co founder, always like to say that if you

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Speaker 2: want to make someone think about something, then he'll write

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Speaker 2: it in a book. If he wants to make someone

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Speaker 2: feel something, he'll put it into audio.

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Speaker 1: It's a different way to absorb, especially complicated information. In

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Speaker 1: the hardcore business of pushkin you have ads supported podcast,

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Speaker 1: but you also do have a subscription platform as well.

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Speaker 2: That's correct, so we're at support of the cross our

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Speaker 2: podcast bill so have push and network wide subscription. We

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Speaker 2: offer ad pre content, we offer binge opportunities, early access,

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Speaker 2: bonus content. Another pillar of what we do is audiobooks, though,

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Speaker 2: which is pushed in. So many of our hosts and

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Speaker 2: our creators are also authors, and so we see a

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Speaker 2: really cohesive audience across podcasts and audiobooks. And there's a

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Speaker 2: really interesting pipeline that we're creating, which is a space

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Speaker 2: that used to be held by magazines and newspaper And

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Speaker 2: this is something that Malcolm's thought a lot about. When

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Speaker 2: he wrote The Tipping Point, his first book. It was

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Speaker 2: first an article in The New Yorker, and there were

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Speaker 2: so many of his peers that were growing up in

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Speaker 2: this industry that was building them to be the next

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Speaker 2: best selling authors, the next script writers, the next movie

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Speaker 2: script writers. That ecosystem has changed, and podcasting is filling

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Speaker 2: that space. And so what we see is the ability

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Speaker 2: to take a podcast series that's a couple episodes and

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Speaker 2: then expanded into an audiobook and a print book and

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Speaker 2: a TV film option as well. So an example that

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Speaker 2: would be Malcolm's Bomber Mafia series. It started four episodes

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Speaker 2: in Revision's History a couple of years ago, got turned

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Speaker 2: into an audiobook and we did a little bit of

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Speaker 2: a reversal of the pipeline and we sold the print

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Speaker 2: rights and that got optioned by A twenty four for

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Speaker 2: a TV film, And so we want to create more

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Speaker 2: opportunities for more storytellers to use this as a testing

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Speaker 2: ground for content, really drive home really impactful stories and

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Speaker 2: be able to explore the funnel in a different way.

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Speaker 1: Part of the the news that we're talking about today

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Speaker 1: also is you have re upped your Pushkin Industry's relationship

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Speaker 1: with iHeart Podcasts, who you've had at partnership for about

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Speaker 1: five years. Are there things that you've been able to

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Speaker 1: do in tandem with iHeart that you don't think you

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Speaker 1: would have been able to do on your own.

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Speaker 2: iHeart is a remarkable partner for us. They continue to

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Speaker 2: really excel it at scale and distribution as well as positioning

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Speaker 2: Pushkin as a premium ad sales opportunities. They continue to

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Speaker 2: treat us as a network with premium storytelling that can

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Speaker 2: bring that to brands, and their ability to do that

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Speaker 2: has increased year over year.

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Speaker 1: At within the partnership with iHeart, are you able to

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Speaker 1: still be a free agent in other areas like content licensing?

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Speaker 2: So iHeart is our exclusive ads and monetization partner across

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Speaker 2: our podcasts. What that means is the dynamic odd opportunities

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Speaker 2: across our inventory are handled by iHeart. But in terms

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Speaker 2: of the IP and the audiobooks and things like that,

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Speaker 2: Pushkin remains independent, and we're creatively independent as well. You know,

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Speaker 2: we remain sort of best of both world.

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Speaker 1: Do you have a basic volume of titles that you

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Speaker 1: want to have in a given year or a given

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Speaker 1: half year. Do you think about it along those lines

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Speaker 1: in terms of organizing your sleep.

