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Interview With Bruce Tuchman: Masters in Business (Audio) · Masters in Business

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, committed
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  Speaker 1: That's the power of Global Connections. Bank of America North
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  Speaker 1: America member f d i C. This is Masters in
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  Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. This week on
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  Speaker 1: the podcast, I have Bruce Tuckman. He helped bring a
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  Speaker 1: number of US channels overseas, number of television channels like
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  Speaker 1: Sundance and a m C and MTV and Nickelodeon and
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of others. Uh. Global Uh. And we really
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  Speaker 1: have a fascinating conversation, especially when we get loose in
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  Speaker 1: the podcast portion talking about the future of video and
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  Speaker 1: what it's gonna look like. Uh. This is an industry
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  Speaker 1: very much influx with both a rich um collection of
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  Speaker 1: original content. He describes us at at peak television and
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  Speaker 1: there's no to go but down from here because it
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  Speaker 1: is so overwhelmingly excellent. But the nature of television is changing,
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  Speaker 1: the nature of content distribution is not going to be
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  Speaker 1: what it used to be, where it's just a fat
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  Speaker 1: cable or or satellite to your house and you buy
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  Speaker 1: a package in that that's it. Video on demand, streaming, downloading.
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  Speaker 1: These are having major changes on how the industry is progressing,
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  Speaker 1: and it's really in a period of dynamic flux. So
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  Speaker 1: if you at all are interested in content creation, or
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  Speaker 1: in how the nuts and bolts of of content gets
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  Speaker 1: distributed around the world, or really what the state of
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  Speaker 1: media is gonna look like in five, ten, twenty years,
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  Speaker 1: I think you'll really enjoy this conversation. So, with no
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  Speaker 1: further ado, my conversation with Bruce Tuckman. This is Masters
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  Speaker 1: in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special
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  Speaker 1: guest today is Bruce Tufman. He began his career as
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  Speaker 1: an m and a attorney at Scandon Arps before entering
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  Speaker 1: the world of television, where he helped bring such brands
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  Speaker 1: as MTV, Nickelodeon, Sundance Channel, and a MC to a
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  Speaker 1: global audience, taking American content to more than a hundred
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  Speaker 1: and forty countries around the world. Bruce Tuffman, Welcome to Bloomberg.
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  Speaker 1: Very good to be here. I appreciate your having me so.
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  Speaker 1: I found your background really fascinating. Um, you're an expert
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  Speaker 1: on video content on modern television streaming and video one demand.
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  Speaker 1: So we'll get into Amazon, Netflix and a whole bunch
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  Speaker 1: of of related companies in a few minutes. But you
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  Speaker 1: began your career as a corporate m and a attorney.
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  Speaker 1: How do you go from that to essentially running a
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  Speaker 1: handful of television networks? Um? It seemed less secuitous. I
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  Speaker 1: supposed to me. UM. I always had a passion for
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  Speaker 1: the entertainment business. UM. I also UM had really wanted
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  Speaker 1: to I. I had taken time after college, I moved
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  Speaker 1: abroad to Spain to develop some of my international business skills,
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  Speaker 1: my Spanish language skills. At that point, as a young
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  Speaker 1: man living in Spain, I decided grad school may make sense.
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  Speaker 1: I was thinking of taking the GMAT or the l's at.
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  Speaker 1: It had been a while since I was doing the
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  Speaker 1: cutting edge math that you need for the GMAT. So
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  Speaker 1: I took the l's at. And I went to law school,
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  Speaker 1: and I worked for SCADD and I had a phenomenal,
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  Speaker 1: phenomenal training ground and learned a lot. But my passion
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  Speaker 1: had always been the entertainment business. And I reached a
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  Speaker 1: point in my career there after about five years or so,
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  Speaker 1: that I thought, I don't have kids yet, not married,
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  Speaker 1: I could make to shift with less risk, and I
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  Speaker 1: really started developing this passion, this idea that if you
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  Speaker 1: if you don't follow with your passion in life, you're
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  Speaker 1: not going to be happy later in life. So I
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  Speaker 1: did that and no regrets for that. So, so, how
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  Speaker 1: do you go from SCAN to MTV? That is not
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  Speaker 1: a natural career path or is it? Was there a
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  Speaker 1: transactional relationship with Viacom or anything and suddenly someone said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you'd be perfect for this. It's a great question. There
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  Speaker 1: isn't that and it may not seem natural. But what
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  Speaker 1: I had been doing back in late eighties early nineties,
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  Speaker 1: I really focused on international M and A and corporate,
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  Speaker 1: So I spent a couple of years of my time
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  Speaker 1: in Scatton's London office. So he's learning a lot about
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  Speaker 1: cross border transactions. And it just so happened at that time,
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  Speaker 1: pretty much in the cable and satellite business, these big
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  Speaker 1: brands from the US were beginning their international expansion and
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  Speaker 1: they had a lot of great ideas, a lot of
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  Speaker 1: creative passion, but they didn't really have a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people who knew how to structure one's presence in an
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  Speaker 1: international market. How would the media laws and regulations affect
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  Speaker 1: a business? How do you structure a joint venture with
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  Speaker 1: a foreign partner? So I had those skills, so I
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  Speaker 1: came on board originally to spearhead the legal and business
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  Speaker 1: affairs aspects of MTV and Nickelodeon's launch into the international markets.
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  Speaker 1: That's quite interest. So really between Spain and London, that
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  Speaker 1: was your graduate school for taking television brands content brands overseas.
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  Speaker 1: It was the beginning and I had some really amazing insights.
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  Speaker 1: I worked on one project in particular, which was the
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  Speaker 1: restructuring of news Corps debt back in the early nineties.
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  Speaker 1: That was so that was for scatting in the London office.
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  Speaker 1: News Corps is at that point not really a behemoth
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  Speaker 1: in the US, but huge in in the UK and
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  Speaker 1: also amazingly taken to task for funding Sky. Sky was
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  Speaker 1: their baby, that was bringing the whole ship down. Um
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  Speaker 1: now we all know what happened. They restructured and Sky
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  Speaker 1: is a behemoth and an incredible business. Uh. But it
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  Speaker 1: was fascinating being there for the early years of Sky
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  Speaker 1: and seeing what that business came to and it was
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  Speaker 1: very um eye opening for me. Next along the career path,
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  Speaker 1: you ended up taking MGM Networks worldwide. Tell us what
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  Speaker 1: that experience was like, how did that start, What obstacles
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  Speaker 1: did you run into? What were the surprises along the way? Sure? So,
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  Speaker 1: after I spent a year doing legal with MTV, and
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  Speaker 1: then I shifted to Nickelodeon to the business side, and
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  Speaker 1: I was primarily responsible for spring the growth and the
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  Speaker 1: launch of international channels all over the world. Again, this
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  Speaker 1: was a company that I have very few, if any
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  Speaker 1: channels outside of the US, and with me leading a
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  Speaker 1: team and a lot of other good people, we launched
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  Speaker 1: this network plus people. Was it was it all at once?
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  Speaker 1: You rolled out to a hundred paces Towards six years
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  Speaker 1: working at and um SO, I learned a lot about
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  Speaker 1: the international cable and settled business was at its birth
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  Speaker 1: more or less than um SO. I went to MGM
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  Speaker 1: after that because I think the challenge I wanted after
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  Speaker 1: bringing this great kids network all over the world um
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  Speaker 1: I was really passionate about this business of launching new brands,
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  Speaker 1: linear what we call linear now PayTV networks. So I
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  Speaker 1: had this opportunity with MGM, and what I loved about
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  Speaker 1: it is MGM really did not have anywhere in just
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  Speaker 1: a couple of places branded TV channels. It's a great brand.
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  Speaker 1: It's the biggest modern film library in Hollywood, at least
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  Speaker 1: at the time, and uh that was a gaping opportunity
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  Speaker 1: UH that hadn't been uh covered by MGM. So so
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  Speaker 1: before we get too deep into MGM, how do overseas
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  Speaker 1: markets for television and video differ from from US markets?
