Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Andrew Wallenstein, and I'm here to say this will be
Speaker 1: no ordinary episode. It's our one hundred installment of this podcast,
Speaker 1: which began way back on April three. To mark this milestone,
Speaker 1: I and my esteemed podcast partner, Cynthia Littleton, business editor
Speaker 1: at Variety, have decided to take a look back at
Speaker 1: some of the most memorable moments on Strictly Business. If
Speaker 1: you're new to this podcast, we think you'll find it
Speaker 1: a great way to get to know us, and if
Speaker 1: you're a returning listener, you hope you'll enjoy this stroll
Speaker 1: down memory lane. Now here's Cynthia with her first highlight.
Speaker 1: Hello from Cynthia and thanks for listening to this special
Speaker 1: episode of Strictly Business. One of the interviews I chased
Speaker 1: hard last year was the first sit down with Dana
Speaker 1: Walden after Disney completed its acquisition of Century Balks in
Speaker 1: March nineteen. I've known Dana a long time and I
Speaker 1: definitely leaned on that to persuade her to do her
Speaker 1: first major interview in front of a crowd at Variety's
Speaker 1: annual TV Summit in Los Angeles in June nineteen. Dana
Speaker 1: has long been one of the most powerful executives in television.
Speaker 1: She had no shortage of opportunities when the surprise sale
Speaker 1: of Fox came down. I wanted to know why she
Speaker 1: chose such an extremely high profile and high pressure job
Speaker 1: of leading Disney's TV Studios and ABC. You know, when
Speaker 1: I looked around and thought about companies which are fundamentally
Speaker 1: the phone company, a cable company, a retail company, um,
Speaker 1: companies where the tech started the businesses and then the
Speaker 1: creativity was acquired. Culturally, I think those companies are always
Speaker 1: going to be very different from a company that's been
Speaker 1: about storytelling for almost a hundred years and all started
Speaker 1: by a mouse. As often said, yeah, absolutely, let me
Speaker 1: ask you in the in the process of you know,
Speaker 1: making that decision, and and once you were you know,
Speaker 1: once once the industry was you know, was surprised to
Speaker 1: learn that the Murdocks were, uh, you know, considering open
Speaker 1: to considering a sale. Did during that period, did did
Speaker 1: the changes in the industry Did they crystallize in your
Speaker 1: mind in a different way when you knew that you know, Fox,
Speaker 1: which was you know, I mean it was such a
Speaker 1: shock because it was such a robust business rouper. It
Speaker 1: was a buyer, not a seller. Was that did you?
Speaker 1: Did you? Was that process a learning process for what
Speaker 1: you just described, like where you see the company going,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the industry going, yeah, no question. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think Rupert disrupted again. I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: narrative around is he a buyer or a seller? You know,
Speaker 1: he was a buyer at the time that people weren't
Speaker 1: acquiring you know, enormous station groups, or eyeing a studio,
Speaker 1: or launching a competitor to the broadcast networks, or acquiring
Speaker 1: the NFL on a pretty spectacular scale. That was disruptive
Speaker 1: at that time. I think what was disruptive, you know,
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen was him making an extraordinary deal
Speaker 1: to sell his company. And I do I do feel
Speaker 1: like our company got the benefit of seeing what the
Speaker 1: shortcomings are of the various streaming competitors, you know, what
Speaker 1: we can do that might be better, and again doing
Speaker 1: it at a scale that's kind of undeniable. This is
Speaker 1: going or is now arguably the biggest content company in
Speaker 1: the business, with you know, the second largest streaming platform
Speaker 1: in the business, with an incredibly robust plan to launch
Speaker 1: Disney Plus, which is you know you. I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: at investor Day and you just saw this incredible collection
Speaker 1: of beloved brands and content and original programming again situated
Speaker 1: really to win and having the ability to look at,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the missteps of our competitors. All
Speaker 1: of those things came together relatively quickly, but they all
Speaker 1: made great sense. If I had to pick one executive
Speaker 1: I find the most fascinating to talk to, it's got
Speaker 1: to be former HBO CEO Richard Plepler. He's responsible for
Speaker 1: some of the greatest series in TV history, but that's
Speaker 1: not why I regard him as the consummate showman. This
Speaker 1: guy puts on a show every time he opens his mouth.
