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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. One would expect a

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Speaker 1: memoir from the co founder of MTV to include quite

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Speaker 1: a bit of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Tom

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Speaker 1: Freston's new book gives us that and quite a bit more,

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Speaker 1: from hitchhiking through a pre Taliban Afghanistan, using a drug

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Speaker 1: smuggler to get closed from Asia to New York City

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Speaker 1: tariff free, to almost getting kidnapped in the Sahara Desert

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Speaker 1: with Jimmy Buffett, to getting unceremoniously canned by Sumner Redstone.

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Speaker 1: Tom Freston Carrol, he has seen a lot.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he certainly, as he's co founder of MTV, a

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Speaker 2: co founder and the former CEO of Viacom. He's also

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Speaker 2: principal of the consulting and investment firm Firefly three, and

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Speaker 2: the author of a new book, which you want to

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Speaker 2: talk to him about. It is entitled Unplugged Adventures from

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Speaker 2: MTV to timbuckt It came out back in November. He

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Speaker 2: joins us from California. Tom's so great to have you

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Speaker 2: here with us.

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Speaker 3: How are you. I'm good, Carol, hello to you, and

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Speaker 3: I am nice to be here.

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Speaker 2: It's great to have you here, and there's so much

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Speaker 2: we want to talk about. We do want to just

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Speaker 2: start off with the media industry because it just feels

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Speaker 2: like it's at a moment in time.

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Speaker 1: So I thought you were going to start with Beavis

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Speaker 1: and Button.

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Speaker 4: No I'm not.

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Speaker 2: But we'll get there. We'll get there into so much more.

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Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about what you witnessed, you know, at

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Speaker 2: the beginning, the dawn of really the cable industry and

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Speaker 2: the build out of it. It's now being very much dismantled,

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Speaker 2: dismantled for our host of reasons, some networks being sold

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Speaker 2: for scraps, you know, the headlines. How do you see

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Speaker 2: this dismantling tom continue to play out?

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Speaker 4: Well, I mean we had during my era, the eighties

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Speaker 4: and the nineties, so the early two thousand sort of

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Speaker 4: the cable TV revolution, which morphed into the digital revolution

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Speaker 4: and streaming and all that, where people really got to

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Speaker 4: watch whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, on whatever device.

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Speaker 4: And now we're moving into the AI revolution. So the

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Speaker 4: media industries in a constant state of flux always sort

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Speaker 4: of or you know, influence greatly by technology, and you know,

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Speaker 4: it's hard to say where it's going to go. But

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Speaker 4: we're going to see more consolidation amongst the legacy media companies,

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Speaker 4: that's for sure. There's a few deals in place right now,

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Speaker 4: as you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, speaking of those deals, the fate of Warner

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Speaker 1: Brothers Discovery, David Zaslov mentioned in your book a few times.

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Speaker 1: Do you have a view on whether that company should

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Speaker 1: go to Netflix or Paramounts Guidance.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a better fit.

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Speaker 4: And you know, you hate to see another movie studios

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Speaker 4: sort of disappear in a form of consolidation, and Warner

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Speaker 4: Brothers is like the king of you know, the most

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Speaker 4: treasured studio of all. But of the two alternatives, I

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Speaker 4: think the Netflix one is more interesting and Bod's better

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Speaker 4: for people in the business and boats better for consumers.

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Speaker 4: In the case of a Paramount you really have two

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Speaker 4: legacy companies merging together. They talk about nine billion dollars

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Speaker 4: worth of cost saving, and that means more people on

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Speaker 4: the street. It's not that interesting of a combination as

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Speaker 4: taking someone like Netflix, which is a sort of a

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Speaker 4: quasi digital company and marrying that with Warner Brothers seems

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Speaker 4: to be seems to be a better fit.

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Speaker 3: If you were to ask me what you just did.

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Speaker 1: What about you know, and a lot of your book

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Speaker 1: goes into your relationship with some of the Redstone. We're

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Speaker 1: going to get to some of that in a minute.

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Speaker 1: What do you think he would think about today with

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Speaker 1: what's going on at Paramounts guid Dance. You describe him

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Speaker 1: as being just so obsessed with the company's stock price

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Speaker 1: and always trying to buy more shares. You describe him

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Speaker 1: as always being on the phone with his stockbrooker at

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Speaker 1: the time, because that's how it worked at the time.

