Speaker 1: I made that show for Amazon in its early days,
Speaker 1: and it was so Janet was so cuckoo about the
Speaker 1: sex and was so aggressive about the kind of craziness
Speaker 1: of that world and the strange behavior that he saw
Speaker 1: in the paris of that moment, and I got seduced
Speaker 1: by it, and I was like, Okay, Yeah, maybe there's
Speaker 1: a large audience for this. The initial reaction of the
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime mom who watched that show was I'm not
Speaker 1: only I mean that show could have taken Amazon down.
Speaker 1: It was that bad choice and that wrong of an
Speaker 1: environment to put that show him. My name is Ben Silverman,
Speaker 1: and I am a media entrepreneur and the executive producer
Speaker 1: of the Office.
Speaker 2: Well well, well if it isn't another episode of Off
Speaker 2: the Beat with yours truly, your host, Brian Baumgartner today, Yep,
Speaker 2: there you go. I'm talking to the big man, the
Speaker 2: giant donkey, the creator, the guy who started it all.
Speaker 2: Well he started for me at least, Ben Silverman is
Speaker 2: here on the program now. Ben. He may not be
Speaker 2: on your television screen all that often, but he is
Speaker 2: almost always behind it in some way, lurking in the corner.
Speaker 2: The fact that he created the Office is just the tip.
Speaker 2: That's what she said, just the tip of what he
Speaker 2: has accomplished in the entertainment industry. He is the co
Speaker 2: CEO of Propagate Content, the production company behind this very
Speaker 2: podcast and many other shows. He was also the chairman
Speaker 2: of NBC Entertainment. He founded production companies including revelly An Electus,
Speaker 2: and he has created and executive produced many many shows
Speaker 2: that you know and love, The Office, The Biggest Loser, Ugly,
Speaker 2: Betty Jane, The Virgin, The Tutors, Charmed, Untold, many many more.
Speaker 2: The last time I talked to him, at least on tape,
Speaker 2: was a few years ago when I was putting together
Speaker 2: my first podcast and oral history of the Office. If
Speaker 2: you haven't listened to that, go listen to it. It's
Speaker 2: almost an audio reunion of everyone who worked on the Office.
Speaker 2: Or you can scroll all the way back on this
Speaker 2: podcast to March of twenty twenty one, when I released
Speaker 2: my extended conversation with Ben about the Office. Wow, I
Speaker 2: cannot believe I've been doing this that long. I guess
Speaker 2: it's true what they say, time flies when you're talking
Speaker 2: to incredible people every week. Anyway, this time I wanted
Speaker 2: to talk with Ben about the other parts of his life,
Speaker 2: his career, his empire. He's a brilliant creative mind, a
Speaker 2: super smart businessman, and well he's just a really interesting dude.
Speaker 2: You're gonna see what I mean pretty quickly, Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: always the smartest guy in the room, Ben Silverman.
Speaker 1: Bubble and squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeakna bubble
Speaker 1: and squeak. I could get every mole lift over from
Speaker 1: the night before.
Speaker 2: Kaneti wah, Ella, Kaneti wah. You're in Japan. I understand.
Speaker 1: I am in Japan as we speak. It's it's early
Speaker 1: morning here. But I'm thrilled to be talking to you,
Speaker 1: my California brother.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's what you say, right, I've never been to Japan.
Speaker 1: You. Luckily, we have insulted everyone in the world through
Speaker 1: our collaboration and television show, and I am doing it
Speaker 1: incredibly efficiently as I wander these streets getting grinned at
Speaker 1: all day long. But I'm I am very I can
Speaker 1: mons moss and there's many great Japanese expressions. Yes, kanichiwa
Speaker 1: is hello, but they don't use that as much as
Speaker 1: you'd expect.
Speaker 2: Is that like Domo Arigato do.
Speaker 1: That's a good well Aragatos, thank you, thank you more.
Speaker 1: And I have absolutely been in a couple of bowing
Speaker 1: battles like I always go for the last bow and
Speaker 1: you know, you could get five six, seven bows going,
Speaker 1: just like reled it in our show as as much
Speaker 1: scot and it is incredibly amusing to me as it's
Speaker 1: playing out, and I feel like I'm in some kind
Speaker 1: of scripted you know, comedy but right, but my fellow
Speaker 1: Bauer is not quite And now, because you know, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for a week, initially in business meetings
Speaker 1: where you know, business cards are presented to me like
Speaker 1: their their you know, gold, I mean, I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: can you enter your number in my phone? And it's
Speaker 1: like almost an insult. And then secondarily, I am loving
Speaker 1: the language like I have been trying to learn it,
Speaker 1: and it's not that hard to pronounce. It's it's impossible
Speaker 1: to read because we just don't know the characters right.
Speaker 2: Now, obviously, you are the international adapter slash creator of
Speaker 2: foreign content for America. Are you watching television to find
Speaker 2: the next great hit?
Speaker 1: I have been watching a ton of television and trying
Speaker 1: to actually land some ip, but I am failing mercilessly. Here,
Speaker 1: there's a reason the Korean content has exported so well
Speaker 1: because they're down to work with us, and they're excited
Speaker 1: to export their content and they are thrilled to have partners.
Speaker 1: Not so much here. There's not a lot of there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of yes, I would love to watch
Speaker 1: this do well. Outside of my borders, they're much there's
Speaker 1: much more focus on like it's actually beautiful. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're just there's focus on doing something the best, but
Speaker 1: not necessarily the most efficiently or at scale or to
Speaker 1: be monetized in the same way. So it's just a
Speaker 1: different culture in terms of its desire to export.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that actually occurs to me I and
Speaker 2: then we're going to talk more about you. But you know,
Speaker 2: you see like on YouTube or whatever, you do see
Speaker 2: like some Korean television even not just remade, but like content.
Speaker 2: You don't see a lot of Jeopardy. Is there a
Speaker 2: lot of like scripted original content in Japan.
Speaker 1: It's it's not nearly the level of the Korean content
Speaker 1: in terms of the scripted content. On the nonscripted side,
Speaker 1: it's there's so much of it, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of it in categories that would work, but they're not
Speaker 1: as formated like food travel. You know, they do a
Speaker 1: lot of the kind of genres that we do in
Speaker 1: American television, but they're so specifically Japanese. There's not as
Speaker 1: much of a format to it to adapt, and there's
Speaker 1: so much crazy popping up all over the screens that
Speaker 1: you know, the entire country, you know, gives you a
Speaker 1: little PTSD as you navigate through it. If you remember
Speaker 1: years ago, there was a television show and half the
Speaker 1: audience fainted watching it in Japan because of the amount
Speaker 1: of stuff going on screen. And you feel like that
Speaker 1: walking through Tokyo. You feel like that in the subway,
Speaker 1: and you feel like that watching the shows. There's like
Speaker 1: thousands of words popping up all over the screen in
Speaker 1: different colors, and then there's always like somebody like entering
Speaker 1: the screen laughing, and then there's somebody in costume, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's highly original and highly confusing and therefore
Speaker 1: not quite as very specific, yeah, not quite as effective.
