Matt Belloni on WarnerMount, Disney Succession, Oscars & More

Kara sits down with Matthew Belloni, author of the flagship Puck newsletter What I’m Hearing and host of The Town podcast, to take the entertainment industry’s temperature just a few days before the Academy Awards. They dig into the Warner Bros. Discovery/Paramount/Netflix saga and the consequences of the Ellison-backed deal for creatives and crews. Then Kara and Matt debate whether consolidation can fix Hollywood’s broken economics and why legacy companies are facing a “Titanic-esque” moment as linear TV collapses. They also unpack the streaming wars, Netflix’s next moves, Disney’s succession questions and how AI could reshape filmmaking from visual effects to writers’ rooms. Plus, they make their predictions for the Oscars. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kara Swisher?

  You're a snarky person, which I love. But, and I love that part, but at your heart, you're an excellent reporter. And that's the critical part.

• 0:17Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Matt Belloni, author of Puck's flagship newsletter, What I'm Hearing, and the host of the podcast, The Town. It covers the, quote, "real inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood." And amazingly, it actually delivers on that promise. Everyone in Hollywood reads and listens to Matt, whether they like him or not. He doesn't mince his words, which has made him both very popular and a little more than polarizing. I can relate. I'm excited to talk to him because he always has such smart takes on stuff. And Matt, at his heart, is a great reporter. He also has a point of view, and it's formed by reporting. And I really enjoy talking to him. And of course, we're at a real moment for Hollywood and media in general.

• 1:01Kara Swisher?

  And so I couldn't think of someone smarter to talk to about the topic than Matt. Streaming has upended the traditional Hollywood revenue model. Consolidation has become essential to survival. President Trump is then weighing in on editorial decisions and mergers. And AI-generated video is likely to make an already tricky business environment even more complicated. So it's great to have an insider like Matt on to unpack it all. And of course, we'll talk about the Oscars. Not the outfits, but the business. Our expert question comes from Richard Plepler, the founder and CEO of Eden Productions and the former CEO of HBO, another person who knows a thing or two about Hollywood. So stick around.

• 1:49Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has. Across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness and more. And The Guardian, not owned by a billionaire, they fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com/stateside.

• 2:33Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow, none of them ever talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in. An all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try it today for free at Odoo.com/kara. That's O-D-O-O dot com slash Kara.

• 3:17Speaker 01

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• 3:58Kara Swisher?

  Matt, thanks for coming on, on again. I'm so thrilled to have you.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 4:03Kara Swisher?

  There's so much going on. I don't quite know where to start, but I-

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Why have you never been to the Oscars?

• 4:08Kara Swisher?

  Because I can't, I hate that shit. I've been to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Okay, but you should come to the Oscars at least once, just to see it.

• 4:15Kara Swisher?

  No, I see them at the, I saw them at the old Vanity Fair Oscar Party, which when it was at the Sambas- No, no, it was up the

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Sunset Tower?

• 4:22Kara Swisher?

  Sunset Tower. That was fun. I got a good time there.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was when that party really mattered.

• 4:26Kara Swisher?

  That really did. I was there one year because I wrote for Vanity Fair only to go to that party. I said, this is my only reason. You don't even have to pay me. And the first year I went, all the tech people were invited because they were suddenly hot, but not that hot, right? And I just got stuck there with all the tech people kept trying to talk to me because they didn't know anybody. And I'm like, can you get the fuck away from me and so I can meet some celebrities?

• 4:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, then they moved it to a bigger venue so they can invite all the Procter and Gamble brand managers and LVMH ad buyers that kind of ruined the party, although they say they're cutting the guest list by half this year.

• 5:01Kara Swisher?

  Well, it was okay. I mean, one, Elon Musk asked me to fix him up with people and I said, absolutely not.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Did he have his real hair then or was it?

• 5:08Kara Swisher?

  Well, I don't know what was happening. He looked okay. He's one of the better looking techies. Anyway, I don't want to go to the Oscars. Anyway, let's talk about you. We're here to talk about you and what's going on. You're a must read, must listen to reporter and you're the guy who plays himself on Seth Rogen's Apple series, The Studio. Oddly enough, I played myself on Silicon Valley, so it's kind of funny.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  It's weird, isn't it?

• 5:27Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah, we're the, like, I was the go to on tech and you were absolutely the go to on Hollywood. So you described yourself as the guy with a megaphone on the Titanic, which made me laugh. Explain a little bit about how you look at yourself and your competition.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Honestly, I don't think about that. All I do is try to differentiate. That's what you're doing in media in general and particularly in subscription media. When I launched my newsletter, I was like, okay, so I came from that world. I came from The Hollywood Reporter where I worked for 14 years. I was the editor in chief there. And I kind of know what the trade media does well and what they don't do very well.

• 6:08Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  So I was like, all right, I'm just going to do what they don't do very well. The trades don't have a voice. They don't have opinions. They don't have perspective.

• 6:19Kara Swisher?

  What more they do, but yes, you're right. They just type press releases. That was.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  There's a lot, there's more than that, but.

• 6:24Kara Swisher?

  I agree. I agree. I'm sorry. That was unfair.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  It's a lot of approved news where you're working with relationships and. You get, you know, it's a lot of handouts and things like that, which is fine. Like no shame. I did that for a long time. But I knew that when I was just doing this on my own, I could ignore big stories. If I didn't feel like I had anything to add to it.

• 6:45Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  So I figured, all right, I'm going to either tell readers something that they don't already know and that they probably won't get from the other media outlets.

• 6:53Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Or I'm going to have a perspective and an insight and an analysis that I feel from my 20 something years covering this business that I can offer that others cannot.

• 7:04Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  And the goal is really to reflect what people are actually talking about. And if you can do that in a way that relates to people and is accessible and doesn't feel like you're like it's homework. I feel like that's a real way to get an audience.

• 7:19Kara Swisher?

  With insights, right. And you're not beholden to them necessarily. They're sort of, I mean, I tried to get myself in a position in tech where they're beholden to me. You know what I mean? Or else they, if they ignored me, it didn't matter. Like Yahoo did that to their detriment. So did Uber. But you want to, you want to have sourcing. And yet you get more sourcing if you're tougher from my perspective. I don't know how you feel about that.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I agree, and you become undeniable. Like that's the whole goal. I hate that word in Hollywood because everyone uses it. It's got to be undeniable. But it really has to be when you're an independent media outlet and there isn't a hundred year old relationship between your outlet and the companies that you cover, which is what the trade outlets are. You really have to make, to insert yourself into the narrative and keep yourself there. And you do that by telling people stuff they don't know and by surprising and sometimes even entertaining. People, I do stuff that's just supposed to be fun.

• 8:12Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  You're in a battle when you are in independent media. You are always in a battle for opens. What is going to cause someone to open what you send them and not open it? And I, that's the stat I look at more than anything, more than clicks. So we don't care about clicks at Puck. We don't care about even, you know, the, the traditional metrics. Like I don't care about revenue. I don't care about that.

• 8:36Kara Swisher?

  You should.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  I should care about revenue, but

• 8:38Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  I care about open rates. If my open rates stay where they are and they've stayed really consistent.

• 8:43Kara Swisher?

  What are they?

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Usually between 70 and 80%.

• 8:46Kara Swisher?

  That's very good. When you said megaphone and the Titanic, though, are the others in trouble? Do you feel like, and are you yourself?

• 8:53Speaker 02

  That was in reference to Hollywood, not other media outlets.

• 8:56Kara Swisher?

  Right, I see, okay.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  The Titanic in that metaphor, and honestly, the second I said it, I said, oh my God, that's going to be the headline. And lo and behold.

• 9:04Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, there it was. But is it a Titanic or is it just a resetting?

• 9:09Speaker 02

  I think it's both. I think for many of these legacy companies, this is a Titanic-esque moment. Because they are, they are so tethered to a model that is disappearing. The linear television model, the cable television, the.

• 9:23Kara Swisher?

  The expensive model.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, the people will pay for content they don't actually consume model. That is going away and it's been going away off and on now for 15 years. But it's really reached mission critical where these companies are being dragged down and forced to consolidate. Because they are tied to a model that isn't working.

• 9:44Kara Swisher?

  Which they knew about.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Because the model was so lucrative and the margins were so high. None of the executives were willing to blow up their own model to compete for the next generation of subscribers. And it shows. They got their lunch eaten by the tech companies. And now what we've seen over the past five to seven years is this gradual, gradual, and then all at once takeover by the disruptors.

• 10:11Kara Swisher?

  So let's then start talking about that, talking about Warner Mount or Para.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  I prefer Warner Mount. There's Para Bros, but I don't like that. That, that, that sounds.

• 10:20Kara Swisher?

  Para Bros works better.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  You like Para Bros?

• 10:22Kara Swisher?

  I'll go with Warner Mount for you. You've been predicting the Ellison's as a winner since we and I have gone back and forth the auction. Even after Netflix closed on the $83 billion deal for the studio and streamer back in December. Talk a little bit about it. I thought it would take a lot longer. I thought they wasted enormous amounts of time by not just upping the bid, getting in there and winning it with the money. Because I did, I'm fully aware that the biggest price wins period in all these deals.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the Ellison's were a little arrogant at the beginning. And they thought that they could come in and swipe this asset for not very much money. They did not anticipate Netflix being interested or coming in as aggressively as they did. And listen, if you know Larry, I know David, that's the reason from the very beginning, I said, these guys are not going away. This is something that David has said to his father, I want to do this for 40 years. This is going to be my life, just like the tech industry was your life. So please let me do this and let's do this together. And when you have that kind of buy in from someone who is so wealthy.