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  Speaker 1: What's the demand like, what is the taste like? And
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  Speaker 1: how does the regulatory and corporate structure compared to what
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  Speaker 1: we have here? Great questions. As you can imagine, every
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  Speaker 1: country may be a little different the international markets. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: we're probably a generation behind the US in terms of
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  Speaker 1: just rolling out the physical plan. Give you an example,
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  Speaker 1: Uh in the nineties when I started bringing channels to India,
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  Speaker 1: of all places, cable and satellite was just born. There
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  Speaker 1: were no homes. Now they're more cable and satellite homes
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  Speaker 1: in India by far than the US. So all this
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  Speaker 1: stuff developed very quickly. Um, every market's a little different,
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  Speaker 1: but many many markets. Now you'll find a majority of
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  Speaker 1: households have pay TV. Not all markets, but many regulatory wise, UM,
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  Speaker 1: as you can imagine over the years when this business
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  Speaker 1: just emerged. It was a wild West. There are few regulations.
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  Speaker 1: Now you look at a lot of markets, it's tougher
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  Speaker 1: and tougher by the day. In terms of programming, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm Barry rid Hults. You're listening to Masters in Business
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  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week is Bruce Tuckman.
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  Speaker 1: He was the head of MGM Worldwide Networks as well
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  Speaker 1: as MC Global, taking US television networks to over a
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  Speaker 1: hundred and forty countries around the world. Let's let's before
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  Speaker 1: we get into a MC let's talk a little more
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  Speaker 1: about MGM and the massive library of classic and films
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  Speaker 1: that they had. What are the tastes like overseas? How
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  Speaker 1: did you find the MGM brands played in Asia and Europe?
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  Speaker 1: How did that work? Right? I think overseas, again, depending
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  Speaker 1: on the market, you're gonna have a combination of two
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  Speaker 1: things that work and pay television. Local content obviously is big,
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  Speaker 1: and I'd say the more removed people are from the
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  Speaker 1: English language media markets, the local seen as much bigger,
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  Speaker 1: so Japan, Korea, India, that's by far the dominant form
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  Speaker 1: of content will be content produced indigenously in local language.
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  Speaker 1: But every market in the world. They there is room
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  Speaker 1: for Hollywood content. It is very popular and larger or
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  Speaker 1: smaller degrees, but it's always very popular. Now, what I
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  Speaker 1: saw with MGM was the opportunity to take a brand
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  Speaker 1: that arguably has some of the most long term goodwill
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  Speaker 1: of any brand. I mean, it is synonymous with film.
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  Speaker 1: How big is that library? Library at the time was forms.
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  Speaker 1: So the combination of some great films and the brand,
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  Speaker 1: well that that's what all pay TV was at that
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  Speaker 1: point in time. If you have a good brand, you
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  Speaker 1: have good content. That's what subscribers are gonna want and
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  Speaker 1: what cable operators are gonna want because they don't want
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  Speaker 1: to get behind unknown brands, unknown content. It's an easy sell.
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  Speaker 1: MGM meant too many people in the world. MGM means
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  Speaker 1: great movies, and the movies themselves were great movies. So
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  Speaker 1: it was a fantastic run and we went from about
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  Speaker 1: zero channels and in ten years we had tens and
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  Speaker 1: tens of millions of subscribers in about a hundred and
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  Speaker 1: forty countries all around. So now let's talk a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about AMC, which over the past couple of years
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  Speaker 1: has become a monster monster brand not just for what
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  Speaker 1: I I think of them as American movie classics, we're
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  Speaker 1: kind of where what they began. But for some really
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  Speaker 1: definitive original content. So how was the AMC brand different
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  Speaker 1: than MGM and how did it play overseas well? A
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  Speaker 1: couple of interesting things. So I think for the core demo,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps that that is right now watching Walking Dead and
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  Speaker 1: have watched Breaking Bad. Um, don't forget mad Men and
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  Speaker 1: another one. I'd say, by the way, these are those
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  Speaker 1: are three pretty much definitive original programs over the past
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  Speaker 1: ten five you know, Throwing the Sopranos it's hard, and
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  Speaker 1: then Seinfeld the decade before that. That pretty much dominates
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  Speaker 1: what what people have been at least talking about. I agree,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you don't sell games thrown short either, But um,
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  Speaker 1: it was brand defining obviously for AMC network. And I think,
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  Speaker 1: and I think a lot of the people watching it
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  Speaker 1: now that demo may not even remember American Movie Classics.
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  Speaker 1: They think of AMC in those terms. It's Walking Dead
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  Speaker 1: and Breaking and not bringing up Baby. That's not that's
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  Speaker 1: not the NADA process, that's correct. So that raises the
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  Speaker 1: question how important is the development of original content to
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  Speaker 1: a branded channel like AMC huge. Um. There have been
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  Speaker 1: um evolutions in this PayTV market. It used to be
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  Speaker 1: dominated by libraries, second run library content. If you think
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  Speaker 1: about even HBO and Showtime. In the earlier years, it
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  Speaker 1: was the second run perhaps it was movies. It was movies,
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  Speaker 1: and it was stand up comedy specials, and that was
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  Speaker 1: pretty much it. Correct. So the market got more and
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  Speaker 1: more competitive, and original programming became necessary to distinguish a
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  Speaker 1: channel from others and more competitive market, and especially now
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  Speaker 1: with the slowing and in fact declining subscriber universe. UM,
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  Speaker 1: you've got to do everything you can to reach a
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  Speaker 1: big audience. And you just can't cut corners by showing
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  Speaker 1: cheap reruns anymore. That will not work. UM. So that
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  Speaker 1: that's the state we are in now with having to
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  Speaker 1: invest in all this original programming. So a question that
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  Speaker 1: I had that I think is I imagine other people
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  Speaker 1: would also is how similar is the taste of consumers
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  Speaker 1: of film and television watchers overseas to us in the
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  Speaker 1: United States? Does Don Draper play overseas? Is that the
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  Speaker 1: sort of thing? Does Walter White have a resonance in Japan?
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  Speaker 1: You know, these are really definitive US characters on all
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  Speaker 1: ends of the spectrum. How are how are these shows
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  Speaker 1: and how are these characters um accepted in other markets? Correct?
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  Speaker 1: For I'd say the last six or seven or eight years,
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  Speaker 1: the what we're calling peak TV or the drama renaissance.
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  Speaker 1: This is global phenomena. Uh, not just here in the
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  Speaker 1: United States. Not Golden Age of television is in the US,
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  Speaker 1: and from the age of television may have there. I
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  Speaker 1: think there's more nuanced to that. But the top quality
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  Speaker 1: dramas produced in the English language are are really romping
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  Speaker 1: around the world. Um. So you can go tell us
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  Speaker 1: what's big overseas right now? Well, I mean Game of
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  Speaker 1: Thrones is huge, Walking Dead, um, Stranger Things from Netflix
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  Speaker 1: has done incredibly well in terms of seeing what the
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  Speaker 1: global demand for that is. Um. Mr Robots doing terrifically. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: So so these shows are really hot all over the world.
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  Speaker 1: Now it depends on the market. Do they dominate every
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  Speaker 1: market like they do in the US? No, not necessarily,
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  Speaker 1: because as I mentioned before, a place like India has
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  Speaker 1: an incredible local production industry. They're they're broadcast sting um
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  Speaker 1: original programming developed in India in a dozen different languages. However,
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  Speaker 1: these shows breakthrough, these dramas. Breakthrough in every single market
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  Speaker 1: all around the world may not happen five years from now,
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  Speaker 1: but we have been in this phase of the business
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  Speaker 1: for the last i'd say eight or so years where
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  Speaker 1: this is very was working. Let me throw a curve
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  Speaker 1: bowl at you. I remember moving out of the city
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  Speaker 1: to the suburbs a dozen plus years ago and not
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  Speaker 1: being happy that I couldn't get BBC America, which I
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  Speaker 1: was used to when I lived in Manhattan for twenty years,
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  Speaker 1: so I had to go to a satellite instead of
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  Speaker 1: the local cable. Now it's everywhere, but I recall shows
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  Speaker 1: like Doctor Who and top Gear really being global phenomenon
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  Speaker 1: a dozen years ago. Was the BBC the first network
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  Speaker 1: to really take themselves global? Did they set the uh
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  Speaker 1: the original model for this? I I think the pioneers
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  Speaker 1: were both the major Wood studios that have always had
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  Speaker 1: incredible sales arms for their TV and movie production all
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  Speaker 1: around the world, and BBC I would also put up
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  Speaker 1: in that category, especially within the Commonwealth Nations. BBC was
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  Speaker 1: always an important brand and always had an extensive network
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  Speaker 1: of channels and programming, and they put a lot of
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  Speaker 1: money um resources into getting that stuff all around the World.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters in Business on
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is Bruce Tuckman. He
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  Speaker 1: is a former m and a lawyer from Scandon Arps
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: who entered television and ended up taking over a number
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  Speaker 1: of channels UH such as Sundance, am C, MGM and
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  Speaker 1: bringing them global to over a hundred and forty countries.