Speaker 1: The Wall Came From Here, which was a adapt betame show,
Speaker 1: and there's a couple other things like that. But it's
Speaker 1: not England, it's not Korea, it's not you know a
Speaker 1: lot of the other markets that are so strong exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, enough about Japan. I want to talk. I
Speaker 2: want to go back with you. I know you were
Speaker 2: born in Massachusetts, but really grew up in Manhattan an
Speaker 2: artistic family. Your dad, Stanley, who I know and love
Speaker 2: so well, a composer, your mom an actor and network executive.
Speaker 2: So was the arts? Was television? Was entertainment? Was it
Speaker 2: focused on in your household growing up? Or was that
Speaker 2: their job? And you were just you know, running the
Speaker 2: streets of Manhattan.
Speaker 1: The arts were an integral part of my upbringing. You know,
Speaker 1: it was no question that through us Moses, I was
Speaker 1: exposed to some of the great minds of the latter
Speaker 1: half of the twentieth century and the artistic community. My
Speaker 1: father collaborated with everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Anthony Burgess
Speaker 1: to Arthur Miller. And I ran around the halls of
Speaker 1: Lincoln Center and various you know, chamber music calls and
Speaker 1: exposure to music. And my mom was actually a theater
Speaker 1: producer and collaborator of my dad's early on before they
Speaker 1: divorced at age four. My being aged four because my
Speaker 1: mom realized she was gay, and so that can end
Speaker 1: a marriage quickly and they talked about it all the time.
Speaker 1: And then my father's second marriage which also ended. No,
Speaker 1: you know not because they don't still love each other.
Speaker 1: As my dad always says, I'm the great ex husband
Speaker 1: because he's still best friends with both of his ex wives.
Speaker 1: But my Stepmam Martha was also a brilliant violinist, so
Speaker 1: I would be exposed to it all and I would
Speaker 1: hear it and Thuusmosis would be connected to everything from
Speaker 1: Shakespeare to Brahms, and it absolutely gave me a great foundation.
Speaker 1: But it also made me more ambitious in what was
Speaker 1: possible within the arts and creativity because I saw how
Speaker 1: much they struggled financially and how difficult it was to
Speaker 1: get their work heard and seen. Only recently has my
Speaker 1: dad had his biggest hits hit. In celebration, my father's
Speaker 1: new album just came out as he's eighty four years old,
Speaker 1: his first album probably twenty five thirty years and he
Speaker 1: has a collaboration with Sting on it right now, which
Speaker 1: is great, So all of you should download in celebration
Speaker 1: my Stanley Silverman, and so he was like performing above
Speaker 1: a you know, his stuff was happening above a church
Speaker 1: in some weird downtown art space, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, wait, this isn't fun. I want this
Speaker 1: to be I want the world to see my stuff, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you talked about so many of these collaborations.
Speaker 2: Were you present with these great minds and artists and
Speaker 2: with your mom in her business. Were you seeing these
Speaker 2: people and knowing who they were? I mean you brought
Speaker 2: up Arthur Miller for example.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. One of my dad's collaborations with Arthur was
Speaker 1: up from Paradise, and I would you know, they were divorced.
Speaker 1: So my dad was working. When I saw my dad,
Speaker 1: I was where he was working, because you know, he
Speaker 1: worked at night, you know, he was inside these theaters
Speaker 1: and music halls. And so I walked into a screen
Speaker 1: door at Arthur Miller's house in Connecticut. I hung out
Speaker 1: with Joe Papp, the artistic director and founder of the
Speaker 1: Public Theater. I you know, met and played with Michael
Speaker 1: Tilson Thomas arguably the greatest conductor of the modern era.
Speaker 1: So these people were all in around my world. My
Speaker 1: mom collaborated with Tommy toone, you know. So it was
Speaker 1: just how I grew up, you know, it was part
Speaker 1: of my rhythm and I was the ultimate latch key
Speaker 1: kid because of it. You know, I was kind of
Speaker 1: I was raised by the arts, but I was also
Speaker 1: raised by wolves a little bit. You know. I walked
Speaker 1: to school alone at age four in New York City
Speaker 1: and had to kind of manage for myself. But it
Speaker 1: is also where I fell in love with television because
Speaker 1: as the ultimate latch key kid, TV was my babysitter.
Speaker 2: Well that makes sense. Do you think that that independence
Speaker 2: that you had early on, do you think that gave
Speaker 2: you a toughness?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Do you think that gave you an independence? I mean,
Speaker 2: do you feel that? Do you acknowledge that?
Speaker 1: I really do, And we obviously were both parents of
Speaker 1: young kids, you and I and I do see the
Speaker 1: absolute shift in how we raise our children. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, love conquers all. And my parents
Speaker 1: loved me so much and we are so close and
Speaker 1: they are the two smartest people I know. And I
Speaker 1: absolutely feel their love, which gives you another form of confidence.
Speaker 1: And felt their belief in me as a kid and
Speaker 1: then as a young man. But no question, you're walking
Speaker 1: the streets in New York City as a four year old,
Speaker 1: You're pretty comfortable as an eighteen year old. I remember
Speaker 1: arriving at arriving at university and these and the kids
Speaker 1: from the suburbs were all getting hammered and you know,
Speaker 1: doing kegstands, and I was like, you idiots where you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to the city, you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: its just my kind of attitude and energy around. It
Speaker 1: absolutely was grounded in my self reliance, you know. So
Speaker 1: my mom would leave for the weekend so she could
Speaker 1: live her life. She knew I didn't really want to
Speaker 1: deal with that fact until later on when I could
Speaker 1: understand it and synthesize it. And I would be handed
Speaker 1: between ten and twenty dollars for the weekend and basically
Speaker 1: was left alone in my apartment. And as I walked
Speaker 1: to school, she was very good and knew the ways
Speaker 1: to keep me safe. Though. When I walked to school
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, basically a post toddler, she
Speaker 1: would just say, Okay, if you feel scared at all,
Speaker 1: look for a doorman. And if you don't find a doorman,
Speaker 1: look for a mother with a stroller or children. And
Speaker 1: if you don't find a doorman or a mother with
Speaker 1: a stroller or children, look for a man in a
Speaker 1: suit and those were like my guardrails. But that's good.
Speaker 1: That's good advice, I guess. So.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so impossible to believe. I don't know
Speaker 2: if we've talked about this or not, but I look,
Speaker 2: I love my life here in California, and I love
Speaker 2: New York. I love I love it. I love to
Speaker 2: visit and go there in short spurts. But I have
Speaker 2: thought often and talked about I don't know if I
Speaker 2: could get a show there for a year or something
Speaker 2: like before the kid get too old, that going there
Speaker 2: and having them have that experience of being on the
Speaker 2: streets of New York exactly what you're talking about now.
Speaker 2: I don't know about letting them walk to school alone
Speaker 2: or whatever, but just that feeling of being around so
Speaker 2: many people and having to kind of learn your way,
Speaker 2: and there's a certain toughness that it has to bring
Speaker 2: to you as a child to be navigating that city.
