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MEDIA SHARK WEEK · The Media Odyssey

• Marion Ranchet: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: And that is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: This week we're gonna be covering a lot of topics we haven't been able to talk about, us two together. We're gonna talk about media mergers. Evan Shapiro: Yes. This is gonna be our M&A Shark Week. Marion Ranchet: What is that? Evan Shapiro: Shark Week? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. What does that mean? Evan Shapiro: You know what a shark is, right? Marion Ranchet: I know what a shark is. So who do we have first on our plate full of sharks? Evan Shapiro: So Brian Roberts and the management at Comcast NBC Universal announced last week that they were splitting off NBC Universal, Sky, and the rest of the entertainment division away from Comcast. Which would keep its [00:01:00] broadband and its pay TV business and other cable businesses, but split off the entertainment division, which is bonkers because they split off Versant in January. This is a company that was assembled by Brian Roberts. Bought NBC Universal, he bought all the other assets, put this all together, bought Sky, then wrote down a third of that purchase, and now is just reverse trending everything that they've done over the last 25 years. Marion Ranchet: Before we get into it, where will, Versant stand? Will it stay on a standalone on its own? Just like- Evan Shapiro: Yes. Marion Ranchet: and then NBC and Sky somewhere else, and then the connectivity somewhere else? So there's actually three companies now? Evan Shapiro: So it'll be three companies at the end of it. Now it's two, Comcast NBCUniversal, and everything inside that is one company, and Versant is another, and now they're gonna split again to push out all of the entertainment properties and keep the connectivity and broadband and all that kind of stuff [00:02:00] in one house. This seems like a preface to more M&A, even though Brian Roberts and the other various CEOs under his wing have denied that. If you look at the trajectory of this, Brian Roberts is literally stealing Zaslav's Failing Up handbook almost verbatim, and is replicating it by spinning this out as a prep to do something else in the M&A world. Marion Ranchet: So I think there's a few reasons, I don't know this guy, huh? This, Brian you said? Evan Shapiro: Another nepo. Another nepo kid, Brian Roberts. Marion Ranchet: I don't know this guy. I understand where he's coming from, as in a few years back, the value was we thought having vertical, businesses integrating both the pipes and content made sense. The only thing is that what you guys are seeing perhaps even more so than we are in Europe is that the two just don't work the same way, right? And so Comcast and others have [00:03:00] kept shedding subscribers, and that doesn't do anything to have an NBC, et cetera, within the mix. So I do understand what he's trying to do there is that premise of integration, vertical integration is long gone. So I, do understand the move from that perspective. Evan Shapiro: Yes, but having worked at this company, the integration never happened. It never happened. They were, operated as two different companies, other than off-sites and boondoggles and pay structures, they were really kept separately. Someone wrote on LinkedIn earlier today that they never even integrated the ad sales departments between Comcast and NBCUniversal. They never integrated anything. They also failed to innovate at all. Roberts built this massive thing called the Innovation Tower in Philadelphia. It's the tower, tallest tower in Philadelphia, and no innovation happens there. [00:04:00] They really didn't launch a virtual vMVPD until a couple minutes ago, and they haven't really been serious about that. There's not been any kind of true integration between the content ends, the entertainment ends, Sky, and the Comcast of it all. And so it just, it failed because it was never completed. By the way, the same thing happened at AT&T, DirecTV- Mario Ranchet: Warner. Evan Shapiro: and Warner, yeah, Disco Bros or before it became Disco Bros, that, that was never even attempted to integrate. So yeah, I understand that the integration, the vertical integration didn't succeed because it was never really truly attempted. They just put these things in a box, shook 'em up, and hoped that they would all congeal into one large thing, and that's not what happened. And so now they're separating. This is all just, we're talking about hundreds and millions of dollars of banker fees between all of this stuff that's [00:05:00] going on. That explains pretty much all of it. Two things. One, the greed of the bankers looking at these fees and salivating, and two, the utter lack of strategy in the C-suites of these companies. Warner Brothers Discovery, what the fuck was that all about at the end of the day, other than making David Zaslav rich? This one, at the end of the day, the Sturm und Drang of it all, although they did milk NBCUniversal for a tremendous amount of profits over the course of the last, couple of decades, so there has been value generated there. But at the end of the day, now that they're breaking it up, it's just, dig a hole, fill it up, dig a hole, fill it