Latest / OneLegUpAlex Media / Media Veteran and Fmr. CBS Network Marketing VP Paul Friedman Reacts to CBS Coverage of Super Bowl 58 and Updates us on Danny Green

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Media Veteran and Fmr. CBS Network Marketing VP Paul Friedman Reacts to CBS Coverage of Super Bowl 58 and Updates us on Danny Green · OneLegUpAlex Media

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  Here's your host, Alex Garrett. Well, as you know, this past
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  weekend, CBS had the honor of carrying the Super Bowl, super Bowl fifty
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  eight, and someone who I'm sure as part of the network as a vice
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  president, was there for many other CBS Super Bowls. I thought he'd want
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  to weigh in on this week and how his network performed. Paul Freeman,
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  Welcome back to the Alex Garrett Podcast Network. Thank you so much. It's
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  great to be with you again. We'll talk about the Avengers of Danny Green,
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  because I hear there's some updates with his adventures. But first your thoughts
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  on how your the network, your vice president performed on Super Bowl weekends.
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  Well, I was a vice president and a creative director in the marketing department,
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  what we call the on air promotion department. We did work with sports
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  through the years, but primarily I was not in the sports division. But
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  of course I have opinions as to how things went. I think for the
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  most part, the coverage was quite good. You know, it's interesting because
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  CBS had over one hundred and I think it's one hundred and sixty some odd
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  cameras throughout covering the Super Bowl, so they didn't really miss a trick.
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  Most of what you saw, obviously was coverage that they were able to get
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  clearly as a result of having all the cameras and having everybody standing by ready
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  at any moment to record something. Since since we're talking about this, it's
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  one of the most I think it's the most watched super Bowl. I mean,
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  there was a big ratings weekend for CBS. As an alum, if
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  you will, how does that make you feel that your network carried the most
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  watched Super Bowl? To me, it's spectacular. Obviously, the Super Bowl
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  has become something that is a national holiday. As we all know, people
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  put aside all their differences and they just want to watch an incredible game.
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  There was so much leading up to this game. Of course, the Cansa
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  the City Chiefs were extremely popular, extremely successful, have a whole group of
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  players that everybody wants to see and cheer for. The same thing with San
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  Francisco. San Francisco had any vaunted offense, and people were excited to see
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  the clash of these two Titans. We can't underestimate the Taylor Swift factor,
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  the Travis Kelcey factor, all the things that went into that. I mean,
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  don't forget a week earlier, Taylor Swift was at the Grammys, where
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  she had a large platform. There was a lot of talk about her being
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  in Japan and flying in for the game. So there's a lot that went
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  into the success of this show, of this broadcast actually, but also most
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  importantly, I think it was the drama of the game. To me,
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  to some extent, it kind of sputtered at the beginning as as far as
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  the game. There were several plays that were missed, opportunities for both teams
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  that were fumbles. But as the game got going, it was like a
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  car that warms up. It got faster and faster and more and more exciting.
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  Now there's absolutely no way that anybody could have turned away from that game.
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  That's the cool thing about it. So the coverage was tremendous, but
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  also the drama inherent in the game was there all the way until the very
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  very end. Of course, we had overtime, which is something spectacular and
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  the network always cheers for absolutely. Now I've learned over the years it's about
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  thirty to forty million dollars a spot to advertise. How much was the average
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  spot this year? Do you know during the commercial breaks. Now, the
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  commercial breaks ran for seven million dollars for a thirty second spot. Now that
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  doesn't take into account what it costs to create that spot. So you can
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  spend maybe two million dollars to produce a spot. Then you've got to give
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  another million dollars or so to a celebrity. So before you know, your
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  ten million dollars as an advertiser into something like this the super Bowl. Yeah,
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  gets seven million dollars the spot this year, which is up considerably from
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  previous years, which was three million and then five million. And that's that's
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  a considerable sum. You know, your network's been on a tear. I
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  mean, yeah, the Grammys a week two weeks ago with Taylor there.
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  I mean as a creative director, as a marketer, what would you how
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  would you have approached this season because it was sort of like a big deal
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  the last the first few months of twenty twenty four for you guys at CBS.
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  Absolutely, you know, of course things were delayed because of the strike.
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  It's almost as if the season got started in earnest after the super Bowl.