Speaker 1: So I had two bikes stolen and I got my
Speaker 1: jaw broken. Yeah, those are the downsides, but no question,
Speaker 1: and one big thing I always felt about New York
Speaker 1: is it's a city that is integrated in how everyone
Speaker 1: has to utilize the city in the same way. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely changed and the world has changed. You would never
Speaker 1: let your kid walk to school alone at age four
Speaker 1: because somehow the manifestation of bad people is just like accelerated.
Speaker 1: But I always felt when about California and I love
Speaker 1: it is if you have any means, or even just
Speaker 1: a car, you kind of move in your car between
Speaker 1: place to place, never touching the society at large. In
Speaker 1: New York, we all were taking the same subway, we're
Speaker 1: all taking the same bus, we're all walking the same streets.
Speaker 1: We were all integrated, whether whatever class or you place
Speaker 1: you came from, which is very different than California, where
Speaker 1: you're kind of being shuttled around in your car cocoon
Speaker 1: between one bastion of your own community to another place
Speaker 1: in your own community and not touching the community at large,
Speaker 1: whereas in New York, you're literally on the subway together,
Speaker 1: you're in the park together, you're on the streets together,
Speaker 1: you're on the bus together, and so you're exposed and
Speaker 1: through that exposure, you learn and you also tolerate each
Speaker 1: other in a different way because you're kind of living
Speaker 1: the same life, even if at the end of the
Speaker 1: day you go to the penthouse or the twelfth floor,
Speaker 1: and somebody else is going to the basement. The experience
Speaker 1: the rest of the day is shared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very that's very smart. I see you studied
Speaker 2: history at TOUGHS. So what was it about history or
Speaker 2: what did you think? What direction did you feel like
Speaker 2: your life was going to go.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be in showbiz, but I also
Speaker 1: had considered being in the Foreign service and working in
Speaker 1: international relations, and so I was looking at a degree
Speaker 1: that could give me a basis for anything. And I
Speaker 1: truly believe in the liberal arts education in a profound way,
Speaker 1: and felt that the liberal arts education is the best
Speaker 1: foundation to understand the stories that took place in reality,
Speaker 1: which is history, and to understand the stories that took
Speaker 1: place in creativity through like English classes and art history
Speaker 1: and other modes of expression. Were really important to me,
Speaker 1: and with advice from my family to to study that
Speaker 1: way and not pursue an economics degree or a business degree,
Speaker 1: and it sets you up for anything you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I happened to be fascinated with history. I played with
Speaker 1: toy soldiers growing up. I had two uncles who served
Speaker 1: in World War Two, Lester and Davy. I had a
Speaker 1: lot of connectivity in my world to what came before me,
Speaker 1: and it absolutely was something that interested me. It's partially
Speaker 1: you know, I created the Tutors about Henry the Eighth,
Speaker 1: which was a big hit on Showtime and around the
Speaker 1: world and still airs and other shows like that, including
Speaker 1: Marco Polo because of my connectivity to history. So it
Speaker 1: absolutely helped inform my creative process. But it truly gave
Speaker 1: me a great foundation for anything and would work well
Speaker 1: if I chose a different career also, but you know,
Speaker 1: from a very young age, I knew I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into show business.
Speaker 2: Ye, So that brings me to my next question. But
Speaker 2: I do have to say, you know, when I go
Speaker 2: now and I'm talking to young actors or at universities
Speaker 2: or whatever, that is one of the major pieces of
Speaker 2: advices that I give to young actors, which is have
Speaker 2: a broad base of education. If you just are studying
Speaker 2: acting or theater, you don't have that sort of world
Speaker 2: perspective that exactly what you said I feel like a
Speaker 2: liberal arts college brings. And truly it's one of the
Speaker 2: reasons that I made the decision, you know, to not
Speaker 2: go to a school like Juilliard or Carnegie Mellon or
Speaker 2: with that, with all respect to those schools, I wanted.
Speaker 2: I wanted that liberal arts experience. So I think that's
Speaker 2: really smart for you. Like when were you like this
Speaker 2: is what I'm going to do. Because you are a
Speaker 2: creative person, you came from a creative family. But when
Speaker 2: was the decision for you made that you wanted to
Speaker 2: work in entertainment. You wanted to produce, and you and
Speaker 2: you wanted to lead and create, but from a non
Speaker 2: creative side, not that you're not creative, but that you
Speaker 2: wanted to manage and run television.
Speaker 1: Well, I think there was a couple of touch points
Speaker 1: that really impacted me. One is going to the movies
Speaker 1: and just being in the movies, and specifically as a
Speaker 1: young kid going to the Regency, which was an old
Speaker 1: cinema in New York City on Broadway that played old movies,
Speaker 1: and I fell in love with Fred Astaire as a
Speaker 1: young kid and would dance in the aisles as Fred
Speaker 1: would dance on screen. And so I had this kind
Speaker 1: of connectivity as a very young boy, you know, in
Speaker 1: my four or five six year old kind of brain space.
Speaker 1: Then subsequently watching NBC in the eighties and what Brandon
Speaker 1: Tartakoff unleashed with Saint Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues and
Speaker 1: The Cosby Show and very specifically Cheers, my favorite show
Speaker 1: of all time at that moment in time, and seeing
Speaker 1: all of that and wanting to kind of understand it.
Speaker 1: And then there was an article that came out in
Speaker 1: New York Magazine about Brandon Tartakoff, and I read that
Speaker 1: article and I really got excited about who he was
Speaker 1: and what he did and how he got there. I
Speaker 1: knew he went to Yale, I knew he played baseball,
Speaker 1: I knew how he started and arrived there, and I
Speaker 1: thought that was an unbelievably interesting guy and job and trajectory.
Speaker 1: And then separately from that, I started to kind of
Speaker 1: try and learn on my own. Like I was very
Speaker 1: good at math, and so my sixth grade at Rhode
Speaker 1: of Sholham Day School in New York City, I didn't
Speaker 1: have to go to the regular math class. I was
Speaker 1: kind of put in my own math class with one
Speaker 1: other kid, David Kart, And I remember I chose to
Speaker 1: write and work on statistics and understand ratings. So in
Speaker 1: the sixth grade I was doing a project on rats
Speaker 1: instead of going to regular math class. And so I
Speaker 1: kind of knew, you know, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out ways to know. But reading about Brandon showed me, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a job like that. Watching television showed me how
Speaker 1: much I loved it, and going to the cinema and
Speaker 1: you know, showed me how much I loved it. And
Speaker 1: then seeing my family in the arts, but struggle in
Speaker 1: the arts also made me want to be more of
Speaker 1: a mogul than a kind of artiste. And okay, okay,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted my stuff seen. I was like,
Speaker 1: whatever I do, I wanted to be watched and consumed.
