Latest / Linen Suit & Plastic Tie / What Story Does Cable Tell (Part I)? ft. a fmr. Cable TV Executive (Doug Herzog)

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What Story Does Cable Tell (Part I)? ft. a fmr. Cable TV Executive (Doug Herzog) · Linen Suit & Plastic Tie

0:04
Welcome Welcome to the Linen Suit and Plastic Tie Podcast.
0:08
This is the podcast where we work to the set and analyze and
0:11
investigate the amazing, the epic, the cool power of
0:14
storytelling and how to harness that power in your everyday
0:17
lives. I'm Gorve.
0:19
And I'm Kevin. You Kev.
0:22
I got a got a bone to pick with Harry Potter fans.
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Of course I do. I mean, no, I I'm a I'm a big
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Harry Potter fan. You know, however I've I'm be
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honest, I've only read the first book, but I've seen all the
0:35
movies. But I have people who read the
0:37
books and I know they're better and it's on the list.
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But I've only read the first book.
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But I've talked to people who read the books and they don't
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have an answer for me with this. Talked about this before.
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I don't understand why they left slivering into the school.
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Let me explain why It appears all the bad kids come from
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Slivering, right? And I know in Chris' child,
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Harry's kid is in Slivering fine.
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So there's a there's a few good apples who won't get in.
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But if all the bad kids are coming slivering, and don't tell
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me that's like, that's like laboring them in the last movie,
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Professor Mcgonagall says Take all the slivering kids to prison
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or to their the dungeon, whatever, whatever it is, she
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sends all the kids to the dungeon, right?
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Because one of them could be bad.
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I think they should do the sorting hat first in the
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admissions process. And if you get in sliver and
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sorry, you didn't get into the school, we can't have it if
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people keep murdering people from slivering.
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This is my stance on this, and I'm sure, I'm sure if I read the
1:37
book, I'm going to understand Sliver more.
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And I'm sure the movies just didn't do them justice.
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So there's two things. One, Justice was slivering in
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the movies. That's one if that's true and
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slivering just and I'm sure they're slivering in all of us.
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So part of this actually Justice was slivering in the movies.
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If in the books they explained slivering, if they explained
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slivering as like a productive members of society, it's just
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they've had bad apples and they have bad tendencies and they can
2:02
change and they can be good. I think that's what happened
2:04
with Draco. But I mean by the end of the
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movie, not the end of the movies, all he was was not a
2:08
murderer anymore, which is fine. I'm sure that they get a better
2:12
arc in the books. So one Justice was slivering in
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the books. But just looking solely at the
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movies, I fully don't understand why they don't just not let the
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slivering kids in anyways. Yeah.
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And if you're a higher part of book fan, if you're slithering,
2:30
please, please feel free to aggressively comment.
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And I'd love to watch this fight.
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Let me know if in the books they slivering gets a better story.
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Like, right. I wanna know.
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Like, but here's the thing, and this is the thing too.
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You don't have to do both. You can be a hairy panda fan of
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the movies. You can be a Harry Potter's fan
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of the books. You don't have to do both.
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You allowed your justified your opinion.
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I'm talking about the movie world.
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And yes, if I read the books, I'm sure I'd understand the
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Wizarding World better. But you don't have to read the
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books to watch the movie. There's no prerequisites.
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So I'm allowed to make judgments solely based on the movie world.
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I just am. Because it's a series, right?
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It's you can pretend the books never exist and vice versa.
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Yeah, I I can't wait until the new TV show comes out and more
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atrocities to be fought over the movies.
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The TV show can't solve the movies problems, the movies
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can't solve the books problems. They are distinct universes,
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right? If they're all one universe,
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fine. But they're distinct versions of
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the story. So you can't say oh, in the TV
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show they explained this all in the books, they explained this
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good for the books. That means they did it.
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But in the movies, in the movie universe, snooping is evil.
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That's all I'm saying. Anyways, who are we talking to
3:48
today, Kev? Well, today we are talking to
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Doug Herzog. He is a very, very experienced
4:00
American television executive. He was formerly the president of
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Viacom Music and Entertainment Group.
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He has been responsible for the rise of some of the most iconic
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cable TV channels like MTV and Comedy Central.
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You may have heard of some TV shows he's spearheaded, like The
4:24
Daily Show with Jon Stewart, South Park, The Real World.
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Most recently, he has been Co hosting a podcast called Basic,
4:34
which tries to outline a brief history of cable TV network.
