 All right, we are recording. This is the reason live stream. I'm here with Zach Weismiller. Hey, Zach. How you doing? Hey, good neck. How are you? I'm very good and we are talking with Rob Long our guest And we're gonna be talking he is a writer Producer I think maybe a director as well. He's we're gonna be talking about the Hollywood strikes that are coming up and part of what's at at issue there has to do with the effect of AI on the creative industries in Hollywood and as part of my research for this, I know Rob I'm friendly with Rob, but I actually went to Google Bard and I asked the AI Generator to say who is Rob long And it did a little bit better than chat GPT and I I have an account for chat GPT and they said hey, you know Chat GPT and they've been cleaning up their act They say as of my knowledge cut off date in September 2021 Rob Long is a writer and tele television producer in Hollywood and of course in a Hollywood a lot has happened since 2021 so Rob could be In the Harvey Weinstein suite at could you just forward me what it said? So it so I know that someone has the right answer to who is wrong. Yeah, I would love. Yeah, so but Bard Google which is free. So you know, you know Yeah, you get what you pay for but it says Rob long is an American writer and television producer in Hollywood He's best known for his work on the long-running television program Cheers for which he received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations in 1992 and 93 Yeah, he also created the television show George and Leo among others I'm skipping over some stuff in addition to his television work Rob long is a contributing editor for national review as well as a contributor to Time Newsweek International The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times He hosts the syndicated weekly radio commentary martini shot and appears regularly on political commentary shows and then it Editorializes Robin. It says Rob long is a talented writer and producer Successful career in Hollywood. I don't know why people are afraid of AI. It sounds great He has known for his sharp wit and ability to create funny and relatable characters He's also a respected voice in the political arena. Also me and his martini his work on martini shot Is a must listen for anyone interested in current events. So Rob long Thanks for talking to the recent live. I I kind of I Kind of want to know more about I can't help but think that there's a person in there who said that those things I want to know that person. I mean, how did I know they know me so accurately? I'm just that is that is literally what I am. I'm wondering to and this is already probably in production that has been canceled by Netflix, but just in generating an AI Question about somebody you probably create a limited run series that I guess canceled after the first season cliffhanger, but Let's let's talk about the writer's guild strike, which I think is turning a hundred days old as we talk That's right. Take this on Wednesday. I think it's going live on Thursday, but you know, let's Zack and I are both good libertarians, which means we believe in private sector unionization more iffy on Public sector anything that's not coercive is great Rob You wrote a great story for commentary, which doesn't come up and you're a columnist in commentary That should have been in the AI and you're also on the glop podcast We might as well get a shout-out for that. The Glock podcast is you Jonah Goldberg and John Pod Horace, right? Yeah, yeah, we we pretend it's about something, but it's really about You know, whatever or obscure kind of like fourth. Well, that's John order Kind of reference on On wings, right? I had to say that that we're that he's the best But that's only because we haven't had you on that. I don't know about that Suspect that there's a genuine battle if I may you also created or help co-create the Podcast platform or online community ricochet. That's right. Yeah, what what exactly is ricochet these days? Well Ricochet started the idea was that the internet is a swamp and filthy and rotten and people just screaming each other for no reason And nothing really useful happens and nobody really develops any deep relationships or has a good debate because you know Hiding behind whatever you're hiding behind you get to be a troll and so we said well good libertarian response to that Is if you if you got to pay a little bit We started we pegged the man the monthly membership to ricochet We said would be the price of a grande latte at the flagship Starbucks in Seattle We would call them every now then find out what it was because the theory was you know for a call The cost of a cup of coffee every month You've got skin in the game and if you got skin in the game, but your club and you're a member You don't want to mess it up and that's kind of how it's worked It's just had a hard time growing because for one thing people do like there is a huge business in Screaming at people anonymously Twitter but that's really what it starts. It's a it's a conversation forum You join in order to contribute to I mean you can read it for free but if you want to contribute to start your own comments or like go into the member feed and and Meet other people you have to be a member to be a member yet to pay a monthly fee It's all But I'm wrong that it was also a podcast platform Well, then we decided okay Well in addition to that we should have a podcast and we so we started the podcast as a marketing tool We thought well, we'll launch this podcast. This is like this 2008. All right, so this is a long time Yeah, we'll launch the podcast as we're building the site and so we'll just have these podcast listeners Who then will be on the the Facebook? Have a Facebook group and then we'll just when the sites ready you just port them right over to the site Which we did but then we like doing the podcast and now we do not just our podcast But we host a bunch of different podcasts and we have giant podcast network and where we've raised some money and raising more money To do long-form podcast reporting So I'm doing one should be ready in the early autumn about our response to COVID and and what happened and how we treated people who Descented and did other research and then we're doing one on the second amendment. We're doing one on Much other things doing one on China and how we we they're either gonna Win or not win and what the definite what the strategies might be the our idea is to keep that tone From ricochet sort of the same which is lighter More personal And you know know our my rule for this is the same as my rule for show business is that nobody pays for homework Right, so don't give people homework. All right Give them something fun to listen to and to think about and they will do it. All right, so I guess we're done here Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I forget where we are and what we're talking good If we're done here, you could just read the chat GPT description to me again I was like I've got to go in there and I've got a fucking change We'll have it summarized the show and people can And I also want to point out, you know Rob you mentioned that 2008 is a long time ago And that is true, but it's not as long ago as your two Emmy nominations and Golden Globe That's very I take it. You did not win those either right well, you know What is I don't know what winning is what what is winning I did I win? Yeah, I feel I have one Yeah, ask Buzz Aldrin what it's like to come in second, right? And don't ask don't really happen. Yeah, don't ask him if he landed on the moon because he'll take a shot at you He will I good for him for it. That's a Kind of bucket list thing. I haven't yet done Besides those Golden Globe nominations in you know the pre in the in the first Clinton administration You wrote a fantastic piece and this was in God months ago for Commentary magazine about how and now I've lost it because I okay. Here it is. Oh, yeah How I became a union man And this is you're talking about the prospect This was done in May or actually in April before the strike started You were talking about the prospect of of striking Zach. Do we have a couple of clips from that? Yeah, here we go. Well, yeah, I mean you cheekily described yourself Yeah, as becoming a Bolshevik because of the strike So I mean what I'm curious is you know, what are the conditions that the writers are facing that? Makes you you know even more sympathetic to the union as you then you may have previously been Well, I mean I wasn't sympathetic to it in his previous strike I'm a member of it because