Speaker 2: Yeah that makes sense. I mean the crazy thing. And
Speaker 2: we've talked about this before, by the way, if you
Speaker 2: if you haven't noticed so far, this is how you
Speaker 2: can never win an argument with Ben Silverman. He remembers
Speaker 2: every name. I mean, the names that you're pulling out
Speaker 2: from sixth grade. I mean, it's unbelievable. But you as
Speaker 2: a child, which is what I wanted to touch on it,
Speaker 2: just at least briefly, how crazy it is you wanted
Speaker 2: to be the chairman of NBC. Like it's such a
Speaker 2: specific dream and such an ah Like I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just find it so fascinating that every step in
Speaker 2: your life, which of course eventually you got there spoiler
Speaker 2: alert like that that happened at such a young age,
Speaker 2: and you were able to see the impact that you
Speaker 2: could have, not necessarily, as you said, being a creative
Speaker 2: like your parents, who you saw struggle.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you have to manifest. You have to manifest,
Speaker 1: and you have to keep marching towards whatever it is
Speaker 1: you want to accomplish, and you have to really dare
Speaker 1: to dream. You know, my mom would always say, you're
Speaker 1: the boy. If I locked you in a closet by accident,
Speaker 1: you would have come out telling me how great the
Speaker 1: dark was. So you need to find your path and
Speaker 1: your enthusiasm and your happiness and whatever is presented to you,
Speaker 1: because it's everything is.
Speaker 2: So damn hard.
Speaker 1: You better enjoy the ride or be able to kind
Speaker 1: of find your way to it. One thing, even further,
Speaker 1: that was crazy. When I got to college at Toughs,
Speaker 1: which I loved and was a great, great environment for me,
Speaker 1: I wrote a paper in a creative writing class there,
Speaker 1: and my paper, the best thing I ever wrote, was
Speaker 1: all about this young kid getting an internship in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and then he meets Brandon Tartakoff in the paper I
Speaker 1: wrote about it, and that Brandon, well really likes the
Speaker 1: kid and connects to the kid, and then and then
Speaker 1: the kid gets gets hired and he makes it. And
Speaker 1: then by the end, the kind of the end of
Speaker 1: it is isy and he no longer returns Madonna's phone calls.
Speaker 1: That was that was That was like the entire trajectory
Speaker 1: of my, you know, twenty year old self's creative writing project.
Speaker 2: So it came true, except now it's it's Correl's phone calls.
Speaker 1: I'll always I'll always return Toil's focus.
Speaker 2: Something I saw that I never put together before. First off,
Speaker 2: you were an agent at William Morris and we've talked
Speaker 2: about that before and the impact that that had. But Ben,
Speaker 2: obviously or not obviously, Ben started Creative Revelly, which was
Speaker 2: the production company behind the office. I didn't realize how
Speaker 2: close it was to the office, Like were you starting
Speaker 2: revillly as you began those early conversations with Gervais. I'd
Speaker 2: never put this together.
Speaker 1: Well, I had awareness of the office while working at
Speaker 1: William Morris, okay, and then basically did it all so
Speaker 1: quickly as I moved into the same office building on
Speaker 1: a different floor with my crew of assistants who I
Speaker 1: had been slowly promoting or quickly promoting inside William Morris,
Speaker 1: and went to work on the things I had wanted
Speaker 1: to do myself while at William Morris. And knew that
Speaker 1: they would end up ruining in the way they would
Speaker 1: have approached it. You know, even like Greg Daniels wasn't
Speaker 1: represented by William Morris, and I knew if I brought
Speaker 1: the office into William Morris, someone would force only a
Speaker 1: William Morris client into it. I knew that there was
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of things that would destroy
Speaker 1: I didn't have the rights, I didn't have the conversation
Speaker 1: with Ricky until I was independent. None of that had
Speaker 1: played out. It just happened quickly the moment it was
Speaker 1: quickly out. And same with the restaurant, the show I
Speaker 1: created while in William Morris. My first phone calls on
Speaker 1: the restaurant were made at William Morris, and then I
Speaker 1: left to go do the work and begin the process
Speaker 1: at large. And that was a rapid fire thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, that all so crazy, that that happened so fast,
Speaker 2: that's so crazy. Founded in two thousand and two, Ben
Speaker 2: created the US adaptation of the Office. Obviously epeed many
Speaker 2: other shows like The Restaurant he just mentioned, Biggest Loser, Ugly,
Speaker 2: Betty Date, My Mom, and many many more. What was
Speaker 2: it for you about acquiring rights to these shows that
Speaker 2: existed elsewhere and bringing them to the United States. What
Speaker 2: was the magic What would you describe, humbly, of course,
Speaker 2: as the magic sauce, the magic potion that you had
Speaker 2: or tried to put on to make these shows palatable
Speaker 2: for a US audience.
Speaker 1: Well, one of it was like seeing something and connecting
Speaker 1: to how it would apply to the American vernacular, like
Speaker 1: watching The Office. The Office actually felt informed by American
Speaker 1: office life. It was just done in a very British way,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhat sadder, somewhat more pessimistic, and somewhat somewhat
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable than our show was done. I always talked
Speaker 1: about it as kind of the CPA version, and we
Speaker 1: though had office life at scale and had a sense
Speaker 1: of drudgery in our American offices as well, that it
Speaker 1: would relate to you know, instantaneously, the word is the same, right,
Speaker 1: it HiT's the office in both cultures. In other shows
Speaker 1: I had to kind of identify where and how they
Speaker 1: would translate, like what made sense for those ideas to
Speaker 1: work inside the United States. And then there were some
Speaker 1: that should have been created in America but just happened
Speaker 1: to have started overseas, which I saw as an agent,
Speaker 1: like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Like that is
Speaker 1: the quintessential American show. It just happened to be created
Speaker 1: by a brit for the British market and obviously worked
Speaker 1: everywhere in the world. But as I thought about the
Speaker 1: specific shows, there were some things that I knew would
Speaker 1: never work. You know, there were shows about a rural
Speaker 1: pastor or something that raised sheeap in the English countryside
Speaker 1: that was going to be like a harder adaptation to
Speaker 1: find and kind of dial in. And then there were
Speaker 1: ones that you just knew, right with the right take,
Speaker 1: the right vision, the right location, the right team, this
Speaker 1: could really pop and connect on a human level and
Speaker 1: on a conceptual level to a larger American audience than
Speaker 1: the smaller international audience that had seen it. A lot
Speaker 1: of that changed as those shows started to be seen
Speaker 1: on the streamers now, but at that time there was
Speaker 1: no outlet for the original material, so no one even
Speaker 1: was familiar with them.
Speaker 2: Right now, I feel like you have an inate ability
Speaker 2: to see the universality of certain either formats or subject
Speaker 2: matters that can apply. And I feel like with the
Speaker 2: Office specifically, it's just a conversation that I had with
Speaker 2: both Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who said essentially the
Speaker 2: same thing, which one us they felt like mistakes were
Speaker 2: made in the past on English shows brought to the
Speaker 2: US because the English creators kept holding on sort of
Speaker 2: for dear life with their fingernails and trying to say no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's got to be like this, this is how we
Speaker 2: did it, This is how we did it. Whereas Ricky
Speaker 2: and Steven they feel like their greatest contribution was to say,
Speaker 2: Greg Daniels and Ben Silverman understand America way better than
Speaker 2: we do. They understand American television way better than we do.
Speaker 2: Let's let them take the format and adapt it in
Speaker 2: a way that makes sense there. But I feel like
Speaker 2: you have sort of an innate ability to see all
Speaker 2: of those steps when just taken with the original material.
Speaker 1: Well and like and as a young as a young man,
Speaker 1: a young precocious man, in that process, I remember having
Speaker 1: to live with that and deal with many people whose
Speaker 1: shows I felt were so adaptable and incredible and insisting
Speaker 1: that it was the same cast and the same writer
Speaker 1: adapting them. And then I'm like, well, why do it right?