Speaker 1: When I sat down with him in the Streaming Wars
Speaker 1: had barely begun, so it was a treatback then to
Speaker 1: hear him survey competitive field just beginning to take shape.
Speaker 1: And it's even more interest thing to look back on
Speaker 1: that conversation because now he's fighting for a different side
Speaker 1: in the streaming Wars, having launched a new production company
Speaker 1: with a first look deal at one of HBO's rivals
Speaker 1: Apple TV plus. I understand your bullishness, but let's take
Speaker 1: a step back and say the reality is the undeniable.
Speaker 1: The undeniable reality is is the competitive landscape you're facing
Speaker 1: right now is like nothing you've ever seen. Netflix alone
Speaker 1: spending at probably you know, possibly double what you guys
Speaker 1: are doing on just original content, not talking about licensing.
Speaker 1: Amazon right behind them, Apple coming. Your incumbent competitors like
Speaker 1: Showtime and Stars aren't fading fast anytime soon. So how
Speaker 1: are you going to be able to compete, especially when
Speaker 1: you're being outspent by a lot of these new players,
Speaker 1: not a lot, you know, our brand um is a
Speaker 1: magnet for talented people in the creative community. I feel
Speaker 1: like Ted Surrando says the same thing. Well he he,
Speaker 1: he does, and he's welcome to say it, and there's
Speaker 1: some truth to it. And they do very good work.
Speaker 1: And I've said publicly and I'm I've said it to
Speaker 1: them directly. Anybody who doesn't tip their hat to what
Speaker 1: those guys have accomplished in the last seven ten years,
Speaker 1: it just isn't being fair. They've done a terrific job.
Speaker 1: This is not binary. Doesn't mean there isn't going to
Speaker 1: be a good show on Netflix or a good show
Speaker 1: on Amazon. None of that has interfered with our growth,
Speaker 1: And I think the proof is in the pudding. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: despite the intensity of this competition, we grew more last
Speaker 1: year than in any year in our history, and we're
Speaker 1: growing and on track for terrific double digit sub revenue
Speaker 1: growth this year as well. So wouldn't you say, our
Speaker 1: game well and curate quality, and we will continue to grow.
Speaker 1: It's not a zero sum game. I was exactly That
Speaker 1: was the exact phrase I was gonna use. Don't you
Speaker 1: think even if you manage to do well while competitor
Speaker 1: B does very well, that competitor F, G and H
Speaker 1: may actually fall out. Aren't we in this consolidating world
Speaker 1: coming to a place where well, the lower brands are
Speaker 1: not going to make it? Listen, I do think that. Um,
Speaker 1: if you just look at your own lives and you
Speaker 1: look at you know, you have only a certain amount
Speaker 1: of leisure time, a certain amount of time you can
Speaker 1: watch movies, watch television beyond the computer you make, you make,
Speaker 1: you make judgments, you make picks, and Um, the key
Speaker 1: for us is to keep the halo on our brand
Speaker 1: so that when people do have discretionary time, they are
Speaker 1: comfortable that we are fulfilling our promise to deliver excells
Speaker 1: and they come. They might not love everything, but they
Speaker 1: certainly think that for fifteen dollars a month, three thousand
Speaker 1: hours of library, the wide range of programming which we
Speaker 1: make for Hollywood movie studios, people end up saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's a pretty good price value proposition. David
Speaker 1: Zaslov is one of the most accessible media CEOs and
Speaker 1: one of the most articulate about where he thinks the
Speaker 1: content business is heading. David is competitive, but also thoughtful
Speaker 1: about the industry and how he sizes up the competitive landscape.