• 11:25Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  They just were never, they were Larry, they were never going to go away. They were going to push and push and push.

• 11:30Kara Swisher?

  The only thing I thought was Larry's, look, I know David to have interviewed him. Larry is brilliant. I wouldn't say the same about David. You can, we could, you can push against me, but he, Larry is brilliant in the area he was brilliant in. And I thought he just can't even think this is a good deal. Like he's just, he's been so incredibly savvy about paying the right price for things and never overpaying and cutting and, you know, just one of these sort of rapacious tech executives from the earlier days before the internet and he was able to switch and shift really drastically. So I was surprised, it felt a little indulgent on, for him. And I suppose, what's the reason?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Listen, he has one adult son and his one adult son has devoted his life to this. And he's 80, what, 81 years old, 82?

• 12:15Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  And.

• 12:16Kara Swisher?

  He's going to live forever.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  But if he doesn't, this money is going to David anyways.

• 12:21Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  And his sister, Megan and others. But I, I think that, that once David said, I want to do this. It was a matter of figuring out the contours of the deal. And keep in mind that this is not all Larry's money. They're bringing in the Saudis, they're bringing in the Qataris.

• 12:40Kara Swisher?

  They're bringing the Chinese now.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're leveraging this company with almost $80 billion of debt. And he's saying to David, essentially, you need to make this work.

• 12:50Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  But the whole deal happened because Larry finally agreed to backstop it. I mean, that was one of the big defections.

• 12:56Kara Swisher?

  He was slow to, he was slow to, and I think it's because his nature. Like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, I can hear him thinking that. I've spent a lot of time with him. And it wasn't smart, but he wanted to indulge his son. It felt like that to me.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  And he thought he didn't have to. He thought they could get away with it. And the Warner board, looking at this, said, wait a second. What, we have Netflix, who's, who's, you know, going crazy with profits and EBITDA every year. Why wouldn't we go with the safe buyer over this if you're not even going to backstop it?

• 13:23Kara Swisher?

  Right, exactly. So regardless who bought it, you know that there is no good outcome for Hollywood. Either way, we're likely to see massive layoffs. This is something I said, I'm like, this is not, they have not do $6 billion. It's more like 16 billion.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Well, that's what Ted Sarandos says at Netflix.

• 13:36Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, he is correct. I mean, it's somewhere between six and 16, but it's definitely not six. And it could be even more, you know? Talk about what's at stakes here, not only for the executives involved, but for the people who actually create films and television. I, I'm like, this is look, I keep saying, look out below if they get it. Stop, stop attacking Netflix quite so much because it would have been a very different party.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, at least that's what Netflix said when they were bidding. I, I think, I think you're right, though. I think that the, the coming together of two legacy studios with everything that they are carrying right now. From all, you know, everything from creative executives down to the janitorial staff. All of that will be merged.

• 14:18Kara Swisher?

  It's 47,000 people, I believe, 17 from Paramount, 30,000 from Warner.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've seen 35 at Warner, but I'm sure that somewhere in that ballpark. It's a lot. And even if you take out 20 to 30% of those employees.

• 14:31Kara Swisher?

  Financial.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  That is tens of thousands of people.

• 14:34Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  These are middle-class jobs. These are creative class jobs. This is devastating for these people, for the companies, for the city of LA, where most of these people work, for the city of New York, where CNN is. Or in Atlanta, where CNN also has a big presence. So from a macro perspective, it is just a shrinking of the traditional entertainment business.

• 14:55Kara Swisher?

  Right, and so what they say they can deleverage it fast. Nobody believes them because none of these, I have, one of my, I wrote a whole book on the all-time Warner merger. They were not able to do and realize these gains. And I remember when they got Paramount and they had their first press conference, I don't know if you were there. And they kept saying, and David in particular was like, use AI and do things. And I'm like, okay.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  They have this like magic oracle dust that they're gonna sprinkle over the whole company.

• 15:20Kara Swisher?

  I'm sorry. And I was like, okay, but specifically. And they're like, AI. And I was like, specifically? Like, can you give me one fucking specific? And they never could. And I just think, I was like, well, isn't your dad in tech?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  They keep leaning on the fact that they hired a product guy from Meta.

• 15:36Kara Swisher?

  Oh, that always works.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  And they say, and Jerry Cardinal, who's the, the Redbird dealmaker.

• 15:41Kara Swisher?

  I heard him.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  He was on the town and he said that they are gonna be the first time that a studio and a Silicon Valley powerhouse are coming together.

• 15:49Kara Swisher?

  Stop it.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  And I said, really? I think Netflix would like a word about that, but whatever.

• 15:53Kara Swisher?

  There were lots of efforts in this area, by the way.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  You know what? Let's just say they can't. Let's say that they can use a little bit of Larry's prowess in this area and create a best in class platform. Create a recommendation engine that is way better than what they currently have, can eliminate duplicative jobs. That's still.

• 16:12Kara Swisher?

  It's table stakes. That's already where Netflix was. Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, because make, remember what happened when Warner Brothers and Discovery came together. David Zasloff made very similar predictions about how they were gonna be able to achieve synergies. And the content is gonna take us to the moon on subscribers.

• 16:29Kara Swisher?

  AOL Time Warner. It's been going on forever, this nonsense.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  But the even, from the very beginning of Warner Brothers Discovery, the prediction they made on the revenue and profit did not come to roost. Because, like we said, the linear TV business is cratering faster. Now, Ellison says that they're very aware of that now. And they know what the decay rate is in television. They've modeled that in conservatively. Maybe that's the case, but maybe it's worse than they think. And they're gonna have to cut even more. And what does that do when you're, when you're saying that they're gonna release 30 movies a year in theaters? And they're gonna increase the investment for their streaming properties. That all costs a lot of money. While at the same time, taking out six to 16 billion dollars from the company.

• 17:15Kara Swisher?

  I'm more interested in what are they gonna make that's gonna make that money? Like, cutting costs is one thing, but. When Zasloff came in, he's like, we're gonna make this, this and this. I'm like, really? I don't believe you. Like, you can't cut your way to growth. Like, and I was like, what, again, specifically are you gonna make that's suddenly gonna, what are you gonna do Bitcoin? Oh, that's a might not work. Like, what's your plan? And I don't, I don't hear fresh ideas. I hear a lot of old retread ideas that I heard when I wrote my all time Warner book. I don't hear a lot of, like, how can you save money? I just, I don't get it. It doesn't make sense. But so after David Ellison struck the deal to buy Warner Brothers Discovery with his father's money, Zasloff called the process thrilling and exciting. He's laughing, of course, all the way to the bank. And Kim Masters had a great piece in your column today that I thought was terrific. And it's

• 18:00Kara Swisher?

  something I knew about, but not everyone did, showing how the resume is pretty thin because David leading this. Talk a little bit about the relationship between Zasloff and David Ellison, the two person that is behind what will be truly massive layoffs. I don't, I guess Zasloff will ride off in the sunset with his pile, his pile of cash.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, he is set to make $800 million off of this deal.

• 18:21Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it's like this, remember the Starbelly snitch, the snitches, like the guy who came? He's that guy.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it is a grotesque.

• 18:28Kara Swisher?

  Monkey McBean or something, yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  It is a grotesque amount of money for someone who is not a founder. He is a media manager that came to this company, saw that Discovery Communications was floundering in the linear TV era. He bolted his company on to HBO and Warner Brothers under the theory that if they could create a streaming powerhouse, it might take them to the promised land. It didn't work.

• 18:52Kara Swisher?

  I had drinks with him, heard that one.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Well, listen, more power to him because he, he created this scenario where all of a sudden, the fourth richest man in the world's son wanted to buy the company, lucked out like nobody's business, and now he's gonna, he's gonna reap the rewards. So the shareholders are the big winners here.

• 19:09Kara Swisher?

  They are, they are, because it was at seven and then it sold at 31. And, which was incredible. And I was like, did, was there $22 of that, or whatever, the $24 of value in there? Like, there wasn't, like, nothing got created. In fact, things got cut.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just the perception when Netflix wanted this and the Ellison Wanted it, the, the, the bidding was off. The Ellison's were only prepared to pay $19 a share.

• 19:35Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  They made their first bid.

• 19:37Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  So, and that was for all the companies. So it's just, it's a very fortuitous situation for Zasla. But now he's in this position where they had a town hall on the lot today in Burbank, where they're talking about integrating these companies and kind of dancing around the layoff issue. And they have to figure out what they are going to do with each of these assets. Like Ellison is saying HBO should stay HBO, be the premium brand. But he doesn't address the fact that HBO has actually broadened out pretty significantly over the past three years to try to be something other than just HBO. The HBO Max brand, they're doing things like The Pit, which was not perceived as like a traditional HBO show.

• 20:21Kara Swisher?

  Or buying heated rivalry. Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, but that's a little bit, that's at least racy.

• 20:25Kara Swisher?

  That was a smart buy.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a smart buy, but, but that's at least more traditional HBO show. My point is they're doing more broadly commercial shows at HBO.

• 20:34Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  And that is overlapping now with what Paramount is doing. And they have a whole apparatus there designed to increase the amount of content on Paramount Plus. They're going to merge these two together, but how are they going to merge it?

• 20:47Kara Swisher?

  Cause they're very different brands. One is a luxury brand, the other is kind of like.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:51Kara Swisher?