Speaker 1: You know, why adapt it? And in fact, you don't
Speaker 1: know the intricacies of our language. You know the intricacies
Speaker 1: of your language. You don't know the style of our humor.
Speaker 1: You know the style of your humor, and you're going
Speaker 1: to ruin it. And sometimes, like with great sex, you
Speaker 1: need to lose control, you know, And that was you know,
Speaker 1: like there's there are moments where you just have to
Speaker 1: let it happen. And yeah, this was absolutely the case
Speaker 1: with Ricky and Steven, where they were like, we love
Speaker 1: what we did. We liked you and the vision you
Speaker 1: have for this, so go for it. We'll give you
Speaker 1: everything you need and we'll explain everything we did. But
Speaker 1: then it's yours to run with. And they were not
Speaker 1: around set. They were not you know, looking over our shoulder,
Speaker 1: They were not second guessing us. They were embracing us.
Speaker 1: And I think, as I also told them, they would
Speaker 1: make a lot more money, do you know, from our
Speaker 1: show than they ever would from theirs. And many more episodes.
Speaker 1: And I always said for fans of the original Office,
Speaker 1: you will only have twelve episodes no matter how you
Speaker 1: cut it. You know, we have two hundred and twelve
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: That's right, and I think significantly for you, you know,
Speaker 2: with of course, all due respect to all of the
Speaker 2: other creative people that worked on the show. You know,
Speaker 2: it's also that little sixth grader with karp got I
Speaker 2: remember the name that you know, we're studying ratings and
Speaker 2: statistics and ratings percentages. You know. Having an understanding of
Speaker 2: the business of American television is also part of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, the creatives have to make certain decisions that
Speaker 2: enable the show to go two hundred and twelve episodes,
Speaker 2: obviously with your input, but having a sense of how
Speaker 2: do we serialize this, how do we make this go
Speaker 2: for twenty four to thirty episodes a year for nine
Speaker 2: ten years, that's a big part. All right. So here's
Speaker 2: my question. Because you have had amazing success in terms
Speaker 2: of looking into the future and people going what the fuck, Ben,
Speaker 2: that's insane, what are you talking about? That's insane, and
Speaker 2: you finding a way to make it work. Here's my question.
Speaker 2: I want to hear at least one. But I want
Speaker 2: to hear an example of something where in the end
Speaker 2: you say to yourself, what was I thinking like that
Speaker 2: that could never work? Like what what is an idea
Speaker 2: or a show that you had that did not pan
Speaker 2: out well?
Speaker 1: Had obvious failure? One of them, One of them that
Speaker 1: I made was Casanova with Jean Pierre Jeannet, which was
Speaker 1: in my kind of what I thought would be my
Speaker 1: trilogy of tutors and Marco Polo, and then I would
Speaker 1: do Casanova in France. Jean Pierre Janet is incredible director,
Speaker 1: and I made that show for Amazon in its early days,
Speaker 1: and it was so Janet was so cuckoo about the
Speaker 1: sex and was so aggressive about the kind of craziness
Speaker 1: of that world and the strange behavior that he saw
Speaker 1: in the Paris of that moment, and I got seduced
Speaker 1: by it, and I was like, Okay, yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: there's a large audience for this. The initial reaction of
Speaker 1: the Amazon Prime mom who watched that show was I'm
Speaker 1: not only I mean, that show could have taken Amazon down.
Speaker 1: It was that bad choice and that wrong of an
Speaker 1: environment to put that show, you know, And I really
Speaker 1: really didn't understand the environment Amazon, which is now like
Speaker 1: so kind of almost puerile, and the kind of content
Speaker 1: that makes to service its you know, giant toilet paper
Speaker 1: buying audience. And then and then I didn't understand that
Speaker 1: Depravity was not for everyone. So that that was a massive,
Speaker 1: sad mistake that I made and wrong place wrong. I
Speaker 1: kind of thought premium content could push the envelope further
Speaker 1: than it had with sopranos and Peters and no, there's
Speaker 1: an end. There's an end to that. There's a time out,
Speaker 1: time out bill. That's one step too far. I don't mind.
Speaker 1: I don't mind Henry the Eighth getting a blowjob, but
Speaker 1: you know this is one step two podcasts.
Speaker 2: What makes me laugh really is just like, oh, one
Speaker 2: of your shows built Netflix and the other one almost
Speaker 2: killed him.
Speaker 1: Like that.
Speaker 2: That is now. That's now how I'm gonna think of it.
Speaker 2: So why did you sell Revee?
Speaker 1: Because I got name chairman of NBC and when absolutely
Speaker 1: the biggest mistake of my life.
Speaker 2: Pure taking taking taking the job or selling Revee or I.
Speaker 1: Had to sell Reveale because of the job. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have had the childhood desire to run NBC, because had
Speaker 1: I continued with revee I would own an island somewhere
Speaker 1: and be Richard Branson level wealthy or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I I that company and what I saw coming and
Speaker 1: the content I had ready to go behind. It was
Speaker 1: so good, and I was so on fire and so
Speaker 1: beloved and so the bit boy wonder kind that it
Speaker 1: had every bit of momentum. And two years later, the
Speaker 1: woman who bought my company sold it for seven times
Speaker 1: the amount I sold it to her for. So it
Speaker 1: was it was clearly undersold. I sold it on a
Speaker 1: phone call. I didn't even take it to market. I
Speaker 1: literally was like so naive about it. I'm like, sure,
Speaker 1: you know what, you can buy it? What do you
Speaker 1: think it's worth? Okay, fine, you know, like that's a
Speaker 1: lot of money. And had no idea how valuable it
Speaker 1: was and how unique it was and how extraordinary it
Speaker 1: was in that amount of time to create the Biggest Loser,
Speaker 1: the Tutors, Ugly Betty and The Office, let alone the
Speaker 1: twenty other shows. I pioneered with my team and partner
Speaker 1: or Howard Owens, the transformation of advertising supplied content. I
Speaker 1: was becoming the leader in digital content. I knew streaming
Speaker 1: was coming. I was working with Microsoft. I was working
Speaker 1: with the early technologists as they wanted to figure out
Speaker 1: content to define themselves. I was inside every outlet at
Speaker 1: a premium, a one level, and my creative juices were
Speaker 1: so sharp, So that was a huge mistake. But I
Speaker 1: did it because I had a childhood fantasy of running NBC.
