Speaker 1: Hello again, Strictly Business listeners. I'm Cynthia Littleton, co editor
Speaker 1: in chief of Variety and host of this podcast. I
Speaker 1: told you in my last episode that we were incredibly
Speaker 1: busy at the can Lyon Festival of Creativity earlier this month.
Speaker 1: We had so many deep conversations about the future of
Speaker 1: media and entertainment. So here is a bonus Strictly Business
Speaker 1: Live from can Lyon episode featuring newly appointed UTA CEO
Speaker 1: David Kramer. We recorded this in a conference room in
Speaker 1: the enormous two story installation that UTA and its Media
Speaker 1: Link Advertising Consulting arm erect every year on the beach
Speaker 1: for can Lyon. The hugeness of the place makes it
Speaker 1: a buzzy hub of activity and a natural meeting spot.
Speaker 1: Kramer is new to the top job, but he's been
Speaker 1: with UTA for more than thirty years. He's a proverbial
Speaker 1: mailroom success story. In our conversation, Kramer shares his perspective
Speaker 1: on how the ten percentary business is changing, and he
Speaker 1: talks about what all the activity at can Lion means
Speaker 1: for the talent that UTA represents. That's all coming up
Speaker 1: after this break, and we're back with a conversation with
Speaker 1: UTA CEO David Kramer. David Kramer, CEO of UTA, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me here. We are literally
Speaker 1: on the beach in can at can Lion and UTA
Speaker 1: and Media Link have the two story installation erected here
Speaker 1: on the beach to all to facilitate conversations about marketing
Speaker 1: and advertising big businesses.
Speaker 2: That you all are invested in. I know you have
Speaker 2: us army here of about one hundred and twenty people.
Speaker 2: What is the focus for you this year at Canline.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for being here and having me.
Speaker 4: You know, what we have realized over the past several
Speaker 4: years that we got into the brand business when we
Speaker 4: started our entertainment, culture and marketing team and then with
Speaker 4: the acquisition of Media Link back in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: is that the brands want to get closer to all
Speaker 4: the different various parts of the business clients that we
Speaker 4: that we represent, that we touch and whether that's film
Speaker 4: and television, whether that's comedy, music creators, athletes, musicians, et cetera.
Speaker 4: The brands want to get closer to all those things
Speaker 4: that we have built out over the past thirty years
Speaker 4: of being an agency, and so we've made a big
Speaker 4: investment in being the bridge between brands that we represent
Speaker 4: and don't represent, and of course all the different clients
Speaker 4: and the different business lines that we have on our platform.
Speaker 2: It's kind of I mean, it's just canline brings together
Speaker 2: people that cross so many different roads these days, from
Speaker 2: social media creators to brand deals. We all know how
Speaker 2: important that is to that space and social media creators.
Speaker 2: Everybody here is talking about social media creators and AI
Speaker 2: and I know the creators representing that kind of new
Speaker 2: breed of auteur has been a real focus for you.
Speaker 2: Are there like significant conversations happening here this week that
Speaker 2: will impact clients down the road.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. You know, we invested in starting the creator space.
Speaker 4: We don't even call it creator space. We called it
Speaker 4: the digital space eighteen nineteen years ago when we started
Speaker 4: our division.
Speaker 3: And then on top of that.
Speaker 4: We were the first agency to start an audio space,
Speaker 4: the podcast space. And so what we've seen at cam
Speaker 4: Lyon in general is the makeup of who is here,
Speaker 4: not just the many brands that are here, but the
Speaker 4: kinds of people clients that we work with, and whether
Speaker 4: it be creators, whether it be athletes, whether it be musicians.
Speaker 4: We have fifteen different musical acts here performing this week.
Speaker 4: So the brands wanting to get closer into to all
Speaker 4: those different people we've seen only grow exponentially over the
Speaker 4: past several years. They really want to get close to
Speaker 4: those creators who have such a direct relationship to their audience,
Speaker 4: to their consumers, if you will. And so we have
Speaker 4: a number of our biggest creators here in town meeting
Speaker 4: with all these different brands. Some they already have partnerships
Speaker 4: with and some who we will create new relationships with.