  Yellowstone.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  The good part is they're complementary.

• 20:54Kara Swisher?

  Yes, they are.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  That one is, one is broadcast style, CBS style content. In fact, the CBS shows live on Paramount Plus. And then the other is premium. And do you lean into the HBO brand? Do you lean into the CBS brand? There's going to be some very interesting decisions made there.

• 21:11Kara Swisher?

  How does it go together?

• 21:12Speaker 02

  And then you have two movie studios. I mean Paramount has been so weakened as a movie studio over the past two decades because of the mismanagement of the Summoner Redstone people. So, but they have no franchises, not no franchises. They have some, but they do not have the treasure trove of superheroes.

• 21:31Kara Swisher?

  Which is why they needed Warner, right?

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 21:33Kara Swisher?

  It was existential situation for this company.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  They have Harry Potter, they have Lord of the Rings, they have Doom.

• 21:40Kara Swisher?

  Game of Thrones.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, Game of Thrones. They have all these franchises and how are they going to integrate these two studios to best take advantage of that?

• 21:48Kara Swisher?

  Stack ranked the assets for me really quickly. Like the studios are on top, right? Presumably?

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yes, but not for the reason you think. They're not on top because of any output that they are doing this year. I mean, Zaslav loves to talk about how Warner Brothers had a great year in 2025, and he's turned around the studio, and that's why they were so attractive. But that's not the reason.

• 22:09Kara Swisher?

  Hello Bride of Frankenstein, but go ahead.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  They are, I know, the bride. That's the thing, he's not talking about the bride. And in the grand scheme of things, the bride doesn't matter either. What matters is this is a 100-year-old studio with 100 years of movies and franchises that can be exploited across all platforms. That is where these studios really have value.

• 22:34Kara Swisher?

  The IP.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  And that's what Netflix wanted. They saw that and they're like, oh, my God. You know, if you look at Netflix on a random Tuesday night, half the movies, at least in their top 10, are movies that they have licensed from another studio.

• 22:47Kara Swisher?

  That's right.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Because they are known properties that perform on all platforms.

• 22:52Kara Swisher?

  Right. And it's something people want. And then, so the studios, what goes next?

• 22:55Speaker 02

  HBO. I mean, HBO is a global brand. It has a track record. It means something. I mean, all of these, these linear businesses, they're trying to transition over to streaming. HBO has done it. They have a streamer with, you know, I think it's at about 130, 140 million subscribers now.

• 23:16Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  And they have, they have successfully grown this to be one of the streamers that matters. So now they're combining it with another streamer that is sort of matters.

• 23:28Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, kind of.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if they can put those together and create a legitimate Netflix and Disney competitor, maybe the Ellison's will have one of the three, maybe four services that survive this era of turmoil. That is the goal.

• 23:45Kara Swisher?

  All right. Anything else that's worthwhile? News. Let's talk about the news and the network. Because there's, there's the broadcast network, and then there's the news division. So what's going to happen with CNN? Because that was going to be spun off, which I thought was the smartest. Obviously CBS gets written about a lot. I think it matters much less than people go on and on about.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Oh, see, I disagree. I think CBS.

• 24:06Kara Swisher?

  Tell me why CBS Broadcast or CBS News?

• 24:09Speaker 02

  CBS Broadcast.

• 24:10Kara Swisher?

  I'm talking about the news.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah. News doesn't, news, to be honest, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The CNN carriage fees do matter.

• 24:18Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  They are still throwing off a lot of profit.

• 24:20Kara Swisher?

  They are.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  And that is a, that is one of the few handful of networks that you can't cancel. A cable provider is not going to drop CNN for a number of reasons, but mostly for the five times during the year when people actually care and want to watch CNN. So CBS, though, is a real asset. Like, broadcast ratings are still a thing. If you look at the, the live plus 35 rankings, which is, you know, the night it airs plus 35 days, even when you include Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming shows, CBS has a big chunk of the most watched shows still.

• 24:58Kara Swisher?

  This is broadcast entertainment evening.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  This is anything. This is including Stranger Things.

• 25:04Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  CBS will still, now, the audience is geriatric.

• 25:08Kara Swisher?

  They are.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  And getting older, but CBS has football. It has now UFC. It has golf. It has marquee sports products and it has broadcast shows. So, and, and, and as we've seen, the audience has abandoned cable. They haven't abandoned the broadcast networks as much as, as some have thought they might.

• 25:30Kara Swisher?

  Plus they can get some on streaming and it also has another life on streaming.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  Exactly. So, so for now at least, CBS is, is a very important asset. Not in 20 years, but as long as it can carry live sports, it is going to be an important asset.

• 25:45Kara Swisher?

  So, sports is key there. News is not at all.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Not, not to CBS. I mean, that's why I think many people believe that CBS News and CNN will be combined.

• 25:55Kara Swisher?

  Absolutely.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  CNN will likely end up programming the news portion of CBS.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  And there'll be one news organization across both, which is not dissimilar to what happened at NBC.

• 26:08Kara Swisher?

  Right, but then they split it up.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Where MSNBC and NBC Broadcast were powered by NBC News. Now, there was a lot on MSNBC that didn't work on NBC because it was more advocacy journalism. But they at least had one NBC News. Now, of course, they're split up and they're having to figure that out. But I think what we'll see is one, and I don't know if it'll be branded CBS News or be branded CNN, probably CNN, because that's the news brand.

• 26:36Kara Swisher?

  Sure, and it's global.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  And you'll end up seeing CNN programming the evening news on CBS.

• 26:43Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  And programming the morning show.

• 26:45Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  And all the news breaks and election coverage, all of that will come from CNN. And you'll be able to take the employee count of CNN, which is about 3,000 people now, maybe cut that in half and maybe cut in half the CBS News staff and then just do one combined product.

• 27:02Kara Swisher?

  Do you think, well, the nightly news doesn't matter anymore?

• 27:05Speaker 02

  It's not, well, I don't know. I mean, CBS is third place, but if you look at the ratings, there is still an audience for that evening news.

• 27:13Kara Swisher?

  But if you go to 25 to 34, I hate to tell you, pivot is bigger. Like, I'm sorry.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Oh, but, but.

• 27:19Kara Swisher?

  By a lot.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  They're not going to 25 to 54.

• 27:21Kara Swisher?

  Right, that's right, they're going to old people.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  They're going to, they've long since abandoned that. And if you look at the ads on those shows, it's all pharma and heating pads and things like that.

• 27:31Kara Swisher?

  Shower and Sky Rizzi.

• 27:34Kara Swisher?

  So, but they're worried about sort of the Trumpy politics that the Ellison's employed to get this deal through and.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  That's not going away.

• 27:40Kara Swisher?

  No, no. Although David, for people that don't know, was quite a Democrat for a while, right?

• 27:45Speaker 02

  I think he probably still is. Honestly, I just don't, I don't think he is particularly ideological.

• 27:52Kara Swisher?

  No, I would agree with you.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  And my dealings with him, he's not doing this because he has some internal desire to change the world politically. This is not a Murdoch.

• 28:01Kara Swisher?

  His father is much more political.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 28:03Kara Swisher?

  Especially around Israel, of course.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Yes. And David cares very much about Israel as well.

• 28:07Kara Swisher?

  He does.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  But I think that he's just being opportunistic here. He sees that they have a window and he sees that his father has a relationship with Trump. And they've got two and a half years to, you know, do whatever they want. And there will, there will likely be very little pushback from the Trumps. And I just feel like that's, it's more of a business thing for him. And he does see an opportunity, I think. I mean, if you look at the news landscape, there is one right-leaning news powerhouse in television. And then there are about seven or eight that at least lean a little bit left center or left. And what I think Ellison is trying to do, and I think he's trying to compete more overtly with Fox.

• 28:53Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  And they will continue to do that.

• 28:55Kara Swisher?

  I think he's going to get his head handed to him by the, the Fox people are as clever as can be. I can't stand it, but.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  They are, and, and, and people think Fox is successful because it's conservative. That's not why.

• 29:06Kara Swisher?

  No.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  They have a formula.

• 29:07Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  They have the vibrant screen, as Roger Eels called it. They have, they have personalities. They know the audience. They constantly refer to the audience, the audience, the audience. They know their consumer and they, they hit it hard all the time.

• 29:22Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I just don't think they know media. I just, media, news, I just don't, I think they're not very good at it. It doesn't get matters that much to them. But you know, if it gets their deal through, that's, I think, was the, was the point. We'll be back in a minute.

• 29:42Kara Swisher?

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• 30:25Kara Swisher?

  climate, culture, sports, lifestyle, fashion and wellness. Plus, The Guardian wants to emphasize they're not billionaire owned, meaning they're free to report the whole picture without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube starting May 13. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. Have you ever Googled yourself and found your home address, phone number, or the name of a family member? It's unsettling. Here's what you do to clean up your online data footprint. Go to joindelete.me/kara and enter the code Kara. You get 20% off Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online.

• 31:07Kara Swisher?

  Delete Me was named the top pick for data removal services by Wirecutter, so you know you're in good hands. I really like Delete Me. I use it all the time. It's always surprising how much data people have about me. I am very privacy forward and I still find so much stuff in mine online, some of which is incorrect, some of which is compiled in a really disturbing way, and you have to sort of control it like weeds. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now, at a special discount for our listeners, get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindelete.me/kara and use the promo code Kara at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete.me/kara and enter the code Kara at checkout.

• 31:51Kara Swisher?