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So we are so happy to be able to talk to Doug about cable as a
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storytelling medium and a lot of cool stories about The Daily
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Show and some of the most interesting iconic shows that
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he's created. So let's get into that, yeah.
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Can you pronounce your first and last name for us?
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My name is Doug Herzog. All.
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Right. Our first question, of course,
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is can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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What is your story? Oh gosh, my story was born and
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raised in northern New Jersey, right outside of New York City.
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Grew up in the 60s and 70s there.
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Kind of obsessed with at that time.
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Television and movies and very different kind of entertainment
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landscape. But was, you know, excited about
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that and wanted to go figure out how to do that for a living.
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Went to Emerson College in Boston, where I studied film and
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television. And then I was lucky enough to
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graduate right at the dawn of cable television, very early
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80s, dawn of the 80s, and spent almost my entire career in the
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world of basic cable television. And took that ride all the way
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up and yeah it was I mean that's it in a nutshell but and it got
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me between New York and LA been live in both places currently
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home base as LA but over the years back and forth between New
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York and Los Angeles. Very cool.
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Yeah, we're both also in LA and we've been in LAA few years and
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it's it's such an interesting town and things have changed so
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much just in the short time we've been here, let alone in
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your immense career. Can you tell us a little bit
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about cable TV? What exactly is it?
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What was cable TV? What?
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Is it was. It was born in the very late 70s
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I guess. And you know, Kate, you know, at
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that time there were three broadcast television networks,
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ABCNBCCBS, which everybody received in their house via an
6:43
antenna and public television and that was really it for
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television. So, you know, it's hard to
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imagine just three channels or four channels.
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With commercials and everybody watched because that's all there
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was. So they had, they had a monopoly
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on that. But folks who lived out in the
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in the hinterlands, in places where they couldn't get great
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reception, that's how cable started.
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Cable started as a way to get better reception for the
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broadcast networks, so that people actually watch TV because
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they couldn't get the signal on an antenna if they were way out
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in the middle of nowhere. And so that's where these
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satellite dishes started to spring up.
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And that, you know, evolved into a whole another world of
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programming where people got, oh wow, we can deliver programming
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this way to potential viewers and subscribers.
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And you know sort of cable television was born.
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You know, some of the big pioneers were obviously Ted
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Turner with CNNI was actually at.
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I was at the Los Angeles Bureau of CNN the day they launched in
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1980ESPN, which came out of. Bristol, CT you know and then
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ultimately things like MTV and you know Nickelodeon, USA
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Network, you know these are some of the early cable networks and
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it was a real alternative to to network television.
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So all the sudden you didn't have to watch just what was on
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the networks and these cable networks came in with a with a
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much more targeted, specific and branded approach to programming.
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So all sports, all news, all music.
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All comedy, all kids, whatever it was, and it turned out to be
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evolved into quite a big thing over time.
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Didn't happen right away, by the way.
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And it was a great model because the cable programmers, so MTV,
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CNN, ESPN of the networks I mentioned they would receive
8:28
revenues from advertising. In addition to they would
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receive subscriber revenues because you paid to to have it.
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So it was a dual revenue stream which served them very, very
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well for a very long time. I think there's so much in that
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that I want to dive into the competition aspect, the revenue
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aspect, D it's just it's such an interesting kind of dynamic that
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was going on in this time. Can you dive in a little bit
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more? But what the difference from a
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storyturing aspect and from A kind of programmatic aspect
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between network and cable television?
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To be honest, you know, cable wasn't really telling the kind
9:08
of stories that network television was that time because
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they couldn't afford to, despite the dual revenue stream they
9:13
were growing. So they were, you know, it took
9:15
them a while to get from nothing to, you know, you know basically
9:19
about at its height, you know, 100 million give or take
9:22
subscribers. Right.
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Or 100 million homes they could had to have access to.
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Plus, you know, the networks were still making their sitcoms
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and their dramatic shows. But cable didn't have the money
9:34
to for writers, honestly. So news sports, you know, that
9:39
was live, right, and didn't entail writers.
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And even places like MTV where I was in the early days, we were,
9:45
you know, we were, you know, we're doing what we called
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hybrid shows. They were hosted.
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We stuck a lot of videos in them.
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There weren't scripts. And so we weren't telling
9:55
stories in that regard. But the, you know, cable as an
9:59
industry started to tell story and the story was that people
10:02
want choice and people want more.