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Speaker 1: What do you think he would think of what's happening

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Speaker 1: at Paramounts Guidance.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think he'd be sad. He'd be sad to

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Speaker 4: see what became of his the empire that he, you know,

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Speaker 4: was a major force in creating, and how the values

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Speaker 4: deteriorated and how now, how Viacom sort of missed the moment,

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Speaker 4: if you will, they missed the moment in the digital transition.

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Speaker 4: You just compare it to Disney, which spent say they

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Speaker 4: doubled down on their content creative abilities. They spent sixteen

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Speaker 4: billion dollars buying Pixar and Lucasfilm and Marble, which made

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Speaker 4: them a little more invincible On the other hand, Viacom

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Speaker 4: spent sixteen billion dollars on stock buybacks, which you know

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Speaker 4: was great if you were casting in stock options, but

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Speaker 4: not so good for the long term viability of the company.

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Speaker 2: Hey, you know on that, you know, I think about MTV.

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Speaker 2: You know, you were one of the people who got this,

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Speaker 2: you know, up and running, and for such a long

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Speaker 2: time it was just so much a part of our

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Speaker 2: kind of cultural fabric and then went from music to

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Speaker 2: you know, dealing with political issues and really the issues

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Speaker 2: of our time, if you will, and became an important

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Speaker 2: place for even politicians to show up at during campaigns.

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Speaker 2: Having said that, you know, it is you know, reduced

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Speaker 2: drastically and dramatically. I don't know what is it like

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Speaker 2: to see that, And I wonder, if you know today,

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Speaker 2: could it be created today or could it be in

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Speaker 2: some other form?

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Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's sort of like looking back and

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Speaker 4: seeing your old high school on fire. Yeah, it's they

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Speaker 4: haven't really put any money or effort into MTV for

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Speaker 4: I don't know, fifteen years or so. I think all

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Speaker 4: the music people who were there left. They even saw

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Speaker 4: the music television off the bottom of the logo and

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Speaker 4: it became sort of a repository for grade B reality shows,

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Speaker 4: well off its original mission. I do think that MTV

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Speaker 4: could be reinvented in a digital format to be a

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Speaker 4: more interesting curator of music. These days, music is still

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Speaker 4: a huge category and there's a huge amount of listening

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Speaker 4: going on. So it's crazy not to think that MTV

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Speaker 4: couldn't recapture some corner of the music business. I mean,

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Speaker 4: on one hand, you have a lot of consumers are

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Speaker 4: sort of tired of the algorithmally programmed streaming services and

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Speaker 4: so forth. So I mean, I don't think it's a layup,

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Speaker 4: but it's certainly worth it. It's a brand with worldwide recognition,

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Speaker 4: and I do know that they're working on that at

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Speaker 4: Paramount with Jeff Shell and David Ellison.

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Speaker 2: Well, well, you know, Tom, I think about you know,

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Speaker 2: your book in this journey, right, and then you know

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Speaker 2: the create so many journeys if you will, which is

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Speaker 2: really fun to go through. But I'm wondering a thirty

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Speaker 2: five year old Tom Freston today, would you create MTV

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Speaker 2: or something against the platforms that we have, or would

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Speaker 2: you do something different when it comes to media and content.

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Speaker 4: That's a good question. You know, the media world is

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Speaker 4: so different right now. I mean my default is sort

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Speaker 4: of media and entertainment, so I'd be interested. It's harder

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Speaker 4: to carve out harder to carve out a place right now.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I think the closer you get the talent

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Speaker 4: and content create, the better off you would be. The

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Speaker 4: days of the mono culture where you had. The rise

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Speaker 4: of MTV is a really important gatekeeper. Those are gone,

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Speaker 4: so I'm in the lucky position. I'm not having to

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Speaker 4: worry about working in the business right now. In that

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Speaker 4: particular business, I find it more interesting, sort of on

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Speaker 4: the fringes for myself.