Speaker 1: He's learned a lot over the years from John Malone,
Speaker 1: the legendary media investor who has a big personal stake
Speaker 1: and discovery. When Zaslov used the M word early on
Speaker 1: in this interview at his New York office in November
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, my ears perked up. We were having
Speaker 1: quite a run as a traditional media company. When I say,
Speaker 1: we were more cable and free to air around the world. Um,
Speaker 1: I've been here for twelve years, and for the first
Speaker 1: seven years we had a you know, an extraordinary run
Speaker 1: both in the market and growth growth around the world
Speaker 1: and here in the US. UM. But I remember a
Speaker 1: conversation I had with John Malone five years ago. Our
Speaker 1: channels were growing double digit around the world in terms
Speaker 1: of viewership and uh, and our performance was strong. Our
Speaker 1: company had grown, stock had grown from about twelve dollars
Speaker 1: to eighty or eighty five dollars, so we really felt
Speaker 1: like we were in stride. And John and I talked
Speaker 1: about the future and uh. He turned to me and
Speaker 1: he said, Okay, we've grown all of our share. Um,
Speaker 1: how well would we do if people could watch anything?
Speaker 1: And I thought for a moment, and I said, uh,
Speaker 1: We've made a lot of progress in the last seven years.
Speaker 1: We went from five percent of viewership in the US
Speaker 1: to thirteen And I said, I think we'd probably be
Speaker 1: back to five because a lot of our content, it's
Speaker 1: great quality content, but it's second choice a lot of it,
Speaker 1: and our brands aren't strong enough. And so it was
Speaker 1: that day five years ago that we began the fight
Speaker 1: to change ourselves from a tradition media company to add
Speaker 1: a global I P company, And we started to change
Speaker 1: the kind of content that we bought produced, and we
Speaker 1: changed the way we looked at our brands and UH.
Speaker 1: That journey got us into sports in Europe, where we
Speaker 1: bought Eurosport two to three sports channels. It was one
Speaker 1: of the reasons we bought the Olympics. In each case,
Speaker 1: the question was not how would this do at eight
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, but as this content that people would
Speaker 1: watch if they could watch anything. And in the last
Speaker 1: year or two it's gotten really a more a tougher question,
Speaker 1: which is will people pay for this content before they'll
Speaker 1: pay for dinner. That's why we bought the rights to
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour everywhere in the world outside the US. UH,
Speaker 1: that's why we bought most of the cycling in Europe
Speaker 1: and most and all the majors in tennis, and that's
Speaker 1: why we're doubling down and continuing to invest aggressively with
Speaker 1: Oprah and candidly. That's why we bought Scripts and this
Speaker 1: has been a great growth here. But we were a
Speaker 1: misunderstood company because when we bought Scripts, people thought we
Speaker 1: bought Scripts to get more linear channels and to get synergy.
Speaker 1: We saw Scripts as an I P company that hadn't
Speaker 1: been really UH, that hadn't been taken advantage of globally.
Speaker 1: So we saw it as food, home, cooking, travel and
Speaker 1: and uh and do it yourself. They owned all that
Speaker 1: content and hadn't been used globally. But but not just
Speaker 1: as a linear play. But in the new world, when
Speaker 1: you look at food, when you look at home, aren't
Speaker 1: people gonna want to consume content around those genres everywhere
Speaker 1: in the world on all devices and so um, it's
Speaker 1: been five years and we got a long way to
Speaker 1: go and a lot to learn, but we are in
Speaker 1: We made a real I think, uh, we've had some
Speaker 1: some real acceleration in in changing the way our company
Speaker 1: is seen and saying and the way our content is
Speaker 1: consumed here in the US and around the world. And
Speaker 1: that's why I think our Stakas has has really improved.
Speaker 1: We get a lot of executives and creatives on this podcast,
Speaker 1: but every once in a while we also make time
Speaker 1: for talent. Tyra Banks, Steve Harvey, and Gabrielle Union are
Speaker 1: just a few names you'll recognize. But true to the
Speaker 1: strictly business brand, we didn't talk to these people so
Speaker 1: they could promote their latest projects or tell us who
Speaker 1: they're dating. Let's be honest, there's way too many media
Speaker 1: outlets covering that what we hear less about is the
Speaker 1: business side of celebrity, And what we learned in the
Speaker 1: occasional conversation with performers on this podcast is that many
Speaker 1: of them are every bit the entrepreneur that they are artists,
Speaker 1: and at a time when the paychecks aren't what they
Speaker 1: used to be for Hollywood talent, men of them have
Speaker 1: carved out lucrative side hustles inside and outside of entertainment.