up, dig a hole, fill it up. And so between greed and lack of vision, that explains a lot of these moves. Marion Ranchet: And so your premise being that they're gonna be, those companies are gonna be sold to parts, and that Comcast will go back to just being a connectivity provider company? Evan Shapiro: Actually, I think more than that. I think you'll see NBCUniversal, I don't think it'll get sold for parts. I think someone will come along and buy [00:06:00] it. I think, Netflix, even though they're denying it, they have to take a hard look at it. Yeah. The problem with NBC Universal is they really don't own any content. Compared to Warner Brothers and Disney, they were a licensor, so they would co-produce things very often that rather than own them. So when I worked there and had to start a streaming service for them, the only things that they owned were the late night programming blocks, The Office, and Parks and Rec. That's pretty much it. Great shows, great stuff, but you compare that to the hundreds of thousands of hours of content at Disney and Warner Brothers Discovery, and it pales by comparison. It's a fraction of the overall library. So it's really unclear what someone would necessarily be buying, although you do have some great properties like Saturday Night Live and the football and the Olympics and some other things like that. So you could see Ted Sarandos kicking the tires on it at least, but I also wouldn't sleep on Apple. Now that they have a new CEO, I think there's gonna be a different [00:07:00] approach to content there. So I think that's part of it. But I think the bigger shoe to drop is the combination of Charter and Comcast. That is now almost certain to happen at this point. This allows- Yeah ... Comcast and Charter to think exclusively like a connectivity company, and I think, with both companies suffering from competition with the big tech companies, the regulatory blocks that might come along for some, for a combination of those two companies probably are gone, especially if it happens during this administration. And I think the next big shoe to drop is, the combinate, fter this split is the combination of Charter and Comcast, and then simultaneously I think you'll see NBC Universal get on the block, and I think it'll sell. I think someone will buy it. Marion Ranchet: Does that mean that the three Cs are gonna be together? So Charter, Cox? Didn't, Charter buy Cox? Evan Shapiro: Yeah, they just closed Cox, yeah. Marion Ranchet: Then Comcast. Yeah. Okay. So that's a big connectivity player. Evan Shapiro: And that would be around, that would [00:08:00] be around 40 million homes of TV, and around 80 million homes or 70 million homes of broadband. So that's a massive player. And, you think about how broadband affects how people consume content, if they control 70 million, 75 million homes of broadband connectivity in the US, they control entertainment in the United States. You can't get to a home without going through their pipes. Marion Ranchet: The one thing I always wonder when, that type of players is actually refocusing, and I think it's, it should be done. I'm thinking about my time at Orange when I joined in, 2010. At the time, they had launched, Orange Sport. They were buying Tier 1 rights, so it was a pay TV play within the sports ecosystem. Did the same within the movie and TV series, and, I don't know, maybe 15 years later got bought by Canal+ and so was folded into Canal+, 'cause [00:09:00] they were keen on refocusing exactly on what you were saying. Mobile, internet. They were still, and they are still doing TV. And so the question I have for those companies is, are they still gonna be in the business of having a video business? Because it really looks... They don't need NBC, they don't need to have that vertical integration with other companies, but how can they stay competitive within that ecosystem, just focusing on connectivity, and yet still somehow having a video offering in the mix? Should they? Or should they take it one step further and just even forget about that, right? Because you talk to cable and telcos, and they tell you that it is an expensive business to be in, even when you're only doing the super aggregation play. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, it's a great question. It's a great question. It's hard to know the a- and this is, I, take the piss out of these people all the time, but the answers to these questions are not easy. And people, talk to us all the [00:10:00] time like, how do you study all this stuff?" we don't have a business to run. Yeah. I don't, we don't have to go to work and, run a huge organization like that. So I'm very glad not to be faced with some of these kind of impossible conundrums, the Kobayashi Maru of it all, if you were, and that's a Star Trek reference for those nerds out there. But I think it's, it is likely that video, if Comcast/Charter/Cox do merge and they really concentrate on creating the next version of the bundle of mobile- Marion Ranchet: Yeah ... Evan Shapiro: broadband, video, home security, AI, right? That bundles that we've been talking with Bango about very often. Home shopping, like all of the, those are the bundles that, that people want now. I think if they concentrate on that kind of connectivity bundle, I think there's a future to have video wound into it. A vMVPD along with SVOD upgrades and things like [00:11:00] that's where the, you look at the churn, the, where in the industry churn is lowest, it's when products are bundled together like that. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And so I do think there is a future to, for these companies to have video. I just think it looks a lot different than it does today. And, I think on one hand, Charter has shown a level of innovation that Comcast hasn't. They have far more vMVPD subscribers than Comcast does. They have way more mobile subscribers. They are way out ahead on mobile compared to Comcast. And so I think if you can take the DNA of Charter and ingest it into the husk of Comcast and keep Brian Roberts from running things, I think there's a successful merger there. But I don't know. I think the most dangerous part of the announcement of the NBCUniversal spinoff is Brian Roberts will be actively involved in both companies' management. That, to me, is something that shareholders should [00:12:00] fight against Marion Ranchet: Fascinating. And so one thing, so this deal has an impact on a deal that's happened just today, was confirmed just today, or July 6th, when we record this, which is Sky actually buying ITV, the TV network, not ITV Studios, for 1.6 billion pounds. I wonder, so that does make for that new NBC, Sky, ITV. This is an appealing media business, although all of those businesses have their struggles, huh? If you look at ITV, TV advertising revenues, was down, last year. The trend is not changing. Sky, massive advertising operation as well, seeing revenue decreasing. It is the pay TV ecosystem, so they are feeling that pressure of, keep acquiring [00:13:00] subscribers, retaining existing ones, et cetera, et cetera. And then NBC, I don't know what to think of NBC, and it's a part of the business that I don't know as much, besides maybe the parks. What is your take on this? Does that make for an appealing business working on its own and then up for grabs for a potential, whoever, Apple and others you've mentioned before? Evan Shapiro: I think that the price is right. $1.6 billion for ITV doesn't feel like an outrageous sum of money, unlike the $39 billion Comcast paid for Sky originally and then had to write down a third of it. Yeah. I, think it's not a bad price, but it's basically a two-country company at that point. Yeah. Sky has presence in other countries in Europe, but it's not significant or really meaningful. Marion Ranchet: Just Italy now. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, and so, and even there- ... Marion Ranchet: Since they sold their business in Germany, yeah. Evan Shapiro: In Germany. Yeah, but even [00:14:00] in Italy, it's not a, it's not a serious business- Marion Ranchet: Yeah ... Evan Shapiro: Compared to the rest of that marketplace. They're almost insignificant as far as total audience goes. So this is really just a UK, US, company, and I think that's interesting. I've been doing a lot of study about audience attention around the world, and NBCUniversal really does not have a presence outside of UK, US, and that's, I think, part of the issue here. So I think it's an interesting thing. I think it is a very attractive package for advertising business in the UK, but I don't know what kind of game changer buying a broadcast channel in the UK is for NBC Universal, as an entity, especially as a standalone entity. That said, as a preface, and this is why I'm almost 100% certain that this is a first step to another M&A round, is as a tool to sell to Netflix Who has announced some [00:15:00] troubles with their original programming in the last week, whose usage in the United States and in the UK is either flat or down over the last three years, that's a very attractive, package. So to me, completing the Sky, ITV deal, spinning off NBCUniversal, there is one major motivation, and that's to create the perfect honeypot for Ted Sarandos. Marion Ranchet: The only thing is that, again, to the point you've made, it's not global enough. I think Warner to that point was that move. Evan Shapiro: No, but it solves a major advertising problem for them in the US and the UK, and those are the two biggest ad markets that Netflix is in by a lot. So I think, and they're failing in both from an ad sale standpoint in particular. So I think it's, look, it may not work, but if you look at the design, basically I think at the bottom of the design it says, "A trap for Ted Sarandos." "A thirst trap for Ted Sarandos." Marion Ranchet: On, the advertising piece, I would say that [00:16:00] all of those, the diagnosis you've made about Netflix, I think a lot has to do with content. And therefore, here, and what does NBC bring that Netflix can't? Evan Shapiro: Football. Here a lot of football, the Olympics, tremendous late night- Marion Ranchet: A bit of NBA now. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, some, a decent amount of NBA. Yeah. Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, Seth Meyers. there's a lot, the Today Show. There's a tremendous amount of kind of ongoing daily touch point programming that generates a tremendous amount of advertising that once you unhook it from broadcast and plug it into digital, it becomes a much more attractive package. Same thing for ITV in the UK, where Netflix is nowhere in the app business, basically nowhere. And so now you've got Sky and ITV basically as the engine of advertising in the UK. Also, the other component to it is ad sales acumen. [00:17:00] For all my problems with NBCUniversal, they're very good at selling advertising. Netflix isn't. Their ad systems are great, Netflix isn't. So it does, it fixes a major component of Netflix's next 10 years. Marion Ranchet: So one thing that is fascinating is that there's a lot of consequen- It's a puzzle right now, because now ITV Studios will stand solo, which is fascinating, right? So they've made a deal between newly Sky Plus ITV and ITV Studios up until 2032 for over 2 billion to secure a lot of the amazing content that is on ITV that is coming from ITV Studios, the commercial arm. But honestly, ITV could be up for grabs, and someone could be [00:18:00] interested in buying ITV Studios alone. Evan Shapiro: Or ITV becomes a buyer, So- Marion Ranchet: So this is what they're doing right now, but the commitment is until 2032, so one might argue that ITV Studios will have, the ends free and can sell to ITV and a lot of others. But I wonder if it's not when someone is taking the opportunity to just go after ITV Studios. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. You look at what Banijay has been up to recently with All3, they seem to have a voracious- Marion Ranchet: That would be much, that would be much. But that's what they do, huh? This company, it's all about acquisition. Evan Shapiro: And English language, and English language is actually the weak spot. it was one of the major motivations for Banijay to buy All3. This really helps with that, right? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: You're also getting some of the biggest properties on the planet too. Love Island is massive. Marion Ranchet: [00:19:00] Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And it's the, was the biggest hit last year in all streaming in the US. It was, had its biggest year in its 12th season, so I think it's really, it becomes an attractive thing. But there's a tremendous amount of small independent production companies in the UK that are struggling. And I can list them. I don't wanna necessarily go down a long laundry list, but that could be gotten for not a tremendous amount of money, and you could see where ITV could really get in that game. Marion Ranchet: Oh, that's interesting, actually. Become the buyer of more. I hadn't thought of that, Evan Shapiro: Yeah, become the biggest independent- Marion Ranchet: Yeah, that would make sense. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, become the biggest independent content producer in the UK, which, let's be honest, English language content does drive that, the market to, in a large way globally with regards to large scale franchises. And so if you go around and you buy a bunch of the producers [00:20:00] of The Crown and all these other smaller independent shops that are really struggling right now because commissions are down, you could see a major power player to challenge Banijay on the other side of that. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Okay, and so we have more news, right? So you and I, we haven't spoken about Fox Roku because we were on both sides of the ocean, super busy, et cetera. That's one. And then we need to do a quick update on Paramount and Warner. So Fox Roku, I know you were very bullish, super happy to see Fox being, to your point, very forward-thinking, making the right moves in your opinion. Do you wanna elaborate on that? Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I this is really unusual for me to say, but I think Lachlan Murdoch is the only traditional television CEO, traditional media CEO in the US who's doing smart things right now. Let's back up a [00:21:00] little bit. The sale to Disney Unloaded a tremendous amount of institutional baggage for Fox at the top of the market. They got the best price possible for that, and then they've taken all of those resources and funneled into reshaping Fox into a modern media conglomerate. They invest in Red Sea ventures. They buy Tubi and turn it into a creator platform. They invest in Holy Water. They invest in Whaler, which just sold their agency to Song at a huge markup. And now you look at this deal to buy Roku, and this, you talk about a really smart vertical integration play. Roku has 50% almost of television screens in the United States. 50%. No one even comes close, in second place. Fox is limited in its reach. They have a very, they have one of the oldest, if not the oldest [00:22:00] audience in all of television in the United States. 75% of their audience across Fox and Fox News and the rest are 55 plus. 75%. Yeah. And that's a hard audience to sell advertising again, against. Again, Fox is really good at selling advertising, and if they had more inventory, they could do really well with it. Roku kinda solves that issue for them. There's a tremendous amount of inventory there And honestly, not a lot of it gets sold. There's a tremendous amount of unsold inventory sitting on Roku right now. Marion Ranchet: Absolutely. Evan Shapiro: You know this, I know this. Yeah. And so the two need states kinda meet in the middle. $22 billion for Roku, which not too long ago was worth $50 billion. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: $50 billion. So you're getting it at what I think is, if not half the price, then one third off what Roku is ultimately worth just because of the size of the install base in the [00:23:00] United States. It's massive. Yeah. And so I think it's a brilliant move for both companies, to be blunt. But also, I just think it proves that Lachlan Murdoch is, frankly, the keenest, sharpest CEO in traditional media in the US right now, and I'm not necessarily happy to be saying that out loud, but here I am saying that out loud. Marion Ranchet: So I'm gonna be the party pooper for once. Yeah. Because I, so I did not see this coming when... you and I, we knew they would be sold. I knew it would happen. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. We've been talking about it since we started this podcast, actually. Marion Ranchet: And I have to say, yeah, last time I saw Anthony Wood on TV, I thought he had aged a lot, et cetera, and I thought something was up, and it was like he didn't have a successor internally. So I knew this was coming, but I hadn't thought of Fox. And there's a few things. Number one, I think it's incredibly ironic that Fox gets to, well [00:24:00] Roku gets bought by Fox because Anthony's premise was very much anti-legacy, very much disruptor. All about cord cutting and et cetera, et cetera. And very, all TV will be streamed and all advertising will be streamed were kind of slogans of his. And it's full circle. He's going to very traditional legacy broadcast media business. So that's one. That's one. Evan Shapiro: But not really. If you look at what they've done, Fox is actually, I think, just in the midst of disrupting itself. So I see what you're saying, but I think of them, this is the best one of those. Marion Ranchet: No, but that's true. But that's one. And number two, we were talking at the top about a vertical integration, and I think those are two very, two different companies, and I think the integration is not gonna work. And I think the two companies are gonna keep operating in silos, in part because there's [00:25:00] very little overlap in what they do, right? The only two things where it overlaps is Tubi and The Roku Channel and selling advertising. On that, awesome. But I think it's my concern is I think it's gonna, you know kill that innovative CTV pioneer. And I think that ultimately it's bad for the CTV landscape. The reason being that Fox is a very US-focused company. Roku has historically been as well. They've had some success in Canada, Brazil, Mexico, but it's tiny in the UK, even tinier in Germany. And I was supposed to be growing the European footprint of Roku in Europe and five laters, five years later, where am I at? I'm doing my own thing, and they're nowhere to be found beyond the UK and Germany. And so the thing is that Roku needed a very international company [00:26:00] I think to continue to thrive. So I think it's gonna stifle what they've built is my unfortunate, I don't want it because it's a company that I really care about. I have a lot of people that I care about there. Evan Shapiro: You still own shares in it. Marion Ranchet: Yes. Absolutely. Evan Shapiro: But, and I still own shares in Comcast. But the, but I'm gonna disagree with you on several, I, you're absolutely right. These things fail more than they succeed, and a tech culture and a programming culture typically don't go along well. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: There's legendary stories about tech divisions and programming divisions not getting along inside these major companies, except, I will disagree with you on a couple things. Anthony hasn't gotten a natural successor there, although you've got Charlie Collier as the president of- Marion Ranchet: That's true. Evan Shapiro: Roku Media there, who's a brilliant executive, by the way, who used to work at Fox. He used to run Fox Entertainment. [00:27:00] And so now you're ingesting, re-ingesting Charlie Collier, which is the grossest thing I've ever said out loud, back into Fox, and I think he'll wind up serving as the connective tissue, as the, as the- Marion Ranchet: Yeah Evan Shapiro: as the moderator between the two halves of these companies, 'cause he's been doing it internally at Roku for a moment. The other thing to remember is something that you said, which I think is crucially important. When you combine Roku Channel and Tubi together, they're larger than Disney Stream. Marion Ranchet: Oh, that matters. I agree. Evan Shapiro: That's a massive, massive and by the way, they become almost as big as Fox. When you look at the distributor gauge, when you add those two together, and you put Fox up against everybody else, suddenly they're bigger than Netflix. They're bigger than Paramount. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: They're as big as NBCUniversal is today. And so they go from being an also-ran as far as reach and [00:28:00] demographics to being an industry leader around reach and demographics. Yeah. So I think there's a lot more to be won there in the combination of these two. You are absolutely 1,000% correct. The biggest risk here is the integration of a what is mostly a tech company and mostly an entertainment company. Those things typically do not work, and it will not be easy. But if they can execute, this is a real player. Marion Ranchet: So the one thing is that The Roku Channel's reach and scale is based on the CTV business- because it's only, with a few exception, available within Roku devices, Roku platform, et cetera. Evan Shapiro: Almost entirely, yeah. Marion Ranchet: So if you start putting on the side and not developing that part of the business anymore, the value of The Roku Channel will diminish. Because again, it's not, unlike Tubi [00:29:00], it's not ubiquitous. Evan Shapiro: But what if they merge, but if, what if they just- Marion Ranchet: So that's the thing. Evan Shapiro: Merge them together into one big channel and call it Tubi wherever it goes, 'cause, you know Roku Channel is not a great name. And, they just keep the distribution off Roku that they have, and then on Roku it's a combined channel, but then you can flood Tubi everywhere else with the programming that Roku owns, which includes, by the way, some really high-profile stuff, This Old House, Bake Off a bunch of other programming as well. Marion Ranchet: I think it looks good on paper, but the challenge there, number one, and I was preaching that spiel is that Roku was supposed to be Switzerland, right? That was the spiel, interesting they knew where Switzerland was. So, we were supposed to be very neutral, meaning that we're an aggregator of third-party content services. Once you're owned by Fox, you can't really have that spiel anymore. If you're [00:30:00] merging Tubi and The Roku Channel together, let's say you do that, in order to have those two numbers add up audience-wise, it means that Tubi needs to become the left nav by default, entry point, to content within The Roku, The Roku platform. Otherwise, one plus one, that won't work out, right? Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I think that's very likely, yeah. Marion Ranchet: Because there's a lot of overlap. Yeah. There's a lot of overlap in what the two do. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: And the reason why people watch The Roku Channel is because it's within, it's so ingrained within the Roku platform. So that's, I think that's a big risk and that's why when I see people say, three plus, three almost, three each, et cetera, it really depends on whether they're able to sustain that CTV business. And I think they're gonna start to have a bit of aggressive behavior and tough renewals with content providers on The Roku platform. Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: Because [00:31:00] of course they're gonna wanna make, Tubi more prominent. Yeah. It makes sense. That's, what they were doing with Roku, The Roku Channel, which was always the number two or number three app, in terms of engagement. So yeah, it's not a done deal. And again, on the, I think Tubi could have benefited from a player that was more international and so could Roku. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, that is, Fox is very domestic and Roku is very domestic. But I think, honestly, again, I think this is part of the Murdoch strategy right now, which is let's win America. Yeah. It's the largest advertising market by a lot- on the planet Earth. Marion Ranchet: Yep. Evan Shapiro: Let's not get distracted with ground wars in Asia. Let's focus on, our, home turf and just win here before we start thinking beyond that. And again, when you, take Roku and Fox in isolation, there's a lot of issues around [00:32:00] theoretically making that work. Yeah. When you add the fact that they own Red Sea, they have a major investment in Red Sea Ventures, they have a huge chunk of Whaler, they have a huge chunk of Holy Water, that they are making these really interesting investments around the digital horn, suddenly them as a flywheel of digital content distribution and advertising sales located primarily in the United States. Again, it's all in the execution at this point. And it is, to the earlier point that we were discussing, you have to integrate these things. You can't leave them in silos and not fully integrate everything. That's the fucking hard part. But if you do, that's the hard part, that work, if you do that work, there's a, there is a pot at the end of that rainbow, I think. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Pot of gold. Marion Ranchet: Okay, and we got one more topic. We've spoken about this ad nauseam, but I think we need to talk about it because something happened. Do you wanna tell us what happened, Evan? Evan Shapiro: Yeah, so you've got the, Paramount-Discovery Bros merger [00:33:00] happening, and, the Nepo kid, Ellison, at Paramount mandated that this deal close by July. I don't know if you've noticed, it's already July, the deal has not closed. The, quote-unquote, "Justice Department of the United States" approved the deal, but as I've been predicting for a long time now, regulators in Europe and regulators in the United States are now hyper-focused on this deal. Not the ones that you most think of when you think about regulators, so it's not the EU taking umbrage with this deal, but it's the UK. Yeah. And the culture minister there has said that they're going to get involved in this deal, and that they don't believe that one company owning CBS News and CNN is in the