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And you know, we've seen that even, you know today, which is,
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you know, I mean we have so much content and so many choices,
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maybe too much, but but that's where we are.
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But Cable Cable's the one who started to tell that story first
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on that kind of topic of competition.
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How did that change? Like we started with a BCNBCCBS.
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How did the quality and kind of the fight for content change as
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more channels started popping up to this world now where there's
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so many? Well, everybody, like I said,
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you know, previously everybody sort of, you know, started
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taking off slices for the most part, right?
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Like we're going to do just news, we're going to do just
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sports, we're going to do just music, and we're only going to
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target young people, something nobody had ever done before.
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You know that was the the networks were built.
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To appeal to everybody, everywhere, all at once, to grab
10:54
a, to grab a recent film title. But, you know, it was all things
11:00
for all people. And so when you start to have
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these cable networks, that said, we're just going to go after
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young people like MTV, we're going to talk directly to them
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and we're going to appeal directly to them.
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That turned out to be, you know, a pretty exciting thing,
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particularly not only for viewers but for advertisers.
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Because if you're an advertiser and you're trying to reach young
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people, you can throw your commercial on, you know a
11:21
BCNBCCBS, but it's going to get wasted because it's going to get
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seen by a lot of people who are just aren't going to be
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interested. And so it was a great
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advertising model as well and and that was the story of cable,
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you know, sort of differentiated from the networks, much more
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specific, much more targeted, much more branded and.
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And it was a story and and a strategy that they wrote on for
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a very long time and very successfully.
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Yeah. And and let's dig into that
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aspect of differentiation a little bit more because
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obviously you have been at MTV for a long time and that's a
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very sort of differentiated network.
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So what goes into building a brand or or a story like that
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for a channel that? Wants to have a distinct
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character. Differentiation is the key.
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So you know what we realized early on as we, you know, MTV
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started just showing videos and that was novel and that was fun
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and people liked that. And then over the after the
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first couple years, that sort of novelty that began to wear off.
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We realized that we needed to keep people around longer
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engagement. We didn't call it that then, but
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you know, it was about like, oh, if they're only going to watch.
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A 4 minute video, you know, of Cyndi Lauper and then the
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Culture Club video comes on next.
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They don't like that they're going to turn the channel.
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So we're like, how do we keep them around longer?
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Because we're basically changing our programming every 4 minutes.
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So we decided we're going to make actual traditional
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television shows. So again, we didn't have a lot
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of money, so we did sort of cheaper kinds of things to game
13:00
show. We did a dance show, we did a
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news show. We're already doing news.
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And you know, the idea was you know not to.
13:10
Try and do a low rent version of what the networks were already
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doing. Why?
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Why would you watch the second best, third best, 4th best kind
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of show like that when you can have the best on the networks?
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We said we have to do something different.
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We have to find the white space and we have to do it in a way
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that they wouldn't do it. So we were very conscious of not
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imitating them, but you know, using some foundational things,
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but doing it our way. We used to, you know, I mean,
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the corny thing we used to say back then was, yeah, it's a game
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show. But it's got a rock'n'roll
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attitude, you know, very 80s. And it was just, you know, a
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game show that none of the networks would ever do because
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it was directly to young people. It had a sense of humor and it
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had music in it. And you know, it was just a
13:50
different take. And nobody had ever done that
13:52
before. And, you know, good idea is one
13:55
thing, but being able to execute against it is another.
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And I and I think we did obviously because MTV just
14:00
started to grow and grow and grow.
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It's the first sense of targeting, right?
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It's this first kind of sense of media targeting in that way that
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we see in Nauseam on platforms like Meta and TikTok.
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Well, yeah. Now it's.
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Yeah. Now it's evolved.
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Yeah, tremendously. But yeah, in those days it was,
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you know, these big broad platforms that it works.
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And you just threw stuff up there and saw what stick stuck.
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Now they weren't, you know, they were again, they were trying to
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reach everybody. So they're trying to reach most,
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I guess, you know, sort of families and adults.
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Right. There was different day parts
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that were set aside for kids, right?
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Afternoon. And they had kids program
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mornings. They had kids program Saturday
14:40
morning, but they didn't really speak to kids, right.
14:42
So what an opportunity for Nickelodeon created a network
14:44
just for kids that really spoke directly to them and not in the
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voice of like this big corporate network like a BC or NBC or CBS,
14:52
but something they really felt ownership of.