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  Speaker 1: You're on the board of advisors of Parent Analytics. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a board member. Board member. Let's talk about what
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  Speaker 1: it means to try and measure audience UM. In the
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  Speaker 1: U S. We have Nielsen Ratings, which has been a
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  Speaker 1: lot of criticism and complaints that it doesn't capture UM,
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  Speaker 1: time shifting, it doesn't capture a lot of things. What's
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  Speaker 1: it like trying to measure viewership overseas well? I think
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  Speaker 1: it's funny even today after the election, we're seeing that
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  Speaker 1: taking a sample like Nielsen does. Nielsen has thirty thousand
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  Speaker 1: or so paneled homes only recently stopped using paper to
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  Speaker 1: document what people are watching, and they're extrapolating from that
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  Speaker 1: what people are watching. That is part of the basic
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  Speaker 1: underlying concern about extrapolation based panel based surveying of TV audiences.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: We we get so much information on the web about
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: website performance. We could track how long people are on
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a site, where they're coming from, how how quickly they
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: bounce off, where they click on the page, how how
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  Speaker 1: many different things they look at. It would make sense
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: that there should be some technology that does that on
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  Speaker 1: the video so well, sure, and that's what Parrot Analytics
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  Speaker 1: is doing. So if you think about the internet is
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  Speaker 1: a huge billion three billion, three point seven billion people
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  Speaker 1: are using the Internet every day. If you think about
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  Speaker 1: what you may be doing. If you like a show
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  Speaker 1: we mentioned Game of Thrones before, you may press a
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  Speaker 1: like on Facebook. You may read about um John snow
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  Speaker 1: on Wikipedia. You may follow something I'm reddit post something.
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  Speaker 1: You may even this happens a lot of markets. Uh
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  Speaker 1: illegally download four hours. So a company like Parrot Parrot
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  Speaker 1: is listening and scraping to all of these messages in
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  Speaker 1: the Internet, listening to everything, but more importantly weighing it all.
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  Speaker 1: If you download four hours and pirated of Game of Thrones,
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  Speaker 1: you're pretty passionate about a show. If you're liking it
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  Speaker 1: on Facebook, you like the show, but maybe not as
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  Speaker 1: much now if you weigh all that together, you could
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  Speaker 1: come up with a real, um, actual, genuine amount of
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  Speaker 1: data that people are expressing demand for TV shows, which
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  Speaker 1: I think is far more compelling than just having surveys
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  Speaker 1: where you're extrapulating, because but don't we run into potentially
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  Speaker 1: the same problem that hey, we're not actually measuring votes,
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  Speaker 1: but we're we're surveying. We're looking at what people say
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  Speaker 1: and do about candidates, were about shows, and trying to
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  Speaker 1: draw a conclusion about it from that model the differences,
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  Speaker 1: there's no conclusion being drawn. It's empirical. It is Okay,
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  Speaker 1: we've measured now a billion data points. These are powerful computers,
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  Speaker 1: and this is the facts. No conclusions are extrapolation to
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  Speaker 1: be drawn. This is what people are saying right now.
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  Speaker 1: So this is going to revolutionize the business. It's going
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  Speaker 1: to happen more and more. Obviously, I think a lot
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  Speaker 1: of these data measurement companies now are good compliments to Nielsen.
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  Speaker 1: There are sixty billion dollars of transactions going down based
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  Speaker 1: on Nielsen. But at some point the data has to
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  Speaker 1: come in and form a little bit. So so let's
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  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that big data. How can
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: we use big data and analytics to figure out how
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: valuable specific content is. You can because you can see
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: what people are saying out there. And it's not only
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: see what people are saying empirically, you actually can see
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: who they are, what their demographics are. You can find
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: out what products they like. You can say, Wow, this
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Game of Thrones person, I can see this person. I
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: can see this person also likes Lincoln Motors and also
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: likes Dan and yogurt Um. So we're only at the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: beginning of all of that, and I think over the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: long run, a paper based survey is still based on
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: essentially UM Johannes Guttenberg's ideas, it's gonna be very different.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Is is the technology UM consistent between the US and overseas?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Can you generate the same sort of analytics and is
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: it as accurate there as here or vice versa? Yeah,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: because I mean it's a global phenomena, the web. There's
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: no cultural differences from the US to Europe to Asia. No.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you're just measuring what people are watching
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: by using the Internet and using these sources where people
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: are expressing their demand for TV, you're just finding what
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: people are really saying. UM. So it's It's young, this industry,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: but it's powerful. Each year it evolves even stronger and stronger.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I'm Barry rid Halts. You're listening to Masters in Business
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. My guest today is Bruce Tuckman. He
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: has taken a number of US television channels worldwide, over
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: a hundred and forty countries. Let's talk a little bit
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: about streaming, UH and video on demand and what that means.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: You know, when I was a kid, we had the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: three networks and a handful of syndication, and by the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: time I got to high school, this thing called HBO
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: came along, and UH we had movies and curse words
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and stand up it was. It was revelatory. Today there's
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: content from everywhere. You have not only the networks but
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: all the pay channels. There seems to be everybody producing
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: their own content. I'm a huge fan of of f X, UM,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: am C, I f C. There's a whole run of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: shows that are spectacular. That's before we get to Netflix,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Amazon Prime. I'm sure I'm forgetting others. There's just an
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: embarrassment of riches when it comes to original programming. Is
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: this really a golden age of television? And how long
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: can this last? For? Yeah, it's They call it peak TV,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: but I call peaked TV in a way that it's peaked. Um,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: it's already peaked. Well, I think it's just a matter
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of time, and I'll explain why. Um, there's about five
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: original narrative drama is going to be produced in the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: US this year. Five You can never absorb all that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: That's probably around three times as much as when Madmen
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: came out seven or eight years ago. Really, yeah, so
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: what there is? Like any business, I suppose there's a
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: copycat phenomena because the success of a MC ffects even
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: what HBO and then Showtime and Stars Encore is doing.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: People have realized quality dramas not only rate, they define brands,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: they start the conversation in the morning. They add incredible value.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: So everyone's rushing to it. Is that sustainable, as the question?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's sustainable because people aren't watching all
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of the stuff anyway. You're finding overall, with a few
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: exceptions like perhaps Walking Dead or UM Game of Thrones,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you're seeing ratings decline. You're seeing the overall cable universe decrease.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: By now, what's becoming scary significant single digit percentages each year, UM.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And you're seeing advertising go down. So the economic basis,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: especially for basic cable TV, the overall revenue pool is declining.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: To keep investing in this high quality drama is not
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: going to be sustainable, so to shrink what what is
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: this the chord cutting phenomena of basically the millennials UM,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: who who aren't enthralled with the whole run of channels
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: they get with a cable package. They just want internet
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: service and they'll buy what they want on demand and
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that work. What does this mean to the future of
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the content industry? And is this why you think we're
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: we're post peak TV? Yes? I think so. I think
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the basic cable bundle is under the most pressure because
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: there's cord cutting, chord shaving. You've seen chord shaving, meaning
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you don't fully cut it, but you just go to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the base one less stuff. Why do I want all
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the three premium movie services when maybe I just want
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: HBO and I'll get Netflix or you know that that
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: could be one thing or new household formation. Younger people
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: aren't bothering UM. But the fact just that it's shrinking,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: even by single percentage digits. This is an industry that
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: has never seen that before. It's gonna it's a very
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: hard learning curve to learn how to adapt to that.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: And this isn't gonna get better. This is only gonna
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: get worse as the millennials, as the pig moves through
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the python. So it's gonna get worse. And and for
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Basic Cable, nothing's looking good in the right direction because
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: there's too many Basic cablers in this original narrative drama space.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Their revenue base is shrinking, the competitions intense, and at
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the same time it the format isn't so great. When
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you're breaking a show for commercials every fifteen minutes. Sometimes
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: you're conforming your storytelling to what maybe a very antiquated
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: format eight minutes, six minutes. Yeah, so you've got to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: build a little peak and then you go away for
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: four minutes. Now, if you look at what's going on
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Amazon or Netflix, they don't care about the length of
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: this show, right, I mean it's not they're telling. You're
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: telling a story, and the stories are compelling and they
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: don't break off. So I think both from a creative standpoint,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: business model standpoint, Basic Cables in big trouble. The Ola
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Carte networks. The streamers are much better shape, and younger
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: people seem to find them convenient, but so do older
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: people as well. I have to ask a question about
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the commercials and what you've defined. I mean, other than
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, I don't remember watching a commercial in
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the past decade. Every television has a DVR on it.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: They're now four thousand hours big, they're giant. Um. I
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: assume everybody else uses DVRs. And all you do is
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: if you want to start something, even if it's not
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: on DVR, you pause it. You do fifteen minutes worth
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: of yours, and now you have no commercials to worry about. Certainly,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: live viewing is shifting more and more each year to