Speaker 1: I didn't expect an economic crisis. I didn't expect General
Speaker 1: Electric to be in the process of selling it, and
Speaker 1: I didn't expect a writer's strike that was also a
Speaker 1: screen actors Guild strike. And I certainly didn't expect that
Speaker 1: there would be one journalist who wanted to take me
Speaker 1: down because I looked like I was having fun.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, look, it's impossible to feel bad
Speaker 2: for you. Number one. I hope you understand that it's impossible,
Speaker 2: because you have lived everyone's fantasy, and I think including
Speaker 2: I don't know someone like Leonardo DiCaprio, but I understand
Speaker 2: what you're saying. But it's so fascinating that pull, that
Speaker 2: drive to what you saw what you saw as what
Speaker 2: you wanted as a young child and as a medium child,
Speaker 2: to have the opportunity to accomplish that. And maybe there
Speaker 2: was another choice that would have been better. But that's
Speaker 2: very interesting, Yeah, that you regret that you found it
Speaker 2: Electus in two thousand and nine did a variety of
Speaker 2: shows there, including Jane the Virgin. Eventually with the aforementioned
Speaker 2: Howard t Owens, you found an chair Propagate Entertainment, which
Speaker 2: now runs Electus as well as Artists First and Big
Speaker 2: Breakfast and Authentic Management, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: What do you feel like you can do now with
Speaker 2: Propagate that you couldn't before.
Speaker 1: Well, part of it now that I'm really excited about
Speaker 1: is what's going on in the brand creation led by
Speaker 1: talent and IP relationship to audience. And just like we
Speaker 1: collaborated and partnered up to open up new mediums like podcasting,
Speaker 1: we have also been able to take the IP of
Speaker 1: a podcast turn it into a book. And you know,
Speaker 1: finding and seeding our own IP is something I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about. Before it was all about traveling the world
Speaker 1: to find the IP. Now there are opportunities to seed
Speaker 1: our own IP through these new forms and modalities of expression.
Speaker 1: And I also am loving and have been incredibly focused
Speaker 1: on and saw the kind of transformation that we're going
Speaker 1: through in brand create and you know, obviously George clooneyan
Speaker 1: one of my best friends, Mike Meldman's you know Cassa
Speaker 1: Amigos and what they did together, and what Ryan Reynolds
Speaker 1: has done in basically every category in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's like the modern actor Warren Buffett in his life
Speaker 1: in the stuff that he's pursuing and creating. And then
Speaker 1: so many other examples Leonardo Dicaprian all birds, like all
Speaker 1: these touch points of where celebrity and direct relationship to
Speaker 1: audience are unlocking. Brand creation has been amazingly interesting to me,
Speaker 1: both for the curiosity and where brands are also culture. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, you are what you wear, you are what
Speaker 1: you eat. And I'm working with Cedric the entertainer and
Speaker 1: Anthony Anderson, who I absolutely adore and are brilliant, brilliant
Speaker 1: collaborators and comedians and entertainers and men, and we have
Speaker 1: launched a product called AC Barbecue and it's been a
Speaker 1: absolute labor of love. And we have just recently launched
Speaker 1: in twenty three hundred walmarts, and we'll be expanding across
Speaker 1: the nation with our you know, our flavor profiles and
Speaker 1: our and our various product lines and ac Barbecue comes
Speaker 1: from Anthony and Cedric's authentic love of food, as they
Speaker 1: call themselves handsome and husky, which is in a category
Speaker 1: you could fit in there, Bry, and they have absolutely
Speaker 1: invested in it because they see it as well as
Speaker 1: a way to connect further with their audience, deliver on
Speaker 1: something they love and care about, and grow a business
Speaker 1: because it's a lot harder to monetize traditional content in
Speaker 1: today's you know, media ecosystem, but it's much easier to
Speaker 1: directly connect to your consumer and audience in today's ecosystem.
Speaker 1: So focusing on that has been a real exciting chapter.
Speaker 1: And the company we've built to propagate is the perfect
Speaker 1: vehicle to do that. And it's something I'm very excited
Speaker 1: about and loving and is highly rewarding in the same
Speaker 1: way it's rewarding to turn on the television and see
Speaker 1: your show, it's rewarding to see your product in a store.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating. That idea of entertainment and content
Speaker 2: being yeah, what you eat, what you wear, what you drank,
Speaker 2: what people consume.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I talk about like the three c's. I talk
Speaker 1: about where culture and content create commerce, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's like a big flywheel for me. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: how how do you create culture and how do you
Speaker 1: turn it into commerce? And at the center of it
Speaker 1: is content.
Speaker 2: With celebrity, which brings consumption. Boom five the five I
Speaker 2: trademark with the second two.
Speaker 1: With the bb himself come to five.
Speaker 2: You talked a little You just mentioned this a little bit.
Speaker 2: You and I, well, I mean we're partners. There's no
Speaker 2: other way around it. This podcast here, as you all know,
Speaker 2: produced by Ben and Propagate. And first of all, Oral
Speaker 2: History of the Office. Were you happy with the Oral
Speaker 2: History of the Office and how that came out about?
Speaker 1: I was so happy with it, Brian one. You are
Speaker 1: so talented and thoughtful and so intellectual, not just so funny.
Speaker 1: And I keep going and and all those years of
Speaker 1: chugging cigarettes and Jim Beam have really made the greatest
Speaker 1: voice in podcasting.
Speaker 2: And I don't know what you mean by the way,
Speaker 2: Jim Beamer, I don't know what he's.
Speaker 1: He doesn't drink Brown Royal, but just either way, Jim
Speaker 1: Beams sounds funnier. But it made me so happy also
Speaker 1: because what surprised me about it really was the reaction
Speaker 1: of all of the people involved with the office to
Speaker 1: this moment ten years later to kind of talk about
Speaker 1: the show and reconnect, and we had kind of splintered
Speaker 1: off like the show ended, and we all went on
Speaker 1: our own journeys and paths, and we're happy with the
Speaker 1: equity and success that that show had given us for
Speaker 1: the rest of our lives in terms of the ability
Speaker 1: to have that as part of our resumes. Right, it
Speaker 1: is the most popular show arguably now in the history
Speaker 1: of television, and uniquely one that has remained its relevancy
Speaker 1: generation to generation that I've never seen before. But bringing
Speaker 1: us all back together provided a real emotional thing I
Speaker 1: didn't expect, and seeing everyone's willingness to participate and talk
Speaker 1: about it and share their stories about the origin story
Speaker 1: was highly rewarding. And as people ask me about it,
Speaker 1: I go, if you want to learn how culture is created,
Speaker 1: if you want to learn what it takes to make
Speaker 1: a hit show, this is the best textbook in history
Speaker 1: around the architecture of television.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean well said. I think the other thing
Speaker 2: that the show was bigger than it was when it
Speaker 2: was on the air and continued to get bigger and bigger,
Speaker 2: which I think necessarily brought us all back together. I
Speaker 2: mean that was I think the reason for the excitement
Speaker 2: for some of the emotion, because that, to me, that's
Speaker 2: the thing that had never happened before. The uniqueness of that,
Speaker 2: I think was a huge part of it as well.
Speaker 1: And so rewarding to us because while we were making it,
Speaker 1: we knew we were making the best comedy on television.
Speaker 1: We knew it in our guts. We understood how adventurous
Speaker 1: it was and how outright funny. It was something that
Speaker 1: is lost in modern comedy. And I felt so validated personally,
Speaker 1: as did everybody involved, that it found its audience eventually,
Speaker 1: and I think we all felt a little ripped off
Speaker 1: while it was on air that it wasn't as validated,
Speaker 1: and so to share in that moment, as you describe it,
Speaker 1: Brian as brilliant, because it was that Wow they figured
Speaker 1: it out. Wow they loved it right, you know, isn't
Speaker 1: this cool? Like we did. We didn't go. We weren't
Speaker 1: driving around in limos and spraying champagne on each other
Speaker 1: every every Friday morning. After the show aired on Thursday.