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And yeah, so that was, you know, the the, the branding.
14:57
The execution of these networks and the branding of them, you
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know they were strong, strong brands.
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These are tremendous brands, you know, MTV, Nickelodeon, CNN,
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ESPN, like, these are the real pillars of of basic cable.
15:09
Yeah, these are the storytelling.
15:11
These are the stories. I think with MTV is a great
15:13
example with your work is that MTV had such a great brand.
15:18
Like with it was like that's where the cool kids went.
15:20
It wasn't for the adults. It had such a brand of like it's
15:25
just a channel, but you felt like you were part of almost a
15:27
club. Yeah, exactly.
15:29
And that was, that was the whole idea was, yeah, it was like a
15:31
clubhouse and it was, it was a place to hang, right.
15:35
And, you know, in a world before social media, it's hard.
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You know, I talked to, you know, my kids and young people and,
15:42
you know, it's hard to wrap your head around because nothing like
15:45
it exists. I don't think anything ever will
15:46
again. But you know, there was a time
15:48
where MTV was kind of like Spotify, Snapchat.
15:54
TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, you know, YouTube all rolled into
15:58
one and it it was the thing. And if you were a young person,
16:04
you know you wanted and needed to be there.
16:08
And like I said, it was a very particular place, very
16:09
particular time. They had a grip on young people
16:14
and popular culture in a way that I don't think has been
16:17
matched since. Yeah, and there's the immediacy
16:20
of it, Right? Right nowadays if you miss a
16:24
show or whatever, you can watch it on 10 of versions, 10 ways.
16:28
Then if you had missed out on the show, it was like that was
16:32
you were missing out on the club.
16:33
The water cooler conversation was very different.
16:35
It was like you actually missed out on something.
16:38
Yeah, no, you had to be. That was with all TV, you know.
16:41
You know you had to if you, if you weren't there that you tried
16:45
to wait for a rerun at some point, which nobody ever knew,
16:47
you know when that was coming. I always tell the story, you
16:49
know, when Friends was on. In the heyday of friends I was,
16:53
I was starting my family and working and I was commuting from
16:57
New York to Westchester and I'd get home late every night and
16:59
that was like an era, like I just missed friends.
17:01
Like I never saw it, but it rarely saw it when it was on
17:04
because I was busy putting my kids to bed and and by the time
17:07
the dust cleared it, you know ER was on or something, but you
17:11
know and if you didn't see friends or have you know.
17:15
The intelligence, which most people did not on how to use a
17:18
home VHS machine and tape, something which people rarely
17:21
did because it was so complicated, you just missed it
17:24
so you had to be there. So yeah, I missed the whole
17:26
Friends water cooler era, but I enjoy watching them catching up
17:30
on streaming. So what was it like to be
17:35
actually creating in that era of?
17:39
Cable TV and content creation, I know you start up at MTV as a TV
17:44
producer, So what was the role of storytelling in that position
17:50
back then? Well, we were always very
17:52
conscious of who we were talking to.
17:55
We're very, very focused on the audience.
17:57
That was #1 I really credit, you know, the folks who started MTV,
18:01
the founders and Bob Pittman and John Sykes and folks like that,
18:05
you know, for real. Focus on that and wanting to
18:07
super serve the audience. And so it was all, you know,
18:09
it's all about the audience. And will they, you know, is this
18:11
for our audience? It's not supposed to be for
18:14
everybody. It's supposed to be for our
18:15
audience. And we did a lot of research and
18:17
digging and you know, trying to understand our audience as much
18:20
as possible. There was a lot of young people,
18:22
a lot of likeminded people. There wasn't a lot of money and
18:25
there was a this great permission to experiment,
18:29
permission to fail and permission to try things.
18:32
And you know, that changed over time, obviously as the business
18:35
matures. But in the early days when not
18:37
everybody's watching and. You know, you're just, you know,
18:39
you're just trying things out and trying to figure it out.
18:41
And we did a lot of that and it was super fun.
18:43
I mean, it really was super, super fun.
18:46
You know, I kind of want to talk about also that jump from MTV to
18:50
Comedy Central leading to really important and impactful channels
18:56
that have really had a huge impact on pop culture then and
18:59
now. What was that jump like and how
19:02
did you kind of content switch in a way to be immersed from the
19:06
MTV world into the more comedy world?
19:10
Well, at the time, Comedy Central was half owned.