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: DV yars or getting catch up on demand on your
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: cable system, downloading something from my tunes that you've missed. Um,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that's happening more and more there. It's gonna be it's
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: really gonna be hard to to stop that. Um. That
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that is a challenge. That that's profound for the industry,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and there doesn't seem to be a solution around that.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the DVD for for you young guns
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: out there. They actually used to put video content on
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: these round silver discs. I think you could still buy
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: them at various stores. Is that over or is the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: DVD finished? Or is this going to be a format
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: and blue ray and and four K and and everything else?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Is this gonna have any sort of legs? Sure? Um,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: it will get harder and harder obviously in smaller quantities
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to manufacture at economies of scale this kind of technology. However,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I look at some markets like Japan. I mean, Japan
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: really has a robust DVD business and seems to be
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: a part of a lot of people's lifestyle. Go to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the corner DVD store each night and pick something up.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: So don't they have a robust album like an LP
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: uh full thirty three's? I think that's and as well
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: as CDs. They haven't moved away from the physical und
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: There is that, and let's face it, there's very few
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: forms of predecessor media that completely vanishes. People are still
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: buying radios, right, They still do. It's not as big
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: a business. You can go though, into any best buy
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: or radio check around here and probably buy a transistor radio.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Now they're gonna have to produce less at better prices,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So I don't think it necessarily goes away right away,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: but but it's obviously fading and it will over time.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about the difference between streaming versus downloading.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So when you download something you essentially own it or
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: rent it for a period of time, versus just streaming
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: on demand. How are those two businesses different? And as
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: either of those um likely to become the dumb and
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: in methodology or are they going to co exist? They
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: have to coexist, and I think download is getting um
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: a dangerous short shrift, by which I mean it used
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to be my personal frustration as a guy on the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: planes A lot is with Netflix. I can't download anything,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I can't watch anything, I can't stream in an airplane.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: We all get frustrated about that. But that is, let's say,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: an elitist problem. Maybe that's very much a first world issue,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: but you know what, it's a bigger third world issue.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: You know what I'll tell you, because think about this.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: In a developing world, it costs a lot of money
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: to stream. Bandwidth is actually really slow, yet on demand
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: contents really valued. So what a lot of people are
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: doing in countries that represum one two three billion people.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: They'll go, for instance, to a mall where there's free WiFi,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: they watch there, but where they can download, that's where
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: they download. So they download everything for free, go home
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: and watch it. So the idea of even emporary downloads
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: is so necessary for the long term health of the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: streaming business, and not just to please your consumers. I mean,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: if you're in Dubai or if you're in Thailand and
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: you're paying forty dollars and data charges to download, you're
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: gonna be upset at your provider. But I would also
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: say for the studios, the producers of content themselves and
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: get wigged out about downloads. If you don't offer temporary
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: downloads to your paying streaming customers, it'll be pirated then
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the next day. So you make the choice really well, yeah,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: because if something is available at a reasonable cost, you're
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: already subscribing to a streaming service and it's their day
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and day with the debut of the show in the US,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you'll get it on your streaming service and everyone gets
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: paid in the value chain. And if it's not there
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: or you can't download it, and you're gonna have to
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: pay a fortune to streaming and you're never gonna do
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: it because the quality of streaming is bad anyway, someone
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: just gonna go home on their connected broadband and pirated.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about piracy. How significant is piracy? How
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: serious do you think piracy is? Um to the content
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: producing side of the world. Look, it's huge and there's
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: all different stats on measurement um, but it hasn't stopped
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: um the producer of the Game of Thrones being in business.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: They're making a ton of money. It's just how much
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: more money should they be making? I don't know, nor
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: does anyone know the answer, but some of the solutions
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: are For instance, I think iTunes did a great job
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: of offering really an easy interface, a fast download at
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: an affordable price, which kind of made it almost a
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: no brainer. You know, I don't care. Let's not rip
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: it off because it's it's really painless. A couple of bucks,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: five bucks for a movie. Why wouldn't you do that?
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: And it's for a song? Um, the the video business
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: has to be doing that. You have to offer people,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: most importantly, big shows literally simultaneously, day and date, all
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: around the world. If Game of Thrones is here at
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: ten pm one night and they're doing this now, it's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: got to be shown everywhere. Otherwise someone's pirated here and
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: send it over there, right yeah, or pirate it over
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: there because it's it's all connected. Now we've been speaking
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: with Bruce Tuckman. He used to run MGM Global and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: AMC International, bringing a number of US channels to a
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty different countries around the world. Uh. If
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation about video streaming and on demand,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: be sure and stick around for a podcast extras where
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: we keep the tape rolling and continue chatting about all
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: things television. Be sure and check out my daily column
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg View dot com or follow me on Twitter
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: at rit Halts. We love your comments and feedback. Be
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: sure and write to us at m IB podcast at
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry Rihults. You've been listening to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio, brought to you by
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Seeing what others have seen,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: but uncovering what others may odd. Global research that helps
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: you harness disruption. Voted top global research firm five years running,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated. Welcome to the podcast, Bruce,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this. This is really
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: quite interesting when when we first met and talked about
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: what you did. I was very much intrigued, not just
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: because I'm kind of a classic film fan and and
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: really a television idiot, but the idea of taking us
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: content and saying, let's turn this into an international business
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: is really quite fascinating. So, UM, let's see what questions
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I missed before we jump into our favorites. Um. Oh, Sundance.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: We really didn't talk about Sundance Channel, which I wanted to.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: So the original Robert Redford sun Dance Festival eventually became
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: a channel, and I kind of remember the line something
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: about honoring Robert Redford's mission to celebrate distinctive storytelling from
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: independent voices. Is that more or less the That's correct,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and I think he's always said it best. Um, and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I would add to that because what he's always also
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: said is that's another not otherwise being heard in the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: mainstream media. That makes sense. That's what drove me in
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: terms of the Sundance International expansion. They're doing different things
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: now in the US that I didn't run I won't
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: speak to, but um, that propelled justin three years I
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: was able to take with my team that channel from
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: a couple of countries to about eighty countries around the world.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: With that in mind, when you think about it, Uh,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the US majors are producing maybe a hundred twenty films
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a year and that's what dominates the pay movie TV
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: channels all over the world. Yet at Sundance alone, there's
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: thousands of independent films that are submitted, So so it
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty US mainstream films per year feature
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: film and just submitted to the festivals over thousand, thousands, thousands,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: And that's just Sundance. So what's I think happening, and
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: what Robert Redford was speaking to is so much more
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: content is being produced independently and it's not getting it's
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: let's say, strict fair share of the air time. Now,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: some of the content may not be great, and a
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: lot of the Hollywood film content it's not great either,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: But I think what allowed us to expand so much
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and get so much real estate with cable operators are
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: all around the world was just simply that premise. You're
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: missing a lot of great content and it's actually not
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that expensive compared to what you're paying for some of
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the Hollywood film content, and it's just going to add
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: to diversity of voices, and we'll bring in a lot
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: of and what we did a lot around the world.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: We've run a lot of local independent films. So when
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I think of Robert Redford, he's an I an icon.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Um here we are post election, everybody had on Twitter
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: had the shot of the candidate, which was a very
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: famous film of his. You know that. Now what do
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: we do now? Right? That's exactly it. So I saw
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: that last night. Go around, Um, they're butch casting the
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Sundance kid. Go down the list of films, um that
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: he was active in. They're just an amazing run of movies.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: But it's such an American brand. Does that play overseas
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: or or am I imagining that people overseas are are
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: are more different from us than perhaps I should? It
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: plays overseas and that if there's any brand that's anonymous
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: with independent film, it's Sundance. Now will your run of
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the mill guy walking down the street in some country
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: two thousand miles away, No, Sundance. Maybe maybe not, but
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I think everyone, Uh, there's there's a big market wherever
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: you go for independent film, especially independ in film that
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: features stories and characters from your own country. That isn't
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: just the mass package, commercialized stuff you're getting out of Hollywood. Um,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: so that helps. But particularly in this business of channels,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: you're you're selling to usually big cable operators, and the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: people running these big cable operators and very sophisticated. They've