I'm you know, I'm a writer and you're member of the writer skills You are and I'm happy to be a member of it and But I thought that the strike we had in 2000. I think often the The writers engage in kind of loud noisy Defeated self-dramatics. They don't really pay attention to how the business works They're not really they don't pay attention to where their money comes from And the money stream and so they end up saying a lot of irrational things and Financially you just you have we had a strike in 2007 2008 and it financially they just never recovered It was not beneficial This one's slightly different I mean this one I there's a bunch of things I disagree with that the writer skill seems to think is important But I don't think are as important, but I I think of it this way in the um, this is the umbrella term That all of the strikes in the past And I include that the the the acting actor strikes and everything The fundamental theory has been the fundamental situation has been that you know Hollywood is run by That they're there are artists right and then the business itself is run by Evil greedy malevolent but very competent shrewd business people business men really And it's really been an argument about hey We want a piece of that pie that you have been baking and so 2007 2008 last strike it was you know that these evil wicked geniuses had navigated show business through Uh from the movie era to the tv era and then from the tv era to the rerun residual era and from the rerun residual era to the vcr Rental era and from the vcr rental area to the dvd rental area Area era and they had done such a great job. They were making pots of money And hey, that's some some of that belongs to me, right? So you're striking because other people are successful and they owe their success to you This is and this is just fundamentally different now. It's in fact. It's backwards The people running show business have done a terrible job of it They have failed utterly and some of them are these names that have been very successful in the past but are now Utterly defeated. Can you name a name? I mean, uh, hollywood loves to name names Well pick pick any any I would say anybody running a studio or a network now is a failure Okay, um Anyone running a streaming service right now Is very close to a fool Um, so the argument isn't isn't that you've Made some money. We want a piece of it. The argument is you have fucked it all up Yeah, and we don't know how to un-fuck it now before we go to some of the specific, uh Complaints or or demands by the union, uh, which many of them sound, you know, like the way you're talking about it. It's clear You know the the record industry was here before Publishing was here before like where there are being, you know, not only have there been ongoing transformations Which you summarize but then just in the past 10 or 15 certainly in the past 20 years Just radical seismic shifts to all of these legacy media Come, you know industries Um, and you know, it's it it is sympathetic I mean you're talking to a bunch of people who are you know, you're two people who are writers As well as everything else and it's the writers Always on some level, you know, they you know, they we are the most central to everything Words and yet we always get treated, you know, slightly worse than the people, you know providing the snacks um and things like that but um the uh one of the one of the Main questions that I kind of have for you is Do writers understand That by and large nobody outside of hollywood gives a shit about You know, how well they're doing that's one question And then the and I and I don't mean that like I I get that's good It's but then the other question is, you know Are are these strikes is the writer strike is the sag after the the actor strike The rhetoric is always that these are about Uh, you know the little guy the person who is barely getting by needs insurance, uh, you know And needs that one rental payment or that, you know, whatever Um, is that actually accurate or is this really about, you know, the the top line people? Uh, it's sort of that neither. Um, you're never ever gonna, um I mean hollywood is a place where you go and if you're lucky you're successful And if you're unlucky, you're not successful and you do something else But if you're really really really unlucky, you're just successful enough so that you can keep hanging on year by year by year by year Until you're really too old and by that time you realize that in this part-time job You've been having being a waiter or whatever is actually your career and all along you thought you were a writer or a musician or an actor or whatever um And and it it in many ways the whole business has run on that on people Who are just kind of living in a way that you the rest of us wouldn't live But they have this dream that keeps them alive and hollywood is evil It's like an opiate and it kind of gives you just enough to make you feel like i'm gonna be a star on tuesday You're not gonna be a star on tuesday So that's never gonna change that no matter what happens if the writers and actors got every single thing they wanted If there was no negotiation if the studios just said yep, absolutely check the box you got it There would still be a huge number of people who could say what people are saying now is Hey, I lost my house or I can't afford to rent or I I can't I can't buy a car Whatever it is that they're complaining about that that will always be the case If you're a writer and you're working you will always have writers Uh friends in your life who will call you up as they always do and say Hey Can I get a freelance episode from you because if I can get one I can get my keep my health insurance or hey Can I can you give me a a line in your next episode because if I get a line I get my sag insurance That happened and it will happen and we'll that's just nature of show business, right? This seems to be about something Two things right one thing is that the massive changes that have occurred and that nobody knows what the model is going to look like in the future Uh, and the second thing it is is that a second step It is a massive increase in the number of things being produced. So we all know that's right You know depending on how much money you spend on streaming services There's things you'll never watch them all this tv stuff on there You'll never see that was produced and paid for which was a gigantic employment opportunity for a whole lot of people in the past five to 10 years Um who are now realizing that that was it that's it's you know the that streaming service only did six episodes Or only did one season or two seasons of 20 years um And so the streaming services are in trouble and and the movie studios are in trouble and the tv networks are in trouble And the employees are in trouble and there's layoffs in every studio and streaming service around across town And everybody's trying to rethink everything and so this is really the first time I think in show business That everything and everyone Is facing sort of a radical change And most of it they brought on themselves that the studios anyway They did this themselves I'm I know I'm I'm glad you uh painted that big picture because uh, we're going to go through some of the specific Negotiating points that uh the writers are asking for and can hopefully connect them to what you just laid out there Before we do that though You did mention something and one of your answers about uh somebody The the people who are running the studios now are idiots. They're not doing it right How did that happen? Uh, why are they there? Was this just like The tech bubble like uh created some exuberance and like the wrong people got up there like what is your theory as to What happened? I don't know who to blame. Um, yeah I mean, they're not dumb people. They're very smart people But I think in order to make blunders of this kind You have to be very smart dumb people just tend to you know step on a rake Smart people tend to take a business and destroy it um I think it was I mean look I I just use netflix as an example right netflix Has did the most probably the most interesting and astonishing self transformation in American business or any industry in the history of earth right they They were selling they were renting dvds and they basically had a fedex business where they sent you dvds and you got And then they decided well, we're not going to do that We're going to streaming which is something totally different and we're not going to just streaming We're actually going to produce our own content