Speaker 1: It was something that began dawning on me in the
Speaker 1: very first episode of Strictly Business when I sat down
Speaker 1: with one of Hollywood's most bankable actors, Kevin Hart, who
Speaker 1: spoke pretty bluntly about his aspirations to not just act,
Speaker 1: but build out an empire. So it sounds like you're
Speaker 1: kind of in the middle of this journey in terms
Speaker 1: of the empire that you're building. I mean, where does
Speaker 1: it go next or there? Or what mountains are you
Speaker 1: looking to conquer? Areas of content you haven't even gone
Speaker 1: to yet. Man, Well, I mean, look, I'm I'm The
Speaker 1: goal of being a mogul was a real one, you know.
Speaker 1: I want to be a mogul. I want to be
Speaker 1: a billionaire. I want to get to a point where
Speaker 1: you look back and you go, damn, this is a
Speaker 1: little dirty kid from Philadelphia that had no idea, uh
Speaker 1: you know, where his life was going to go. And
Speaker 1: once I got an anklet of what I could do,
Speaker 1: I made a decision to give it a hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I got forty people on staff right now. You know
Speaker 1: when I look up and I'm responsible for people's lives
Speaker 1: and livelihoods, and that's a That's a big thing to me,
Speaker 1: the fact that I know that I'm in position to
Speaker 1: do that, and that these people believe in this vision.
Speaker 1: These people are giving me a hundred percent because they
Speaker 1: say we're gonna follow you, keV into the will's fall off,
Speaker 1: because the passion behind your drive and dream is real.
Speaker 1: To me, that's the biggest thing in the world. So
Speaker 1: you know, when I when I have these meetings with
Speaker 1: my team, with my staff, I'm not just selling you
Speaker 1: on today's work. I'm selling you on the future of
Speaker 1: what we can be. Heartbeat Productions will be a big partner.
Speaker 1: Heartbeat Productions will do big studio work. Heartbeat Productions will
Speaker 1: be tomorrow's future company when it comes to development and
Speaker 1: and producing for for any type of film, from comedy
Speaker 1: to to you know your dramas. I want to do
Speaker 1: it all. I can't sit back and watch other people
Speaker 1: be said cessful and give me a blueprint and not
Speaker 1: do it. I just can't. I have too many relationships
Speaker 1: where they let me know how they got there, from
Speaker 1: Oprah to Thailer, to jay Z to Ellen. I have
Speaker 1: too many people in front of me that are doing
Speaker 1: too many amazing things that say this is how I
Speaker 1: did it. For me not to do it. The media
Speaker 1: and entertainment marketplace has transformed into the land of the
Speaker 1: giants over the past twenty years, but every business has
Speaker 1: to start small at some point. I'm always interested to
Speaker 1: hear from entrepreneurs and independent operators about how they're able
Speaker 1: to compete against giant conglomerates in a world whereas we know,
Speaker 1: size matters. Romancanna, CEO of Shaun Combs's Revolt Media company,
Speaker 1: was blunt about the uphill climb of running an independent,
Speaker 1: single cable channel. Revolt TV was born as part of
Speaker 1: a wave of upstart Cape channels in two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: when Comcast had to give carriage deals to independent and
Speaker 1: minority owned channels on its cable systems as a condition
Speaker 1: of allowing Comcast to buy NBCUniversal. That sounds like a
Speaker 1: good way to nurture new and diverse owners in the
Speaker 1: TV marketplace, but in reality, it's not that simple. As
Speaker 1: kind of explained in August two thousand nineteen, it all
Speaker 1: started with the right thinking, and you know, we're grateful
Speaker 1: for that. We wouldn't exist but for that. So so
Speaker 1: absolutely is the answer. But you know, I think the
Speaker 1: challenges is that the idea of trying to embrace diversity
Speaker 1: and creating an equal opportunity playing field for voices to
Speaker 1: proliferate really runs into a problem when it's the first
Speaker 1: step of a hundred step race that is unlocked, but
Speaker 1: the next steps still needs support. So we don't have
Speaker 1: full distribution on on most systems comp class Comcast included
Speaker 1: UM and we'd love to have that, but that you know,
Speaker 1: these companies are struggling with their own um you know,
Speaker 1: metrics as they measure their basic packages and their extended
Speaker 1: basic packages. And for us to then compete on an
Speaker 1: on an equal playing field with companies that have got
Speaker 1: better distribution, have been around longer, have have better leverage
Speaker 1: in terms of the portfolios that they're part of. You know,
Speaker 1: that becomes a tough story. It's that, you know, if
Speaker 1: if we want to support diversity of voices in any
Speaker 1: way and in any platform, it can't always just be
Speaker 1: step one and then to be measured by the same
Speaker 1: measuring sticks of companies that have been around for longer,
Speaker 1: in better times and have made it past step one
Speaker 1: into step seventy three. Um, Yet we will get the well,
Speaker 1: you know, your traffic compared to you know MTVS traffic,
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a fair comparison at this moment
Speaker 1: in time, and if you measure us by that stick,
Speaker 1: we will always fail for the next number of years.