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: been to Sundance, they're very familiar with it. So let's
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: talk about AMC a little bit. We were talking earlier
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: about Walking Dead and mad Men and Breaking Bad. By
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the time you joined AMC, I'm doing this from memory.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing mad Men had already been in production for
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: a while, Breaking Bad was just starting, and then towards
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the ladder end, that's when Walking Dead came exactly. So
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: as this comes first comes out, do you have any
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: idea what sort of a giant cultural impact these are
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: going to have and how do you think about taking
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: that and applying it to overseas me that's a great question. Um.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Madman certainly was, by the way, that is such an
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: again iconic, like just when you think of that late
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: fifties early sixties era and Don Draper has become an
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: arch type now, that arch type of of you know,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: the hard drinking three martini launch, smoking womanizing sort of guy. Again,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: does that play overseas or is it such a cliche
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that they eat it up over it plays overseas? And interestingly,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: that guy now and and his acolytes won the election
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: last night. I don't mean him. I was thinking, by
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the way, it's as I was saying that I was
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: going to say something witty about that sort of hard drinking,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: heart smoking womanizing. Although Trump doesn't drink, you know, he
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: famously is a teetotaler, but that sort of presidential candidate,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and I thought better of it. But since you brought
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: it up. Uh, When Bush was president and you traveled
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: over the overseas, there was a sense that he was
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: really looked at as a cowboy. He's from Texas, goes
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: from the gut, invades various countries. There was really a
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: stereotypical American, uh, perception of Bush that way. So so
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: how do you use how the world perceives the United States?
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: As much as they may on occasion criticize us or
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: dislike us or argue with us about different things, they
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: seem to overseas seems to love American culture. They love
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: American content. It's been interesting in my career because my
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: international career started with Reagan in office, So Reagan and
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Bush and I suppose Trump. It does become difficult just
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: in casual conversations with people. Um often it wasn't like
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: meaning meaning. So my personal experiences is you fly into
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Berlin from New York and when when or I flew
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: recall trips to London as well, and there was a
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: very diffident if that's the right word. Cool oh an
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: American like a real at customs. Yeah, Canadians were always
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: nice to go to Montreal, Vancouver or you know, they
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: seem to be very um uh friendly to Americans, but
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the Europeans were certainly post uh the Iraq invasion. There
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: was definitely a little bit of a chill, and part
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: of you was like, am I imagining this? And then
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: once Obama was elected and you went overseas, it was
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a completely different come on in it was it was
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: a whole different attitude. And I was like, I recall
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: going back to Berlin and back to London and thinking,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't my imagination. They're much nicer now
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: than they were the last time I was here, when
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: when it was a different president. So we have no
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: idea what the rest of the world is going to
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: be like when it comes to Trump, other than I
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: think we have a good idea because you hear a lot.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of friends abroad, I do a
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: lot of business abroad. Um, I often find you have
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: to defend and explain u S policies for good or
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: for bad. Bill Clint was also very popular. Um, that's
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: just what it is. But when we're in that position
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: of people think there's bad developments in the US, that does,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: from time to time wind up impacting the political environment
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: of a country you're operating, which sometimes bleeds into the
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: regulatory environment, which sometimes makes it a little harder to
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: get your stuff done. So that I imagine that, and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: then part of me again it's like, now you're being paranoid.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: That's not really well, okay, I'll give you an example.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: So okay. So the EU, especially with the UK out,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I imagine, is going to get more line with the
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: French and German point of view in terms of regulation
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: of meat it which is much stricter than where the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Brits have always been, where the Americans always been. That
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: will get tighter and tighter. You need diplomacy between the
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: US and the EU. If that's lacking, and they're not
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: going to listen to our entreaties to say, loosen up
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: these rags. Loosen up. It's not gonna happen. So that's
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: that's what are the regulations like. And so just between
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the US and the UK, we know they're libel laws
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: are very different. They're much stricter. In the United States.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: If you're slandering a public figure, you actually have to
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: show malicious intense. You know, it's an excuse to say, oh,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I was innocently wrong, I read it on Facebook or whatever. Um.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: In the UK, there isn't that. It's a much stricter
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: you're telling me. Go to France and England and it's
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: even stricter. Well, what I was talking about was content
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: restrictions or licensing regulations rather than liable. I can't speak
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to libel, so let's talk about about content. Well, let's
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: talk about privacy. On the other hand, they're much stricter.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Well you've seen that with Google, with Google searches, you
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: have to delete people's searches in France, which is certainly
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: not the case here. I don't know how Facebook deals
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: with that in Europe, right, So I think as we
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: try to harmonize these regimes, especially for technology, and that
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: knows no borders, less strict regime here in the US,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: more strict within the EU EU. I don't know which
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: way Trump will go on this, but the point is
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: governments have to talk about that. And if governments are
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: not getting along, they don't agree with each other. And
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: that's a big challenge that we face. That's really fascinating. Um.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: But on the other hand, ironically things make it easier.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: With Russia, which has become very regulated in terms of media,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: didn't used to be that way. Um. If when one
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: savings grace, I I don't know that US sets everything else. Well,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: when you say regulated, do you mean you know, killing
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: journalists or do you mean their actual So just for
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: my business linear TV business, funny quick story in or seven,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I believe I did a deal. I launched the Nickelodeon
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: channel in Russia. In Russian and they're emerging pay TV
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: businessman's a million two million subscribers. Are so proud of that.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I went there for launch. Really meant a lot to me.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And at that time I didn't need a broadcast license.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't need any interference at all or anything to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: do with the media authorities. Now twenty years later, you
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: need several broadcast licenses. You cannot own a majority of
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: your own brand. And the reason so all of these
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: regulations over time have gotten stricter and stricter. What gets
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: them less strict or more accommodating to US interest is
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: really through our trade reps are diplomats who try to
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: negotiate things that work across the board. So my kind
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: of joke is it makes it easier with Russia, because
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: that's about it. That that's a but that's a really
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: interesting point. And we really haven't talked about the eight
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: pound guerrilla in the room, which is China. What's it
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: like bringing television to China? Do they want us content?
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: How easy are they to deal with? Piracy? Seems to
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: be rampant there? Tell us about China. US content too,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: is hugely popular in China. Local Chinese content is more popular.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: But China has a fascinating business which no one even
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: appreciates and you don't see in other countries. But I
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: call it a vod or advertising video on demand or
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: free video on demand. How does that work? There are
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: five or six different sites you can put on your laptop.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: You can get an app for your TV. You can
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: watch on your mobile device. You go. You literally it's
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: free and it features first run day and day programming
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: often from US studios and everything else, and you watch
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: and it's ad supporting really so instead of like Netflix,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: And it could be that. So that's the YouTube model,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: or or theoretically the Yahoo model. It is the YouTube
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: mode as its ad support. It's the only market that
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: can probably do that because it's so big and nobody
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: so it makes sense. It's you have to have volume
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: in the U again, first world issue. We would rather
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: pay up for the premium model or the technology like
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: a DVR to go bypass the advertising. They're happy to
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: take it because it's free. I think that's that. That
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: could be it. Yes, absolutely it is. Now as they
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: start to make more money, are they are they going
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: to have the same issue that we have where a
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: little bit of wealth and people become impatient. Then I
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: want to watch to be determined. But what's happening in
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: China now because the wealth really has to get there.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of this viewing is on um probably even
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: better working show me devices, you know, very good hand
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: set tablets, and a lot of people are watching that way,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: especially a lot of the young people, they may not
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: have two or three TVs in their homes, so that's
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: how a lot of content is being watched. And they
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: have more money. They have more time than money, so
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: they're happy to do it if it's free. Sure, huh,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that's that's quite fascinating. What before we get to our
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: standard questions, Let's let's what else can you tell us
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: about China that we probably don't know? I think, um,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: there's questions obviously about the macro economy and China the
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: banking system, but at least what I say, huge amounts
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: of debt. But I mean from from what you do,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: what do you see that booming, booming, entertainment booming? Uh?