Speaker 2: It's being here, it's just it's such an expression of
Speaker 2: the power of brands and marketing and advertising. And it's
Speaker 2: not just entertainment, which is what gives it such scale.
Speaker 2: Is it's sports. It's you know, the biggest corporate bands,
Speaker 2: brands showing up in a big way, and there are
Speaker 2: a lot of perks and a lot of great performances.
Speaker 2: Congratulations are in order. You were recently promoted to CEO,
Speaker 2: but you are certainly no stranger to Enterprise, having rose
Speaker 2: through the ranks since nineteen ninety two. Media Link the
Speaker 2: advertising business that you t acquired a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: How has Media Link in the activity that you're involved with?
Speaker 2: Media Link. How has that changed the complexion for UTA
Speaker 2: or opened up opportunities for UTA clients.
Speaker 3: Well, the thesis behind the acquisition of media Liink holds
Speaker 3: true today than even when we thought about it back in.
Speaker 2: Those many years ago, four years.
Speaker 4: Ago, Yes, exactly, And as we see the brands wanting
Speaker 4: to get closer, getting more support from a company like
Speaker 4: media Link that specializes in brand advisory work, brand consulting work,
Speaker 4: media reviews, relationship building, et cetera. That coupled with the
Speaker 4: marketing division that we already had in our ECM team
Speaker 4: and being able to utilize the rest of the platform
Speaker 4: in terms of all the different businesses that were in
Speaker 4: the different people we represent.
Speaker 2: What you were just saying, everybody wants to get closer
Speaker 2: to the.
Speaker 4: Talent exactly, That's exactly right. And so having Media Link,
Speaker 4: having our ECM team come together as brand representatives, brand
Speaker 4: liaisons and then marry that with the rest of the
Speaker 4: UTA platform, we couldn't be more excited about our brand
Speaker 4: advisory work, which which is growing and you see it
Speaker 4: when you walk around here, you know, just on the
Speaker 4: first day of can Lion, to see the integration between
Speaker 4: our teams, the integration between our clients and those those
Speaker 4: brands that are scattered across Media Link Beach.
Speaker 2: Today it's I mean, you can hear listeners, the noise
Speaker 2: behind us, that this place is humming with activity. And
Speaker 2: as you walk around, the media Link offers space for
Speaker 2: some of the brands you represent, seeing you know, seeing
Speaker 2: grocery store brands and that that to me really strikes me,
Speaker 2: is that that is a real big expansion of your business. David,
Speaker 2: you came up the ranks through the literary department through
Speaker 2: motion pictures, yes, writers and directors. Now that you are
Speaker 2: CEO of the whole enterprise, what would you say your
Speaker 2: background coming up through the mail room and now up
Speaker 2: through the literary business, working with writers and directors, how
Speaker 2: did that prepare you for the role you have now? Well?
Speaker 4: I think when I started at ut in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 4: the company was only one year, one years old. We
Speaker 4: had about eighteen agents, fifty total employees. I met everybody.
Speaker 4: I met everyone at the company by the end of
Speaker 4: the first week. It's very different today. As I like
Speaker 4: to say, we did three things back then, we do
Speaker 4: fifty three things now. We represented writers and directors and
Speaker 4: actors from movies intelligence. That's really the extent of it. However,
Speaker 4: because we were a new company and we were a
Speaker 4: small company, we had to be in the discovery business.