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Speaker 2: No, not necessarily a volume. We have quite a few

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Speaker 2: ongoing shows that work on different cadences. So obviously we

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Speaker 2: have always on shows. We have shows that comes easily,

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Speaker 2: we have shows that are bi weekly, We have shows

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Speaker 2: on sort of all different kindences, and we want to

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Speaker 2: continue growing new shows and giving those new shows opportunities

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Speaker 2: in the network.

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Speaker 1: So two of your boldest names in the Pushkin firmament

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Speaker 1: have new projects coming. Malcolm Book Gladwell is back with

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Speaker 1: a new season of revisionist history, this time taking on

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Speaker 1: capital punishment, looking at a case that played down in Alabama.

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Speaker 1: When you have a new Malcolm project, now that's really

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Speaker 1: like a tenth poll for you, can you give us

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Speaker 1: a sense of how this will be rolled out.

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Speaker 2: I was talking to Malcolm recently and he made the

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Speaker 2: comment that he thought this could be one of the

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Speaker 2: best things he's done since starting Pushkin. The fact that

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Speaker 2: the creators that we work with Malcolm, specifically our creating

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Speaker 2: content that gets better and better is absolutely remarkable to me. Like,

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Speaker 2: we also have Jake Halprin on the network, who Variety

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Speaker 2: named one of the ten storytellers to watch for twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty five, and you just published the sixth season in

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Speaker 2: deep Cover and it hit number one for the first time.

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Speaker 2: That show continues to get better and better and better.

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Speaker 2: I think this season, specifically for Malcolm, will be something

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Speaker 2: new for folks. It's not quite true crime, but it

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Speaker 2: has elements of the true crime series that people are

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Speaker 2: familiar with in the Malcolm style that gets his message across.

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Speaker 2: So it's going to be seven episodes and it's launching

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Speaker 2: October second, and you'll see quite a bit of the

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Speaker 2: press around that. Of course Malcolm will be speaking about.

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Speaker 2: It's a hefty topic.

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Speaker 1: Else Michael lewis as if I understand this right, Pushkin

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Speaker 1: is going to re release The Big Short as an

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Speaker 1: audio book as part of that Michael Lewis is going

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Speaker 1: to host a companion series as part of his ongoing

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Speaker 1: Against the Rules series that will launch October fourteenth, And

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Speaker 1: look back now at ten years since the Big Short,

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Speaker 1: what's changed, What's not? It sounds so good. This is

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing that now you're going to use

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Speaker 1: this to bring attention to other new shows.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean, I think this is one of the

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Speaker 2: coolest projects that we do with Michael, honestly, and it

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Speaker 2: speaks to the depth of the content that the creators

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Speaker 2: we work with. May you know, it's ten years since

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Speaker 2: the book, but it's almost like a content pipeline reversal.

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Speaker 2: Fifteen years ago, it was a best selling book, ten

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Speaker 2: years ago as an Oscar winning film, and next month

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Speaker 2: it's going to be companion podcast with an audiobook, which

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Speaker 2: he never did when back in the day when he

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Speaker 2: wrote the book. It's still as relevant today as it

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Speaker 2: was when he wrote it.

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Speaker 1: And a title coming up called The Chinatown Sting, a

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Speaker 1: six episode limited series that is premiering September sixteenth. It's

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Speaker 1: from Lydia Jean Caught. Anybody who listened to Michael Lewis's

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Speaker 1: podcast coverage of the Sam Bankman Freed Trial knows Lydia

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Speaker 1: Jean she was a star of that series and can't

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Speaker 1: wait for her to dive into its late nineteen eighties

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Speaker 1: Manhattan's Chinatown massive un Undercover Drug Bust sounds like a

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Speaker 1: lot of things to revisit.

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Speaker 2: I could not be more excited for this one. We're

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Speaker 2: launching it and shortly and then we're doing a live

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Speaker 2: event with her at Amajong Parlor with Michael interviewing LJ.

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Speaker 2: Alongside a bunch of big short events too, So it

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Speaker 2: really shows the network effect of Pushkin.