  That's joindelete.me/kara code Kara. Support for this show comes from Hers. Losing weight on your own can often feel like a fight you never win. Luckily, weight loss by Hers offers access to the FDA-approved Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen. Wegovy is the first ever GLP-1 weight loss medication available in a pill, but also comes as a pen, so you've got options. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost an average of 14% body weight at 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy alongside diet and exercise. To get started with Wegovy, just go to forhers.com. And complete an online consultation with a licensed provider who will determine if

• 32:35Kara Swisher?

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• 33:05Kara Swisher?

  So every episode, we ask an expert to send our guest a question. Let's hear yours.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Richard Klepler, former chairman and CEO of HBO. Currently, I have a production deal at Apple. My question from that is, if you were, let's say hypothetically, offered $150 million from your partnership at Puck and asked to be president of the new Warner Paramount venture, what would be the first two strategic moves that you would make at the company when you came there?

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Hmm. Interesting question. Well, if I got $150 million, I'd probably buy, I'd probably buy David Geffen's yacht first and then go sailing for a few years. But, um, okay. So first, I would combine the two streaming services under the HBO Max name. I really hope Paramount doesn't go with the Paramount side of this because that brand doesn't mean anything. That is a streaming brand that has not achieved cultural significance in the world. Now, obviously HBO is great for people like you and me, but it's also not great for others who may say, oh, that those shows are not for me. But I think that's

• 34:20Speaker 02

  why you keep the Max name on there. It's just a little signal that this is more than just HBO. And all of those television brands are tiles.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  On HBO Max.

• 34:33Kara Swisher?

  Correct. Like a Disney's do it.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Like what Disney does and Disney, I think that's worked. I think that the branding is working and it's about to get even bigger because they're going to get rid of Hulu and put it under the Disney plus moniker. So that I think, I think, and they haven't decided whether they're doing that yet. I think they should, they should have it all under HBO Max.

• 34:54Kara Swisher?

  Okay. So that's one.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  That's one. Second, and this is something that they are thinking about through my reporting. I think that they should lean into experiential on the movie lots. They will now have two of the legacy movie lots.

• 35:11Kara Swisher?

  Movie lots.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  They're beautiful properties. They are ones in Hollywood, ones in Burbank. And at least on one of them, they should try to reimagine what the studio lot theme park looks like.

• 35:24Kara Swisher?

  I love that idea.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  It should not be what Universal is, no roller coasters.

• 35:28Kara Swisher?

  No.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  No, none of that. It should be more like what Netflix is doing with their Netflix houses. Where it's, it's a rotating thing where you go in there and maybe for six months, it's a Godfather experience based on the Godfather movies. And you can interact with the movies. You can place yourself in the movie. Then maybe there's something, there's a game or something based on, you know, there's something about Mary.

• 35:54Kara Swisher?

  Yeah. I went in and sat on the Friends couch and then looked at the Warner, the costume lot. There is a tour, a special tour of Warner that is wonderful. Let me just say, and it's really fun.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Imagine that's supersized.

• 36:05Kara Swisher?

  I would love that.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Imagine if you had experiences and then you could, maybe you could meet somebody or I some, you know, something where you're reimagining it and you turn those lots into working offices, which is, which they currently are. And it would, it would help to alleviate some of the pain of the production going to other locations.

• 36:27Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Because a lot of those studio lots are not used anymore.

• 36:30Kara Swisher?

  No, they're not. That could be really fun. That would be, and it could make some money and people would go, I would go.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  It's how Universal started.

• 36:36Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  They literally started with a tram tour and say, let's bring people in and let them see how we work. And then now. This business is is a real profit driver.

• 36:45Kara Swisher?

  Which one had the flood? That was that Universal or was it Warner? They have a flood.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Universal does the flood.

• 36:50Kara Swisher?

  That was really fun with the Jaws, the Jaws thing.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  They have the Jaws shark, then you go in, they have a Fast and Furious roller coaster about to open.

• 36:58Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, those are now driving, those are driving the profits at Universal and Disney.

• 37:04Kara Swisher?

  Yep. That's a great idea. I hope that that's something they should focus on. I agree with you. So talk about the Netflix of it all. The stock rebounded, obviously, after they pulled out of the auction. You've said this is personally embarrassing for CEO Ted Sarandos, who made nice with Trump, sort of, while he was trying to get the deal through. He wasn't that bad. I mean, they're all bad, but on the stack ranking.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't think it's that embarrassing. Did I say it was embarrassing?

• 37:24Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, you did, but I don't think it is at all. I was surprised when I heard that.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  I think it's a little embarrassing, but not, but nothing, nothing damaging to Ted. Like, he'll move on.

• 37:32Kara Swisher?

  Right. And you point out the company is getting this $2.8 billion. They still rock. I'm sorry, they're still really smart about how they program.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  They do, but I don't think they're done here. I don't think they're, I don't think they're just gonna say, you know what? We tried. Let's go back to our core business of streaming and let's not try to be a fully diversified media conglomerate like some of these other companies. I think that if Sony is available in the near future, they will go after Sony Pictures.

• 37:58Kara Swisher?

  Interesting.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  And try to buy that because it's the next best thing to Warner Brothers if amongst studios that might be available. It's got a pretty big library. It's got a great TV production business. And importantly, there would be fewer antitrust concerns, I think.

• 38:15Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  Because they wouldn't be dominating the streaming market like they would have if they had bought HBO.

• 38:20Kara Swisher?

  Right. That's interesting. So Sony?

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Sony, I think that there are other companies.

• 38:24Kara Swisher?

  Scott has talked about a Disney hookup. We're gonna get to Disney in a second.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Scott thinks that Netflix and Disney are gonna merge?

• 38:29Kara Swisher?

  They, he wants them to, I think, more than any. I was like, you cannot get that one through.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 38:35Kara Swisher?

  Under any circumstances.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  I believe the Apple thing more than I believe the Netflix thing.

• 38:40Kara Swisher?

  Oh, interesting. Apple and Disney, yeah.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Because Apple at least, that would take Apple in a different direction.

• 38:46Kara Swisher?

  Sure.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  I think, I don't, I just don't see Netflix wanting to deal.

• 38:50Kara Swisher?

  Sony is a great idea. AMC. They can hook up a lot of content, right?

• 38:54Speaker 02

  They could. I mean, Lionsgate is for sale. I don't think that Netflix is gonna buy Lionsgate. I know their stock popped. AMC, I assume you mean the networks, not the theaters?

• 39:05Kara Swisher?

  Yes, no, not the theaters.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Maybe, but I don't, but again, like-

• 39:08Kara Swisher?

  Let me be clear, Ted Sarandos does not like theaters.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  He does not.

• 39:11Kara Swisher?

  He does not. He said it to me on stage publicly. I, I know he doesn't. He likes them okay.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  He says he personally likes going to the theater, but it's not our model.

• 39:21Kara Swisher?

  I think he correctly, since it's like, let consumers do what they want. If they don't like them and they are showing they don't like them by not going, except sometimes, let consumer, he's, he's a let consumers decide, and I think he's right.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Well, unless he's trying to buy a theatrical movie studio, and then all of a sudden for two months he changed his tune and said,

• 39:37Kara Swisher?

  Yes, I know.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  We weren't in that business and now we're gonna be in this business and we're gonna honor it.

• 39:41Kara Swisher?

  That was, that was the most painful part. That was, but he didn't give up Susan Rice, so let's give him that. So you think they'll be fine? They'll be?

• 39:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I'm not worried about Netflix.

• 39:49Kara Swisher?

  They kind of won by losing, right?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, they got paid off. They slowed their competitor down. They caused a very deep-pocketed competitor to pay a lot more money than they would have.

• 40:01Kara Swisher?

  Center of shitty action, lot of controversial layoffs, crazy news people, like everything, right?

• 40:08Speaker 02

  And if this, if this all goes as it, as every other media merger has gone over the past 50 years, these assets could be available in four or five years.

• 40:18Kara Swisher?

  That's correct.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Where Netflix could then swoop in and get it potentially for a lot cheaper.

• 40:22Kara Swisher?

  Or get the pieces they want. And, you know, to me, Warner is the hope diamond. Like, anyone who gets it dies. Is Zaslo gonna be allowed to go anywhere in Hollywood now after he's sort of done this? I mean, from a shareholder point of view, nice job, Dave. From a Hollywood studio point of view, boy, I'd be pissed off.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  I, I don't think talent is going to be lining up to go to his dinner parties like they have been the last couple of years when he's invited them over to Bob Evans' house. You know, he lives in Bob Evans' house.

• 40:50Kara Swisher?

  No, I know, I know. I'm aware.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  I think he will end up selling that house.

• 40:54Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Because-

• 40:55Kara Swisher?

  That was a thirsty move, wasn't it?

• 40:57Speaker 02

  He will be more comfortable in New York and the Hamptons.

• 41:00Kara Swisher?

  He should go to New York and the Hamptons and put on his, you know, comfortable sneakers.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  And he can go to lunch with Barry Diller and David Geffen, and they will all high five him.

• 41:09Kara Swisher?

  Laugh their ass off, because Geffen invested. He made some money.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  He made hundreds of millions of dollars.

• 41:14Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the rich get richer. Anyway, you're right. That's what he should do.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Let's, let's count how many times he is thanked at the Oscars.

• 41:20Kara Swisher?

  Oh yeah, that's true. It's not going to be like-

• 41:22Speaker 02

  It's going to be the Mike and Pam show. Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdi will get thanked over and over again. Although I've been saying this for a week now, and I think because I've been saying that, they have been telegraphing to the talent to make sure to thank him. So I may have, I may have spoiled my own theory here.