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Speaker 1: We're speaking with Tom Freston. He's the author of Unplugged

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Speaker 1: Adventures from MTV to Tim Buck two. He's a co

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Speaker 1: founder of MTV. Tom on that I was surprised when

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Speaker 1: I was reading the books, as like an elder millennial,

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Speaker 1: I grew up with MTV, so it totally everything you

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Speaker 1: wrote about made a lot of sense. I remember all

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Speaker 1: the shows that launched on MTV and on Comedy Central two.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned, though a few minutes ago, this kind of

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Speaker 1: common refrain that we had about MTV even in the nineties,

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Speaker 1: which is it doesn't show music videos anymore. What I

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Speaker 1: was surprised to find was how strategic of a decision

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Speaker 1: and how important of a decision that was, And what

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Speaker 1: she found sort of early on in showing music one

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Speaker 1: music video after another, and why that didn't necessarily keep

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Speaker 1: viewers for extended periods of time. Explain how that transformation

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Speaker 1: started and why it did become a place that wasn't

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Speaker 1: just music videos.

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Speaker 4: Well, when music videos sort of hit, I mean, they

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Speaker 4: were really kind of revolutionary. People hadn't really seen anything

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Speaker 4: like that six or seven years in, I mean, a

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Speaker 4: bloom was a little off the roads. That's not to

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Speaker 4: say that the music videos weren't good, but a new

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Speaker 4: device had come along technology wise called the remote control,

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Speaker 4: which was maybe the biggest disruptor of all that little

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Speaker 4: soapbar sized device, and people would check out after three

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Speaker 4: minutes or so if they didn't like the next video

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Speaker 4: that was coming on. We thought, though, that we wanted

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Speaker 4: to stay close to music. It brought us so much,

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Speaker 4: but we thought maybe we could be a bigger place,

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Speaker 4: and a more reliable place, and less reliant to the

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Speaker 4: peaks and valleys of the music industry if we created

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Speaker 4: our own programming. That was about some of the things

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Speaker 4: that the music was about about. You know, I'm talking

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Speaker 4: about fashion and movies and you know, beef beefing up

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Speaker 4: our news area. We thought we could take say, ten

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Speaker 4: percent of our one hundred and sixty eight hours a

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Speaker 4: week and devoted to non music programming or stuff that

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Speaker 4: related to the popular culture, and we could have a

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Speaker 4: sounder and a bigger business. And that turned out to

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Speaker 4: be the case. Now, the problem was that these shows

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Speaker 4: would get higher ratings than music hours. So gradually over

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Speaker 4: time and like I'm talking now, the last ten or

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Speaker 4: fifteen years, there was a decision to just get out

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Speaker 4: of the music business entirely because the idea that you know,

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Speaker 4: you could compete with something like Vivo and YouTube where

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Speaker 4: people could get any video they wanted on demand on

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Speaker 4: the internet once the Internet was capable of really streaming

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Speaker 4: video in full force, was you know, it was an

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Speaker 4: unattractive proposition. So you get you wounded up with what

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Speaker 4: you have today, which is a network beriff of music

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Speaker 4: whose name used to be music television. That's not to

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Speaker 4: say that, as I said earlier, that it couldn't be

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Speaker 4: reimagined for digital in a way that they could make

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Speaker 4: a business out of it using a digital on demand technology.

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Speaker 2: What do you make of the growth? Oh go ahead,

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Speaker 2: please no finish no, no, no, please finish no.

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Speaker 4: I was just saying, so it was a strategic move

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Speaker 4: to get into non music programming. And I would also

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Speaker 4: say that the creative cadre that we had at work

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Speaker 4: always wanted to stretch out and do new things. So

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Speaker 4: we came up with new formats like the Real World,

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Speaker 4: or we would find young animators and bring them into

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Speaker 4: the fold and do shows like Beavis and butthead that

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Speaker 4: we thought had their same attitude as MTV. But it

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Speaker 4: wasn't necessarily music, you know, made the bigger plays.

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Speaker 2: We think about, I mean, how much of TV today

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Speaker 2: is reality TV? And I put quotation marks around it,

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Speaker 2: and you know Real World you write about it in

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Speaker 2: the book. I mean, you guys were a pioneer when

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Speaker 2: it comes to reality television, which so dominates the landscape.