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: It was it will soon be the largest movie market
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: in the world. That's it's not already. I just assume
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: given the number of people, it's about to cross that threshold.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Obviously that has already changed so much if you think
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: about what's being shown in our own theaters. I read
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: a while ago that because the overseas um rights are
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: so valuable that very often when there is a expensive
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: film to be made, even the storyline has to be
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: built so that it's going to be a Winner in China,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and you you pre sell the foreign rights before you
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: even make the film. So where it used to be
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: perhaps that the Chinese was the bad guy, now it's
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: a Cold War enemy, it's the Koreans, it's the Russians,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: it's somebody not Oh, it's evil China. You're not gonna
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: have that made. If you're producing a mass market movie
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: where you want to break the bank in terms of
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: box office, if you're not thinking about how things are
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: gonna go over in China, you've just cut off nearly
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: half of your potential revenue, or at least that's the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: way we're going. So why would anyone make that business
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: decisions sort of like making a car and deciding I
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: will not ever put the driver's the wheel on the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: right side for the driver. So just you give up
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: the UK, you give up Japan, you give up any
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: of the UK former territory right way that they still are.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: You gotta you gotta adapt. Yeah. Um. I think it
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: was in Guila where we rented a car and they
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: pull them around and I'm like, oh, that's right, and
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: you ever drive that for the first time? Yeah, oh yeah,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: you just basically my rule of thumb was um, just
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: make sure that you're you're What was worse was we
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: were driving a left hand drive on the oh that
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: was that was the car showed up where they pull
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: up on the wrong side of the road with the
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: left hand So my thing was just make sure that
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: the curb is next to me. So in the US
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the curb is next to the passenger. Now you have
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: to be so wherever you go and and left and
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: right's got to be a little confusing. It's released. I'm
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: still amazed that they will let you drive instantly because
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I think for people who haven't done it before, I'm
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: not sure if there were drivers drunk or if there
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: worth doing that. It's very just gonna say sober. It's
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: not difficult. But you go to dinner, you have not
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: even drunk. You have a drink or two with dinner,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: and you're a little I we went to this place
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and I drove back from it, and the first five
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: minutes of the drive back, I'm on the U S
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: side of the road, and I was sober enough clear,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: you know, a drink with dinner is not gonna someone
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: my size is not gonna make me that compromise. But
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: for the first it feels like five minutes was probably
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the first thirty seconds. Oh gee, I'm on the wrong
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: side of the road. I have to get out. But
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: by the way, what country was it Sweden that they
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: stopped at noon and reversed the sides right? I don't
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: remember if it was Sweden or somewhere else, but literally
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: everybody stopped one day. And but my point is a
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: drunken person driving in the US all right, is shouldn't
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: be driving, and they're dangerous. And a neophite person who's
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: never driven on the other side of the road in
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the UK is also dangerous president and they quite as dangerous,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: but it could be closed. And then trying to shift, well,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the stick shift is easy, but you make the turn,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and you know, your brain goes through a set of
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: muscle memories, especially right, a left turn here, is a
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: right turn there, and it's just too easy to make
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the turn and end up on the wrong So that's
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: how I ended up in the wrong side of the road.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: You come out of a driveway and it makes sense
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: from a restaurant, makes sense to stay. But I digress.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: So so um, I don't know how we got to
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: that point, but it's the Chinese film market and how
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: volcanic you can't encounter it comes. This is really gonna
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: drive content. China's going to help drive content for the future.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: So I know I only have you for a finite
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: amount of time. Let's let's jump to our standard questions.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: And you know I only briefly talked about you at
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Scanton Arps. So you're at Scanton Arms, you're doing M
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: and A work. How did you end up? What was
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: the transition from lawyer to television channel executive? How did
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: that come about? Um? You know, you become a more
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: senior associated as I have been doing, and you get
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: to the point if you're doing well, you run your
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: first or second big deal and it's exciting. You learn
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: a lot and a lot of people, meet a lot
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: of people. But then you realize, you know what, I'm
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: going to be doing this around the clock for another
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: four or five years if I can become partner. I've
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: learned a lot and UM, but I've always been driven
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: just by passion and I didn't want to give up
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: that opportunity. So it took a determined effort. This was
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: before the internet. I sent out cold really yeah, I really, UM,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: and you have done enough television related work that you
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: had expertise in it and you could talk about beast
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Guy B and everything else. Yeah, but more so I did.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I did a lot of international work, which I think
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: was even more valued because there's plenty of people, you know,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: television at the time, at least in terms of TV
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: branded channels that warning out a lot of people who
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: knew how to set things up internet. So you sending
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: mail out, you're coming from a firm with a great reputation.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Who was the first entity that that? So I got
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: a MTV Networks among others, said come on in, and
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I was thrilled. As a young man, I was thirty
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: maybe and I'm like, this coolest thing happening to maybe
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: back way back in the eighties and nineties, MTV was
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: his hip posit. I just wanted the business card. I
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: just wanted that business card. And uh, I tell my
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: kids now, because things are different, I say it was
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the Google. Then you just gotta understand, it's like, what
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: do you think that in terms of hipness that that
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: might be. There was a period of time where MTV
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: was was huge, absolutely huge, and around that time was
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: when you um took them into national Yeah, I mean,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: I I helped that. I was more I was coming
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: up in my career then, so I was part of
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: a team that really did that. But it was great
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: work because MTV was so influential in my life because
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: it came right at that, you know, seventeen or so
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: when it came out, and uh, it's about right, we're
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: about the same manage, and that was you know, that
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: was my home base for years up until I probably
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: had kids, and then it became news channels. But um
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: so what do you kids find cool and hip today?
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: That's the MTV of of the modern era? Is it?