19:14
It was a joint venture. At the time, it was half owned
19:17
by Viacom through MTV and Time Warner through HBO.
19:24
Both of those companies had competing comedy channels which
19:27
were failing and the cable operator said, look, we don't
19:29
want two, we want one. You guys figured out we're not
19:31
going to choose. We think the best idea is to
19:34
merge, which they did. And then it it kind of fumbled
19:37
around for a couple years, didn't really gain much
19:40
traction. And then this opportunity came
19:41
up. I was sort of like the number
19:43
two person at MTV and this opportunity came up to be able
19:45
to lead Comedy Central. I'd always been a big comedy
19:47
fan. I brought some comedy on to MTV.
19:50
So it was of great interest to me and it was very different
19:54
from MTV. You know this this is 1995.
19:56
MTV is flying high MTV. After the launch in the 80s, you
20:03
know, it really hit its stride to a certain degree in the late
20:05
90s and beyond, you know, with both TRL and and you know what
20:11
became known as reality television, which was something
20:13
we were already into with the real world and that kind of
20:16
thing. And so going over to Comedy
20:18
Central was kind of going from the New York Yankees to like,
20:21
you know, the last Place team. They were only about three, 3,
20:25
1/2 years old. They were very much fumbling and
20:27
fledgling, you know. So I saw, I saw that as a great
20:30
opportunity, you know, kind of a nowhere to go but up.
20:32
And pretty quickly I was able to you know, bring South Park over.
20:39
And also, you know, we developed and created The Daily Show.
20:43
And so those became the pillars of Comedy Central and are the
20:47
two shows that really, I think, got it into what, you know, the
20:50
Major Leagues, South Park in particular, which took off very,
20:53
very, very quickly and really drove distribution and The Daily
20:57
Show, obviously over time, you know, it did not start with Jon
20:59
Stewart and really took off when Jon Stewart became the host in
21:03
1999. A lot of folks in the comedy
21:06
world thought, wow, two of the best things out there are The
21:08
Daily Show and South Park. I want to be on that network.
21:10
And it was great because we got, you know, ended up doing things
21:13
with, you know, Amy Schumer and Key and Peele and Dave Chappelle
21:20
and, you know, just because the list goes on and on and on,
21:22
right. So it was, it was the story of,
21:24
you know, something, you know, getting built brick by brick and
21:27
then you got to get, you know, I did a lot of storytelling in
21:29
those days going out and you know, sort of selling the idea
21:32
of Comedy Central and where we were going and what we were
21:34
doing and how it was going to become a home base for comedy.
21:36
And you know, we were able to execute against that narrative
21:39
and and succeed. So it was it was all worked out.
21:43
You know, I want to dig into The Daily Show a little bit as well
21:45
because it's such it's one of my favorites.
21:47
It's such an amazing program. Can you tell us a little bit
21:52
about what the initial conceit for this was and how did it
21:56
change when Jon Stewart came on? Well, the initial conceit was
22:01
I'd gotten to Comedy Central and one of the IT was Comedy Central
22:05
was filled with it was being programmed largely by a lot of
22:09
crappy reruns in movies, comedy shows.
22:11
We certainly couldn't afford the best stuff and we did some
22:15
originals. The one thing that actually,
22:17
well, they had, Bill Maher had a show called Politically
22:20
Incorrect, which as soon as I arrived at Comedy Central, he he
22:24
notified me that he was leaving. So I knew I had to replace Bill
22:28
Maher and I thought, you know, the hottest thing on basic cable
22:34
back then in 1995. You guys are too young to
22:36
remember this. Ask your parents or your dad's.
22:39
But it was ESPN Sports Center and it was hosted by Dan Patrick
22:44
and Keith Olbermann. And again, this isn't a world
22:46
before social media. You can get every highlight and
22:49
and game on your phone and everybody watched the primetime
22:54
version of Sports Center every night for the highlights and
22:57
they're sort of repartee. They had a great chemistry.
23:01
They were very funny and snarky and and it and it it became a
23:05
real thing. It was one of the highest rated
23:07
shows on cable as a national sensation.
23:08
They're on the cover TV Guide. I mean they were two of the
23:11
hottest guys in all of of the business and I thought we need
23:15
our own Sports Center. We need our own home base where
23:18
people come every day to get a take up, to take a comedic take
23:22
on the day. Because I looked at Comedy
23:23
Central, I saw all these reruns and I thought, you know, if you
23:25
watch Comedy Central on Monday, why are you gonna watch it on
23:28
Tuesday? It's gonna be all the same stuff
23:30
for the most part. So I said we need to be funny
23:32
every day. We need to be fresh and funny
23:34
and give people, you know, our take on the world.