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  So because of the strike, the writers strike, the actors strike,
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  a lot of production was delayed. Scripts hadn't been written, production hadn't gone
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  in. Then of course you had the December holiday situation, so pretty much
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  people were gearing up, and then I think, I think for CBS it's
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  like this season began in earnest after the super Bowl. Now, the interesting
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  thing about the NFL, the NFL package, the Sunday package for CBS is
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  that it's a tremendous promotional platform. We're not just talking about the super Bowl.
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  We're talking about throughout the year. Throughout the year. NFL game on
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  Sunday allows the network to put promos in there that will then advertise all the
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  shows they have upcoming for the rest of the week and beyond. So in
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  this case, of course, the super Bowl is a tremendous platform for CBS
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  to launch and promote its shows. Well, obviously you're looking from a creative
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  mindset. So let me ask you this, watching this whole weekend, watching
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  the last couple of weeks, any memory from your career at CBS come to
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  mind when you watch all of this in front of you on the screen on
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  CBS. Well, I'll remember this goes back a few years, many years
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  actual now, but the premiere of the second Survivor. I believe they went
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  to Australia if I'm not mistaken, And that was launched after the Super Bowl
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  two thousand and twenty, two thousand and one. So what we did in
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  the Super Bowl was actually have the survivors on the plane ready to be ready
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  to either be thrown out of the plane or parachute out of the plane or
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  land on this foreign soil. So there was within the super Bowl itself,
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  it was gearing up, gearing up, gearing up for the premiere of that
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  season of Survivor. That was pretty memorable to me because everything had to be
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  timed perfectly so that it appeared as if the Survivors are being dropped on this
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  foreign soil just when the super Bowl ended. All right, Well, talk
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  about the resources used for something like that, because obviously you have some big
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  endeavors as the creative director MVP, right, I mean I have to imagine.
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  So, yeah, there's a lot of resources available when you're trying to
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  launch something as big as a franchise like Survivor or a new show, or
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  remind people that there's only X number of shows left, for example, for
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  young Sheldon to get people. Our job is like a Carnival Barker as marketers,
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  as promotions people, we got to get them in the tent. We
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  want to get people to tune in, to be aware, to be enticed,
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  and then watch the program Now some might say, well, you know,
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  CBS is a big network. Of course they're going to know the programming.
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  But I guess the whole point of promotions for a big network is that
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  you know, maybe they there's that one or two people that may not know
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  what's coming up next. Right, Well, yeah, I can't. You
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  can't really rely on people knowing what you are selling them, especially in this
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  media universe. It's so diversified now, there's so many options for people.
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  It's very important that you have an identity a as a network, and B
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  that the show itself has an identity, and then you can create a following
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  for it. Of course, it has to be entertaining, it has to
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  be good, it has to be well written, well acted, and it
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  has to be in a good time slot where people can find it. More
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  and more and more people are not just tuning in for a particular show.
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  I mean, this is this is obvious. Nowadays, people have a choice
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  when they want to watch the programming. So CBS is now, of course
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  partnered with Paramount Plus, and just as a lot of the other networks have
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  their own partnerships within companies, media companies, so people have an opportunity to
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  see shows when they want to see them. But as far as recognition availability,
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  that's the most important thing. What is the recognition of that show?
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  And are you interested in seeing it? Paul, you spent three decades as
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  CBS VP of Creative Direction and Marketing. Are you glad you're not competing with
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  streaming? I mean, do you feel like having it on television was sort
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  of the golden years, if you will, during your time there and not
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  having to compete with streaming platforms, Well, it certainly was the golden years,
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  yes, in many ways. But streaming is now. You have to
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  accept it. It's part of the reality of television. And that's why streaming
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  is an important piece of CBS Network Paramount Plus, just as the other networks
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  all have their own streaming services. But you're competing with companies like Netflix,
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  Disney Hulu, so it's a challenge. It's a big challenge. But right
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  now there's a melding of the two. The CBS network beet and of course,
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  Nickelodeon, the Nickelodeon networks, MTV networks are all under the Paramount banner.