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Speaker 1: You have a number of other titles coming listeners. You

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Speaker 1: can read a whole separate story about this on Variety

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Speaker 1: dot com right now. Anything you'd like particularly like to highlight.

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Speaker 2: I'd say Heavyweight, Heavyweight, Heavyweight. We are so thrilled that

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Speaker 2: Heavyweight joined the Pushkin network. It came up through the

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Speaker 2: Spotify ranks and the production had stopped about a year

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Speaker 2: and a half ago, and we just couldn't let Heavyweight go.

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Speaker 2: Is one of those shows that either you've never heard

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Speaker 2: of Heavyweight or this is your favorite show of all time.

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Speaker 2: It is such an amazing journey that it takes listeners

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Speaker 2: on and I think There's something so special about investing

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Speaker 2: in stories that unfold over time. So we're thrilled to

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Speaker 2: be bringing a new season of that coming shortly a

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Speaker 2: couple of weeks here.

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Speaker 1: Eric, my last question for you is the name Pushkin.

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Speaker 1: Alexander Pushkin was a very colorful figure, a literary figure,

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Speaker 1: a poet and writer active in Russia in the early

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, and he met an Alexander Hamilton like end

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Speaker 1: in a duel. Do you know the origin story of

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Speaker 1: why they called it Pushkin Industries.

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Speaker 2: Pushkin represents a multicultural creator who wasn't afraid to shift

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Speaker 2: the boundaries and explore storytelling and creativity whatever that format

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Speaker 2: may look like, and that goes to the core of

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Speaker 2: how Pushkin Industries was started and the type of work

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Speaker 2: that we want to do. We want to blow the

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Speaker 2: lines between genres and formats, and we want to have

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Speaker 2: diverse voices across our network, and we want to create

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Speaker 2: content that stands with tests the time and also makes

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Speaker 2: a real impact of people's lives.

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Speaker 1: Eric, thank you for your time, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: And now jam Oleswad talks to us about his profile

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Speaker 1: of musician David Byrne, the former Talking Heads front man

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Speaker 1: has lived many lives in music, and Jem has followed

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Speaker 1: them all. Here he guides us through his fruitful hour

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Speaker 1: with a seminal artist, Jem Oswad. Thank you for joining me.

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Speaker 3: Always a pleasure, Cynthia.

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Speaker 1: This is one of those stories that I knew before

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Speaker 1: it went out the door. Your profile of David Byrne

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Speaker 1: truly a seminal figure, at your passion for him and

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Speaker 1: his work and his eccentricities, it just leapt off the

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Speaker 1: page and I knew that I was going to have

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Speaker 1: you on to talk about it.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 3: Thank you for saying that.

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Speaker 1: It's very clear from reading it that you are a

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Speaker 1: longtime fan. You are somebody who has been able to

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Speaker 1: see Burne evolved from the talking heads to the global

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Speaker 1: music figure that he has become. For your fourteen year

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Speaker 1: old self, as you talk about in the stories, what

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Speaker 1: was it about David Byrne? What was it about his

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Speaker 1: music that spoke to you?

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Speaker 3: I grew up in Bingham to New York, which is

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Speaker 3: hardly a cultural mecca for anyone, although there's a university

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Speaker 3: in town. Obviously, the local record store had a lot

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Speaker 3: of new wave fans working there, and they had the

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Speaker 3: talking heads in for an in store appearance when I

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Speaker 3: was fourteen years old. Chris France, the drummer, the nicest guy,

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Speaker 3: being really friendly with my fourteen year old self, but

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Speaker 3: David Byrne was kind of awkward and people seemed reluctant

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Speaker 3: to approach him. And I got everyone's autographs and he

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Speaker 3: signed his in block letters, which I just thought was

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Speaker 3: the strangest thing. Over the next few years, especially in college,

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Speaker 3: I saw them twice, and like a lot of people

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Speaker 3: in the early to mid eighties, they were one of

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Speaker 3: my favorite bands. The tour that became the Stop Making

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Speaker 3: Sense film I saw also in Binghamton, and it's still

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Speaker 3: one of the best shows I've ever seen in my

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Speaker 3: whole life.

