Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
Speaker 1: guest is Jim land Zone, CEO of Tinder. Tinder is
Speaker 1: one of the Internet's most recognizable brands. It's the juggernaut
Speaker 1: of online dating services and one of the highest grossing
Speaker 1: non gaming apps in the world. The Tinder has largely
Speaker 1: been a one dimensional experience on the platform until Landzoonne
Speaker 1: arrived last year. He spent the previous decade leading CBS
Speaker 1: Interactive during the Great Disruption brought on by the Dawn
Speaker 1: of streaming. He led the pioneering launch of the CBS
Speaker 1: All Access subscription service in twenty fourteen. When he arrived
Speaker 1: at Tinder, Lanzonne realized that content and video based connection
Speaker 1: tools would be key to growing the services user base.
Speaker 1: It's gen z consumers have told them that they want
Speaker 1: more immersive experiences, so Tinder is rolling out a host
Speaker 1: of video based bells and whistles. That list includes that
Speaker 1: Choose your Own Adventure TV series dubbed Swipe Night, and
Speaker 1: new tools that allow individuals and small groups to gather
Speaker 1: around movies and TV shows and other forms of content. Tinder,
Speaker 1: which turns ten next year, also has a growing profile
Speaker 1: on TV, including a partnership with the Australian edition of
Speaker 1: the reality series Love Island. In our conversation, lands Own
Speaker 1: offers his thoughts on how the Tinder brand has thrived
Speaker 1: as a digital native, and he weighs in on the
Speaker 1: state of play in the streaming wars from his new
Speaker 1: perch as a well informed consumer. That's all coming up
Speaker 1: after this break, MHM. Welcome back to Strictly Business, Jim
Speaker 1: Land's Own CEO of Pinder. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today. Good beer, Cynthia, So, Jim, you spent
Speaker 1: almost ten years in the deep in the world of
Speaker 1: traditional media in CBS, and you were one of the
Speaker 1: one of the people that brought CBS into the century
Speaker 1: with the launch of I will say it the industry's
Speaker 1: first mainstream subscription streaming service to take mainstream television assets
Speaker 1: like CBS. It doesn't get more mainstream TV than that.
Speaker 1: Into the online O T T direct consumer world, into
Speaker 1: the online O T T direct to consumer world. All
Speaker 1: the buzzwords that everybody's talking about now you were tackling
Speaker 1: almost ten years ago, the CBS with the very successful
Speaker 1: launch of CBS All Acts, which is now morphed into
Speaker 1: a paramount plus and is now pretty much the centerpiece
Speaker 1: of the entire viacom. CBS is future growth plan. So
Speaker 1: you know, quite a foundation that you helped launch. But
Speaker 1: almost a year ago now you left CBS and back
Speaker 1: to venture capital world and the world of entrepreneurialism. And
Speaker 1: and as in that journey you wound up the Tinder.
Speaker 1: How did all the experience of the previous ten years
Speaker 1: inform how you laid out a plan for Tinder? Yeah, well, look,
Speaker 1: I I my whole career, even going back before CBS,
Speaker 1: has been Internet products. And I spent almost a decade
Speaker 1: in search and navigation. And then my startup Clicker that
Speaker 1: we sold the CBS was you know, at the next
Speaker 1: generation TV guide meets search engine. That's how you got
Speaker 1: the very beginning of streaming. Uh. And you know, and CBS.
Speaker 1: You know where I really ran was CBS Interactive, which
Speaker 1: had all these different divisions and thirty plus brands across entertainment, sports, news,
Speaker 1: tech gaming. So what I really love to do is
Speaker 1: Internet products. Uh. And you know when When the opportunity
Speaker 1: move to Tinder came up, it's just it's one of
Speaker 1: these iconic brands. It's it's probably one of the most
Speaker 1: iconic brands in Internet history. And the chance to take
Speaker 1: what they had built uh in this space and really
Speaker 1: you know, blow it out over over the next uh,
Speaker 1: you know generation of what that brand could become. I
Speaker 1: just thought it was an incredible opportunity. And in my
Speaker 1: mind it was you know, Tinder had really redefined the
Speaker 1: category of how to meet somebody online. But with that brand,
Speaker 1: like with you know, several internet brands, it starts as
Speaker 1: one thing, but it could become a platform if you
Speaker 1: start to kind of break it apart, uh and and
Speaker 1: think about all the different ways you could take that brand.