And they did that because they believed bizarrely That if they didn't do that then the studios and the other existing producers would create their own streaming services and not give them any content That was why they did it Which is just dumb. I mean, it's just a very dumb thing to think There is no evidence of that ever and show business is exactly where Uh, you go when you want to buy content That's all show business is is people trying to sell you stuff there would Put it this way the biggest hits on netflix Just starting it off and the biggest hit on netflix right now Are off network reruns. All right. So the The rewatching the office their cheers or the suits this summer reruns were big on netflix, but they decided That no, it's not fun. And I this is why I think the problem is is like the problem for show business for all ever when people invest or get involved in show business every ounce of their rational decision making Just evaporates they just drive in and the palm trees and something and they go to a party or whatever They meet a movie star and it they just turn stupid And every single thing that netflix has accomplished it could have accomplished For less money and better deals and would have the same number if not greater number of subscribers And it would also be watering the garden for future content if they simply Decided that they were going to rent basically licensed content from studios across town, which is what Everyone was doing and making a big dollar doing it Um instead of trying to be super clever and smart and think well, we can do this ourselves um And it's amazing how the how how wide this contagion got Uh put it this way when apple created itins They didn't know then then run out and start a lot of bands Right, they figured though you somebody's gonna start you know some kid in a garage They're gonna be plenty of people who have rock bands. We don't have to start that And that was brilliant, right? Now it caused some disruption in music business and did all sorts of other things But in many ways it saved the music business, right? There's no more file sharing Um and then but they still had apple tv. They Think they decided they're gonna we're gonna be even smarter than that Which is amazing too because the I mean, you know a given apple tv plus Show will have like an entire, you know, mgm musical heroes of 1939 and it's something right now I mean, what's that morning show? I think it's called or whatever that has like, you know 20, uh, you know, uh I'm just gonna say Nobel prize winners academy award winners multiple golden globe nominees Well, that's for sure. You know, etc Yeah Even recent ones. Yeah well, yeah, so, uh if If netflix is like the the exemplar of this sort of over extended Um company that and you said you described as a contagion that has uh kind of spread throughout hollywood It seems like now this conflict in part is like well, they're trying to They're trying to squeeze what they can out of it by cutting labor costs and this is where we can get into some of the Oh, yeah, there you go. Man. It's nice graphic from the negotiation This is from the uh documents that is on that are on the wga website their their uh demands and The one I have highlighted here, uh, is called preserving the writer's room So for pre-green light rooms so rooms on shows that have not yet to you know, uh been approved to go to air minimum staff of six writers, uh, including four writer producers Uh, and then after the post green light room would be run one writer per episode up to six episodes And then the room kind of scales up after that as someone who has worked In many a writer room. Could you tell us, uh, what is what is the conflict around writer's rooms? Why is it so important and where do you fall in this question? uh Well, you know, it's complicated because um as a showrunner and all you ask any showrunner um The idea that there's going to be some regulation About how many writers I need to hire Uh, or how many episodes I have so I know how to hire or that there's a moment where your show is green lit Um these days, that's a murky moment. I mean, maybe they'll make a pilot plus three I mean this three production order. Maybe you you want more episodes or something like that So as a showrunner, I don't like anybody telling me what I need Uh, certainly nobody the writer's guild. Um, and certainly nobody the studio Um, I want to decide what I need and I want to decide how I do it And I think there are a lot of showrunners a lot of writers you think well, wait a minute I'm the guy who created this is my family. I'm writing about so I'm going to write them all Uh, that's sort of foolish and you probably shouldn't write them all but I don't I would feel very uncomfortable telling a colleague how many Writers they should have on staff um The goal for the writer's guild is simple set but in order to understand it you have to understand that that the that Statistically this is there's never been a better time to be a writer Statistically there's never been a better time to try to have to get a show on the air Now it's things are really good statistically. There are more members of the writer's guild than ever before It's actually good of a great time, right? And the idea that they are in reach of having a major major Uh, uh membership base bigger than they've ever imagined Uh, because of all the production But if all the production means fewer writers, then you're not really going to harvest the number WGA members you want the underlying theory behind all this is that The uh studios are just trying to starve The creative process and out of it is coming. Um, you know crappy productions doesn't really um Isn't really I mean Sort of the tail wag of the dog. I mean the the The reason that they don't want to hire a lot of people on these Staffs is because they don't think the shows are going to work And they're not planning for these shows to go for the long haul when I was putting together a staffer tv show It was assumed that I was planning For this show to go 11 years That was the goal to go 11 years and everybody wanted to go 11 years I mean everybody I worked with wanted it to go 11 years the studio paying me wanted to go 11 years The network licensing the show wanted it to go 11 year. Everybody wanted this thing to go 11 years Um now nobody believes that would ever happen or and they don't even understand why it should Because if you're making a show for streamer, it doesn't matter how many people watch the show That's not the metric what matters or it as a you know today it's that's going to change but As of today loads of benefits like do I have I encouraged x number of non subscribers to subscribe? And will those non subscribers or who become subscribers then just get used to paying it every month Because the old rule was look if I get you for a year As a subscriber you're never gonna leave my service No, we don't now know that's not true, but that was that that guided it. So the idea of keeping costs down and hedging It's rational And the idea of like increasing the staff arbitrarily just as an employment program Seems irrational. Is this also a kind of callback to the last writer strike where um, one of the outcomes of that was A kind of shift to not what or what are considered non scripted shows So it's kind of trying to get back to like getting vengeance On the past Um, maybe I mean non scripted aren't going to be covered by this I don't think and it's just there's a parallel move on the writer's guild to sort of Declare the editors of those shows Essentially writers of those shows which I think is legit Because they kind of are uh, and then to fold them into the bring them into the fold Uh, I I think it's really um I think it's more the idea that if there's gonna be this giant, you know fire hose of content Um, you're gonna have to you know, if you're gonna make A million Chrysler's A year right or whatever. Yeah, you're gonna need uh, I want I want a machinist on every Chrysler Well, I don't want you to double the machinist up and it really does have that kind of retro That's ultimately also the problem with the writer's guild in general is that um and the problem with the studios is They've taken a business that really works has really worked in the past and worked a specific way and they decided to To to recreate the conditions that created for gm and Chrysler in 1973 right The that brings us to another point uh that the regs guild raises here There we go. Um, so you mentioned the metrics like, uh Netflix is kind of notoriously Secretive about how many people watch