Speaker 1: So if we really want diversity, what are the measuring
Speaker 1: tools we're using to allow these voices to grow and
Speaker 1: then truly compete um in a very difficult world of competition.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's tough out there, and we understand that.
Speaker 1: We just we want a shot at it. Before we
Speaker 1: continue with this retrospective, I want to tell you about
Speaker 1: an upcoming variety event. Would you and your team like
Speaker 1: to be the first to learn emerging trends shaping the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry's largest marketing campaigns On March, Varieties Entertainment Marketing
Speaker 1: Summit is bringing together top cmos and digital leaders from
Speaker 1: brands like Disney, Hbo, Instagram and more to discuss how
Speaker 1: their revolutionary ideas have changed the landscape of Hollywood. With
Speaker 1: panels that explore the future of omni channel marketing and
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Speaker 1: provoking discussions that are immediately affecting your industry. Visit Variety
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Speaker 1: team today and see you on March. Now, let's get
Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Strictly, business tries to stay on
Speaker 1: top of the latest developments in the industry, but sometimes
Speaker 1: the industry can move faster than we do. That's what
Speaker 1: happened in June when just twenty four hours before I
Speaker 1: was going to release an episode featuring an interview with
Speaker 1: Condon Nast Entertainment CEO Don Ostrov, she announced she had
Speaker 1: left Conde Nast for a big new job at Spotify.
Speaker 1: We published the interview anyway, of course, and in truth
Speaker 1: the challenges she spoke of adapting to digital media after
Speaker 1: a long career in TV proved just as relevant to
Speaker 1: her now that she's in yet another very different world
Speaker 1: creating audio programming. Your career, you spend most of the
Speaker 1: time shepherding these traditional long form things, and now you're saying,
Speaker 1: you're programming to a platform where the old rules just
Speaker 1: don't apply. So how are you learn in the new rules?
Speaker 1: It has been an m b A for me, I
Speaker 1: mean it, and it's so humbling because honestly, I came
Speaker 1: into this opportunity thinking I can do this because if
Speaker 1: you have success on traditional and you you know, gossip
Speaker 1: Girl at one point was the biggest show in the country, right,
Speaker 1: every young person talked about it, you know, read everything
Speaker 1: that they could get their hands on about about our cast. Um.
Speaker 1: But it really was eye opening to understand that the
Speaker 1: way in which we make the content for the digital
Speaker 1: space has nothing to do with the way we would
Speaker 1: create television ideas. Um. You know, it's it. There's there's
Speaker 1: a understanding of what the viewer expectation is when they're
Speaker 1: watching content on any one of those platforms, and you
Speaker 1: have to really adhere to be either a format that
Speaker 1: is the expectation, or a storytelling style or a way
Speaker 1: in which you shoot something that really does help determ
Speaker 1: and if something is going to be a success or
Speaker 1: not and qualities quality, So it has to be good
Speaker 1: and has to be worthy of people's time. But it
Speaker 1: really is very very specific about how the storyteller and
Speaker 1: how the the director really does bring that story to
Speaker 1: life on those platforms. Christina Wayne is a well regarded
Speaker 1: TV producer who made her name in the creative community
Speaker 1: when she was the top development executive at a MC.