23:36
And I thought, you know, I wanted elements of like Johnny
23:39
at the time, Johnny Carson's, you know, monologue.
23:43
I wanted elements of Howard Stern.
23:45
I wanted elements of Sports Center.
23:49
And really, honestly, the biggest inspiration was Weekend
23:53
Update on Saturday Night Live. I said we're going to do Weekend
23:55
Update every night. And that was the idea.
23:58
And you know, we very quickly landed on a format, you know,
24:02
which still stands to this day. And we hired a guy named Craig
24:05
Kilbourne who actually came out of ESPN.
24:08
And you know, and we had some success with with Craig early
24:11
on. And then he jumped to CBS and we
24:15
hired Jon Stewart. And then the show changed
24:17
dramatically, and John and The Daily Show took off on a
24:21
completely different trajectory, which brought it to the highest
24:25
heights imaginable, including, you know, a gazillion Emmy wins.
24:29
And what would you say were some of those critical changes to the
24:34
the show format that really wanted to take off point of
24:37
view? First of all, you know Craig is
24:40
a is a not untalented comic personality.
24:45
You know, I think he did not bring a ton of point of view to
24:49
it. We honestly didn't let him.
24:51
It was more of a producer, writer show when he was hosting.
24:54
But I'm not sure I I don't think he had, you know, what Jon
24:57
Stewart ultimately brought to it.
24:58
And so Jon brought this very distinct point of view, which he
25:00
developed over time and and honestly, you know, less of an
25:04
emphasis on celebrities, which is what we, you know, we're
25:07
making fun of a lot. And and he started to take the
25:10
show in the direction of like, let's take a look at what's
25:12
going on in terms of real news, hard news, political news and
25:17
have fun with that. And he, you know, I mean the
25:19
rest is history. He did it in such a masterful
25:24
you know incredible way that you know I mean you know John
25:27
created. You know you look at all the
25:28
shows that are out there today. These are all spawn of you know
25:31
Jon Stewart. You know everybody that's you
25:33
know everybody that's doing something like The Daily Show
25:35
owes a debt of gratitude to John cuz he broke down the the walls
25:38
cuz you know hey I'll tell you the first one and John I had
25:40
many many conversations he'll tell you himself.
25:41
You know, I, you know I was a little bit of like nobody wants
25:44
to hear about politics and you know I was wrong.
25:47
John was right and you know look where the world is now.
25:49
That's all we talk about. Yeah, I mean that.
25:51
That comedic style of politics is just such an important
25:55
educator. For people, it's how I learned
25:57
so much about politics. I mean, we look at the shows
26:00
that had huge impacts on understanding of civil discourse
26:04
and I think the daily shows up there with The West Wing and
26:08
with The Newsroom and with probably now 1000% thousand
26:13
percent. Yeah.
26:14
Yeah. And, you know, there was a
26:15
little, you know, I ignored the note that I should have
26:17
remembered from MTV, which is when we did the Choose or Lose
26:20
campaign, you know, which was encouraging people to get out
26:23
and vote. And we started covering politics
26:25
on MTV, which at the time I also thought was a little silly.
26:28
And I was wrong again. So I did.
26:31
I did not. I did not learn from my lesson
26:33
that well. But I was smart enough to let
26:35
Jon Stewart do his thing. And also like the show was such
26:40
a you mentioned how so many shows spawned from that, but not
26:43
only just like idea wise, but talent wise, like it was such a
26:47
great breeding ground for talent to develop like.
26:51
I think Stephen Colbert is unbelievable.
26:52
John Oliver, yeah. Colbert, John Oliver Carell, you
26:56
know, Rob Riggle at Helms, you know, and now you got a new
27:01
batch, you know, folks like, you know, Roy Wood Junior and Jordan
27:04
Klepper and Desi and, you know, I mean, it's Hassan.
27:10
You know, John had an amazing eye for talent amongst, you
27:12
know, his many talents, you know, so it's almost turned into
27:15
like a mini Saturday Night Live where he was able to find these
27:18
great, great, talented people, give them a platform, launch
27:21
them into the world, give them an opportunity.