they don't release those numbers, uh publicly But the writers are asking for viewership based streaming residuals. Um Which just means like you were saying earlier, you kind of get paid based on how many people watch your show Even though from Netflix's point of view that may or may not be Exactly what is most valuable to them. Uh, what? Uh, you know, some people have gone so far as to call this the netflix strike as shorthand for trying to cope with all these changes that streaming has wrought Uh, what are some of the most important changes from the writer's perspective? How they change the job Well, it's also how it's changing even now, right? So if you're Netflix You may not want to tell the writers how many the pesky irritating writers. How many people watch that show But you'd have to tell the pesky irritating advertisers who you're asking money from More and more. I mean the the ad supported tier of Netflix is certainly is going to very soon probably within 12 months be the basic tier of Netflix And if you want to have no ads on your Netflix, you're going to pay a big hefty premium price for it It's not going to be a disc. It's not going to be a discount For ads. It's going to be a premium for no ads, right because they need that Then they're going to have to tell, you know, they have to tell Doritos how many people watch the Doritos spot, right? That's kind of how that works and advertisers aren't going to say. Well, just as long I see you have a lot of articles in the New York Times arts section. So I guess you it must be important They're not going to do that either um The problem is that uh, there there are I mean A residual was really what it sounds like which is the what's left over, you know After you've gotten paid. So all these res in the past residual Fights and you know wrangles and deal points were always about What happens in success, right? Because you know, that's the most important thing Um, like you've been successful The show's been working It's been seen at least twice or three times on network and now it's a residual payment off network or rerun Now most pilots don't get made to a series most series don't go past a year most You know series that go past a year may not go past two years So most things in show business don't go the distance So we were really talking in the in the old days about residual payments Or like just the things that we're gonna, you know, the the very far end, you know The you know people like don wells and I know that That rest of the elegans island and the right. Yeah, and they are and eventually, you know, I mean, I can I was trying to find my my last residual check, which is like it's tiny at this point. Um But Netflix doesn't have residuals for for its original program, right? Because it It it only it shows it once you can watch it a million times if you want to Um, and what's it a residual of it's a residual of the fee you got paid up front Can I ask though? Is there I mean does does a netflix or you know, we're in amazon or a studio now that we're out of Like the old model Does it pay certain writers better because of their reputation or their track record or you know, because it's good to work with them And is a way around this. I mean, I I get the idea that it's like very frustrating to say, you know What my show was like rank number one or number two on netflix for a month And I got paid the same or less as a friend of mine who did a show that like nobody watched at all Um, but does it do the producers or or the people who pay for this? Don't they fold that kind of they make some kind of calculation into that at the beginning? Especially if they're not saying, you know what, uh, you know, here's here's a flat rate And then if we reach this level, you know, we're going to give you a royalty or something like that well, it When anybody discovers how you get paid in show business Yeah, um, they usually either get confused or angry or both or they just go right back to your point Which is they don't just give a shit, right? um, because you get paid in At least three or at least two but sometimes three different ways to do it to do right on a show And we're talking about anything that whatever happens. It's anything not a feature film You get paid as your whatever your level writer level is and that's the number set by the marketplace in your age In your manager or whatever. So I'm a producer showrunner. So I get paid a lot per episode Uh, nemeson whatever episodes I work on to get paid But if I write an episode mean it's written by I get the written by credit I get paid whatever the guild minimum is Everyone gets paid the guild minimum Because your value as a script writer Uh on a tv series is not really as high as your value as a member of the staff a creative member of the staff And and when you're running a tv show You'll assign scripts to staff members usually starting at the lowest ranked up And then they go off for into their office for a week and then they but they're always in the office or they're at home But whatever is there they're still doing their job on that week's episode, right? That's the most efficient way to do these things. So you have all these different income streams and they're separate Residuals and all this other stuff is based on guild minimums. That's what the art That's what the the guild goes on strike for minimums Um Not my producer fee not your supervising producer fee or whatever it is. That's going to be set by the marketplace Now what usually happens in these negotiations would happen in 2007 and will happen this time is whatever Whatever agreement the studios and streamers make the producers make to raise minimums And they will make agreement. They've already made some offers, but they're going to have to move it up And they'll they'll move it up They end up and you know, it happens in a room they go in a room and they are in a conference room And they they agree to something and they get together and they go in the elevator down to their cars in the parking garage And as they're walking to the parking garage Without a doubt what happens is all the studios say well, listen If we go over here on the minimums if we give them their 22 bump or whatever it is on minimums Then we all have to agree that after this strike we're given all these producer people like rob 22 25 percent haircut On their fee right which of course is collusion and illegal But it's what they do and and the magically When the strike is over all the agents are making you know making deals to try to get you back to work And they just notice that all over town Everyone is getting a cut because that's How it works. That's you know, that's how you get the money back or you try to get the money back You know sometimes writers are surprised by that As they were in 2007 when the deal when the strike was over and they realized they were they every gain That went to minimums. They were going to pay for in reduced fees But that that is kind of how show business works where you're kind of trying to get as many different way many different revenue streams for one project as you can And I know a showrunner who like Made sure he wrote the theme song When he created a show so that he got paid for that too like a little bit, you know $1,000 every episode and you know to 25 bucks 30 bucks every time it's on reruns It like starts to add up you go to the you go to mailbox at the end of the quarter and you get some You know you can get 100 200 thousand dollars if you you got enough little little little checks in the way It seems like what partially what you're saying is that the subscription model that netflix pioneered is not really going to work long term or is like at a breaking point Are you saying that? If at the end of this negotiation it that's going to push it over that breaking point and that is why It's going you know that this idea of you just paid 11 dollars a month and get to see Unlimited content without ads That's over At the end of the strike. Yeah, that's your prediction. Well, I mean it eventually will be I mean that that has never ever worked But it show business for 100 years of show business You have never made money just selling content. It has never worked You've always needed to have a movie theater and the movie theater rents the movie for a little bit and kind of hold Some back and skim some cash off it You know every studio got ripped off by movie theaters for the first 20 years of show business 25 years 30 years of the movie business because It was all cash And they would actually do this thing they actually did this in the 20s I