Speaker 1: It took us ten years later and we were all
Speaker 1: splintered out into a million different plays I was basically
Speaker 1: like bizarre, Like I didn't enjoy as much while it
Speaker 1: was happening as I do after it has happened. And
Speaker 1: if I'm on an airplane and someone sits next to
Speaker 1: me and ask me what I do, I just say
Speaker 1: I produced the Office. I don't even talk about anything else.
Speaker 1: There's like there's nothing else inside the whole thing that
Speaker 1: I talk about. You know, I can go into it
Speaker 1: for a second or third question, and there are clear
Speaker 1: ugly Betty fans and Jane the Virgin fanatic, sure, and
Speaker 1: untold lovers. But I'm just like, I've produced the Office,
Speaker 1: and that's like kind of like my baton drop. By
Speaker 1: the way, baton drop is the worst thing I've ever said.
Speaker 1: I meant the mic drop the baton drop. My tire
Speaker 1: relay got lost. We finished in ninth place. We didn't
Speaker 1: even finish the race. But you can no one dropped
Speaker 1: the baton. I just want to know we're keeping this in.
Speaker 2: I had literally transitioned to my next question and did
Speaker 2: not hear the words baton. I don't know where that
Speaker 2: most amazing thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: That's Japanese get lag ladies and gentlemen. That is Japanese
Speaker 1: get leg is by far the worst get lag I
Speaker 1: have ever had. So you just watch it play out.
Speaker 2: I do have to ask you, I want your candor here.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, while you're chairman of NBC,
Speaker 2: guess what happened? There was a writer strike. You've talked
Speaker 2: a lot about. Well, that major job, very difficult to
Speaker 2: chairman of NBC, trying to get content on the air
Speaker 2: during a strike. Now here we are in another writers strike,
Speaker 2: I think very soon to be an actor and writer strike.
Speaker 2: How is it different for you now than it was
Speaker 2: when you were chairman of NBC And what are your
Speaker 2: what are your feelings?
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's painful now as a producer because while
Speaker 1: I was at NBC and all these executives, they're still
Speaker 1: getting paid, right, you still get your salary. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not making stuff, we're not getting paid. So it's
Speaker 1: unbelievably painful on a real primacy of financial renumeration. You
Speaker 1: know that that is a major major challenge now versus then.
Speaker 1: But separately, the world is soft up and there's just
Speaker 1: so many lines of miscommunication and hatred and intractability across
Speaker 1: the spectrum of our lives. Right now and it's playing
Speaker 1: out inside our writer strike and you know when David's
Speaker 1: Aslov's getting booed at the BU commencement streech because of
Speaker 1: the writers, and like it wasn't like that public a
Speaker 1: class warfare when it was going on. It was just
Speaker 1: more about like are they going to get more residuals
Speaker 1: or not? And it was, you know, like there was
Speaker 1: all these things. But it's now like it's truly taking
Speaker 1: on a labor movement, and before it was kind of
Speaker 1: like a middle class movement against a upper class movement.
Speaker 1: You know, now it's it's got a lot more to it,
Speaker 1: and a lot more teeth and a lot more intractability,
Speaker 1: and a whole new set of players who can actually
Speaker 1: survive it more on the studio and streaming side, which
Speaker 1: it makes a compromise a lot harder. And it also
Speaker 1: has so many people with so little knowledge about actually
Speaker 1: what is going on inside the fight. I always find
Speaker 1: the AI thing, like, if you're even talking about AI
Speaker 1: as it relates to this strike, you're fucked right.
Speaker 2: You don't know what's going on. It's is this is
Speaker 2: not what it's about, you.
Speaker 1: Know exactly, But there's probably like you know, a thousand
Speaker 1: members of the guild. I think their job is going
Speaker 1: to be taken by a bot, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: like and so there's so many issues. So that's really challenging,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's also so vitriolic. Like when I
Speaker 1: was doing it, I got made fun of. But Judd
Speaker 1: Apatow called me and said, Ben, you're a guy who
Speaker 1: loves creative people. You come from the creative side. Let's
Speaker 1: work on solving this. And so I talked to Jet
Speaker 1: about it, and I would connect to people about it,
Speaker 1: and I would work on trying to solve it, and
Speaker 1: you know, really leaned across. I don't think those conversations
Speaker 1: are even happening. And then on the other side, there's
Speaker 1: these like super rich uber writers now who are like
Speaker 1: the winners of the modern streaming ere who all got
Speaker 1: way overpaid for, you know, creating one show that didn't
Speaker 1: quite work. And they're sitting there like these writers and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're a writer, what do you what are
Speaker 1: you doing? You're a writer. Just because you made seventy
Speaker 1: five million dollars doesn't mean guy shouldn't be allowed to
Speaker 1: make seventy five thousand dollars, Like, you know, so there's
Speaker 1: all these like challenges, you know, across the board and
Speaker 1: stupid noise entering the system that is a relevant to
Speaker 1: the real negotiation. So it feels very challenging, to say
Speaker 1: the lead, and disheartening. And you'll see a lot more
Speaker 1: Korean content, and you'll see a lot more other forms
Speaker 1: of content if it keeps going on, and then if
Speaker 1: that content works, there's going to be less written content
Speaker 1: by the guilds. I mean, it's just like this horrible spiral,
Speaker 1: and so hopefully there's some great person and leader who
Speaker 1: can step in and synthesize it all and make it happen.
Speaker 2: It's me, I'm just waiting for them to call me.
Speaker 2: I've got it all figured out. Tell me it's well,
Speaker 2: it's so interesting that you say it feels like an
Speaker 2: old school labor movement, because what you're talking about about
Speaker 2: the noise and AI and all that's You're exactly right,
Speaker 2: it's but that feels like an old school political strategy
Speaker 2: of trying to confuse what the real issue is. And
Speaker 2: the real issue is is like those early labor movements,
Speaker 2: the working class and the middle class of actors and
Speaker 2: writers are being destroyed, and they just won't be there,
Speaker 2: and it all stems from from an inability or it
Speaker 2: all stems from never addressing what used to exist with
Speaker 2: DVD residuals now on the streaming side, because an actor
Speaker 2: who now does a job that in the old days,
Speaker 2: when they weren't having jobs for six months at a time,
Speaker 2: they were still making every quarter some amount of money
Speaker 2: from residuals, and now they make none, and they lose
Speaker 2: their health insurance, and then they get sick, and then
Speaker 2: it it's I mean, it's this horrible, awful, but it's
Speaker 2: your're literally seeing it happen. It's not like in the
Speaker 2: future anymore. And I think I think in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight it was about there's things called streaming. Now
Speaker 2: we need to figure out how we're doing that and
Speaker 2: GOLLI b make new contracts that will help deal with that.
Speaker 2: But now it's like, oh no, Literally, people are not surviving.