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  So if you go to Paramount Plus, if you pay that extra fee,
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  you can see a lot of the programs right there in one spot,
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  and that's where streaming is right now. Now you were under the viacom years,
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  they're still they still owned CBS. Is that correct? Yes, well
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  it is controlled by Viacommon. CBS have merged once again. They were separate
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  companies, they came back together again, so yes, Biacommon CBS. It's
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  now all under the name of Paramount. I don't know if you were able
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  to talk about this, but what was it like in the Redstone years,
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  because obviously he was a big name associated with CBS and you were there during
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  that time. What was that like under the Sumner Redstone leadership. Of course,
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  I didn't have personal contact with mister Redstone. He was someone who was
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  very, very astute when it came to business, and he wanted to see
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  that both companies when they were separate via common CBS succeed. Now, back
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  then a number of years ago, the thinking was that the old networks CBS,
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  NBCABC were kind of going to chug along and the MTV networks were the
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  up and coming ones. But it turned out in a very humorous way,
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  that CBS was a standard bearer and was the one that was still making a
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  ton of money. Now that was for two reasons. One because of advertiser
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  dollars that CBS was taking in. And then of course CBS made a deal
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  many years, many years into the process by saying to cable companies and to
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  satellite companies, look, you have to pay to use our programming as well.
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  So CBS started getting money not just from advertisers, but from the cable
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  companies as well and subscribers. So subscribers ended up paying a little bit for
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  the to be able to see CBS program on the cable networks. Another media
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  industry executive predicted the Super Bowl might be come behind a payroll paywall. Speaking
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  of subscribers, do you ever see that happening? Is that a paywall possibility?
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  Or will the Super Bowl always be free for consumption? Well, when
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  you say something, will something ever happen? I think that I don't know
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  that anybody expected that Amazon was going to get Thursday night football and that they
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  paid a billion dollars. A number of years ago, CBS had Thursday Night
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  Football. In fact, between the years of what was it yet twenty fourteen
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  and twenty seventeen, CBS actually carried Thursday Night Football. But then Amazon paid
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  a ton of money. I believe they're paying a billion dollars a year.
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  That's a lot of money to carry it. Now. As far as the
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  Super Bowl going behind a paywall, the thing is, there's so much money
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  that the networks can provide for the NFL that you go behind a pay well,
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  it's probably not going to be as lucrative for them. But in a
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  sense, Paramount Plus is a paywall. So if you watch the Super Bowl
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  not on CBS and you watched on Paramount Plus, you were paying a fee
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  to see it, essentially but exclusively, going behind a paywall, I think
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  we're a few years away from that. I don't know. With Goodell at
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  the HELM, I don't know what his plan is next. Seems like he's
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  always trying to make deals, not so much for the fans but for the
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  network for the NFL, that's for sure, all right, Paul Freeman,
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  you know, one last thing before we get into what York trajectory is looking
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  like with the Avengers of Danny Green. Sean McManus was mentioned and really praised
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  by Jim Nance. Now you didn't really know him though during your years at
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  CBS. Correct, No, I didn't know him. I didn't work with
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  Sean directly. But I must say that he's retiring now, he's sixty eight
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  years old. He's going to be replaced by his longtime president. So there's
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  going to be consistent and c at CBS, there will be continuity in leadership.
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  David Burnston, he's the president of CBS Sports. So I don't think
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  you're going to see the division or CBS Sports skipping a beat. But it's
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  interesting you bring that up because CBS is in pretty good shape right now.
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  They have the NFL under contract until until twenty thirty three. They have College
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  March Madness NCAA for eight more years, the PGA till twenty thirty and that's
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  Those are some really substantial franchises. CBS plans to spend over thirty billion dollars
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  in the next couple of years to pay for these franchises. And look how
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  much they're getting back, we believe, right, and they're probably getting a
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  lot back in profits absolutely, you know, and I might I might mention
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  that CBS had they had football for me many years from nineteen seventy to nineteen
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  ninety three, and then they were out bid by Fox. Fox was a
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  very small network, but because they got the NFL once again, because it
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  was a promotional platform for them, they were able to build up Fox Network.