think in 20s and 30s they would send pinkertons the studios and pinkerton detectives to a the 7 o'clock show And they would go and they buy a ticket for the 7 o'clock show at 6 30 And they would buy a ticket for the 7 o'clock same show at 7 15 and would match the number on the ticket And they would just sort of randomly audit studios of theaters I mean to see how many how much of the skim they were losing and a certain amount they expected but Greater than that they complained But then this the the theaters weren't really making money on the ticket necessarily They're making somebody on the ticket, but they were going to sell you a you know Now they sell you a diet coke for nine dollars. Yeah That's everyone's I mean for this system to work Everyone has a little bit of the piece of yours thing and has their hand in your pocket You've got their hand in their pocket and that is actually the most efficient economic environment ever And like the irony for me is that this environment the show business actually worked Was the dream The fantasy dream of every silicon valley techno You know utopian in the early 2000s if you I would go up to to silicon valley And they would have like on panels which is people in silicon valleys I've discovered libertarians and silicon valley people have panels about every week and you go on a panel and They would you talk about show business stuff and then people tell you we're gonna we that that business needs to be disruptive And they would describe the ideal tech world right where it's like kind of uber You know, it's everybody distributed content distributed Effort no you don't really work for a company. You're kind of on your own and that it's actually how show business worked It was perfect for them And yet the minute they came the first thing they did was what everybody does which they built a little You know a magic fortress in the sky netflix had it all figured out But then they thought well, wow What if we make some because I would like to go to the award shows Who doesn't want to make movies? I mean this is a plot of a million You know different movies about making movies right you get the dentist You know out on long island put in 25 grand because he wants to hang out with stars That's actually literally true Yeah, yeah, that's the silver screen partners. That was the that was the financial vehicle that saved disney in the 80s Was something called silver screen partners mostly Yeah, well and we'll get to disney in a little bit But you know, it's kind of fascinating disney had a massive loss last year and People have forgotten that in the late 70s and early 80s disney was a leading indicator of how the american economy Had just completely shit the bad right and was about to go out of business So, you know the more things changed more they kind of say the same uh zach did you want to uh show the ai? Yeah, this was the last uh, this was the last negotiating point that I had highlighted uh about Uh ai which we alluded to at the beginning of the stream um Regulate the use of artificial intelligence on mba covered projects ai can't write or rewrite literary material Can't be used as source material This is you know, this is the part uh, which is concerned for both the writers and the actors as we'll see here in a moment And it's also where I start to raise my eyebrow a bit because While I can see the need for renegotiating terms With all the changes you've laid out um It does seem like you're potentially cutting off a what could be an incredibly productive tool before Its full powers even be like been realized the ability to use Ai not to replace human creativity, but augment it What is right your reaction to the ai component of the writers angst? Well, you know, I mean After a nick's introduction, I love a yeah, it's fantastic It's very flattering. It's very flattering. Um, my my glib response was when I hear writers complain about ai I get say they're worried about ai is like wow, how bad are you like you're worried that the robot's gonna change it Uh, I suspect ai is gonna be um used by writers More than it's ever used by a studio Um, or it's going to be used by writers who are in the exalted level of writer Which is something that rarely comes up in these negotiations. I mean I can easily see a showrunner ai-ing A bunch of outlines. I mean when I guess when ai isn't, you know, weird Um, I can easily see that. Um, I don't know if I would I don't know if ai I mean I write comedy So I if you if you someone showed me ai once at one time made a joke that wasn't stupid Uh, and wasn't what I would consider to be a fireable offense at the writer. I was paying made that joke Um, then I guess I'd be a little bit more worried. Um, see now you're getting to the tension between the uh, the showrunners And the staff writers which I know you've written about before where it's like are are we in solidarity? Or is there actually a hierarchy here and ai might be useful to the showrunners And a threat to yeah, but it also might be helpful to the writer who is Stock and is trying to generate story ideas I think it's going to be very very helpful if you're on a legal show or a medical show Or you're on one of those shows or one of the you're doing a project where someone has to say well, that's Well, that's you know, and then that's yeah, mbo mentrici Syndrome that's how did they come up with letters of transit in casablanca which don't exist But they invented they invented it right right more like every episode Did you ever see the tv she was good show friends of mine did it and it's really great and Hugh lorry was terrific in the show house Yeah, so every every week you got to come up with some only house can figure it out And you got to have a doctor and in fact, you know, I don't know that seems like really hard like ai perfect At the risk of going down a rabbit hole that will never come out too late Yeah, but of an old colleague of mine at reason A guy named chuck freind wrote on the old banna check show. Oh, wow series a short-lived series of locked room mysteries and george pippard Yeah He said like by the end of the first season people were shooting themselves because it's like where can you come up with another locked room That's improbable, but we have a clip here speaking of ai uh from brian cranston Who I loved as tim wattley on seinfeld. He's great as the father on malkham in the middle And he's breaking down great in that. Yeah a fantastic actor. He also played lbj In a play. Uh, zack you want to cue this up where he's He's he's got a message to the head of the disney studio and all the other suits Uh, we've got a message for mr. Iger I know sir that you look through things through a different lens We don't expect you to understand who we are But we ask you to hear us And beyond that to listen to us When we tell you We will not be having our jobs taken away and giving to robots We will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living And lastly and most importantly, we will not allow you to take away our dignity Rob, how do you how do you respond to that? Well, first of all, I I love brian cranson so much uh And I I mean i'm a writer so i'm like I'm making jokes in my head like really take away your dignity your your You play make-believe for living. Let's let's but I but I think as an actor It is much more worrisome and I don't think it's like you're replaced by a robot It's just that you're not going to have to pay brian cranston Because you got brian cranston already in your on your servers and you can kind of make brian cranston Do and say whatever you want to make brian cranston do and say And it is true that the the studios have been planning that because the one thing they wouldn't back down on Sag went out. I think one of the reasons of sag went out Is because they said all right well for you know big name actors would be one thing But if you're just a background artist meaning an extra what we call atmosphere Once we get you On you know, whatever we modeled you digitally we can use you in anything forever For free Now do we know that that is? The the contract or the rules that are being discussed because I've read that that's a misrepresentation That yes say yeah, we're talking about this particular shoot but Yes, that is the yes they have they have clarified that but if you're a if you're a writer You kind of feel like uh, you know what you're You're you're you're gonna need a writer to fix the ai It may be a first draft, but you're gonna have to pay a writer and we'll just just change the minimum So you had to pay me more and even though it's a second