Speaker 2: They're unable to survive on six episodes, but having exclusivity
Speaker 2: for a year, they're unable to survive without any basis
Speaker 2: for continuing to get paid during those times when their
Speaker 2: work is still being seen by everybody on streaming services,
Speaker 2: they're still out there offering their entertainment, but there's no money. No,
Speaker 2: and very specifically, that means it's not a career. That
Speaker 2: means it's a hobby. That's right, it's a hobby. It's
Speaker 2: no longer a job, and that is that's right out.
Speaker 2: And it used to be a career. You could do
Speaker 2: it for your whole life, and you could say support
Speaker 2: your family and you could send their kids to college,
Speaker 2: and you could live a version of a real American life.
Speaker 2: And unless you're the point zero one percent of it,
Speaker 2: now you can't do that in the same way. I mean,
Speaker 2: you don't want to woes me for people who are
Speaker 2: making six figures, but you do need to woes me
Speaker 2: for the people who made six figures one time over
Speaker 2: a twelve year career and now are not able to
Speaker 2: make anything. And so it's very confusing and disturbing. I
Speaker 2: don't have the answer because the macroeconomic climate is so
Speaker 2: bad and all of the traditional media players are being
Speaker 2: killed regardless of a strike. So where does the money
Speaker 2: come from, Like, who's actually going to give the money
Speaker 2: to settle this thing and make this thing go away?
Speaker 2: I don't know, and I don't have the answer because
Speaker 2: one side is not doing well and the other side
Speaker 2: is doing worse and that's not a great place for
Speaker 2: a negotiation. Yeah, that's right. You have so many new projects,
Speaker 2: thankfully for you, like your new barbecue brand, not on
Speaker 2: the let's sit down and watch television space. I do
Speaker 2: want to talk to you though, about your documentary series Untold.
Speaker 2: The storytelling is innovative, it is in depth, and you
Speaker 2: have a story in sports and as a sports fan
Speaker 2: that you think you know, but watching this series has
Speaker 2: taught me so much and has been so entertaining. So one,
Speaker 2: I just want to congratulate you on that, and two,
Speaker 2: is that something that you want to continue to explore
Speaker 2: through and with propagate the intersection of sports and traditional
Speaker 2: media and storytelling.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? You know, we are all sports fans,
Speaker 1: Drew Buckley, Howard, Me and the company and love sport,
Speaker 1: and I'm told has become an incredible franchise and super
Speaker 1: important to Netflix because it helps with their discovery, you know,
Speaker 1: like instead of having a thousand individual documentaries, you're able
Speaker 1: to create a franchise and an umbrella for the documentaries.
Speaker 1: And I think the title is so good because it's
Speaker 1: like exactly as you say, stories you think you know
Speaker 1: but actually have been untold and we're going to tell them.
Speaker 1: And whether it's Marty Fish's documentary or The Malice and
Speaker 1: the Palace or the upcoming slate which is so strong
Speaker 1: and will be dropped starting in August. There is incredible
Speaker 1: material in these films and an incredible storytelling style. And
Speaker 1: the Way Brothers, who also did Wild Wild Country, who
Speaker 1: are our creative partners, are brilliant storytellers themselves, And we
Speaker 1: love this franchise and I love documentaries in general. You know,
Speaker 1: we have always loved documentaries, but no one bought documentaries
Speaker 1: or aired documentaries before, and so one of the great
Speaker 1: things about modern media is these new genres binding an audience.
Speaker 1: There was a stat that our executive at Netflix gave us,
Speaker 1: which was in the early days of Netflix, roughly with
Speaker 1: forty million subscribers, only ten percent of their audience would
Speaker 1: watch or had watched a documentary. Now, with whatever it
Speaker 1: is over, you know, one hundred million subscribers, eighty percent
Speaker 1: of their audience is consuming documentaries. So I'm really proud
Speaker 1: to be part of that. And I knew early on
Speaker 1: that would happen because it's such a visceral and extraordinary
Speaker 1: storytelling medium, and there's something about the honesty of the
Speaker 1: camera with real people that you connect to in a
Speaker 1: different way than just a scripted show. And as the
Speaker 1: script the show's got saturated, the documentaries actually became fresher.
Speaker 1: And so I love Untold. I think it's brilliant. We're
Speaker 1: always looking for great new untolds to tell and I'm
Speaker 1: excited to extend it to other genres. And we have
Speaker 1: an antonycul Smith documentary on Netflix right now that's incredible
Speaker 1: that could easily be part of our untold of pop culture,
Speaker 1: you know. And so finding other frameworks to tell these
Speaker 1: stories and deliver these stories to an audience at large
Speaker 1: is super exciting to me and the company and an
Speaker 1: area that we're we're doubling down on and very excited about.
Speaker 2: Well, I do want to give a compliment to your directors.
Speaker 2: I assume of untold because I think that I love documentaries.
Speaker 2: I love watching documentaries. I think so often there is
Speaker 2: a little bit of that feeling of you're aware that
Speaker 2: someone is either talking in a certain way or behaving
Speaker 2: in a certain way because they know they're going to
Speaker 2: be on television. And here's the thing, I feel like,
Speaker 2: in a real visceral way. As you're watching this series,
Speaker 2: you feel like you are really getting to know these
Speaker 2: people as characters, and even though they're not scripted, even
Speaker 2: though they are real people, the camera man, it gets
Speaker 2: really inside and I feel like you you really see
Speaker 2: the subjects and their feelings behind these different stories. So
Speaker 2: I want to give kudos to again, I assume the
Speaker 2: director who is there doing the interviews on these stories,
Speaker 2: because it's it's it's really well done. So congratulations on that, yes,
Speaker 2: and thank you. And I think you just feel the
Speaker 2: truth will set you free inside those films, you know,
Speaker 2: And I feel like that absolutely the subjects don't feel
Speaker 2: like they're manufacturing their responses. God, Ben, you know it.
Speaker 2: I could talk to you forever, but kenetschi wa and
Speaker 2: uh damn it. I should have known. I should have
Speaker 2: known that one. Uh syonara, have a great time in Japan,
Speaker 2: my partner, my friend. I love you.
Speaker 1: I'll see you back in the States. Let's see it
Speaker 1: on the golf course. Let's get on the golf course, Brian.
Speaker 1: We got a battle, We got a battle. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thanks Ben, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. Brian.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure and love love talking to you to
Speaker 1: be continued as we say, and to be continued to
Speaker 1: be continued.
Speaker 2: Ben, my friend, thank you, Thank you for everything that
Speaker 2: you do to move this industry forward. And as you
Speaker 2: march into that brave new era, just promise me one
Speaker 2: thing that you'll keep me in mind for cool new projects. Okay,
Speaker 2: thank you. Hi, I could do a celebrity brand, just
Speaker 2: tr try me out. As for the rest of you,
Speaker 2: that's it for today. I'm off. You can always find
Speaker 2: us on the gram as the kids call it. Anytime
Speaker 2: you want a little dose of Off the Beat at
Speaker 2: Off the Beat on the Instagram, And until next time,
Speaker 2: have a fantastic week. Off the Beat is hosted and
Speaker 2: executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Linglee.
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes,
Speaker 2: Hannah Harris and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan
Speaker 2: Papa Zachary, and our intern is Thomas Olsen. Our theme
Speaker 2: song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only
Speaker 2: Creed Bratton