• 41:38Kara Swisher?

  Oh, you should have kept it to yourself. All right.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  I know.

• 41:40Kara Swisher?

  So let's get to Disney really quick. A big story coming up, this succession story. Josh Demaro, the current chairman of Disney Experiences, takes over, speaking of experiences, takes over as CEO on March 18th. You've written, quote, "Disney's honeymoon period obscures a bunch of under-discussed challenges across the company, but especially in the content realm." You're absolutely right, where Demaro is the least experienced and potentially conflicts are already brewing. What are the big challenges for Demaro and the legacy of Bob Iger?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  I think for Disney, the real challenge is to shore up the streaming future and create, and really have a powerhouse, growing and profitable streaming service. Because Disney Plus is not growing, not nearly as fast as some of the others.

• 42:22Kara Swisher?

  It is.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  They have pulled back the investment there because they were so concerned about profitability after the spending spree during COVID. And they, they really have to figure out what their strategy is. Do they even want to be a general interest streaming service? That's a, that's a legitimate question. The Disney brand and what Disney stands for, and what a lot of people subscribe to Disney Plus for-

• 42:48Kara Swisher?

  Kids programming.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not the stuff that is pumped out on Hulu. It's not the Ryan Murphy stuff. It's not, you know, and does Disney even want that? I could see Demaro looking at this and saying, well, okay, let's spin off these linear networks, FX and Freeform and even ABC, and focus on what makes Disney Disney.

• 43:10Kara Swisher?

  Disney, right, which is a very good business. There isn't anyone near them. So many tries to reach Disney. I mean, there's bits and pieces like K-pop demon hunters and et cetera, but there's not, there really, if I had to, someone was like, if you had to get rid of a streaming service, I said, two, I'd have to have Netflix and Disney. That's it. And if I had to- I like Netflix better, but if I got rid of Disney, my kids would kill me.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:34Kara Swisher?

  Essentially.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  And maybe he'll decide that that's their future and not trying to compete with Netflix and YouTube to be the everything service.

• 43:42Kara Swisher?

  Well, what happens to ABC?

• 43:43Speaker 02

  That would be a big about face from the Iger strategy. He did think Disney deserved.

• 43:47Kara Swisher?

  He did.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  To be up there with all, I mean, he was a television guy. He was a broadcasting guy. So ABC was his North Star and being all things to everyone, maybe not for tomorrow. I think gaming, Demaro has had the Epic Games relationship and they're developing a Disney presence in Fortnite. I could see Demaro making a big acquisition in gaming.

• 44:08Kara Swisher?

  Oh, epic.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  To try to keep up with that world. Disney has had a horrible track record.

• 44:13Kara Swisher?

  Oh, trust me, I've been there for every one of those. Oh, I can't even remember all the names.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember it was Club Penguin and then it was.

• 44:20Kara Swisher?

  There was another one.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  There was a multi-channel group that they bought called Maker Studios.

• 44:25Kara Swisher?

  Oh, Makers. I told them not to do that. I was like, no, no, no, that was a disaster.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it wasn't that expensive, but they did flop on that.

• 44:32Kara Swisher?

  I know, but it was dumb. And then Jimmy Patero had to clean it up essentially.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  It has not been their successful area and maybe, maybe Demaro can reverse that. I think interactivity with AI, they have this OpenAI deal where they've now handed over their characters to OpenAI to create interactivity on Disney Plus.

• 44:51Kara Swisher?

  We'll see about that.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  And the, the biggest challenge and something that I really hope Demaro can leverage his theme park experience to create is Disney needs to create the everything app.

• 45:04Kara Swisher?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  The app that Disney fans can feel like serve all of the things that they want out of Disney. Shows, social networking, shopping, games.

• 45:16Kara Swisher?

  Yep.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Theme park experiences. You still cannot really sync up your Disney Plus with the experiential experience that you have in a park.

• 45:26Kara Swisher?

  I'll have to give Iger this, he tried early and often and he didn't succeed quite a lot, but he did, of the many executives I dealt with, he definitely kept making efforts. It just, it didn't work. So what is his legacy now? Of course, everyone knows in 2022. The board fires Bob Chapek, Bob Iger's handpick successor. He comes back as CEO. He was mighty bored on the ship in the South Seas. So when he was in charge, they settled this Trump lawsuit that probably could have won. Jimmy Kimmel gets suspended and then reinstated. Although I think there's a little more complexity of that over these Charlie Kirk comments. It looks like caving to Trump. Again, I have a feeling there's a more interesting story there. So to talk a little bit about this final moment for Bob Iger, because the stock is not, you know, has not done very well.

• 46:11Kara Swisher?

  If that's the way you want to judge it, but judge it on a couple of different ways.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  I will judge it on a couple of ways because there's first, there's Iger one, and then there's Iger two. And Iger one, I think most people would agree that he did a fantastic job setting up the company for the digital future in the sense that he bought the IP machines that that have powered Disney to be one of those companies that we all now accept is going to survive. That was not a given when Iger took over.

• 46:41Kara Swisher?

  No, he was, he was early, I have to say.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  So buying Pixar, buying Marvel, buying Lucasfilm, Fox, a little bit dicier. They bought, that was a very expensive deal and they, they got some great stuff. I, I'm still, still kind of defending the Fox deal, but a lot of people think they way overpaid and didn't get that much out of it.

• 46:59Kara Swisher?

  Right. Hmm. Way overpaid. When did that ever happen?

• 47:02Speaker 02

  I know, but at least they, they had the tools to launch Disney Plus and to really compete. Iger two, when he came back, it was a much different situation. It was a triage mode for a little bit. They cut the costs, they fired a bunch of people. They stopped doing a lot of the things that were enabled under Chapek. They're just now, you know, Pixar just did a big interview where they're saying, yeah, we stopped making movies that were personal hand drawn projects from filmmakers. Now we're going back to big, broad Disney style entertainment, which should have been a given, but it wasn't for a while at Disney. So he's kind of set the company back on track in some ways.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  But in others, it feels like Disney is a little behind in streaming. It feels like they're not as aggressive. As some of their peers, the stock is certainly not where it should be. There's no growth narrative for Disney. And Iger has really struggled to articulate what the next 20 to 30 years of the Walt Disney Company are going to be.

• 48:05Kara Swisher?

  Well, he might be like, I've had enough, right? Maybe I'm out of ideas like.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Well, maybe, but but that's kind of the job is to get investors excited about where you're going. And we haven't really heard that.

• 48:18Kara Swisher?

  So what will new guy do then? What is that? What is his big idea? If you were in charge, let me ask that question again. What would you do there? What's your big strategic move?

• 48:28Speaker 02

  I don't know that I'm prepared to dump the linear business.

• 48:32Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  I I just don't. I think that I'm a little bit more in the Iger camp that Disney has a responsibility to at least try to be everything. Be a broadcaster for the digital age and still offer adult programming, all audience programming. In addition to the family stuff, I think that they are smart in investing $60 billion in the parks. And experiences, the cruise business is insanely profitable for them. And and a best in class product. They have what Netflix would kill for. They have the brand identity that powers their entire flywheel. And they can do that in a way that Netflix wishes it could.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  So they, I would lean into that and I would lean into the things that make Disney Disney.

• 49:22Kara Swisher?

  And what about the Apple idea of them being bought by Apple?

• 49:25Speaker 02

  First of all, I wish that doesn't happen because I think that Disney is like the one Hollywood company that can determine its own destiny.

• 49:33Kara Swisher?

  Possibly, yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  If Apple buys Disney, it's pretty much over, right? There will be no Hollywood companies, Hollywood studios not owned by outside interests.

• 49:44Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  If that happened. And I just don't, I mean, Apple's content aspirations are still a mystery to me. I don't, I just don't think Apple wants to be in the theme park business. Do you?

• 49:55Kara Swisher?

  No, they don't know. I don't, I think Apple just is sort of here and they're sort of, they put out a good show or two and.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  It's a brand halo.

• 50:02Kara Swisher?

  They'll do a severance, which is great, but I feel like, I guess Tim wants to go to the Oscars or.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  You think that's it? I think they do think there's a business there.

• 50:10Kara Swisher?

  I think it'll help with their other things. I think just the way, same thing with Amazon. Let's move then to Amazon. We haven't mentioned them. They're a company that is also very involved in some of this stuff. And from my perspective, I think it's about something else. So you're just there to sell things. And the same thing I feel, felt with Apple. I just didn't understand why they thought. I just, they're not interested.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  At least Amazon is trying to turn it into a real business and is trying to get a real audience there. They have a football deal. They are doing broader, more all-audience content. They're doing movies.

• 50:42Kara Swisher?

  They're about to come out with Project Hail Mary, which is getting killer. It's an attempt at a big blockbuster. It's getting great.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  And they're putting it in theaters. They're putting their movies in theaters, which everyone except Netflix argues is the best way to create a brand around a movie. Although Netflix and Apple, Apple is not putting their movies in theaters.

• 51:00Kara Swisher?

  No, but you said, your colleague Scott Mendelson writes that the closest thing to a franchise-free, one-and-done global blockbuster that Hollywood hasn't attempted since 10 in 2020.

• 51:10Speaker 02

  And I think it's gonna work.

• 51:12Kara Swisher?

  Is it Amazon's Hail Mary? Or do they need it? Does it matter?