draft based on an ai draft Which is never gonna be right just that executives don't want to they don't want to read a script let alone type in How to write it I don't the most executives don't read right so they don't even you know So but an actor is different and the actor is fundamentally different And they understand why they're afraid there's you know, there's a in the new season of black mirror There's an episode that is built around this concept that You know, Salma Hayek is her her likeness has been captured and she's being Used in a in a in a show kind of not quite against her will because somewhere deep in the terms of service She had agreed to all of this There are rules already in laws against using the likeness of people You know, so it seems and again, it may be maybe not for An extra background artist but for somebody like brian cranson that seems unlikely Is it I mean like when I hear cranson, you know, who delivers all of those lines fantastically, but i'm listening to like Hey, let's go break those looms. You know, he was on 44th street. Let's just go over to the garment district Then you know, there's a bunch of sewing machines That are really, you know screwing up how you know, how much more money we could make Per base or something like that. I don't know, you know, it just seems so far-fetched Um as to be kind of risible as a main focus of of angst I mean, well of anxiety. I think there's a lot of anxiety because your industry is going through a massive Restructuring and as you were saying Rob, nobody knows how this is going to play out in any meaningful way But like that particular concern Strikes me as odd, you know theater, you know Actors have been around since you know before christ Yeah, and they're probably going to be around after he comes and you know, and Wasn't an actor who killed lincoln. Let's let's let's yeah, right. Um Uh, I I hear you. I I understand. Yeah, I think I understand what you're saying. I would say there are probably two um There's sort of two levels here and the top level Anxiety is something you also see in the writers which may not be connected to the immediate threat, but it's sort of Is indicative of the general anxiety Which is that these all of this these technologies are designed to remove what I do Which has always been subjective and it was already incredibly risky um and to take me entirely out of the out of the The business right um and then on a for the actors on a fundamental or them closer level um part of Especially I mean any actor, but it's I mean a big actor like bryan cranston But anybody else is that when a project goes over Or when a project needs reshoots, which they all do they got to pay you by the day And for some people if you're at brian cranston level, that's a whole lot of money. That's actually That's a big part of it could can be a big part of your annual Income and if you're a mid-range actor, they need you back to reshoot this or reshoot that or whatever they need you back for And if they don't have to bring you back if they can kind of within the context Even the context of one title the same title, you know, whatever that movie was or project was you're still there They don't have to pay you For additional work that they've created in the box that isn't effect work, but is in fact just error correction or whatever um That's a bad road for the actor That's a bad road to go down if you're an actor and that's something you probably want to protect So it isn't quite something so much that you're breaking the rule again. It's it's completely Understandable that actors and writers You know want to get as much money as they can for the work that they do I you know that but then when you pull back a little bit It just seems like other industries that have automated other industries that have you know used technology They figure out a way. Um, I mean and it seems like hollywood, you know for lack of a better term Is the last industry that is going to be like, you know what you've seen brian cranson already we're going to give you a You know a fake brian cranson and you're going to love it You know because and if you can If you can replace brian cranson and breaking bad with brian cranson from a mac book then maybe you know Maybe there's not as much magic going on or It just strikes me as It's a it's a heavy ask to You know regular people who just are watching tv are going to movies who are paying more every year Etc you know to be like, you know, but the important thing is that brian cranson get that extra check Um, because that's what's fair in the world Well, what's fair is if you I mean the difference is that if you were making you know, if you're a famous sweater knitter, you know Then you may not like the loom because it makes sweaters right a lot cheaper and faster than you can knit them But you and you really can't say much about it But you can say if some i'm selling if I make a sweater in a loom and I say this is a nicolaspy You have every right to say no way no way that's not nicolaspy nicolaspy is the guy who knit the sweater And I didn't knit that sweater and so this isn't really anti technology It's more like okay, you can make you can make you can make a movie now And ai's a fake person and it'll probably look pretty good You could make your own movie star if you want you just can't call that movie star brian cranson Yeah, well, I think I mean certainly from a libertarian point of view that makes subtle sense because then we're talking about fraud or misrepresentation And there's no moral issue there But I also I I suspect that there'll be an aesthetic issue where it's like people You know people will want the real brian cranson. They'll want the authorized edition of Then they'll have they should pay and brian cranson should make whatever Absolutely, but but I say also and even now it's the studios and the streamers that have brought us to this position Right because they're the ones that have created so much content in this ridiculous war They're having for streaming services that makes no financial sense Financial moves they have done And the only way and I say it's it kills me as a writer But the only way For them to distinguish a prod one project from another is with a star Like a recognizable face. That's how you get people to watch so brian cranson stock And every other act good actor stock went way up as it should have because he's got something special You now you can't say to the you can't say to people. Well, we're going to take that special thing away Now you created the conditions that have created this now you have to live with your own bad Your own bad business modeling Let's uh speaking business models. Can I just register just by one worry With it because I I can totally understand where brian cranson is coming from and especially some of the People who aren't at brian cranson's level who might be afraid that their image is going to get exploited over and over again But what what I worry about with um kind of an an overreach would be that hollywood I think sometimes has a tendency to draw Boundaries or or gate keep a little bit too tightly with whether it comes to The use of new technology or uh intellectual property These are all tools for Creating new things. Um, and if you're going to gate keep access to those tools You're inevitably going to make it harder for the upstarts the people who don't have a lot of institutional backing to To to use them um and You know, there's been a lot of uh fights over the years To expand fair use protection of repurposed material. That's a fight We fought a lot because we're in documentaries and so we will uh, you know be commenting on Other material and then you'll get you know, takedown notices and hollywood's been a major force against that So that that is what I worry about with kind of over defining like what is ai like what is generated by ai What is like, you know, my image is if it's if it's sort of based on An image of another person, but it's not really them. Is that going to be covered by this prohibition Those are kind of like the the margin call type cases that I guess I I worry about the most I don't know how it's all, you know, going to resolve And and there's certainly arguments on both sides, but but that that's kind of what looms large when when I think about it I have a solution okay because um If you go back to the glory years right when there was more independent film that was true independent film When when is this? Well, you know pick up, you know sometime in the you know late 80s will say 80s, right? So okay This by the tail end of