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Speaker 1: I just want to stop you there to say I

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Speaker 1: saw the Stop Making Sense to our that is so cool,

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Speaker 1: and because it was captured in this incredible film that

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Speaker 1: I must have seen about twenty five times.

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Speaker 3: Broom County Veterans Memorial Arena.

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Speaker 1: Can you take yourself back and remember what it was

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Speaker 1: like to experience that show that so many of us

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Speaker 1: know from the movie, but to experience it live.

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Speaker 3: Oh it was. I tend to remember concerts very well. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: I remember him dancing with the stand up light during

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Speaker 3: Naive Melody. I remember, especially the song that really stays

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Speaker 3: with me from it is Once in a Lifetime. It

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Speaker 3: really literally gave me chills, especially the part towards the

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Speaker 3: end where they're singing letting the Days go by, and

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Speaker 3: the two backing singers they're sort of like leaning over

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Speaker 3: backwards and they slowly come back up. The whole show

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Speaker 3: is just unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: Did you get the big suit?

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Speaker 3: The entire thing? I noticed that they like switched a

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Speaker 3: song from the first album from the show I saw

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Speaker 3: to the version that's in the film. Other than that,

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Speaker 3: the show was identical it.

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Speaker 1: So, Jim, you've tracked his career at various stages. This

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Speaker 1: is your first sit down with him. Your story is

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Speaker 1: fantastic for the detail of what it's like to be

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Speaker 1: David Byrne's space. What was that like for you?

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Speaker 3: Well, so here's the funny thing. His office is what's

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Speaker 3: downtown New York. As you would expect, of course, he

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Speaker 3: rides his bike there. He rides his bike everywhere. It's

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Speaker 3: a loft like space. It's sort of one long room

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Speaker 3: and he's got a private office at the end. But

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Speaker 3: walking in there is this vast floor to ceiling wall

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Speaker 3: of shelves that are just loaded with stuff, And it's

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Speaker 3: sort of like looking at his brain because it's tons

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Speaker 3: of vinyl and tons of CDs and tons of DVDs.

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Speaker 3: There was a Grammy, There was an Oscar. I think

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Speaker 3: there was a VMA moon Man as well. There were

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Speaker 3: a couple of other things in there, but most striking

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Speaker 3: were anatomical models. There was a couple of the human

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Speaker 3: brain and he actually opened the American Utopia Broadway show

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Speaker 3: holding up a brain and talking about how our brains work.

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Speaker 1: How did you find him as an interview subject? Did

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Speaker 1: you find him forthcoming?

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Speaker 3: He was a to put it that way. You could

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Speaker 3: tell he knows the dance. He's been doing this for

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Speaker 3: a long time. He was warm, he was personable. I

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Speaker 3: had really thought about the questions and he seemed to

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Speaker 3: appreciate that, and the answers are very good and thoroughly

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Speaker 3: thought through. But when we hit the hour mark, I

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Speaker 3: could tell he was ready to do something else. He

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Speaker 3: had given me the hour and he's busy. When we

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Speaker 3: were done.

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Speaker 2: We were done.

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Speaker 1: Thank you Jim for giving us this glimpse into David

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Speaker 1: Byrne's brain.

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Speaker 3: Thank you Cynthia for saying such nice things about the article.

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Speaker 1: Naturally, we'll end this segment with a clip of the

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Speaker 1: man himself. Here's David Byrne's most recent pop tune, Everybody Laughs.

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Speaker 1: It's from his new album Who Is This Guy, to

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Speaker 1: be released September fifth on Matador Records two one, two three. Damn.

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Speaker 1: Everybody laughs and everybody, Everybody lives in, Everybody does, Everybody eats,

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Speaker 1: and everybody loves. Everybody knows what everybody does.