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Is it Snapchat? Is it things like that? Or? I
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: hope my my thirteen year old won't get mad at
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: me for this story. But she once said to me, Dad,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I want a TV in my room. I go, why
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: you don't watch TV? She goes, well, Jordan, her older
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: sister has one. Go yeah, but you don't ever watch it? Um, yeah, right,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: I just want a big iPad on my wall. And
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: that's what she's looking at. Yes, So they're every Really
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: there's so little linear watching going on. And it's just
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: not my kids. It's it's the generation. There's no generation.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. So you mentioned you are
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: part of a team. Let's let's talk about your mentors.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Who who mentored your career? Um? You know, I had
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of a handful of people have really inspired
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: me throughout my career. So UM, I wasn't one of
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: those kind of people who have traveled from my companies
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: with the boss who got moved to these other companies.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: I forged that on my own. But big inspirations to
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: me at Scattered. There were two attorneys in particular, guy
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: named Finn Fogg who was a big m and a
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: guy from the eighties and nineties just not just a
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: brilliant lawyer, but I learned from him how to be
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: cool as a lawyer, just how to be charismatic, what's important,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: what isn't Um, they don't teach that in law school.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: They don't teach that in law school. So I really
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: learned a lot from him. Another attorney there, Nancy Lieberman,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: really taught me the value of how hard you have
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: to work for perfection. It's not good enough that you
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: can't have a type. You shouldn't have a type of
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: people are paying you a lot of money, not just
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: for your substance, but everything else. I learned a lot
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: from her, UM I think UM. I was also inspired
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: a lot by when I worked at MGM Alex uman Agian,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: who was Kirk Korian's right hand man who ran the studio.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: That just a very good faith man who believed a
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: lot in the principles he has spoused, looked out for
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: his people, but also challenge people. UM and had a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: just ran a tight and a smart ship. UM. Tom
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Freston inspired me at MTV Networks because I just think
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: is the first time I saw someone who who always
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: put creative first. But that made sense because you know,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: these are a lot of people treat the media business
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: like their businesses. They get too focused on the balance
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: sheet and the p n L without realizing you've got
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to make the product hot, and you gotta make the
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: brand hot, and you've gotta value those kind of people
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: who can figure that out. I I just finished reading
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: We'll get two books in a few minutes. But I
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: just finished reading two Pixar and be and by the
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: former CFO who was Lawrence Levy was recruited UM by
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Steve Jobs to basically come rescue Pixar, and amongst other things,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: he said their secret source was how the corporate side,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: how the finance side essentially left the creative alone, and
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: it was actually built in to the corporate culture and
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: the entire structure. Hey, the geniuses who are creating toy story,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna you can't mess with that. No notes, No,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: you know movie executive saying hey, can we can we
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: bring in a girl to this, uh, you know, a
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: toy to be Woody's friend or whatever. It is the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: sort of nonsense that you hear about with that. It's
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: that same concept of of you have to to keep
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: the creative side separate. Still aren't. And I would ask
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: you look at any media company right now and their
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: story and where they are and their revolution in their arc,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: and more often than not you can explain it as
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: to whose rule in the house is that the right
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: brain or the left brain side of the brain. Um. So,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: when you see a mediocre television show, when you see
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: a film, do you ever look at it and say, oh,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: you could see the the accountants messed around with this. Definitely,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: you can see all the compromis, the suits got suits
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: or whatever, or when it becomes so obvious why they
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: skimped on this character or they put that in or whatever.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: And and that's the challenge from movies because sometimes you know,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: it looks that way, not always. I have one other
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: great mentor though, in TV business, guy named Bruce Paisner,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: who's the CEO and president of the International Emmy Organization
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: long term hearst executive. I mean for years he has
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: just been a good friend of mine and a great
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: leader and incredibly gracious and wonderful sounding board. UM. So
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: those have been my mentors. And so so let's talk about,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: um certain business bull who influenced, um, your concept? Who
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: who affected how you look at running a studio, running
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: a channel, running a bringing a US property international? Um?
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: What was creat about the opportunities I've had. I was
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: really there at the first wave of bringing these channels abroad,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: and um, we had invented as we went along. So
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I hate to say this, but I often learned by
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: other people's mistakes, people who may came a year or
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: two before me, or who were hired before I got hired,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: And at first bringing these channels abroad for a lot
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: of people, this was a financial bath, much like it is. Really.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm stunned. I would have thought that this
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: would have been a gold mine. It took years to
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: become a gold mine. It did. Now it's going to
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: fade again because linear is fading. How so wait, let me,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: let's digress a little bit. How long of the process
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: was it. Did this go from g was spending a
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: ton of money and we're not seeing anything to wow,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: we put X number of years and and the money
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: is just rolling. So no one who copped to it,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: But I'd say overall longer than expected for a lot
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: of people. A lot had to do with people started
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: launching before the markets were even there, so it seemed
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: like a no brainer. Cable and satellite or cable big
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: in the US, so it's gonna be eventually in Europe
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: and it's going to be eventually. Was it better to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: be early than late? Do you run into a competitive disadvantage?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Or those people who hung in there started early, had
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: four site and said I'm gonna lookive fifteen years. Of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: course they've done well. They have the best position in
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: the market right now. So yes, And there were people
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: and I admire some to Redstone for things like that,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: for hanging in there and wanting to just keep going
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: at it. Those people at foresight and not everyone else did.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: How long did it take before this actually became profitable?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: The pends on the channel and the market. Some people,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: if I said five years, am I out of line?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Five years seemed to have been the normal business plan projection.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: But honestly, with some of the businesses I launched, we
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: gotten the first year profitability. Others took a lot longer,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: and still others for other people may not have made
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: money to this day. So let's talk a little bit
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: about books. Everybody always loves this segment. I get questions
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: quest all the time, Hey, what what were the books?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: As somebody recommended? So tell me some of your favorite
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: books that either relate to this field or wholly unrelated.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: I'm a big fiction guy. Uh huh. So I jotted
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: down those guys who's really influenced me throughout my life
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: when I was a young person. Jersey Kazinski, who my
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: mind that was being there and Painted Bird by the way,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Being There eventually becomes the Peter Seller's movie correct Painted Bird.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what became of that, but that was
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: a big book. Yeah. Escaped young boy who escaped the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Holocaust and led a group of refugees, um but gripping intense,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and at the time there were not a lot of
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: books like that other than uh nonfiction UM descriptions of
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: what happened UM. I was really influenced as a team
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: by Garcia Marquez A Hundred Years of Solitude. I still
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: consider that my favorite novel. UM. I love Philip Roth.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm very happy Bob Dylan got the Nobel
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: play before Let's Let's go back before you um so again,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: same same age, same demographic background. I was a little
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: annoyed at Portnoy's complaint for writing my autobiography before I
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: had a chance to write it, and I don't know
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: if you had a similar I read as a teenager
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: right right, I was. I was literally a teenager on
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the beach when I read it, and I was like,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: how is somebody allowed to even write this stuff? It's
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: amazing and hilarious. One of the funniest books I've ever read.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's today, if a seventeen role
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: picked up that book, if it would be as funny
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to them as it was to It's not, but it
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: established the genre. No one was talking with that kind
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: of profanity personally about sex, and there would be no
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: Woody Allen. If it wasn't even for that book, that's
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: somewhat true. I could certainly see that that that progression,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: there would be a hilarity saved for that book. I
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: think he started it all. But then if you look
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: at his transformation, if you look at some of his
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: later ones, like Indignation, they could be too totally different
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: human beings. Um, what's the most recent book he just
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: put out? I guess would it be Indignation? I mean
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: they just made that into it? What was the one
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: right before that? Every? Okay? So uh, you know these
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: last several books have been thinner, sparer moving plot against America.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: You know everyone's been pointing to that as what foreshadow
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: what happened last night? Um? So I think he really
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: was and is the most worthy author of the Nobel Prize.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: And um, one day he'll get his due. I really
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: like a French offer Michelle Welbeck, who's just mind blowing,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: and just his last couple not so much. But um,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: what what's your favorite title of this? I like a
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: lot of people like Adamized, but mine is Platform is
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: a novel he wrote which really blew me away. Just
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: I think he he's fearless he broke a lot of
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: norms with that. UM a nonfiction book which really moved me,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: and I gotta say probably really recommend anyone is Zuned
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: by Dave Eggers. This is about someone who survived Hurricane Katrina,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: Muslim man. What happened to him? Muslim building contractor who
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: and this is nonfiction nonfiction zits z Tun the fellow's
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: last name. Great guy who was saving people at businesses
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: and treated quite unfairly by the authorities. Who he was.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: UM that movements one can imagine how that plays out.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: That moved me. UM. I really liked UM. I just
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: read Jonathan Saffran Four's new novel here I Am. I
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: liked a lot, especially as it went on. It was
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: very thought provoking. UM. Sacred Games is a Man Booker
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Prize runner up from India from Chandra that really someone
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: else referenced victim genre and I don't remember who it was.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I'll have to have to take a closer look. Great
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: novel and I really liked it. Really, I still think
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: about it's so creative that the Yiddish Policeman's Union, the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Shabon book where it's an alternative history. My wife read it.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't gotten so after the war World
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: War two, Israel is not created and instead the US