27:23
And yeah, I mean, it's pretty extraordinary when you look
27:26
back, quite an array of folks. Yeah, I mean, it was just such a
27:30
great way for. Yeah, Trevor know, of course.
27:32
It's such a great way for them to develop their brand and
27:35
figure out who they were. And as comedians, I think that
27:37
was. So yeah, it was a lot more
27:39
specific versus SNL where you could.
27:42
The Daily Show is a very specific thing, so you had to
27:45
come in with an appetite for that kind of stuff.
27:50
There wasn't really a, you know, place to train because nobody
27:53
was really doing it for The Daily Show.
27:55
But it was all about news, current events, politics, you
27:59
know, and being relevant and newsworthy.
28:02
As well as, you know, funny. Which is the hardest part.
28:07
OKI want to ask one last question on The Daily Show.
28:09
One last question on The Daily Show.
28:11
Obviously the host brings such a important.
28:15
Consistent element. I mean it's a daily, it's a
28:17
Daily Show, it's in the moment, it's current.
28:23
It's it's like and it's so tough to do in this kind of streaming
28:26
world to bring a show like that. And that's why cable is so
28:30
important as a medium for it. Talking about the host right
28:33
now, with the rotating host set up and Comedy Center trying out
28:37
different hosts, what do you think the importance of having a
28:41
consistent host is? And.
28:43
What? What do you think?
28:44
What are you liking about this rotating host until they kind of
28:48
decide on someone? Well, I haven't been watching
28:51
much. I've seen a lot of the clips.
28:53
I thought it was an interesting strategy.
28:56
And you know, I'm a little more traditional, like I'd want to
29:01
make a just personally, I'd want to make a priority out of
29:04
getting somebody in there who is going to be there every night.
29:06
So you can start building that. On the flip side, you know the
29:10
ratings went up, so which is very hard to do these days.
29:13
So I give them a lot of credit. The ratings went up and I guess
29:15
there was a lot of interest in checking all these people out.
29:19
It's very, I think it's tough on the production crew to sort of
29:22
change gears a little bit, although I think the production
29:25
team likes it a little better because they're kind of in
29:27
control rather than the individual hosts because the
29:29
hosts are just coming and going, they're just renting the seat.
29:32
So I think the producers are like, they're sort of calling
29:35
the shots more than a host would.
29:37
You know, when Jon Stewart's sitting there or Trevor Noah's
29:39
sitting there, they're calling all the shots When there's a
29:44
guest host, they're not. So I don't know.
29:47
I mean, you know, like I said, they had more success than I
29:51
thought they would with the rotating thing.
29:53
So I don't know where they'll go from there.
29:55
I was always, you know, and look, and I also operated these
29:58
networks in a very different environment.
30:00
The landscape has changed dramatically.
30:02
You know, I left Comedy Central at the end of 2016.
30:05
The landscape has changed dramatically since then.
30:08
And so, you know, different times, maybe take a different
30:12
approach. You know when when when John
30:14
left, and this has been reported, there was a minute
30:18
there where Chris Rock threw up his hand and said he wanted to
30:21
host the show temporarily and I turn him down.
30:25
Might have been stupid, but I was just, you know what, I
30:28
didn't want to do something with Chris for a couple of months,
30:30
then have to change gears again when we got in the, you know,
30:34
and so I said no, you were just going to put our heads down to
30:36
find a new host and that's what we did.
30:39
But you know, that was a different strategy for a
30:40
different time. Now I have to ask what was the
30:43
selection process like for Trevor?
30:47
I mean not there was a very short list.
30:51
We Trevor's name came up immediately.
30:55
We hardly knew him at all. He had only done two or three
30:57
pieces on The Daily Show. But to me as like, Oh my God,
31:01
you could just see the guy. You know, he was a, you know, A5
31:05
cool player. If we're talking baseball, he
31:07
could write stand up. Super funny, charming, handsome,
31:12
brilliant, smart, global. I mean, he's just so checked so
31:16
many boxes. But I and these shows are really
31:19
hard to do. They look easy.
31:21
They're really hard. And I just, I don't know.
31:23
I just had the sense he was up to it.
31:25
So anyway, his name came up first.
31:27
But you know we wanted to explore some bigger names and
31:29
some bigger opportunities before we were going to sort of you
31:32
know, get to Trevor and not something he doesn't know, I
31:35
don't think. But you know we had a couple of
31:39
serious conversations. Not a ton.