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Well, Amazon doesn't need anything in Hollywood. If they shut the entire operation down tomorrow, I think they would recover pretty quickly. But on the terms that they have set for themselves, where they have said, we are going to double down on movies. Not only going to make them, we're going to make them at big budgets with big stars and put them in theaters. This is the Hail Mary year for Amazon because Courtney Valente, who runs that studio, she came from Warner Brothers. This is her slate, finally. And these movies coming out this year, they have a He-Man movie that I'm sure you're very excited about. They have, they have a.

• 51:49Kara Swisher?

  My taste in movies is a little like David Ellison's, kind of cheap and dirty, like.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Well, then you'll love the He-Man movie.

• 51:55Kara Swisher?

  Greenland one, Greenland two, Maverick. That's my taste.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then, but I bet you'll like Project Hail Mary, too.

• 52:01Kara Swisher?

  I bet I will. I will. I want to see it. So, but let's go back. So you, how, where do you think Amazon fits in this?

• 52:07Speaker 02

  I think they're an important buyer now. They're, they're, they're a firmament of the Hollywood establishment now. They are, they are doing shows, they are doing movies, they are doing just as many, if not more, than anyone except Netflix.

• 52:19Kara Swisher?

  Right. So stack rank those, the buyers right now, very quickly.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Netflix is the biggest buyer in terms of original content.

• 52:27Kara Swisher?

  Or where people want to go.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  Well, that's, that's slightly different because if you're a filmmaker, you don't want to go to Netflix because they will not give your movie a theatrical release. If you're a filmmaker, I think probably Universal is the number one studio.

• 52:41Kara Swisher?

  Donna Langley, the elegant.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  She's fantastic and they can, they can take care of your movie. They have a fantastic marketing department. And the, the number, the top filmmakers, you know, this year they have a Chris Nolan movie. They have a Spielberg movie. They, they have a Jordan Peele movie coming next year. They, they, they're really cultivating these filmmakers as brands. And then Warner Brothers has really stepped up and tried to do that as well under their regime right now. They have Ryan Coogler doing, doing Sinners and, and One Battle After Another, and they have a number of other films. They have a Tom Cruise movie later this year with Alejandro Iñárritu directing.

• 53:17Kara Swisher?

  Does that change with the Ellison's? Will people be like, oh, I'm not hanging out with these people?

• 53:20Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I think people are willing to separate. You know, it's like people worked for Rupert for many years.

• 53:26Kara Swisher?

  That is true.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  Cameron worked for Rupert and Rupert was smart enough to, to, there was a dichotomy between the Fox News operation in New York and the studio in LA. And he, he was smart about it. He did not, um, let one contaminate the other.

• 53:42Kara Swisher?

  Right. And it's very contaminated.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  And I think the Ellison's, if they are smart, they will do the same. It's just a matter of whether the, the situation at CNN and CBS blows up.

• 53:52Kara Swisher?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  If it becomes something that movie stars get asked about on the red carpet, like, why are you working with this network when they're doing this? That, then it becomes uncomfortable, but ultimately people want to sell their projects.

• 54:04Kara Swisher?

  Right. And get them out there. We'll be back in a minute.

• 54:15Kara Swisher?

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• 56:48Kara Swisher?

  So let's finish by talking about this existential dread that you talked about, this megaphone on the Titanic. I mean, including legacy media and including Hollywood under the broad umbrella, it's facing a crisis at the same, you know, you have YouTube and Netflix, the most dominant forces in watching. Like my kids, YouTube is television to them, like, period. Even if you combine Disney Plus and Hulu, they're still in third. Future warmer mount would still lag behind. What is the path here for those legacy media companies? If you want to lump them, even though some of them are now owned by Amazon, owned by the Ellison's?

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Well, there's one to sell, which is what MGM did and what, you know, what Warner's did here. Then there's the consolidation element where you can start to try to buy up other little things and try and get more scale, which we are also seeing in the business. And then I think there is the, the, do we have enough question, which I think Disney has asked, and I think Disney has answered it with, yes, we do have enough to compete. And then what do you do? You have to really maximize your assets, lean in where you have strengths, maybe cut areas where you have weaknesses and try to stake out some kind of real estate in the streaming ecosystem. Are

• 58:04Speaker 02

  you going to be one of the four services?

• 58:07Kara Swisher?

  And there can only be four, right?

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Well, there could, I mean, we think ultimately three or four services.

• 58:12Kara Swisher?

  To be, you have different ones.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. And or, or do you try to do something like Tubi where they're not trying to ultimately compete with Netflix? They're trying to have a business and it's a very specific business in free ad-supported TV and they're owned by Fox. So they have a provider of content and that can be a business, just like Sony has carved out a business for themselves, Sony Pictures, where they are not trying to have a platform that appeals to everyone. They sell to everyone and they've been very successful selling product. They got $7 billion out of Netflix for their pay one output deal for their library.

• 58:51Kara Swisher?

  Make some good stuff and then take the stuff you have that's good and sell, but also make some new stuff.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  And they are making, and that's valuable. Netflix is the first place you will see Spider-Man after it's in theaters. Netflix is the first place you saw, you know, anyone but you, or where you'll see, you know, the Spider-verse movies because.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  Netflix places value on that. Sony can throw in the rest of its library.

• 59:17Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  And get billions of dollars for this.

• 59:19Kara Swisher?

  So the other existential risk, obviously, working in the background for actual workers who make films and television series, the writers, the crew members, maybe even actors, is AI, of course. Big topic. You're always asked about it. I'm always asked about it. Netflix just bought Ben Affleck's startup, InterPositive. It makes AI-powered tools for filmmakers. Seems like a good idea. Tools is a great idea.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's very different than than.

• 59:40Kara Swisher?

  I agree. I know what he's.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Text prompts and things. It's basically just a tool for your dailies to help you complete the movie in a more efficient manner.

• 59:48Kara Swisher?

  Doing a better email, you know, write this email for me, essentially.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Yes. But it also gives Netflix a little bit of cover to do other stuff, which I think they are doing.

• 59:58Kara Swisher?

  Such as, which is?

• 59:59Speaker 02

  Such as, you know, integrating AI into their visual effects processes or their animation processes or even, you know, their storyboarding and all these other things where humans currently do that stuff. But most of these studios believe that five to seven years from now, all of that will be automated and the cost will come down on these movies.

• 1:00:19Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I give the example of costumes. Why not just put a costume on Scarlett Johansson that doesn't exist? And just keep doing it. Like, why do costume fittings? Why do everything? So what is the effect on creatives of Hollywood? Is this is this contraction? How do you look at it? When I'm sure everyone asks you, what am I gonna do? And they're mostly worried about AI slop. And you just did a whole episode on this with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw. So give us a quick synopsis.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  It is the number one thing people care about in Hollywood is, is my job going to be eliminated? And the answer sadly for a lot of people is yes. That a lot of these things like production design and costuming and storyboarding and visual effects, those will absolutely be influenced, if not replaced by AI eventually. Now, there are union protections that protect some of these people. And the above the line guilds have been at least somewhat effective in saying, okay, if you want to use AI to write a script. Fine, but there will be a human attached to that project who will ultimately be the credited writer who must be paid like a union represented writer.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  And the same for directors and actors. It's the other stuff that I think is going to be much more impacted, like animators, like people who are, you know, sound designers, things that there will there still be humans involved, but there will be fewer of them. That's how Jim Cameron talks about it. It's like, yeah, AI is going to come in, but it's going to help make a movie that takes four years, take two years.

• 1:01:53Kara Swisher?

  Same thing with medicine. The drug that takes four years, two months.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  And the way Cameron characterized it is, no, it's not going to eliminate jobs. It's going to allow us to do more. And that's a nice optimistic way of thinking about it. But ultimately, people who have to spend four years on a movie are employed for four years.

• 1:02:12Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  Where is that second movie coming from after two years? Maybe it's out there and maybe we will be able to produce more, or maybe we won't. And it will just be that the entire industry contracts to these two-year jobs.

• 1:02:25Kara Swisher?

  What about the actors and AI slop in general?

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the Actors Union is trying to protect that stuff. You you cannot use a SAG-AFTRA actor in a in a AI program like that. And there are rights, there are right of publicity rights in most states, including California, where you have the right, that whole Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise video that was on Sea Dance, that is not allowed. And they took that down because you do have rights to your own name, image, and likeness.

• 1:02:58Kara Swisher?

  Although YouTube did that and then they dominated. Like, that was the beginning of YouTube, those fights, speaking of Philippe Dauman and Eric Schmidt.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, and and most of these, most of these AI companies have taken the position that we will ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission. So it's going to be whack a mole. And hopefully, there will be some court decisions that will come down on the side of content owners that will allow them to protect this stuff before it gets into the ethos.

• 1:03:24Kara Swisher?

  Who's the most important AI company in this right now, then?

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  I would say Google because you know, the whole, the whole reason that Disney did that OpenAI deal, other than experimenting, but it was to put pressure on Gemini and on Google because they have not come to the table and tried to work out a deal. And Disney very much wants Google to, to pay them and to work out some kind of deal. They're going to use characters. So, you know, we'll see. And, and keep in mind also, when Disney did this OpenAI deal, the one thing they weren't able to license are voices.

• 1:04:02Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  And the images of the actors that play these characters. So if you look, it's Luke Skywalker, but it's the animated Luke Skywalker. It's Homer Simpson, but Homer doesn't talk.

• 1:04:14Kara Swisher?