Speaker 1: And so that was about a year ago that I joined.
Speaker 1: Now and you know, we can talk about all the
Speaker 1: all the ways we're gonna take it, but about a
Speaker 1: month ago we had you know, I would say, is
Speaker 1: my first major product launched since I joined. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest things that we launched was was video, which
Speaker 1: hadn't existed on the platform before. So Tender members are
Speaker 1: now able to upload videos of themselves, um and show
Speaker 1: off more about themselves express themselves differently. I should say
Speaker 1: at this point that you know, more than half of
Speaker 1: our audience is gen Z So it's very much meeting
Speaker 1: them where they are and how they want to express themselves.
Speaker 1: But we also announced uh what we're calling the Explore tab,
Speaker 1: which is going to be an area of Tinder where
Speaker 1: you could do all kinds of things, uh, from you know,
Speaker 1: from experiencing uh piece of media with another person or
Speaker 1: with groups of people, um, you know, to all these
Speaker 1: different ways now that you can uh discover people within
Speaker 1: tender and um. And so that is is a huge
Speaker 1: new opportunity for us down a more multi dimensional or
Speaker 1: multimedia pathway. And we're just getting started without Okay, now
Speaker 1: I have to ask you the idea of people uploading
Speaker 1: video to Tinder. You must have some content guidelines. Are
Speaker 1: there specific maybe parts of the body that you don't
Speaker 1: want them to do? Yeah? Well, well, look, I mean
Speaker 1: the especially for gen xers and people. You know, we
Speaker 1: kind of came to the tinderbrand a while ago. You know.
Speaker 1: The thing is at this point, Tinder is number one
Speaker 1: in over a hundred and ten countries. Uh. It is
Speaker 1: the number one grossing app in the world for non
Speaker 1: gaming apps, and it's much more than U. You know,
Speaker 1: people upload photos of themselves or videos of themselves now
Speaker 1: in order to help meet the right person. Now we're
Speaker 1: not judgmental about that. Could be that might you know,
Speaker 1: be one date, and it may be getting married. I
Speaker 1: mean there are status that basically show that tinders the
Speaker 1: number one source of marriage in the United States. Uh
Speaker 1: and everything in between. You know, we facilitate that. Well,
Speaker 1: we're great at is the matching right is bringing to
Speaker 1: people together. A lot of cases people who didn't you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have normally met or you wouldn't expect to be
Speaker 1: attracted to um. And so you know, their incentives to
Speaker 1: upload something about themselves that shows them off them rock
Speaker 1: climbing them at a forty niners game, you know, their dog.
Speaker 1: A photo is pretty one dimensional for that. And a
Speaker 1: video again, especially for gen Z, which lives in forms
Speaker 1: of social media entirely in video in a more natural
Speaker 1: way to express themselves. But I have to ask, I mean,
Speaker 1: do you have guidelines there? So one of one of
Speaker 1: our one we have three main product groups. The one
Speaker 1: of those is trust and safety and so on a
Speaker 1: global basis, whether it's fighting spam or fraud um or yes, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, content moderation. Those are all things that we cover.
Speaker 1: It's not just uh images, it could also be somebody
Speaker 1: saying something you don't like. All kinds of AI that's
Speaker 1: in there that alert to you and says, you know,
Speaker 1: did this offend you? Or we actually now and we
Speaker 1: just launched this in uh the first half of the year,
Speaker 1: we have something that intercepts somebody and says are you short,
Speaker 1: like meaning are you sure you want to send that?