31:40
My, my sense was there's a lot of people who wanted to be
31:43
asked, you know, who could say, oh, they asked me to do The
31:47
Daily Show and most of them had no one shouldn't doing it.
31:50
And for established stars, you know, the idea of taking over
31:54
for Jon Stewart is very dangerous thing, right?
31:57
I mean, you're taking over for Michael Jordan, right?
32:00
You're taking over for Muhammad Ali.
32:02
So, like, where's the upside, right.
32:04
Are you going to do better than him?
32:06
I mean, you could. I'm a never say never guy, but
32:08
it's going to be very tough. So I think ultimately it was a
32:12
better idea for somebody who had something to prove, and that's
32:15
where we ended up. Yeah, these transitions are so
32:17
interesting because I think with Trevor Noah to is it wasn't
32:20
about doing better, it was about doing different.
32:22
It's about how these unique hosts bring their own brand and
32:25
their own story. It's going to be a different
32:28
show, and I actually think we're seeing that again.
32:31
It needed to be, you know, John actually gave us great advice
32:34
early on, he says. Don't look for, you know, like
32:37
the next version of me. That's a fool's game, right?
32:39
Fine. You got to go in a different
32:41
direction and find something different, something that, you
32:43
know, they're always going to compare him to John.
32:45
But, you know, not somebody who's trying to be John, right?
32:48
Somebody who's trying to be themselves, which is very much
32:50
whichever Trevor did. And then you know, the other
32:53
thing that's going back to your question about the rotating
32:55
host, you know, the other thing about the environment is I don't
32:58
know that late night television matters as much anymore, right?
33:01
You know, we built this show in 1995, pre Internet, pre social
33:06
media. You know, this is when people
33:08
still would stay up till 11:00 or 11:30 to watch Johnny Carson
33:14
give them their take on the day that no longer exists anymore.
33:17
You know the, you know, late night was a time slot and a day
33:21
part and a time of day. And I don't you know now when
33:25
you can watch everything or anything at any time.
33:28
I don't know that late night matters like it used to and and
33:31
why? Who's waiting till 11:00 or
33:33
11:30 to hear their best jokes of the day?
33:35
You're getting them all day in real time on Twitter from a
33:39
variety of sources. Well, so that was actually going
33:43
to be my next question about reality shows and about late
33:45
night about this idea of consistent daily programming,
33:51
which was inherently A scheduling idea.
33:55
Right. Like how does that survive in
33:58
this new dynamic? I know some shows have done it
33:59
really well. Like obviously SNL has its own
34:02
thing. It's doesn't have the SNL is the
34:05
anomaly. Yeah, I always say nothing lasts
34:08
forever except SNL. I mean they're going to be it's
34:10
they're going I think on season 49 they will get you know Lorne
34:14
Michaels will take it to season 50 for sure.
34:16
And it's just amazing that, you know, and they do in the show,
34:19
you know, basically the same way that they started it in 1975
34:24
format wise, it's just incredible.
34:26
So hats off to him. But even that show, you know
34:29
they here on the West Coast, they now show it live at 8:30 on
34:33
Saturday night. So you don't have to wait till
34:36
11 to see it anymore. But God bless them and, you
34:40
know, that's just an amazing, amazing story.
34:42
And, you know, I'm a huge fan of Saturday Night Live and always
34:44
have been. But the idea of, you know, like
34:48
late night is a date part and a destination.
34:51
I think it's going away. I mean, you know, it's not going
34:53
away tomorrow. You know, Jimmy Kimmel's going
34:55
to be doing his things as long as he wants to do it.
34:57
And Jimmy Fallon and, you know, as long as they're making money
35:00
and they are not making the same kind of money they made ten
35:02
years ago. But I here's what I would say
35:05
when Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon leave late night and
35:10
that's not going to be tomorrow, It's going to be a couple of
35:12
years from now. I'd be curious to see if
35:14
there'll be anybody that actually replaces them or those
35:16
shows go away. And that concludes part one of
35:25
our conversation with Doug Herzog.
35:27
In our next episode, we will finish this discussion exploring
35:31
more interesting topics around the history of cable TV, how
35:36
cable TV content were designed. Around advertisements, how
35:41
politics affected cable in more recent years, and the legacy of
35:48
cable TV, so stay tuned. In the meantime, if you like our
35:52
content, make sure to subscribe and follow us on Instagram and
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TikTok at LSPT Pod, LinkedIn linen Suit, and plastic tie.
36:03
We'll see you next time.