the studio system kind of fell apart um, I mean, you know from the 1920s on a block booking went and the feds got involved and then TV and then the feds gotten re-involved where they had a financial interest Indication rules and then that kind of like, you know, they they started to be deregulated And so around the 80s people started to like you could really make a lot of money with an independent film And you can really make a lot of money as a small studio um An unaffiliated small studio by the way, uh That that is the solution For innovation in almost every industry, but definitely innovation in show business Or at least to keep the doors open or more open for change The what what the the irony is that the the the the very people who seem to understand that sort of in their DNA Which are the techno to technology people from Silicon Valley the minute they got into the 310 212 and 3 area code They completely threw it away and they decided no I want to have a vertically integrated studio with both my exhibitors and my studio doing the same thing I want to eat what I kill and nobody in show business has ever made any money eating what they kill You eat what that guy kills a little bit and you give him some of your stuff and everybody kind of gets rich And they didn't do that and if they did that We would not be here in this position Let's uh turn to a clip That features allen ruck the actor he has been around for a long time You know, we loved him in ferris bueller. We saw him most recently in succession And he has something to say about the studio the suits the heads technology capitalism. Uh, let's run this clip It used to be kings and queens and emperors and now it's captains of industry And they think that the world and everything on it and in it everything in the air and in the ocean belongs to them And they think that human beings who are not of their, you know, socioeconomic class are just another natural resource Mostly to be managed to be utilized may be exploited But mostly to be managed because they always say stuff like those people they're asking for too much Well, we're not we're not asking for too much We're asking for what's fair. This isn't this isn't about the movie stars This is about the journeymen actors the journeymen writers the people that That make the thing go the wet dream for uh, some Big shots is like just hire one star and have the ai do everything else You know, well, we're not gonna allow that What do you think? Oh, um, I mean, we're not gonna allow it. I mean, yeah, I mean If it if it could happen, it'll happen right if it can happen That's exactly what will happen But the solution to I mean, you this will not surprise you nick that I think the solution to this is more capitalism Right that the problem we have and I also feel like these go in cycles, right? So you had a deregulation cycle That kind of encouraged these behemoth studios and networks to join and you know, I mean like, you know Comcast is a giant cable network and a studio and a tv network and a streaming service I think it may own parts of the pentagon as well at this point It I hope not because it is an incompetent conglomerate and should not exist. It definitely is a sign Okay, right, right. I mean it should not exist and it will be busted up And capitalism is what's going to bust these things up and when they're bust And I don't think I mean in the old days it was the federal regulators You know Richard Nixon said I don't like these tv networks. They hate me So I'm going to make sure they can't own the tv shows they put on because if they could do that then I'm really really rich Now what have he had he just let them do it? They would have gotten really really rich for like a day and then really really poor for like a year Which is what's about to happen to all these big companies Which is why they're even now today talking about what pieces of their of their business they're going to sell Right and when they sell them all Everything in show business will be better for the next 15 years until they put them all back together again as they do Would you could you describe briefly and we have a clip of uh, that we'll show after this but rob What is the experience of anti capitalism in hollywood? Because on the one hand, you know rhetorically a lot of Movie stars a lot of writers a lot of producers a lot of studio heads are anti capitalists Even as they are phenomenally successful business people and you know good at marketing and self branding and all of that But what what is it like as being somebody who is you know on the right politically? I think you call yourself a conservative or uh, uh, maybe a conservatarian libertarian conservative Whatever, but like you're not passives. Yeah, you you like markets You like freedom. You like the people being able to kind of innovate and things like that What's what's the you know the felt experience of anti capitalism for you in hollywood? well, I mean I don't know It's the it's the uh, it's kind of the same reason that people don't like capitalism in general It's they don't like the uncertainty of it That the question you have to ask yourself with capitalism is what I rather go for the uncertainty here Change disruption all sorts of things, you know rational economic acting Or what I rather cling to something that I know and is um Safe and if you're at the very top of any organization You you prefer to cling to something that's safe capitalism the way you and I understand it. I think Is dangerous, right? We really had capitalism. We wouldn't have uh, golden sacks or we wouldn't have jp Morgan chase We wouldn't have these giant regulatory capture scenarios across the board Um So if you're a movie star and you kind of think well, I mean I know you have giant ego and you think you're a genius, but there's always a voice inside your head that says wait a minute I know that i'm lucky Because I almost didn't go to that audition or I didn't really want to be in that project that made me the biggest whatever it is, right? so you're not really crazy about rational economic chaos Creative destruction you'd like the idea of there being some kind of somebody some some people in charge And you can hear that in the in the in the arguments made by, you know, brian cranston and alan ruck the idea that they're these malevolent Evil geniuses who have a plan they're twirling their mustache up there with the league of supervillains And if we let them let them have their plan, they're gonna succeed Right, but the truth is that they and that may have been true in 2007 I think but those same actors that by the way, they are pretty much in many cases the same actors um, I mean in the corporate actors Have utterly failed Let's look at one of those Actors who has utterly failed and this is robert eiger mr. Eiger Um, I love the false decorum by the way when people on strike are like mr. Eiger Yeah, you know, uh, etc. But uh, let's run the clip of robert eiger because we've been talking about this from You know kind of okay the actors and writers are kind of you know, or I'll say I find them a little bit annoying But you know the studio heads are equally obnoxious and by the way, bob eiger is who that is who cranston and Ruck are both pretty much talking directly Specifically talking about yes. So let's here's robert eiger uh, beleaguered chairman of disney we're in the midst of a writer's strike and very likely it would seem to have a Actor's strike. How is that going to impact things and what are your expectations there? Well, I think it's very disturbing to me. You know, we've talked about Disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges that we're facing in the recovery from covet which is ongoing It's not completely back This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption There's a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic And they are adding to a set of challenges that this business is already facing That is quite frankly very disruptive. They're not being realistic. No, they're not I respect their right and their desire to get as much as they possibly can in compensation for their people Like, you know, I completely respect that I've been around long enough to understand that dynamic and to appreciate it But you also have to be realistic about the business environment and what this business can deliver It is it has been a great business for all of these people and it will continue to be even through disruptive times I wish they had pulled back so we could see that he is standing on like little children A mound of skulls. Yeah But how um, so, you