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: gives homeland to Jews and and sit Calaska, and how
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: that all develops, and there's a there's a fuse on
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: it because they it's gonna end after I think it
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: was fifty years the gift of the franchise, so um.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: But the world he created the way he wrote that
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: that book. Really, you know, there's been a run of
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: alternative historical realities. The frame of reference for me has
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: always been Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: which a talk show host wakes up and the is
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: surprised to discover that World War Two didn't play out
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: the way we all recall. The US lost to Germany
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: and Japan, who have divided up the US and are
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: um in the process of absorbing it to the parent
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: company countries. And it's just he's infamous for multiple layers
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: of reality. But I love the concept. I just started
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: watching it a couple of months ago, and it's I
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: thought the quality of of how it looks in the
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: set design, and they really didn't admit you could see
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: there's some real money beyond. We were talking about this earlier.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: They are not afraid to spend money on stuff and
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: it and that made the difference because you know what,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: if you cheaped out on showing graphically what this alternative
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: universe would not have worked. You had to get a
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: certain tone and a certain tenor, and the way it
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: looks and feels, and the way they do the maps
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: and some of the I conography, and the way like
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: they the Nazi symbols are Nazi symbols, but it's not
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: just black and red swastika's. It's yeah, it's it's a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: little it's much more interesting and sophisticated. Then I think
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: they nailed it. I mean to me that after seeing that,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: that's when I really started developing this theory. It's not original.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: I guess that in that kind of format, with that
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: kind of money, where you're not doing commercials where you
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: could do it a a hundred eighteen minute episode or whatever,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: they're just taking storytelling the whole different place than Basic cable,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: and certainly that broadcasts can Season two is kind of
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: On December, I was gonna say, I'm almost done with
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: season one, and uh, I'll binge it over the holidays
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: and and get ready for season two. I've also loved
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: some of the comedies like Catastrophe, which is so interesting
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: and just not anything you would ever see on on
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: US television. And I used to love these shows on
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: on BBC, like Coupling was this hilarious. You always thought
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: Friends was kind of toothless. It was just a randy,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: funny version of a uniquely British version of of of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: six young people engaging and everything they engage in, and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: they tried to do in the United States and they
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: just and then they actually turned that concept. If you've
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: watched the Matt LeBlanc Show episodes, it's about bringing over
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: this really intelligent, well written show from London, uh in
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: in a a boys school with all the class issues
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: and everything else, and they bring it over the US
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: and they make the headmaster into a hockey coach, like
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: they couldn't dumb it down anymore. And then it's about
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: the battle between the writers the actors, and it's very
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: much a I loved Larry Sanders show. This is very
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: much long the uh but I'm supposed to be asking
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: you about books, not talking about television. UM, any other
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: books you want to reference, nonfiction or fiction? UM, that's
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: that's a good run. Yeah, I'm reading the Association of
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Small Bombs. Is that the novel that was also I
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: think a man Booker runner up? Was it this year
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: or that last? I just started it. See, I wish
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I had more time for novels. What I read is
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: non fiction or biography, your history or or market related.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: But um, I have a list of novels. I'm just
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: dynastis you know the travel I had to do that.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: I traveled so much abroad twelve hours. This is the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: only reason I've been able to read. And this is
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the only reason that I literally is flying back from Asia.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm not boasting or maybe I sound pathetic, but
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: I watched all ten episodes of Man High Castle, all
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: of them. I'm one trip back. I watched ten hours
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: worth of it. I couldn't put it down. That that's uh,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: that's fascinating. Are you using physical books or is it
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: a kindle or no? I really, um, if it's important
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: to me, especially fiction, I'll only it's gonna be my
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: old school little thing. I'm always only going to use
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: the physical book. I have a kindle in my my briefcase.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: But if I'm home and I want to read something
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: like you're traveling, I don't. I used to go vacation,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I bring eight books. I'd read four of them. You're
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: dragging like a whole suitcase full of books. Now that
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen. You have a vacation, you bring a kindle,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: but it's still not the same as if it's not
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: the same, and I'd like finishing the book. I like
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: putting in my bookshelf. We're doing that for years, you know.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: In in some ways, I suppose it's like people who
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: do deals and they want their loose sight que. You know,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: it's your loose cue if you read it, I remember
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: read it, and uh, I hope we don't know that.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: Um alright, So beyond books, we we talked about what's
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: changed in the industry. What do you think the next
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: shifts are going to be in in streaming video, video
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: and demands and just generally in in entertainment and content creation.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: So I was at a conference recently and I was
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: in a minority. They said, will TV be all apps? Apps?
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: All apps? All apps? And I said yes, And people say,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: that's that's far fetched. But let me explain by what
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: I mean. UM, right now, he's proprietary, non internet technologies
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to not stream but but transmit cable to your household,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: broadcast or or these are not scalable efficient technologies. They're
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: going to come under more pressure as the markets decline
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: because you just because of cost, because of cost, and
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: because of scale, because less and less people are going
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: to be using it. Now streaming is uh, it's it's
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: self improving every day. If you want to improve your
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: cable network overnight and do a whole bunch of things,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: you may have to take out boxes, rip out chords.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Internet's very different, it's becoming very robust. So the future,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: which I think is not too long from now, everything
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: will be streamed. It may look like you can watch
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: CNN and it looks like linear and at whatever. But
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: soon I think the whole technological base of TV will
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: be based on IP protocol. So in a sense that
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: is an app alright, you may not have to download.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't look like you buy it in the it's
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: not it's not the same. It's not the same, and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: it's I P. And that will lead us to a
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: whole world where uh, you can do You'll be able
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: to do amazing things with your channel, not even watch
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: a channel. You'll be able to watch the on demand elements,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: the social commentary elements. I think that's where it's all going.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: So that's why I say the world is going to
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: be looking more like apps then it looks today. And
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: and my last two and favorite questions. If if a
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: millennial or recent college grad came to you and said, Hey,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in a career in television and video and content,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: what sort of advice would you give that, I'd say
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: digital social marketing is whoever figures that out and knows
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: it the way. Don Draper new advertising is going to
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: do really well in life because that conventional way of
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: advertising is going gone with that next generation. Um, that's
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: a big business, UM, I think. And then content creation
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: and just really being on the cutting edge of that, UM,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: we'll continue. People are always gonna want to see good
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: TV in the US tends to except excel at that
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: are are the difference between US and a lot of
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: other places in the world aren't as big as it
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: was twenty years ago because the technology is now closing
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: that gap and allowing people to you know, go into
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: a Mac and and create things that would have required
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: a twenty million dollar investment in an Avid and a
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of other things back ten years ago. So, um,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: I think those are the two areas. And then in
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: my final question, what is it that you know about
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: content video overseas licensing today that you wish you knew
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: when you started this career path twenty plus years ago? Um,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I would have gone much much even though we knew
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: the Internet everyone says is gonna eat our launch. Um,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: you eventually will. I would have personally gone much bigger
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: into all of these stocks back in the mid nineties. Um,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: despite the dot com crash. Yeah, yeah, you gotta hang
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: in there if you believe, because I think so. We
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: always my whole career have been talking about how the
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: Internet is really going to change everything. But now we're
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: seeing it, and I think people thought it's going to
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: profoundly change everything. But in my view, in the next
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's five, ten or fifteen years,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: it is going to be everything. And so how far
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: along the transition from analog to digital from I love
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: the expression meat space to online. How far along that
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: process are we? So you know there used to be
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: the last mile that there was the last hundred feet,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: there's less ten feet, which is about six seven years ago,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: and then that was breached. Now I call it the
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: last three seconds of patients. That's it, because now you
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: get these apps and your TV. It's kind of confusing,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: but each new generation TSE makes a lot and lot
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: more seamless. The minute becomes entirely you don't even have
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: to think about what you're pressing, and you don't know
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: if it's Netflix or if it's CNN Live. That changes everything,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: And you know what, that's the easiest part. It took
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: trillions of dollars to wire the world with fiber optics.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: That was the last got you the last mile. Then
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: to get you to that last ten feet, people were
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: digging up your driveways. I remember FiOS was in my
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: house for a week and a half. I don't know
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: how they ever made money off of putting me onto files.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: But now this last thing, this is gonna be This
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: is happening right now, and someone's gonna really figure out
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: how to integrate all of these experiences seamlessly over your
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: television set, over your devices, and it's game over and
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: it's a different game. Then that's where it's all going. Bruce,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: thank you for doing this and being so generous with
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: your time we've been speaking with Bruce Tuckman. He was
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: with MGM International, amc UM Global and a number of
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: other channels he helped bring worldwide. If you enjoy this conversation,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: be sure you look up an inch or down an
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: inch on Apple iTunes and you could see the other
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: hundred and something plus UH shows we've done. Uh. Be
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: sure and right us. We love to hear your comments,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: feedbacks and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast
• 1:17:11
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• 1:17:15
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• 1:17:18
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• 1:17:22
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• 1:17:26
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