  Right, right.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  It's not a full experience without getting the intellectual property rights of the humans that are associated with these characters.

• 1:04:23Kara Swisher?

  Which they'll have to pay for, like.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Yes. Or you do a James Earl Jones deal. James Earl Jones, before he died, he licensed his voice to an AI company that will work with his estate and pay his relatives.

• 1:04:36Kara Swisher?

  What effect does it have then on storytelling and creativity? I mean, what occurs in that environment?

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  Well, the, the, the thinking is, is that the innovation in this area is going to come from outside Hollywood. Because of the limitations on, on the, the rights to use these IPs and these actors, that the real benefits are going to accrue to these outside companies that are just doing it on their own. I'm not so sure about that because, uh, you know, what were we talking about from Seed Dance? We weren't talking about any of the AI videos that they generated. We were talking about the Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt video. There is value in things that we know and, and can associate with entertainment. Maybe they'll create their own stars. Maybe there will be the AI Tom Cruise.

• 1:05:25Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, they're trying.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  They're trying. I know. I don't say the Tilly Norwood.

• 1:05:30Kara Swisher?

  No, it's just something wrong with it.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  That that is silly.

• 1:05:33Kara Swisher?

  Someone just sent me an AI version of myself for a speech I'm giving and it was the wrong glass. It doesn't look I was like, take this the fuck down. Like, don't put my face on it.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and obviously, all that's going to get better and there will be you will be able to replicate. And I've seen some things online, like that AI Pierce Morgan looked pretty real.

• 1:05:49Kara Swisher?

  It did.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  But you know what? Like, I I think that there is something about human creativity and the human

• 1:05:57Kara Swisher?

  Agreed.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  touch on actors that at least for a while.

• 1:06:01Kara Swisher?

  Writers, the two big movies this year were Sinners and Weapons, very dependent on their two creators.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  And and not not something that AI would have created.

• 1:06:11Kara Swisher?

  Not.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  AI is a mean. It just boils stuff down based on what we've seen before.

• 1:06:17Kara Swisher?

  I would see it like make more West Wings. That's fine.

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  I did that. So I interviewed Aaron Storkin at an event in D C. And I put I asked chat G P T to create a West Wing script based on something that was going on in the Trump White House. And I read him some dialogue. It was cringey. It was terrible. He like, he was so embarrassed.

• 1:06:41Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll see where it goes. A couple more things before we go. One is, does politics really affect Hollywood right now? Obviously, Trump pretends to. I think it's the end of the era at this point. But you have FCC Chairman Brandon Carwood call the moron trying to meddle. You've got Trump saying things, trying to attack. I think they're they're sort of run through their paces here and it's almost over. Do they care in in Hollywood? They certainly have bent a knee a little bit. That's the expression people use.

• 1:07:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is a feeling that Hollywood is under attack by the Trump administration. And that either via Brendan Carr or via the Trump people wielding the regulatory power that there there you have to bend the knee and you have to to, you know, Bob Iger, I'm sure you've talked to him. He hates this stuff. He hates having to do this.

• 1:07:31Kara Swisher?

  Almost all of them do. Almost all of them do.

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and and it's just it's. Embarrassing for them. And I, I feel like that, that is kind of cast a pall over the industry that, that it's, you know, there was favored status and there's not favored status anymore. And in fact, the Trump people are actively trying to leverage and denigrate the industry, even, even little things like using Tropic Thunder in a Iran war video.

• 1:07:59Kara Swisher?

  People got pissed about that. Everyone did.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  Everyone was pissed. Everyone they use.

• 1:08:03Kara Swisher?

  So let's finish up two things. Academy Awards are on Sunday, so I can't let you go before we talk a tiny bit about the Oscars. Earlier this year, the Grammy Awards were full of overt anti ICE messages from the artists. The BAFTA Awards were held later in February and the BBC's broadcast censored pro Palestinian remarks made by an award winner. But I should mention they aired the N word Tourette's Syndrome campaigner, John Davidson, was in the audience promoting a documentary about the disability. He had unfortunate vocal outbursts. The BBC apologized for that oversight. Talk about the Oscars very quickly. What will politics be front and center? There shouldn't be a lot of Trump jokes, would be my guess.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  You know, the last couple of years, there haven't been as many Trump jokes. Certainly not like there were in 2017 and 2018. I think the industry kind of recognized and they were, they were kind of trying not to enrage and poke the bear a little bit. But the ICE stuff, I think this past year, I think it will, it will certainly be front and center.

• 1:08:56Kara Swisher?

  But it's not Kimmel, it's Conan.

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  It's Conan. Yeah, Conan is not as political and they picked him for that reason. Because they don't want to turn, you know, they, I, I've always argued that the, the politics stuff is, is not in the best interests of Hollywood. People tune it out. Have you ever watched one of these award shows with your more conservative relatives?

• 1:09:19Kara Swisher?

  Yes, I have.

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  I have. And they turn it off. They don't want to be lectured to.

• 1:09:24Kara Swisher?

  But it's okay at the Grammys. I feel like.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  The Grammys are, are musicians, like they're supposed to be outrageous and that's, that's kind of fun. Although, you know, obviously, you know, when Ted Sarandos was in DC for the hearing, all of a sudden it turned into Ted Cruz talking about what Billie Eilish said at the Grammys. And it's like, that didn't even air on Netflix. Had nothing to do with Netflix.

• 1:09:47Kara Swisher?

  He's a moron, another moron. He's never, you're never gonna be president Ted, just so you know. Cause nobody likes you.

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  I think honestly, the themes of this year's two big contenders, Sinners, which is about kind of the stolen black identity and.

• 1:10:01Kara Swisher?

  Great movie.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  And and one battle after another, which is basically about an Antifa type organization and the aftermath of that. I think because of that, you might see a little bit more of that, at least subtly from the winners. I don't think Ryan Coogler or Paul Thomas Anderson are the kinds to to get up and start lecturing, but there will be a little bit.

• 1:10:21Kara Swisher?

  They'll make a remark or two. It'll be a woman who does it in case you're interested. So let's do a quick lightning round. Who do you predict will win best actor?

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  This is the race of the year.

• 1:10:29Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm going with Shalhoub.

• 1:10:32Kara Swisher?

  I'm going with Jordan.

• 1:10:33Speaker 02

  You are? Why is that? Because of the online backlash to him saying that ballet and opera are not cool anymore?

• 1:10:38Kara Swisher?

  No, I don't really care about ballet. I don't, I don't.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  No, but that people think that Timmy lost the Oscar because he made disparaging comments about opera. But voting had basically closed. You think the sinners momentum is going to propel Michael B. Jordan?

• 1:10:51Kara Swisher?

  I just think he's the best. I think he deserves it and he's and it's for his body of work. He's just, he's a star.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  You know, it never, the body of work never matters.

• 1:10:59Kara Swisher?

  Sometimes it does. In this case, it's a great movie and people are remembering. People, you know, for the last one they just did, people are remembering what a great movie it was.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would love it. And Michael B. Jordan is great.

• 1:11:08Kara Swisher?

  I have seen sinners several times. I've never seen Tim Ote. I just don't want to look at him. I'm just, I just don't want to look at him. I don't want to look at him. He looks like a lesbian. I, he looks like a someone I dated in the 1980s.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, really?

• 1:11:20Kara Swisher?

  Anyway, yeah, okay. Uh, very pretty guy. Um, best actress?

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  Jessie Buckley, easy.

• 1:11:25Kara Swisher?

  Buckley, easy.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  You see him?

• 1:11:27Kara Swisher?

  I can't see it because dead children. I can't do it.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  It's tough, but if it's rewarding, it's rewarding.

• 1:11:32Kara Swisher?

  I love her period, even though I'm sorry about the bride, but I've always loved her. I think she's great. And everybody seems to think she's the best one there.

• 1:11:39Speaker 02

  She, the only, the only stunner would be Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You. But I, Jessie Buckley has won everything.

• 1:11:47Kara Swisher?

  Jessie Buckley's overwhelmingly the odds on favorite. Best original screenplay?

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  I think it's gonna be sinners. That's a shoe in.

• 1:11:54Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  That's the one, we, we at least know Coogler will have one moment on stage because even if he doesn't win director picture, he'll win screenplay.

• 1:12:02Kara Swisher?

  All right, director?

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  Paul Thomas Anderson.

• 1:12:05Kara Swisher?

  Okay.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  He's won all of the precursor awards.

• 1:12:08Kara Swisher?

  All right. I just feel like Kugler. I love, I would love, that's who I want to get.

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. The, you know, don't forget, the Academy has a big international branch.

• 1:12:17Kara Swisher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  And the international voters, he's just been around a longer time.

• 1:12:22Kara Swisher?

  I know.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  And he, it's one of those where people feel like it's his time.

• 1:12:27Kara Swisher?

  Do the Oscars matter anymore? Does it matter for the business or what?

• 1:12:30Speaker 02

  For the business, it certainly matters.

• 1:12:32Kara Swisher?

  Declining viewership, declining, declining, declining. Do they matter for the business? Why?

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  They do. And, and they matter because of the streaming wars. The box office of these movies is not really impacted that much by the Oscars like it used to be, where you platform release and all of a sudden, a movie that got a Best Picture nomination would gross $300 million by the time the show. That doesn't happen anymore. But the value of these titles in a sea of tiles on a streaming service.

• 1:13:02Kara Swisher?

  Differentiation.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  It is a differentiator and Netflix and Amazon and Apple and Disney, they all see huge value in having an Oscar winner on the platform.