Speaker 1: When you green light the pilots for Madmen and Breaking Bad,
Speaker 1: you get a reputation as having an eye for quality.
Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised in this interview from October when
Speaker 1: Christina opened up about how hard it is to sell
Speaker 1: shows despite the enormous increase in the overall demand for content.
Speaker 1: It takes an industry insider to get beyond the surface
Speaker 1: hype around peak TV. In our conversation, Christina touched on
Speaker 1: the real problems of working in a frenzied market with
Speaker 1: unsustainable levels of money and capital chasing talent and producers.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, a bunch of new buyers
Speaker 1: came to the market and we would take stuff out
Speaker 1: and over the first two years of having my company,
Speaker 1: we sold pretty much everything we took to the market.
Speaker 1: There were about i'd say thirteen fourteen shows that we
Speaker 1: took out and they all went into development. Not all
Speaker 1: of them got made, but um, one or two of
Speaker 1: them got made, which is kind of the ratio. You
Speaker 1: have one out of ten usually is your ratio of
Speaker 1: what you're hoping for the last two years of being
Speaker 1: a producer. Now, with all the platforms, there is such
Speaker 1: a huge demand for content that one would assume that
Speaker 1: being a producer would make my life much easier. It's
Speaker 1: actually made it more difficult. What has happened is that
Speaker 1: TV is such an incredible medium now. It is so
Speaker 1: high level the programming that's being made. You have every
Speaker 1: A list showrunner, actor, director coming with their passion project.
Speaker 1: So I often find myself waiting to take out a
Speaker 1: show to the buyers and you have Germo del Toro
Speaker 1: sitting in the waiting room, you have George Clooney, you
Speaker 1: have every single top level person who's you know, Garmo
Speaker 1: had just won an Academy Award, and you're sitting there going, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: my little great show, Um, what do we have. So
Speaker 1: it definitely has become more difficult. And I have noticed
Speaker 1: that unless you package your show to the nth degree,
Speaker 1: it does not sell. You're talking about soup Ton's with writers, showrunner,
Speaker 1: star director, the whole. You don't necessarily need a line
Speaker 1: producer because they can always hire that, because that's not
Speaker 1: going to be You need somebody competent, but they're not
Speaker 1: going to look at that as the sort of bells
Speaker 1: and whistles of must make TV. And so right now
Speaker 1: the game is straight to series orders with a list talent.
Speaker 1: And you know, you see that with Reese Witherspoon's company,
Speaker 1: you see that with all of these packages now that
Speaker 1: are going out. Um, and so I have now moved
Speaker 1: from being focused solely on develop Lipman to also being
Speaker 1: a packager, which really was never that was always an
Speaker 1: agent's job, and so it has really sort of taken
Speaker 1: over what I do, and UM, I do it, and
Speaker 1: thankfully I've been in the business long enough that it's
Speaker 1: not impossible, but it certainly is not what I came
Speaker 1: to the business to do. So it's quite different than
Speaker 1: when I started. The fun thing about looking back at
Speaker 1: the past one episodes is that sometimes there are exchanges
Speaker 1: you have with an interview subject that seemed unremarkable in
Speaker 1: the moment but turned out to be pretty damn significant
Speaker 1: in retrospect. I didn't think much of the time about
Speaker 1: the answers given to the very last questions I asked
Speaker 1: Erica Nardini, CEO of one of the hottest sensations in
Speaker 1: media right now, bar Stool Sports. When I interviewed her
Speaker 1: last October, considering barstool recently sold a minority stake of
Speaker 1: its company to a gambling operation, she was given me
Speaker 1: pretty latent clues about where her company's future lay, And
Speaker 1: at the time, those clues went right over my head.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that to get that big you need
Speaker 1: to be acquired by the Disney's or Viacoms of the world.