Speaker 1: Because we can actually sniff out that it might be offensive. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's that's purely AI. I mean, that's that part
Speaker 1: of that part of I mean, we have a huge
Speaker 1: team behind it obviously, both on product and on member experience,
Speaker 1: like uh, you know, working with people on that. But um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, look, we there's no company in this space
Speaker 1: that puts more resources or technology or manpower people power
Speaker 1: into moderation. Uh. And you know, in addition to safety
Speaker 1: and so that is part and parcel of how we
Speaker 1: how we do this. It's also one reason why we
Speaker 1: launched in English speaking countries first, because that's where those
Speaker 1: technologies are are the most developed, and then we'll roll
Speaker 1: them out around the world. You know as we go
Speaker 1: or in a hundred and nine countries. That's that's a
Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's a wide footprint print of
Speaker 1: bringing people to model languages to to deal with And
Speaker 1: I know that you know from our conversations, I know
Speaker 1: that in addition, you know, you've added video for for
Speaker 1: people that the people on the site can communicate through
Speaker 1: video now. But I know you have also some ambitions
Speaker 1: in the television era, you have ambitions for video for
Speaker 1: Tinder that are in the you know, beyond the individual
Speaker 1: user video. It's been one of the richest areas for
Speaker 1: innovation for us. And I think something that you know,
Speaker 1: we now have a multi year roadmap ahead of us.
Speaker 1: Some things that we could do. Um you know, look,
Speaker 1: one thing that people want to do is more ways
Speaker 1: to express themselves on on Tinder. Another thing is they
Speaker 1: want more ways to navigate. So rather than just uh
Speaker 1: you know, leaning back and letting us do the matching
Speaker 1: with our algorithms and our product, people want to lean
Speaker 1: forward and actually choose some of the pathways. So uh
Speaker 1: so we're launching many different ways to navigate. So you
Speaker 1: can just look at at thrill seekers or people who
Speaker 1: have pets, and and just navigate that way. But the
Speaker 1: more robust version of this is they want experiences within
Speaker 1: Tender that they can they can participate in as a
Speaker 1: way of meeting people, which really, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: mirrors real life. Right. No matter how you met somebody
Speaker 1: in real life, whether it was at a bar, at school,
Speaker 1: um it you know you then we go do things
Speaker 1: together and this is how you would figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: whether you like somebody or what you had in common. Um,
Speaker 1: those are all things that we can bring to the
Speaker 1: to the app itself, not because we want to compete
Speaker 1: with entertainment. In fact, we want to partner with entertainment
Speaker 1: because our job is not to get attention, to monetize,
Speaker 1: you know, through advertising, or to help you get followers
Speaker 1: or likes. Our our jobs connect you with the right person.
Speaker 1: So there's all kinds of always that we can partner
Speaker 1: with with me of partners to bring that into the app.
Speaker 1: And one thing that we did and this actually predated
Speaker 1: me at first and then we launched it again last October,
Speaker 1: was our own uh episodic essentially television show as you
Speaker 1: and I would think about it, streaming television show within Tender,
Speaker 1: and it was a grand slam in terms of how
Speaker 1: many people participated and what it drove in terms of engagement. Um. So,
Speaker 1: it was called swipe Knight and it was an event,
Speaker 1: multi episodic over several weekends, and it was a choose
Speaker 1: your own adventure television show. You know, the one you
Speaker 1: would that should come to mind for you is is
Speaker 1: you know the Bandersnatch episode of Black Mirror right where
Speaker 1: it was their choose your own Adventure attempt at Netflix.
Speaker 1: Swite Knight was that within Tender, except it was it
Speaker 1: was actually interactive physically, like with your finger. You were
Speaker 1: swiping through and you were choosing in the show what
Speaker 1: would happen next? So you know, does somebody go downstairs?
Speaker 1: You know, does somebody Actually? Rico Nasty was actually in
Speaker 1: it driving. It was an end of the world theme.