Speaker 4: We had to be in the development business, We had
Speaker 4: to be in the collaboration business with one another other
Speaker 4: to compete with other agencies at that time. As we've
Speaker 4: diversified the business, the great thing is that discovery, that development,
Speaker 4: that collaboration, that client centric approach has been imbued across
Speaker 4: the DNA of all the different areas that we've either
Speaker 4: built out ourselves or the businesses we've acquired, and making
Speaker 4: sure that that philosophy holds to this day as we
Speaker 4: whether we've moved into music, comedy, touring, orts has been
Speaker 4: a big one, Clutch sports has been a big one
Speaker 4: for sure. And so what's what's I think what's exciting
Speaker 4: about what we're doing today is that it is so
Speaker 4: vastly different from from where we started, but so many
Speaker 4: of the tenants that made UTA uta hold true. And
Speaker 4: I'm but I think that the playground has expanded in
Speaker 4: so many different ways. That allows our people who work
Speaker 4: at UTA to try different things, be challenged in a
Speaker 4: different way, be ready for these crazy shifts we've seen
Speaker 4: in our business, and more importantly, allows our clients, who
Speaker 4: are more ambitious and more excited about trying different things
Speaker 4: than ever before, to work with a group of agents
Speaker 4: who who are excited by all those opportunities and ambitions
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more from
Speaker 1: UTA CEO David Kramer, And we're back with more from
Speaker 1: our conversation with UTA chief David Kramer.
Speaker 2: Another new thing for UTA, for the agency in the
Speaker 2: last decade or so has been the arrival of new investors,
Speaker 2: some private equity, some people taking strategic stakes. How would
Speaker 2: you say you've navigated that and what would you say
Speaker 2: has been the impact that you've seen so far?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got the We had the benefit of seeing
Speaker 4: what other companies did with their private equity partnerships.
Speaker 3: So when we.
Speaker 4: Approached or were approached by private equity back you know,
Speaker 4: several years ago, we were really thoughtful and delivered about
Speaker 4: who would be the right partner for us, because the
Speaker 4: last thing we wanted was to get into business with
Speaker 4: a company that was going to disrupt how how we
Speaker 4: did our business, because we hold very sacred the style
Speaker 4: and the philosophy about representation and about how we do
Speaker 4: it and we think we do it in a very
Speaker 4: unique way. So going through that process, going through that
Speaker 4: dating process of private private equity. We found a very
Speaker 4: good partner back in twenty eighteen, and there were challenges.
Speaker 4: It was when the WGAATA dispute was happening and then
Speaker 4: we went right into a pandemic.
Speaker 3: Yet they were great partners.
Speaker 4: They provided us with the financial firepower to diversify our business.
Speaker 4: Also remind me which this was IVC and PSP, and
Speaker 4: they were in for four years through the ups and
Speaker 4: downs of what was going on in the business, but
Speaker 4: they still exited the business happily.
Speaker 3: They tripled their money. It was good for them.
Speaker 4: It also allowed us to get some liquidity for our
Speaker 4: partners and the rest of the people who worked at UTA.
Speaker 2: With a calling card. If in four years tripled their money.
Speaker 4: It was it was a calling absolutely, the fact that
Speaker 4: we were able to still build the business to that
Speaker 4: extent given some of the challenges of that moment.
Speaker 3: From twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two, it's.
Speaker 2: Shutting down of all entertainment as we knew, yes exactly.
Speaker 4: And then we brought in EQT and we went through
Speaker 4: the same deliberate process about whether or not they would
Speaker 4: be the right partners for us. One of the things
Speaker 4: I remember them saying is they were hands on, not
Speaker 4: hands in. That always stuck with me because we wanted
Speaker 4: the benefit of their expertise being big investors in lots
Speaker 4: of different industries, and we've gotten that and in less
Speaker 4: than a year of them being in business with us,
Speaker 4: back in twenty two we had the double stripe. Once again,
Speaker 4: they understood that was out of our control. They were
Speaker 4: wildly supportive. We continue to invest regardless of what was
Speaker 4: going on with the strike and diversify and acquire more companies.
Speaker 4: And they've been with us, they're coming up on about
Speaker 4: three years. So it's our experience of private equity has
Speaker 4: been nothing but positive. And I know not every company
Speaker 4: can claim the same thing, but that's been our experience.
Speaker 2: As you said, you were able to watch, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of watch how others navigated. Let me ask you
Speaker 2: from a leadership perspective, because obviously you've been a senior
Speaker 2: leader before you were CEO, when you first started in
Speaker 2: that area. Every you know, every agent, every every person
Speaker 2: thinks private equity comes in. An accountant is going to
Speaker 2: tell me how, you know, what deal to make for
Speaker 2: my client that somebody is going to How did you,
Speaker 2: as a leader make people comfortable with the idea that UTA,
Speaker 2: which had been very part you know, a totally privately
Speaker 2: held company before that. How did you make people comfortable
Speaker 2: with the idea that this was not going to radically
Speaker 2: change and in effect enhance in the way.