Speaker 1: Is that the endgame? I don't know, what you know,
Speaker 1: Dave and I always laugh about this, which is people say,
Speaker 1: you know, what's your five year plan? What's the seven
Speaker 1: year plan? And we always say, we don't know. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's not to say we're not strategic, nor to
Speaker 1: say that we're not thoughtful about where we want to
Speaker 1: go or what we want to do. But what I
Speaker 1: think we are at our core is really passionate and
Speaker 1: opportunistic so you know, yes, would we like guns money
Speaker 1: and steal from a big media company to be in
Speaker 1: and around our business. Definitely. The things we could do
Speaker 1: to drive linear the things we can do to grow personalities,
Speaker 1: the things we can do to create brands, I think
Speaker 1: is unparalleled. Um that said, you know, we're profitable company now,
Speaker 1: We're growing incredibly quickly. We are at the top of
Speaker 1: our game in the fields that we are in. I
Speaker 1: also see a path where we grow independently pretty successfully.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think it's a long way of
Speaker 1: saying we don't know what the future holds. We're incredibly
Speaker 1: open to what that future looks like. Well that's the
Speaker 1: last question. Where else are you guys going to go
Speaker 1: that we need to pay attention to going into You
Speaker 1: need to pay attention to sports betting. So I think
Speaker 1: that we will be a force in sports betting, in
Speaker 1: the type of content we create, in the way we
Speaker 1: create it, in the level of passion and originality, and
Speaker 1: in what we do. So sports betting is a place
Speaker 1: you should definitely look out for us. Globalization is a
Speaker 1: big buzzword in entertainment these days. Every CEO will tell
Speaker 1: you that future growth is largely coming from outside the US.
Speaker 1: But what does that mean on a granular level for
Speaker 1: content focused executives in the US entertainment industry. I had
Speaker 1: heard about an initial David End Them All Shine North
Speaker 1: America to incorporate Spanish language program development from Mexico and
Speaker 1: other non US markets into the same core team in
Speaker 1: Hollywood that handles the company's English language offerings. I made
Speaker 1: a point of getting End Them All Shine North America's CEO,
Speaker 1: Chris Abrego down for the podcast so we could talk
Speaker 1: about his approach in detail. One thing we really did
Speaker 1: was to work much like we did with even our
Speaker 1: subsidiaries here in the US, we really kind of had
Speaker 1: to flow through um in terms of how we operated.
Speaker 1: So with truly original or fifty one minds are authentic,
Speaker 1: you know, we brought them the formats that we had
Speaker 1: from us that if we weren't going to work on them,
Speaker 1: it didn't make sense for North America. We would then
Speaker 1: funnel them to these guys, especially if it made sense
Speaker 1: in their specific relationships and buyers. We thought, if that
Speaker 1: strategy is working so well, and truly Originals have so
Speaker 1: much success, and trifly one minds having much success, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't we apply that just because it's another country doesn't
Speaker 1: mean with the treated different. And and it seems simple enough,
Speaker 1: but everyone you talk to they want to treat this
Speaker 1: minute you say in Mexico. They think different department, different group,
Speaker 1: different part of the company. And it was hard to
Speaker 1: fight that and even internally, but we we worked hard
Speaker 1: to integrate it and make it just part of our business,
Speaker 1: so much that when we closed the deal with boom Dog,
Speaker 1: two things happened. We took the entire senior staff here
Speaker 1: to Mexico City for a week and integrated the companies.
Speaker 1: And so they met there. They're kind of their parents,
Speaker 1: and there are other people who shared similar responsibilities, and
Speaker 1: we shared advance practices. And to the here at Animal
Speaker 1: Shine UH in North Hollywood, they start taking Spanish classes,
Speaker 1: so everyone so you can check. Now there's a lot
Speaker 1: of Spanish speakers in this company. Now, you know, think
Speaker 1: about our in our business affairs. So we've brought in,
Speaker 1: you know, people who obviously are bilingual, and for both
Speaker 1: contracts and working with legal people in Mexico, we don't
Speaker 1: We obviously recognize that it's two different countries and there's
Speaker 1: certain laws and certain practices that we have to adhere
Speaker 1: to UH, in which we want to be aware of.