Speaker 1: There was a kind of like this is the end
Speaker 1: with Seth Rogan, but uh, you know, the world is
Speaker 1: kind of ending and you could get into time for
Speaker 1: last year I'm guessing exactly. You can get in the
Speaker 1: car threeco Nasty and go one way. You could save
Speaker 1: the dog, you know, They're all these different things you
Speaker 1: could do, and at the end you would be dropped
Speaker 1: into you, you would be massed with people who had
Speaker 1: the same outcomes that you did and had made the
Speaker 1: same decisions that you did. Uh. And it drove a
Speaker 1: increase in messages between people and matches. And we just
Speaker 1: won four Grand pre Awards at can Lions just for
Speaker 1: that first attempt. So what we're announcing now here, this
Speaker 1: is the first time I'm talking about, is we'll have
Speaker 1: We'll have season two of Swipe Night in the fall. Um.
Speaker 1: It's gonna have a really interesting theme and be even
Speaker 1: more in active with some of the products that we've
Speaker 1: recently launched embedded into it. But would you ever just
Speaker 1: do a flat out Tinder branded dating show or reality show?
Speaker 1: I don't use to break on that, but I would
Speaker 1: say you never know. But actually, in a serious, um
Speaker 1: sort of serious way, could there could there be Well,
Speaker 1: certainly there could be a downside to something like that,
Speaker 1: But at this point with an established brand, is that
Speaker 1: since it seems like such a natural, I gotta believe
Speaker 1: that they're somebody along the way has said, maybe that's
Speaker 1: not right for this brand? Is there? You know? Because
Speaker 1: people tend to think of TV is the end all
Speaker 1: and be all, but maybe not. We were approached weekly
Speaker 1: on this for for the Tinder brand. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think um to your point. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: an iconic brand. It definitely has some edge, and it
Speaker 1: also is the number one way people meet for relationships, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in in over a hundred countries. So so
Speaker 1: I think that's why they're coming our way. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think I learned a long time ago you also
Speaker 1: have to be careful you partner with and not to
Speaker 1: just say yes to everything. I think if we go
Speaker 1: down that pathway, it'll have to be something pretty special.
Speaker 1: It's interesting though, because again, you're you're at a company,
Speaker 1: at a at a place in its history where you
Speaker 1: know a startup would be dying for any kind of exposure,
Speaker 1: but you don't. You don't need that exposure. So it
Speaker 1: is an interesting and just the technology leap, you know,
Speaker 1: moves ahead, leaps and bounds. You can look at media,
Speaker 1: you know how media can help Tinder in very creative
Speaker 1: ways that don't have to fit into the box of
Speaker 1: a half hour show or an hour long show. That
Speaker 1: must be kind of exciting, especially since you have the
Speaker 1: background to really know what's you know, what's possible at
Speaker 1: the high end of production versus what the cutting edge
Speaker 1: tools you have to work with. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: again part of what attracted me to the company. And
Speaker 1: I think once you have a mentioned at this level
Speaker 1: in a brand that that that's this good, there's just
Speaker 1: so much history has proven there's so much you can
Speaker 1: do with a brand like that online. So you know, again,
Speaker 1: we're we're just getting started in many ways. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I mean, we're still just coming out of COVID. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I started here a year ago. I still
Speaker 1: have not had a full work day in the office.
Speaker 1: It has still been all over zoom. So we're we're
Speaker 1: we're cranking relative to to all that. But um, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to come, especially in this this
Speaker 1: notion of of multimedia and kind of you know what
Speaker 1: what we internally we have called tender three D just
Speaker 1: a much more multi dimensional version of tender to which
Speaker 1: also allow people to express themselves, you know that way.
Speaker 1: What is the basic kind of ballpark figure for your
Speaker 1: platform the number of you know, monthly or annual users
Speaker 1: that you have. Uh, they don't historically give the you
Speaker 1: know what we think of his dow ur now and
Speaker 1: and uh and on on line consumer Internet so men,
Speaker 1: monthly active users and things like that. Those are all
Speaker 1: private numbers, and we're but um, you know, we have
Speaker 1: over seven million subscribers who are you know, very similar
Speaker 1: again to my background the streaming industry. It's a freemium product.