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  Now, CBS got the NFL back in nineteen ninety eight. Now,
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  if you think about it, shows like Survivor were launched two in the year
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  two thousand, CSI, The Big Bang, Theory, two and a Half
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  Men. All those shows came in part because of the result of CBS having
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  football on Sunday. So from nineteen ninety eight until the present time, CBS
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  got the AFC ticket. And it's so interesting to see some of them sometimes
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  carry the NFC also, but they are primarily the AFC channel. They have
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  the AFC Championship as well. Yeah, I gotta say, I gotta say
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  this is an interesting thing. You know how Vegas used to be something that
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  the NFL didn't want to go near because they didn't want to be perceived as
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  their their their their games might be influenced by gamblers. Well, that of
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  course has all changed years ago when when we had Sunday Football and we,
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  for example CSI Vegas, we couldn't show in a promo playing card or even
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  even a marquee of of a gambling place. So that's how far away they
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  wanted to stay from gambling. Of course, all that has changed now and
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  gambling has become prevalent and for the first time ever, the Super Bowl was
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  held in Las Vegas. Yeah, it was uh, you know, for
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  a sport that tries to stay clean, it's very and of course the Chiefs
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  and the Chiefs and Niner players were able to bet. Right after the game
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  was over. They could go back to bet their betting ways if they were
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  any better on those teams. It's very fascinating. Had gone from the Rose
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  era of banning him for gambling to this. I don't know, I just
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  feel like that comparison had to be made. And you guys also carried baseball
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  for a long time too. Yes, CBS had baseball for quite some time.
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  When you look at it now, everybody has to really admit that America's
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  pastime, baseball has been eclipsed by the NFL. That certainly is the sport
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  that everybody in America I think has turned to and to some extent, baseball
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  has a citizens. Obviously, you've had a thirty year career, and we'll
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  talk about what you can and cannot do in promos. Did you ever take
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  risks? Did you ever try and skirt the edge of you l of what
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  corporate wanted you to do? Well? Yes, I mean the idea is
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  to come up with something. It's going to be it's going to get noticed,
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  and it's not that corporate. There's this big entity corporate that's going to
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  put their thumb on you and tell you you can't do something. They encouraged
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  us, always encouraged us to come up with something different, something new,
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  and then they would look at it and go, maybe we're pushing the envelope
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  a little too far there, or maybe we can try that in the future.
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  But we were never told don't do that, don't do this, don't
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  do that. There were people, of course, at the highest level of
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  the corporation who were mindful that certain franchises, if you will, would be
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  protected and that we weren't going to embarrass the company. The idea was controversy
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  good, but crisis bad. We didn't mind if people were talking about the
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  shows and there was some kind of controversy, but if it reached a crisis
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  point, meaning there were people going around walking around with placards outside of CBS
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  headquarters, that was something you really didn't want. Well, I feel like
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  that was that ever the case? I mean, I don't remember any stories
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  like that, But was there ever a case like that? Or not?
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  Really? Right? I mean I can't really recall now, but there were
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  times and CBS became a target, became a target from a special interest groups,
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  that's all the network. Well, it's always interesting talking to you because
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  I feel like there's such a lineage and a heritage of CBS and you're here
• 19:17
  telling us all about it. Of course, sixty minutes comes to mind because
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  they always follow football on Sunday night, and sixty minutes is still ticking years
• 19:23
  later. How about that? Yeah, that's that's not going away anytime,
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  anytime soon. As long as there's problems and there's issues out there the stories
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  to tell, I think sixty minutes will maintain its dominance as the premiere a
• 19:40
  news magazine show. One last thought, James Brown doing CBS News on a
• 19:45
  weeknight and then NFL Sunday. I never thought him as a news guy,
• 19:49
  but he fills that role in pretty well, I think on a weeknights if
• 19:52
  Nora O'donald's not there, So very interesting to see him. Betrend's you know,
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  able to do both versatile like that. It's interesting you should say,
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  you know, for a number of years Sean McManus, he was president of
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  CBS News and CBS Sports for six years. He did that previously someone who
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  did that at ABC rliche Now, so you wonder what is it? I
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  mean, sports is immediate, sports are stantaneous, and sports also requires a
• 20:22
  certain news edge to it. So there's there's but sports has an entertainment aspect
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  to it that news maybe has. But news isn't supposed to be entertaining per
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  se. News is supposed to be informative, clear and really not not have
• 20:40
  opinions injected into it. But it's interesting that news and sports oftentimes can be
• 20:48
  can be managed by sort of the same person. Well yeah, and also
• 20:53
  if a sports idol makes news like no Tiger not matching up with Nike,
• 20:57
  that becomes a news story those things as well. But I we'll get to
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  you now, Paul Freeman, because since we last talked the Adventure of Danny
• 21:06
  Green has gained a little more of a journey. Tell us about what's been
• 21:10
  going on since we last talked, right, Well, the book I wrote
• 21:15
  is called The Unexpected Danny Green, and it's about a boxer who comes up
• 21:18
  from Mississippi, is successful in New York. Eventually he gets into the literary
• 21:22
  world as a writer and comes out to Hollywood. So the book itself is
• 21:27
  doing very well. It's selling well on Amazon, it's getting great reviews.