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Speaker 3: Everybody's going to the changes, every commation.

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Speaker 1: Now it's time for a Vintage Variety segment. As Emmy

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Speaker 1: Week approaches, I figured it was a good time to

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Speaker 1: look at the history of the varieties. Language word kudo

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Speaker 1: cast kudo cast means an award ceremony that is broadcast

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Speaker 1: live or nowadays live stream. A kudo is defined by

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Speaker 1: Webster's Dictionary as meaning either praise or compliments, or an

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Speaker 1: award or accommendation. Variety's kudo cast is one word spelled kudocast.

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Speaker 1: It's t me, but the first use of kudo cast

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Speaker 1: and variety didn't come till February seventeenth, nineteen ninety one.

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Speaker 1: It appears to have been coined by my treasured former

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Speaker 1: colleague Tom Bierbaum, who wrote rating stories for decades. He

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Speaker 1: used it to refer to the Grammy Awards, referring to

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Speaker 1: the kudocast's strong performance. Four weeks later, Tom used kudo

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Speaker 1: cast again in another rating story in reference to the

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Speaker 1: People's Choice Awards. For context, Variety had regularly used the

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Speaker 1: terms oscar cast and Emmy cast for more than thirty

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Speaker 1: years prior to Tom's coinage of kudo cast. Oscar cast

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Speaker 1: was first mentioned in the March twenty eighth, nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: eight edition in a rating story. That year, the Academy

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Speaker 1: Awards aired from ten thirty pm to twelve fifteen am

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Speaker 1: on a Wednesday night on NBC. It drew forty six

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Speaker 1: million viewers. A term Emmy cast was first used in

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Speaker 1: Variety the following year, back to kudo cast. The first

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Speaker 1: person not named Tom Bierbaum to use it in a

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Speaker 1: story was my old boss and a predecessor of mine

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Speaker 1: as co editor in chief, Timothy M.

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Speaker 2: Gray.

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Speaker 1: Tim Pendacolumn published on June twenty sixth, nineteen ninety two,

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Speaker 1: about the problems with producing award shows. Side note, Tim Gray,

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Speaker 1: of all people would appreciate me pointing out here that

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Speaker 1: he now works for the Golden Globe Awards. By nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety three, Kudo cast was in heavy rotation in varieties, pages,

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Speaker 1: in stories, and in headlines. The letter K looks great

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Speaker 1: in sixty point type. Thanks Tom. As we close out

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Speaker 1: today's episode, here's a few things we're watching for The

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Speaker 1: Toronto Film Festival starts today. We have a big group

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Speaker 1: of reporters and editors up there ready to cover all

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Speaker 1: the screenings and track all the deals. The paper premieres

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Speaker 1: today on Peacock Scranton Forever. Next week, Fariety will unveil

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Speaker 1: its annual Producer's Impact Report, we look at the state

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Speaker 1: of the art and the state of the deals for

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Speaker 1: movers and shakers in television. Before we go, congrats in

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Speaker 1: advance to all of this weekend's Creative Art semi winners.

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Speaker 1: I'll be there on Saturday with my treasured colleague Jazz

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Speaker 1: tank A, covering Night one, and Jazz will also be

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Speaker 1: back for Night two on Sunday. Follow all of the

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Speaker 1: creative Art semi news in real time this weekend on

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Speaker 1: Variety dot com and on our social channels, And next

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Speaker 1: week it's all hands on Deck as We Marshall team

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Speaker 1: coverage of the seventy seventh Emmy Awards, airing Sunday, September

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Speaker 1: fourteenth on CBS. Thanks for listening. This episode was written

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Speaker 1: and reported by me Cynthia Lyttleton, with contributions from jem Oswad.

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Speaker 1: It was edited by Aaron Greenwald stix nixx hick Picks.

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Speaker 1: Please leave us a review at the podcast platform of

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Speaker 1: your choice, and please tune in Monday for another episode

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Speaker 1: of Daily Vary