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Speaker 2: Tom and I think about The Apprentice, and we think

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Speaker 2: about how many have said what it did for Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: who at the time was not actually doing well in business,

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Speaker 2: and the image it actually projected not my view, but

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Speaker 2: what a lot of other people say. And I just think,

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Speaker 2: how do you think about real world? The beginning of

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Speaker 2: reality TV, And do you feel in some way responsible

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Speaker 2: for the creation of what that is today and helping

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Speaker 2: create a path for Donald Trump?

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Speaker 3: Like, how do you think of it? I know the question.

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Speaker 3: I know that question.

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Speaker 4: Look, we started, you know, we started The Real World

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Speaker 4: because we couldn't afford writers. We just wanted to do

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Speaker 4: a soap opera. So in the end we said, forget writers.

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Speaker 4: We were good at post production. Let's put seven or

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Speaker 4: eight people in a loft and tape them and then

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Speaker 4: make it into episodes. That became this new low cost

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Speaker 4: form of programming. And then we did celebrity reality show

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Speaker 4: with the Eye, so were the first two real reality shows.

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Speaker 4: And it was very attractive to the networks as their

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Speaker 4: business model began to deteriorate. They could make shows that

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Speaker 4: people wanted to see at a much lower price. And yes,

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Speaker 4: it led to like Naked and Afraid and The Bachelor

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Speaker 4: and worst of all, or maybe best of all in

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Speaker 4: some people's mind, The Apprentice. It brought us the new

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Speaker 4: President of the United States. So I don't feel responsible

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Speaker 4: necessarily for that, But there is a through line that

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Speaker 4: when television programming became less scripted and more real.

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Speaker 2: You know, and it's funny I think about you know,

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Speaker 2: we've got a world where everyone can be a content creator,

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Speaker 2: and we have a man in the White House, our president,

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Speaker 2: who's very good at creating content for better or worse,

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Speaker 2: people can make the debate. Is it free speech at

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Speaker 2: its fullest when you think about the ability for anybody

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Speaker 2: and everybody with their phone that can make content, or

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Speaker 2: is it kind of a reveal of mankind at its worst.

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Speaker 2: I'm just curious how you think about this.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's a reveal of mankind and it's best and

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Speaker 4: it's worst. I mean, it's true. Everybody is their own

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Speaker 4: like individual broadcaster. They can create content, share it, comment

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Speaker 4: on other people's content, people comment on yours. I mean,

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Speaker 4: that's really been the social media revolution. It's really been

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Speaker 4: a whole new paradigm for media. And yeah, it can

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Speaker 4: be very disappointing at times to see what people do

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Speaker 4: and come up with and what they say. And you know,

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Speaker 4: that's a much larger issue owing to a larger discussion

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Speaker 4: for which I don't know there's a solution. But yes,

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Speaker 4: all the guardrails and program standards and things that we

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Speaker 4: used to enjoy and adhere to in the eighties and nineties,

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Speaker 4: they've all vanished.

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Speaker 1: Tom, you know you're known for a creator as at MTV,

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Speaker 1: But I do want to talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: Comedy Central too. I was struck with sort of the

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Speaker 1: creative process of coming up with this idea for Comedy Central,

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Speaker 1: to potential competition that you were going to get from

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Speaker 1: HBO at a certain point, and the staying power of

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Speaker 1: some of the programs on there, including The Daily Show,

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Speaker 1: the Colbert Rapport, and notably South Park.

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Speaker 3: Today.

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Speaker 1: I mean the idea that a South South Park could

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Speaker 1: be as relevant in some you know, in some cases

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six as it was

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Speaker 1: in the mid nineties. I think could be surprising to

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Speaker 1: a lot of people. Talk a little bit about how,

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Speaker 1: you know, within ten minutes you guys came up with

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Speaker 1: this idea for Comedy Central, and how you landed Trey

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Speaker 1: Parker and Matt Stone.

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Speaker 3: Well.

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Speaker 4: I was having a staff meeting I was in the

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Speaker 4: early nineties, and someone slipped me a piece of papers

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Speaker 4: at HBO's announcing they're going to have a comedy channel.