Speaker 1: A lot of people use it for free, a certain
Speaker 1: number of people pay for extra features and extra access. Uh.
Speaker 1: And but we we have some incredible broad stats like,
Speaker 1: for example, the majority of of days last year each
Speaker 1: had over three billion swipes per day. We had our
Speaker 1: first three billion swipe day in March of last year,
Speaker 1: and then we had over a hundred and twenty more
Speaker 1: during the year, over three point five billion. We tender
Speaker 1: has had over five trillion swipes since inception in two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve. Uh, it's pretty huge. We've had over sixty
Speaker 1: five billion matches of people. Uh. And yeah, again, I
Speaker 1: think sometimes the one that blows people away as tenders
Speaker 1: than umber one grossing uh, non gaming. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's how they kind of break out the category app
Speaker 1: in the world. So it's if you think about it,
Speaker 1: above food and shelter, you know, human connection and bring
Speaker 1: people together relationships is probably the next level thing on uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and human needs and and so
Speaker 1: you know, that's why I just think it's it's so
Speaker 1: big and why people pay a lot of attention to
Speaker 1: it as a category outside of the subscription fees. What
Speaker 1: what drives that revenue was a partnership because you have
Speaker 1: a traditional advertising. We do have a little bit of advertising,
Speaker 1: not a huge amount on the free products UM the
Speaker 1: the way and so the subscription product, which again is
Speaker 1: global UM. There are three levels of it again something
Speaker 1: you might you're familiar with from from OTT services UM
Speaker 1: and then are the only rest of and that's the
Speaker 1: vast majority of our revenue. The rest of it is
Speaker 1: is people paying for individual activities UM to be able
Speaker 1: to see more in the service or be promoted ahead
Speaker 1: of other people in line kind of you know, within
Speaker 1: the service, and you can pay individually for that. And
Speaker 1: that differs by regions. You'll see more of that in Asia,
Speaker 1: which is our number one growth area right now. UM
Speaker 1: and uh, you know versus the subscription service in more
Speaker 1: mature markets. UM. But it's actually a pretty simple revenue model.
Speaker 1: And and that's why you know the methods of growth,
Speaker 1: which is always the mission statement really for any CEO
Speaker 1: is growth at the end of the day, um, you know,
Speaker 1: happens on delivering a better consumer experience. Do you see
Speaker 1: any more like you know, kind of more mass marketing
Speaker 1: or even more even more of an image campaign or
Speaker 1: a brand messaging campaign. Have you do you feel like
Speaker 1: the brand is at that stage or do you like
Speaker 1: being still more of a word of mouth than a
Speaker 1: you know, internet traction type of Yeah, it's hard to
Speaker 1: see Tinder being a classic uh you know, like a
Speaker 1: super Bowl ad kind of a marketer, right. Um. And
Speaker 1: that said, you know, we already are really good partners
Speaker 1: with TikTok and Snap and Instagram and others and as
Speaker 1: you know, YouTube and as you know, that's that's every
Speaker 1: bit as important now, especially for the generation that we're targeting.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot of ways that we
Speaker 1: can be creative, and you know, we already are with
Speaker 1: things like the Love Island partnership and smother things that
Speaker 1: we've done. Um, but but it will be interesting to
Speaker 1: see like the different ways that you can take the
Speaker 1: Tinder brand if you start to play offense, which I
Speaker 1: intend to. Don't even think about swiping again. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back with more from Tinder CEO Jim land Zone
Speaker 1: and we're back with Tinder CEO Jim land Zone. Tinder is,
Speaker 1: as I understand, found the cornerstone of a large publicly
Speaker 1: traded digital company called Match Group. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: sort of how the ecosystem there and how Tinder fits in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. So and this goes back to my roots too,
Speaker 1: because a long time ago I ran asked jeeves mass
Speaker 1: dot Com within i C, which Barry Diller ran, So
Speaker 1: I worked for Barry for three years. UM, and I see,
Speaker 1: as you know, you know, spins companies out, so they
Speaker 1: owned Expedia. It's spun out Ticketmaster. Uh. And one of
Speaker 1: them was mass Group, which was bought by i C
Speaker 1: years ago and incubated over a long period of time,
Speaker 1: became its own public company about six years ago, and
Speaker 1: Match Group is now a forty five billion dollar market
Speaker 1: cap conglomerate essentially of mostly dating apps, um, with Tinder
Speaker 1: being the largest. They owned others like match dot Com,
Speaker 1: which was the original, but also Hinge, which is a
Speaker 1: really up and coming brand which is great in the space.