Speaker 4: You see oftentimes with change, people don't think, oh, great,
Speaker 4: how is this good for me? They think about how
Speaker 4: this is bad for them? And so we kind of
Speaker 4: knew that going in, and like you said, some of
Speaker 4: the questions around what is private ec what are you
Speaker 4: going to do to our experience, our everyday experience, and
Speaker 4: are they going to start looking at what to cut?
Speaker 4: And so one it was important to us to find
Speaker 4: the right partner who wasn't going to do that. And
Speaker 4: two it was incumbent upon leadership to get the messaging out,
Speaker 4: the real accurate messaging about why we were taking on
Speaker 4: a partner, what it was going to do for the business,
Speaker 4: and to have patience to see how that unfolded. And
Speaker 4: as you saw it unfolded our company, it's only been
Speaker 4: beneficial to all the people who work there, and people's
Speaker 4: lives haven't changed. We haven't expected them to do things differently.
Speaker 4: You know, we want to make sure we can provide
Speaker 4: the service not to the clients we represent, but to
Speaker 4: the talented agents who represent them. And I think as
Speaker 4: time went by, people got more and more comfortable with
Speaker 4: these new partners being.
Speaker 3: Having a stake in the business.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, I don't know if there's
Speaker 4: right way to put it, but it was invisible to
Speaker 4: them in terms of their daily life.
Speaker 2: The proof was in the the proof was in the exit.
Speaker 3: We had to show Nutshell, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, how have you adjusted? How has
Speaker 2: it been to deal with the end of packaging as
Speaker 2: we knew it? You know that the literary Agent's home
Speaker 2: run for decades, right how you know that was a
Speaker 2: significant source, although a source that that was also changing
Speaker 2: and because of the nature of the especially in the
Speaker 2: television series area, I don't have to tell you that,
Speaker 2: but just how has it been since the end of
Speaker 2: that revenue stream.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the end of packaging came at an interesting time
Speaker 4: when the value of packaging was also starting to diminish.
Speaker 4: So one of the things we've seen is the diversification
Speaker 4: of our business started to insulate us from some of
Speaker 4: the revenue that was created from packaging. You've also seen
Speaker 4: a lot of actors who never would venture into television.
Speaker 4: Those walls have come down, and you've seen movie stars
Speaker 4: go into television, television stars go into movies, and so
Speaker 4: I think that's created a lot of financial opportunities for
Speaker 4: them and for the for the agencies that, in conjunction
Speaker 4: with the diversification into music, comedy, touring, creators, sports, news, speakers, publishing,
Speaker 4: et cetera, has been super additive to the agency. And
Speaker 4: although hey, it would be nice to have those great
Speaker 4: big packages of yesteryear, that's that's over and and so
Speaker 4: we figured out ways to build out the foundation of
Speaker 4: the company and the and the revenue of the company
Speaker 4: with some of the versification.
Speaker 2: And you know, like the UTA and other major agencies
Speaker 2: and companies are literally rebuilding the entertainment model in real time.
Speaker 2: But I know, another big move for UTA recently was
Speaker 2: the acquisition of Curtis Brown. It's a big agency in
Speaker 2: the UK. Tell me what motivated that and what you
Speaker 2: hope that is going to do for the company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Curtis Brown's been a great acquisition for us. We
Speaker 4: were looking at different ways to expand internationally, the UK
Speaker 4: being you know, one of the most important markets there
Speaker 4: is in the entertainment media space. So what we looked
Speaker 4: at was how could UTA be in the UK, but
Speaker 4: be there in an authentic way, be there in a
Speaker 4: way where we would have a right to win. So
Speaker 4: we looked at Curtis Brown Agency. It's the biggest and oldest,
Speaker 4: it's one hundred and twenty five year old company. They
Speaker 4: have a pristine brand and so we started talking to them.