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Speaker 4: And they were at the time the big players, I mean,

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Speaker 4: they were on PayTV. They had Robin Williams, and George Carlin.

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Speaker 4: They did all these big comedy specialists that oh, they're

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Speaker 4: getting into our business and that they're going to start

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Speaker 4: with a comedy channel, they'll do a music channel and

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Speaker 4: a kids channel, kind of eroding our nickel in an

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Speaker 4: MTV business. So we decided in that meeting, like, let's

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Speaker 4: announce our own comedy channel. We didn't really have a

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Speaker 4: comedy channel or even an idea for one, but we

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Speaker 4: thought we announced we could be in every news article

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Speaker 4: that was ever written about theirs, and you know, so

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Speaker 4: we kind of announced that we were doing one. We

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Speaker 4: came up with a format quickly, which was sort of

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Speaker 4: TV comedy and extension of what our Nicked Night brand was,

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Speaker 4: and so that was how we got into the business.

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Speaker 4: We had a war with HBO for a couple of

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Speaker 4: years and then we ended up merging and forming Comedy Central.

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Speaker 4: And the thing that really pushed Comedy Central into public

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Speaker 4: consciousness was south Park. And south Park was a cartoon

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Speaker 4: that started as a one of the guys at MTV

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Speaker 4: found Matt and Trey and had him do a little

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Speaker 4: six minute thing for as a Christmas card that he

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Speaker 4: sent out to his friends, and it got wide acclaim

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Speaker 4: and then we saw him. We said, well, let's make

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Speaker 4: a TV series out of this, and we've done it,

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Speaker 4: and now it's like no Christmas card in history has

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Speaker 4: ever paid off like South Park. I think they're in

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Speaker 4: their twenty fifth or twenty sixth season and those guys

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Speaker 4: are geniuses. The other thing I'd say about Comedy Central

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Speaker 4: is it's interesting to me. We always had a great

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Speaker 4: eye for new and emerging talent. And if you look

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Speaker 4: at the amount of people who started their television career

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Speaker 4: on Comedy Central, Bill Maher, Jimmy Kimmel, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert,

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Speaker 4: Samantha b. Matten, Trade, Dave Chappelle, all of these people,

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Speaker 4: most of whom have gone on to bigger lives outside

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Speaker 4: of Comedy Central. There's sort of the front line of

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Speaker 4: the Trump resistance today, a role that was filled, like

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Speaker 4: in the Richard Nixon era, largely by musicians.

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Speaker 3: And you know, you have to be really proud.

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Speaker 4: To see how, you know, with our ear to the ground,

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Speaker 4: we were able to give all these people their television

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Speaker 4: start very satisfying. Comedy Central had a more cultural cachet

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Speaker 4: than I think any of our networks, and outside of

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Speaker 4: Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live. I don't know of

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Speaker 4: any other entity that's been able to discover and cultivate

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Speaker 4: as much comedic talent.

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Speaker 2: So we already know we want like another sixty minutes

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Speaker 2: with you, and I know you've talked with our producer

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Speaker 2: and I think you're going to come back and talk

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Speaker 2: with us because we would like to continue this conversation.

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Speaker 1: Can we barely scratch the surface?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I have to say the way the book

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Speaker 2: is written, and you you talk about your travels all

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Speaker 2: around the world, and we've been in the newsroom talking

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Speaker 2: about like Afghanistan, which I think so many people have

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Speaker 2: one view of what that is about. And you remind us,

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Speaker 2: you know, an incredible land people, and we want to

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Speaker 2: get into it because we want to talk soft power

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Speaker 2: with you and so much more so I hope we

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Speaker 2: can truly get you back here real soon and continue

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Speaker 2: this conversation.

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Speaker 4: Well, I'd love to do that. We'll stay in radio contact.

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Speaker 4: To come in the studio has been fun.

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Speaker 2: We we really enjoyed it. Tom By, We'll have a

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Speaker 2: great weekend.

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Speaker 3: He is to Carol.

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Speaker 2: Thanks to Yeah, Tom Preston. The book is Unplugged Adventures

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Speaker 2: from MTV to Tim Buck to and we are going

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Speaker 2: to continue that conversation. It's really been a great read

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Speaker 2: for us, so we really appreciate Tom's time today