Speaker 1: Plenty of fish okay cupids, so those are all under
Speaker 1: one roof. We also own ones in Japan and Europe
Speaker 1: and other places. One of the most interesting things is
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, match Group is now starting to
Speaker 1: branch out beyond what you would think of as dating.
Speaker 1: So we just uh, you know, a couple of months
Speaker 1: ago closed on a deal called for a coming called
Speaker 1: hyper Connect, almost two billion dollars that we spend that company.
Speaker 1: They're based in Soul, South Korea, and they're very deep
Speaker 1: into video live streaming, so between individuals or someone's you know,
Speaker 1: broadcasting out themselves with products called Azar and Hakuna, which
Speaker 1: you probably haven't heard of, but they're they're huge in
Speaker 1: in in Asia and the Middle East. And so that's
Speaker 1: more what we call social discovery where you're you're which
Speaker 1: is another trend among gen z of just meeting people digitally,
Speaker 1: and that really really became a much bigger thing during COVID,
Speaker 1: where people were stuck at home, they were lonely, and
Speaker 1: just meeting people platonically online became a much bigger thing
Speaker 1: again for Tinder. That's never gonna be our objective to Tinder.
Speaker 1: It's about meeting people with the spark with the hope
Speaker 1: of something more um but we are seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of these apps again developing a new foothold with consumers
Speaker 1: down this pathway of social discovery. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a uh something that match group itself is leaning too
Speaker 1: strongly to your point about you know there's food shelter
Speaker 1: and you know, somebody to watch the baseball game with
Speaker 1: at night. Um. Clearly, if if there's a billion dollar
Speaker 1: market cap out there and then somebody wants to connect online, Um,
Speaker 1: do you see you know, bringing in that a company
Speaker 1: with live with good live streaming technology. Do you see
Speaker 1: some element of that potentially being added to Tinder down
Speaker 1: the run. Yeah, I mean I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the best things about the hyper Connect deal, is it? Really?
Speaker 1: You know, if you run consumer internet products, the one
Speaker 1: thing that's always a bottleneck is just your your resources
Speaker 1: and and to to build new things. It's it was true,
Speaker 1: it's CBS all Access. It's true for me a Tinder.
Speaker 1: It's I hear people of Google and Amazon complaining about
Speaker 1: not having enough resources sometimes and uh and the hyper
Speaker 1: Connect team is beyond world class with many different technologies.
Speaker 1: Streaming is one of them, VR and a R is
Speaker 1: one of them. They have a great avatar platform. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that we're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: bring over to Tinder. Uh. So very excited about that.
Speaker 1: In fact, we were supposed, you know, COVID is against
Speaker 1: slowing down us all being able to be together in person.
Speaker 1: But that's coming out of COVID. That would be one
Speaker 1: of the biggest, the first things that we do. Well.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you have no shortage of plans and
Speaker 1: additions and iterations of tinder um. Let me ask you, though,
Speaker 1: if I could just ask you to step back a
Speaker 1: little bit, having been early into the space and now
Speaker 1: that you're a little bit outside of the the core
Speaker 1: of the television world, what I'd love your perceptions on
Speaker 1: sort of how the dynamics, how the streaming wars are
Speaker 1: shaping up. Having been in that business but now just
Speaker 1: a little bit arms length, has it given you perspective
Speaker 1: about you know, do you do you think our media companies,
Speaker 1: you know, are they are they chasing? Are they chasing reality?