best interest of consumers in her country, or around the world. Rob Bonta, who's the attorney general of the State of California, Letitia James, who's the attorney general of the State of New York, who has beaten the Trump [00:34:00] administration three times in court, and other states' attorneys general are now joining a lawsuit to block this deal from closing. And their primary objective is to stop the merger of CNN and CBS. There has been rumors that they will accept Paramount selling CNN after the deal closes as a condition to approve the deal. We'll see if that happens, because I think it's very clear that Ellison's entire reason for doing this is to get CNN in his basket so that he can please his master in the White House. Marion Ranchet: Let's see what happens in the UK. Let's see, you know that the last time the UK government actually took a close look like that was it 2017 with Fox wanted to buy Sky? So- Evan Shapiro: Oh, yeah that's right. Marion Ranchet: That was a long time ago. Yeah, that was a long time ago. And, within the European Commission, not sure what happened, read [00:35:00] somewhere that they were looking to make some concessions, but they were like some of the concession were, "Oh, we're gonna stop that JV with, with Sky Showtime." Like that's not a concession. Evan Shapiro: No, it looks like the EU is on board. Marion Ranchet: That we knew this would be one of the first one. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I, which is surprising to me, but I think it also speaks to the reach of Ellisons across the world from a power standpoint. But I think, let's put it this way. The main goal here for the Ellisons was to close this deal before the midterms in the United States so that they could get control of CNN, although I don't really understand how much influence CNN has in the voting blocks of the United States anymore. Very few people watch it at this point. But that was the main goal. That is definitely not going to happen. There is no way that this deal gets closed before the midterms. There's no way it gets closed this month at all. And these attorneys general, these are really smart lawyers. That's what they do. They play court very, well, and I [00:36:00] think they're gonna, they're looking to just stall this thing as long as they can so that, they're, it loses momentum and the Ellisons perhaps change their mind on their $111 billion acquisition of a company that's worth maybe $30 billion. Marion Ranchet: Another amazing episode, but I think I'm gonna start a tradition. I'm gonna have a $1 jar every time you say the words nepo baby, toilets, et cetera. That, I'm gonna get rich. Poof. Evan Shapiro: You have to give me the list of words, and then I can choose whether or not I want to Marion Ranchet: And you're gonna stop saying them. Yeah. But on the next episode of the Media Odyssey podcast, we have Rosebery, and I can tell you already they've said the word toilet at least five times, again- ... that was an amazing episode. Evan Shapiro: For good reason. For good reason. 'Cause that's where a lot of people watch their video is on the toilet. Marion Ranchet: I know, but maybe once is enough, Maybe once is enough. Evan Shapiro: Toilet, toilet, toilet. Marion Ranchet: The whole time I took it. [00:37:00] Evan Shapiro: nepo baby, toilet, nepo baby, toilet, nepo baby. Marion Ranchet: Send the money. Send the money. Send the money. Evan Shapiro: Skibidi, we're gonna change- Marion Ranchet: That was an amazing- Evan Shapiro: We're gonna, we're gonna change our, the title of this podcast to Skibidi Nepo Baby Marion Ranchet: Pfft, toilet. That was an amazing episode. Thank you so much. On July 21st, we're gonna go live on our Substack, and we're doing a bit of a office hour career development moment episode. We're gonna have guests on. The idea is that you're gonna be sending us questions at themediaodyssey@gmail.com. Any question, anything that is, on your mind as you're trying, either to survive or thrive, within the media and entertainment industry. We got guests, right? Evan Shapiro: Yeah, we've got Tony Goncalves, friend of the pod, also a friend of both of us, ex of Warner Brothers Discovery, Disco Bros. Brilliant guy who talks and writes a lot about career development and sustainability, and a brilliant writer, also a surviving ex-TV executive named Amy Angelowicz, who has a great [00:38:00] newsletter called Laid Off Life. Together, all four of us are gonna come together and talk about our transitions from executive world into this new portfolio lifestyle and how to keep pivoting in order to keep your career sustainable, interesting, and really enjoyable for yourself. It's gonna be a great conversation with these really smart people. Wow, that was a lot. we covered a lot in a short period of time. I love comparing notes with you. and we disagreed a little bit here, and we're gonna have to see how this all plays out. Marion Ranchet: That's good. Evan Shapiro: It's gonna be fascinating to watch. Send us your thoughts out there if you have any questions or feedback on anything that we're saying or the podcast itself. Thanks for listening so much. Once again, that is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: And that is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: We'll see you next time