• 1:13:12Kara Swisher?

  And there's lots more awards now, too. Those matter, too.

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, all the precursors and it's a season, it's a great promotion, it's a way to lure talent. The reason Netflix spends so much on their campaigns is because they know they have to win people over because they don't offer theaters. So they say, you know what, we may not offer you the chance to gross $100 million, but we're going to treat Frankenstein like it's the most special movie that you've ever made. We're going to have screenings for all the Academy members, all the festivals, and we're going to spend $20 million to get you an Oscar nomination. And they did.

• 1:13:47Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. So I'm still not going. Sorry.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  Someday. If I promised you that Cruise would be there and that you could meet him, would you come with me?

• 1:13:56Kara Swisher?

  Yes. If I could meet him, really, not just like we run into him and like we chase him around. I'm not doing that. I'm, I'm over chasing any celebrity around.

• 1:14:04Speaker 02

  Okay. That's my new goal.

• 1:14:06Kara Swisher?

  I, let me just tell you, I like to wear soft pants and so it would take a lot to not get me in soft pants. I'm just telling you. I'm, by the way, I'm about to be a TV star, you know, just with my TV show, Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever on CNN.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  Well, there you go.

• 1:14:17Kara Swisher?

  And then I shall depart CNN. Goodbye.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  But are you, are you gonna, what kind of clothes are you gonna wear on your show?

• 1:14:23Kara Swisher?

  You'll see. My, my outfits, my very, very.

• 1:14:26Speaker 02

  Not formal wear.

• 1:14:26Kara Swisher?

  No, very comfortable. It's gonna be great. It's coming out soon.

• 1:14:29Speaker 02

  What did you wear to the Vanity Fair party? You didn't wear a dress?

• 1:14:31Kara Swisher?

  No. I didn't, I just didn't dress up. I couldn't do it. I'm sorry. No one cares what I look like. I just look at people and go up to them.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  Well, I, I love it that I just have to wear a tuxedo. It's very.

• 1:14:41Kara Swisher?

  Oh, well, that you look good in that. You look good. I just can't do it. And I don't want to wear a tuxedo because how lesbian is that? Anyway, last question. You've said you'd make a lot more money if you left Puck and went independent. I told you that. You and I, just for disclosure, he and I talk about the biz of being independent journalists all the time. When the 2027 Oscars roll around, will you still be at Puck or why or why not? Talk a little bit about this because you did very kindly say you want to be like me someday, but you already are like me someday.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  I don't have a CNN show.

• 1:15:08Kara Swisher?

  And I do make a lot more money than you, Matt. I know this. But talk about what it's like to be an independent journalist. I mean, I was very touched when you said that. But what do you, how do you feel about doing what you're doing? Because you, you and I have both come up in traditional, you know, whether you were at the, wherever you were, and I was at the Washington Post and, and the Wall Street Journal. And I did, I didn't, I didn't work for the New York Times, but I wrote for them. Talk a little bit about where we are right now as media, because you have more influence than almost anybody, I think, anybody in this thing. So how do you look at the, this moment? How do you think about it as someone who's doing independent media, which is growing in impact and influence and finances? I do really well. And I think you do too.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  The way I, I describe it to people who ask me about this, and they ask a lot, is if you are providing more value to the media brand that you work for than the media brand is providing to you, then you should probably leave and go independent and leverage the fact that you are the brand.

• 1:16:08Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  And I was sort of dumb. I didn't really recognize that until I started out and started doing my newsletter. And maybe I, you know, I created a product that people like and I made it more of an impact when I was independent. But I had a lot of cachet, more cachet than I thought, when I launched Puck. People called me back. They returned my emails. They invited me to things. They, I had 20 years of relationships in this world that allowed me to go out and do this, this thing on my own. And I don't want to downplay the role that Puck played. It's sort of a hybrid. Yeah.

• 1:16:47Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  I was our first author and I kind of planted the flag of what the brand would be. But Puck has provided a lot of services.

• 1:16:56Kara Swisher?

  That's how I feel about Vox.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, they provide editing, they provide the platform, they provide marketing, they help me put on events.

• 1:17:03Kara Swisher?

  That you don't want to do.

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  That I don't, that stuff I don't want to do. And I've done it. I used to joke that my day was consumed by meetings at Hollywood Reporter. And that's what you have to do when you're running a media outlet. Now, I actively say, do I need to be in this meeting? And the answer is almost always no. And I'm really able to focus on the product. And that's where I think I can make a big impact.

• 1:17:28Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, you just called the word the product like the McDonald's CEO, but go ahead.

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  I know. Trust me. If you watch me eating a burger, it's a lot, lot more authentic than that guy.

• 1:17:37Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  But, but you know what I mean? It's, it's, um, it's totally doable for a certain type of reporter editor, especially if you have something to say. Like, you have to ask yourself, like, do I have, do I have a perspective? Do I have a point of view on things? And most people don't.

• 1:17:57Kara Swisher?

  It's also based in reporting. One of the best things that I ever heard from an editor was Tina Brown, where she said, I can teach people to write, but I can't teach them to see. You know, and she meant reporting and I thought that was exactly right.

• 1:18:09Speaker 02

  And sometimes I don't even recognize it. I'll do, I'll do a newsletter that I don't think is particularly incisive. And people will respond. They'll be like, wow, I hadn't thought of that. So like, if you do this long enough, it sort of just comes out of you. And that's really where the podcast is where the town came from. Because we were like, what are people in town talking about? And how do we reflect that in a show that would be authentic?

• 1:18:33Kara Swisher?

  All right, very valuable. Last question. What's the most interesting story going to be in 2027 in Hollywood? Well, the end of the next year, over the next year. If you were like, what's the one that intrigues you the very most? I know I get Warner Mounds interesting, but honestly, they're just going to lose a lot of money.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  Do you think Rupert's going to die in a year?

• 1:18:52Kara Swisher?

  I think he's never going to die.

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  Okay, so that's off the table.

• 1:18:55Kara Swisher?

  Rupert, yes. Okay, that's a great one. Yeah.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  What happens when Rupert dies?

• 1:18:58Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  Because I think that the Murdoch empire is going to change significantly.

• 1:19:03Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  I think that the newspapers will either be sold or carved up.

• 1:19:09Kara Swisher?

  Network.

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  Or, you know, what's gonna happen to the Fox broadcasting? All of that stuff is in play. You know, the succession battle is over, but when Rupert's gone, I think all bets are off.

• 1:19:19Kara Swisher?

  All right. And who's the most important player, right? If you had to pick one, right now, going forward? If you say that person is critical.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  I think two, Josh Demaro and David Ellison, in terms of what they're gonna do. They've got the most choices to make.

• 1:19:36Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  And choices are what it's all about. What you choose to do and don't do, the bets you make, the transformative deals that you okay, all of that.

• 1:19:45Kara Swisher?

  And who's gonna be more successful, if you're gonna make a bet?

• 1:19:48Speaker 02

  Uh, oh, God, I don't know. I want them both to be successful for the benefit of the industry.

• 1:19:53Kara Swisher?

  So nice.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  But you know what? In terms of track record, obviously, Demaro has a track record of success in the Parks Division at Disney, and we'll see how he does atop the whole thing.

• 1:20:06Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  David Ellison doesn't have as much experience. He ran a smallish production company and is now running two studios, so we'll see how that goes. But we'll see. He's got a lot of smart people around him.

• 1:20:18Kara Swisher?

  Well, we'll see who stays around. We'll see who comes around and stuff like that. I always go with the person who didn't get their job by being born, in any industry, except for Rupert Murdoch.

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:30Kara Swisher?

  But he took a small operation and made a huge global.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, same with Brian Roberts at Comcast.

• 1:20:36Kara Swisher?

  Yep.

• 1:20:36Speaker 02

  Same with Summer Redstone. You know, he took a small theater company.

• 1:20:41Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, but I don't think, I don't love... You know, people being born and getting a job. I don't love it. I don't love it. Never love it.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  Well, we certainly wouldn't be talking about David Ellison as the, you know, second most powerful person in Hollywood if

• 1:20:56Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:56Speaker 02

  he wasn't born who he was. But you know what? It is what it is.

• 1:21:00Kara Swisher?

  Yep, and here we are. All right, Matt, this has been so fascinating. You are a wonderful journalist. You really are. And I put that first and foremost.

• 1:21:07Speaker 02

  Well, I appreciate it. You know, I'm a fan.

• 1:21:09Kara Swisher?

  You're a snarky person, which I love. But, and I love that part, but at your heart, you're an excellent reporter. And that's the critical part, everybody, just for, just so you know, for both of us, as snarky and obnoxious.

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, snark doesn't sell. No one subscribes to snark.

• 1:21:21Kara Swisher?

  They like it. They do like it.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  It's a, it's got, my, my point, you always got to have everything. You got to be entertaining. You got to be newsy. You got to have reporting and you got to have smart perspective.

• 1:21:31Kara Swisher?

  Yep, absolutely. And you have all that. Anyway, thank you so much. This was really fun. I really was looking forward to it. Thank you so much.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  Oscars 27, you and me.

• 1:21:39Kara Swisher?

  Okay, all right. You get it going. All right. Okay. Thank you, Matt. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsap, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Madeline LaPlante, Duby, and Corinne Ruff. This episode was engineered by Aliyah Jackson Perez, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're following the show, you get to run CBS News. If not, you're a nepo mogul. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.

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• 1:23:07Speaker 07

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