Speaker 1: Is there enough audience and subscription revenue out there for
Speaker 1: for the biggest players that have put there, you know,
Speaker 1: planted their flags now to prosper in this world? Or
Speaker 1: do you think we're going to see more consolidation and
Speaker 1: more bulking up or something different. I don't mean to
Speaker 1: make that in either war I'll work backwards. I do
Speaker 1: think more consolidation is likely. But that said, um, and
Speaker 1: we can use Paramount Plus and Viacom as an example
Speaker 1: of this. I think people tremendously underestimate the category, and
Speaker 1: for some reason, there's a lot of skies following predictions
Speaker 1: about it that only a few people can win. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's infinite, you know that. The but there
Speaker 1: aren't them? Is that many people who spend as much
Speaker 1: money as Viacom CBS does you know Again, I have
Speaker 1: no affiliation with the company anymore, but I just to
Speaker 1: use them as one example. Um. Who who puts as
Speaker 1: much money into making as much content as they do
Speaker 1: per year? If it is good, if it's original, if
Speaker 1: it's scarce and only available in their platform? Uh? And
Speaker 1: that could be original, scripted, unscripted, you know, NFL football,
Speaker 1: the Grammys, whatever it may be. Uh. You know, people
Speaker 1: are going to find it. And I think people still
Speaker 1: underestimate how big just CBS all Access was, Uh, and
Speaker 1: how many people historically had subscribed, now keeping people subscribed,
Speaker 1: and again we would think of them as going on
Speaker 1: pause in any given day. The biggest source of new
Speaker 1: subscribers was old subscribers. People were always kind of coming
Speaker 1: back through the service and the only thing that you
Speaker 1: need and they they've announced recently that they're going to
Speaker 1: make a fifty original shows, and of course they're putting
Speaker 1: movies in the platform and others. Is great content and
Speaker 1: you know, Netflix, I'm sure we'll have great quarters ahead,
Speaker 1: but just lost four hundred thousand subscribers in the quarter
Speaker 1: despite how much money they're spending on content. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, and this is why, you know,
Speaker 1: for me personally, it's probably a good time to move on.
Speaker 1: Is I really believe at this point it's a content
Speaker 1: game and your your you know, the products have been built.
Speaker 1: You know, our first business plan for CBS all Access,
Speaker 1: or at least the first pitch about it was in
Speaker 1: the fall of It took us three more years to
Speaker 1: get it approved and launched in October. Uh, and we
Speaker 1: definitely were ahead of our time, and I think probably
Speaker 1: could have been Uh, you know, there's probably more we
Speaker 1: could have done with it if we've leaned it even
Speaker 1: harder during those five years before Disney and other others launched.
Speaker 1: But at this point those tracks are laid down and
Speaker 1: now it's about content. Who makes the best content. Uh
Speaker 1: and and to me that's still to be And I mean,
Speaker 1: Disney has done a great job. I've been loving the
Speaker 1: Marvel shows. The Mandalorian was awesome. I almost cried when
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert, but when you know Luke came back
Speaker 1: in the last episode. Um, Hulu is doing a great
Speaker 1: job with content. I mean. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know this may resonate with you. I have a
Speaker 1: six hour flight on Sunday. There aren't that many shows
Speaker 1: I really want to go download to watch. It's like,
Speaker 1: with all its money being spent, you still don't have
Speaker 1: that many great shows that are just being demanding to
Speaker 1: be watched. And so I think in there is still
Speaker 1: an opportunity. It's not a product game, too content game,
Speaker 1: but that is still to be written. I think. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Varieties Strictly Business podcast. Please be sure
Speaker 1: to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love
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