• 21:32
  I would encourage your listeners to check it out. I think it's very entertaining
• 21:37
  and people will enjoy it. And at the moment, we're actually almost done
• 21:41
  with the audiobook, so that's going to be out there, that's going to
• 21:44
  be available. But interestingly, as a result of that book, and as
• 21:48
  a result of going on a promotional tour for the book, I had an
• 21:52
  opportunity to talk to some gentlemen who had a sports show in Missouri and Columbia,
• 22:00
  and as a result, I've been doing, interestingly, a entertainment feature
• 22:04
  for them every Friday. It's on KFRU Radio and it's it's a lot of
• 22:11
  fun. I report on what's happening in Hollywood, upcoming events, sometimes movie
• 22:17
  reviews, and it's been very very interesting. It's KFRU radio and New York
• 22:22
  Time. I believe it's three o'clock three point fifteen every day, I mean
• 22:29
  every Friday. Very cool. I know you love that still being in the
• 22:34
  media world, I'm sure you love that radiohead every week. It's a lot
• 22:40
  of fun. I do enjoy it, and it's just great. It's great.
• 22:45
  So that says an extension of the book. The book itself, as
• 22:48
  I said, selling well, hopefully we'll sell a few more copies. And
• 22:52
  if your listeners are interested, it's at Amazon Amazon dot com. You can
• 22:56
  check out The Unexpected Danny Green. All Right, one last thing before you
• 23:02
  know, I love these I love bringing on people who are evolving their book
• 23:06
  and really growing it because that's part of having one leg up is to keep
• 23:11
  growing that. One other thing about you, though, is you love boxing.
• 23:15
  That's kind of why you wrote this book, right, there's sort of
• 23:17
  that love the sport that you that you want to write about. Yes,
• 23:22
  I did. I did watch a lot of boxing matches. I wouldn't say
• 23:26
  that I'm a boxer, but I have gotten in the ring on occasion.
• 23:30
  Uh, but I had had a teacher, a coach who used to sort
• 23:34
  of school me on boxing, and we'd watch matches together, we'd watch television
• 23:38
  together, and he told me a lot, taught me a lot about the
• 23:42
  sport. So when I wrote the book, I had a lot of references
• 23:48
  that I went to. I did a lot of research on it, and
• 23:51
  even though it's fiction, there's a lot of historical characters that are interwoven into
• 23:56
  the book. So it's at the beginning I said it could be a true
• 24:02
  story. It's not a true story, but there's a lot of truth in
• 24:04
  the story, in the fiction of the book. But you know, the
• 24:08
  great thing about writing that book, and as I said, sort of reinventing
• 24:12
  myself as a result of leaving CBS, was look at the kind of doors
• 24:17
  that it's opened. I've had an opportunity to talk to you, for example,
• 24:21
  and we've gone into wide ranging conversations and it's tremendous and it's opened up
• 24:26
  a whole new basic universe for me, going from being a creative director and
• 24:30
  being a VP at CBS and now with the book, it's out there,
• 24:33
  it's touching people's lives and it's created tremendous opportunities opened up a whole new world
• 24:40
  for me. So I thank you. It's been great talking to you,
• 24:44
  and it led to my entertainment radio piece that I'm doing every Friday. Well,
• 24:49
  we played a small part in that. That is a big honor.
• 24:52
  And I'd love to have you back on and talk media because you are a
• 24:56
  guru as far as I'm concerned about media. You've been in for three decades
• 25:00
  and you know it. So come back. We'll make them. Maybe do
• 25:03
  a different conversation on the climate of media down the road if you'd like,
• 25:07
  in twenty twenty four, that would be great. I'd love to talk to
• 25:11
  you about that, about where I see things going and the status of the
• 25:15
  business right now because it's in flux, it's in major flux and CBS as
• 25:21
  a network, CBS as an entity and paramount there, the company is in
• 25:26
  play right now. Wow. Well we'll get to that maybe before March Madness
• 25:30
  and kick off of March Madness, with some conversations about the media climbate.
• 25:36
  How about that? Okay, love having you, Paul Freeman, thanks again,
• 25:41
  and the book you can link it on Amazon as well. Paul,
• 25:45
  thanks again so much. Thank you. All Right, let me stop the recording,