Speaker 1: But when you get below that in terms of creative process,
Speaker 1: in terms of pitching characters, casting, finding the best producer
Speaker 1: that you know, because for us, the one thing that
Speaker 1: I think that we do really well in em Shine
Speaker 1: is we stay focused on We know that the most
Speaker 1: important things who's making the show. It's one thing that
Speaker 1: who's selling it, it's one thing who created it, but
Speaker 1: it really we focus on who's making it. Undoubtedly that
Speaker 1: comes from your background as a producer in the trenches
Speaker 1: with you know, sleeves rolled up making the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really it's like who's going to be on set
Speaker 1: and delivering this story and these characters and driving this
Speaker 1: narrative or this competition whatever the show might be about.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're focused on. And that's actually becoming
Speaker 1: our biggest challenge in these in these other territories, including Brazil,
Speaker 1: is UH finding more of those people who can do
Speaker 1: that premium content. It's been a real honor to have
Speaker 1: some of the biggest names in the business on our podcast,
Speaker 1: but honestly, that's not what interests me most when I'm
Speaker 1: picking people to interview. Don't get me wrong. CEOs are
Speaker 1: nice to talk to, but we've also had c t
Speaker 1: o s to talk about technology, CFOs to talk finance.
Speaker 1: We've had several interviews with heads of marketing at companies
Speaker 1: like Marvel, Viacom, and HBO. Maybe these role players aren't
Speaker 1: the most glamorous types to read about in the headlines,
Speaker 1: but Strictly Business is just as much about the role players,
Speaker 1: because it's through them we can drill down into all
Speaker 1: the many different pieces that make up the media machine.
Speaker 1: I'm also proud of the way Strictly Business often looks
Speaker 1: past the usual suspects in TV, film and tech to
Speaker 1: find interview subjects from industries you may not be exposed
Speaker 1: to as much like radio, publishing, video games. I can
Speaker 1: honestly say doing this podcast is brought in my horizons,
Speaker 1: and I hope it's done the same for our listeners.
Speaker 1: For example, the last interview I want to highlight in
Speaker 1: this episode may have been the most obscure one I
Speaker 1: did in the entire run of Strictly busines this st
Speaker 1: X Entertainments Virtual Reality division, which was actually shut down
Speaker 1: not long after the interview aired. Listen to this and
Speaker 1: you won't be surprised why the VR division might be
Speaker 1: in the basement or something. It's it's sort of like
Speaker 1: if it's even there, it's you know, it's an experimental
Speaker 1: part of the company where it's it's really about the
Speaker 1: marketing assets that they could create versus the original content opportunity.
Speaker 1: And also how can we actually build a business around
Speaker 1: this new medium and utilize all the best, you know,
Speaker 1: facets of of what we have to offer as a studio.
Speaker 1: And so for us, that was a really strong proposition. Well,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, I can understand why other studios
Speaker 1: may treat this is am more let's call it marginal
Speaker 1: pursuit as I see it, and we could talk about
Speaker 1: it if you disagree. The market for VR entertainment is
Speaker 1: not quite there, even by the most i'd say charitable assessment.
Speaker 1: So any company like STX that put serious investment in this,
Speaker 1: there's risk that there's just not a market there for
Speaker 1: that content. Is that assessment off base? I think it's
Speaker 1: a it's a fair assessment. But you know, the level
Speaker 1: of investment that we're making is actually very responsible. I
Speaker 1: think what we're not doing is going out on day
Speaker 1: one and just spending a ton of money and hoping
Speaker 1: we're going to get our money back. We spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time early on UM developing thoughtful strategies and
Speaker 1: a business plan around this. We knew that we in
Speaker 1: in in pursuing original content, original VR movies. It wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be free content. We knew we had to
Speaker 1: monetize the content right, and so we had to really
Speaker 1: look at how how big is this market? How big
Speaker 1: is this market going to be? In twelve months twenty
Speaker 1: four months, Thanks for joining us to revisit some of
Speaker 1: the great interviews we've enjoyed doing on the Strictly Business
Speaker 1: podcast for the past two years. After all this time,
Speaker 1: I must admit I feel like I'm just getting started.
Speaker 1: But as for this episode, we're coming to a close.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Cynthia for being a great podcast
Speaker 1: partner and thanks to you, our loyal listeners. We love
Speaker 1: to hear from you and hope you'll be sticking around
Speaker 1: for the next one episodes. H