Speaker 4: We made that acquisition and in the summer of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two, which last week was our three year anniversary.
Speaker 4: It's been you know, it's given us this amazing foothold
Speaker 4: in a very important market. One of the significant pieces
Speaker 4: of their business and how the company started one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty five years ago was on the publishing side.
Speaker 4: It's about twenty five to thirty percent of their business.
Speaker 4: We had our own publishing initiative. So their publishing group,
Speaker 4: you know, working with our publishing group, has created i
Speaker 4: think the biggest publishing division of any of the agencies
Speaker 4: at this point. And we've started to see ways where
Speaker 4: we can be additive to them with some of the
Speaker 4: pieces that we have that they they don't have. We're
Speaker 4: learning a lot from them because of their their UK history.
Speaker 2: So much going on, I mean all roads right now
Speaker 2: in production seem to lead through.
Speaker 3: There's sore at least. Yeah, there's so much going on.
Speaker 4: And at the same time, they're operating in a way
Speaker 4: where if we if it doesn't make sense for us
Speaker 4: to stick, you know, our nose to it, we don't.
Speaker 4: And we have an incredible partnership. Johnny Geller's the CEO
Speaker 4: of that company, has been for many years, and he's
Speaker 4: like me, he's been at that company for thirty thirty years,
Speaker 4: started at the beginning. So there's a certain kinship you
Speaker 4: certainly understand. And the intention is to keep the Curtis
Speaker 4: Brown name. You will keep that extant. The Curtis Brown
Speaker 4: name has tremendous brand value, not just in the UK,
Speaker 4: but you know, around all of Europe.
Speaker 2: I have to admit I did not appreciate how large
Speaker 2: an agency and how kind of full service they are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's about a two hundred and fifty person company,
Speaker 4: and so we've gotten tremendous value out of that.
Speaker 2: Let me button us up here today, David. You grew
Speaker 2: up in Tallahassee. You went to the Uga. Let me
Speaker 2: ask you, how did a boy from Tallahassee who went
Speaker 2: to school in Georgia, how did you get to Hollywood.
Speaker 4: So I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, but I always
Speaker 4: had a love of the movie and television business, not
Speaker 4: knowing at all that what that really meant.
Speaker 3: But I was a movie lover. I got a credit
Speaker 3: my mother for that. She was a movie lover and
Speaker 3: Ted Turner.
Speaker 4: Ted Turner who had the superstation TBS, and he would
Speaker 4: play all the old movies.
Speaker 3: I think the.
Speaker 4: Story was he was kind of, you know, frugal, and
Speaker 4: so he would just license all these old movies. My
Speaker 4: movie education came from Ted Turner and my mother watching
Speaker 4: movies on the weekend, non NonStop.
Speaker 3: I went to university.
Speaker 4: I went to the University of Georgia, and that was
Speaker 4: a great experience for me. I got to work on
Speaker 4: a movie between my junior and senior year. It was
Speaker 4: the only movie, a TV movie shooting in Atlanta that year.
Speaker 4: So it just shows you how things have changed so much,
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 2: It shows you that you found it.
Speaker 3: That's right there you go.
Speaker 4: So and then I applied and somehow shockingly got into
Speaker 4: USC Film school, and so that got me out to California.
Speaker 4: I went to the Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing program
Speaker 4: and then, by by nothing but a stroke luck, ended
Speaker 4: up in the mailroom at what to use your term,
Speaker 4: a startup boutique literary agency UTA, and for me, I
Speaker 4: have been so fortunate to be there, to be part
Speaker 4: of its growth, to watch it go from only representing
Speaker 4: writers and directors and actors and movies and television to
Speaker 4: representing talent that spans all the different pieces of the
Speaker 4: entertainment media, sports business in a way that none of
Speaker 4: us could have predicted. So I feel so lucky to
Speaker 4: have grown up with it, and I'm excited about the future.
Speaker 2: All that hustling in the mailroom paid off. All right,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, David. This has been fun.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts.
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