know, Iger uh, enzac, you had the number. Well, we'll show it in a bit But how much did disney lose? In 2022 It was uh, yeah 100 million 401 million dollars um, so he uh, you know And he came back to disney, so he's you know, he's kind of on the hot seat But rob, what do you what do you how do you respond to something like that? well, look, you know The irony here is that he is the smartest guy in Show business really? I mean, he's a very smart guy Um, and his the company is just too giant and he started disney plus and he should not um He did a lot of dumb things and he's right that if you believe that If you've done this terrible job running these big media companies And you're looking at your you know quarterly earnings or your annual earnings You're looking at the future and the future competition And how much it's going to cost you to keep feeding your machine for content for $11 a month And you don't have any pricing power. They don't have any pricing power these people. Um They're in a business. They've never been in before Consumer product business. That's what a service is. They don't make consumer products. They make tv shows, right? They're not making fritos. They're making tv shows Um, so they have no there's no experience in this business and the business is kicking their ass Um, but if you insist that that's the business you're in, yes, of course It's incredibly meddlesome and troublesome and disruptive and unrealistic For the writers and the actors to ask you to do something else because you're like, hey listen, it's like, you know We've driven the car into a dish Stop, you know, I don't have time to like get you a cheeseburger or whatever it is, right? But the driving it into the ditch was the problem. The problem isn't Now that you know, you guys aren't on our side They haven't offered any, you know, notice these they never offer you like shares in the company You know, they don't do that. They're not they're not really offering to make you a stakeholder in the business so You know, he's smart, but I there is no solution for these people even if Even if somehow they it turns out that the studios strike a deal that they believe they can then sell to the shareholders It's like a good deal There is no future for these companies except to be to to break themselves up and they will It sounds you know While you were talking it reminds me a bit of the Airline industry which goes through these cycles of booms and busts and where Smaller airlines by each other and they become bigger because they're going to have economies of scale and market share And then they can dictate, you know, they have pricing power And it never quite works out that way and then occasionally you'll get like years ago united The employees are like, okay. Well, you know, we're going to buy it because that way we'll own the company We're a part of and they did that they were like, we don't have to run an airline We don't want to and they tried to sell it back etc So maybe we're going through one of these cycles. Zach. Let's talk. You have some slides about just like looking at the big picture of You know, what, you know, how's it how's it working out for studios that kind of support a lot of what rob is talking about here Yeah, so we mentioned disney posting a negative 401 million dollar loss in 2022 netflix You'll see here, you know, netflix sony both Down profit wise warner brothers mvc universal paramount posted modest increase their profit margins for 2022 The writer's guild provided this historical graphic, which you see, you know, billions Tens of billions in operating profits for the the big companies over the years, although they also concede that 2022 in particular was a rough year for the industry This just shows the executive pay for all the big studio chiefs And you know in in the hundreds tens to hundreds of millions for some of them Most many of them Did take a pay cut in 2022. Although, you know, still living Look at that aria manuel only at about 20 million Well, you know, erie built a business Rob, can we go back to that real quick? Yeah You know rob one of the things that you hear again and again You know from you know, say the allen rucks of the world is that it is obscene aria manuel who is part of the leading You know, he's the brother of rama manuel. He's a liberal democrat if not a progressive democrat He has made You know in the past five years, he's made 346 million dollars And allen ruck says that is obscene that is wrong. He doesn't deserve to make that much money Is allen ruck is allen ruck right? No He's wrong aria manuel built a business. It's his business. He built it He's not like it's a everybody who pay it's a by the way, it's a business built on fees Right, you know, the business itself was a talent agency. He's got a lot of other pieces The pieces to it now, but it started as a talent agency people Willingly engaged engaged in a contract with aria manuel because he was a passionate and great talent man talent agent Representative and they gave him a portion of their earnings and he worked for them He built that business St patrick white souls on the bottom of that patrick's another partner at wme and he did that It's like no, of course. He deserves it that that's not I mean and lumping him in with some of the sort of factotums there It doesn't seem fair I would say and I say that somebody who's not represented by aria at all But but I he built a business. He deserves it. He earned that money. I'm not I don't I don't When when the argument becomes about people getting rich and they shouldn't be getting rich You know that the they've lost the thread of the argument the argument really should be um You're not going to pull this business out of a ditch by giving me a pay cut and by removing Income streams from me You're gonna still have to live up to the standards of paying me for my either my residuals In my image or my residuals in my writing and you've got to figure out another way To pull your company out of the ditch And the way to do that as I keep saying over and over again It's just simply making smaller like you find somebody to buy this if every single one of those companies you had up there broke itself into pieces of exhibiting and studio um Like a content creator and then a contra content exploiter It would be like the golden years again and everyone and the idea the fear there is that okay Well, nobody will sell me There no no studio will sell me their content, right? That was the net big netflix fear, which is just completely ludicrous That just there's just no evidence for that at all and there's so much counter evidence to it Netflix's own ratings are that like and and creating a a lucrative back end, which is what we're talking about for Uh for content is something that's in the is benefits the whole environment. Everyone does better Do you think that's uh, are you optimistic that is a likely outcome here for the future of the industry because I mean one interesting aspect of this go around with the actors is that sag after has already Issued some waivers to some of the smaller independent production companies. Is that Kind of how it starts to break apart that that really These smaller Maybe more nimble players are going to be able to move forward while the big ones are kind of stuck in the mud I think it breaks apart because the shareholders Eventually wake up I mean The entertainment business is a very great very very good place to go and for individuals to get extremely rich It is not a good place for shareholders to get rich Shareholders need to learn that lesson about every 15 20 years But they do learn it and there'll be some activist shareholders some whoever the latest asshole is that's in some giant hedge fund Who's gonna like oh, yeah, you're speaking of uh, catholic nuns, right? Yeah, probably the same ones who go to exxon mobile meetings show up, right? No, it'll be somebody's fun guy Who's gonna make trouble for sherry redstone or make trouble for somebody and say why do you own this stuff? You're failing at it You're failing at your streaming service. You're failing at your studio. Sell it Is there any is there any indication that somebody like read hastings at netflix is kind of Getting that message or the or the leaders at amazon where you know there it becomes even more unclear You know, uh, I've read that over half of american households are our amazon prime households That throws off a lot of money prime video is one of the ways that you keep people people being prime households So maybe they don't really care how many people are watching or you know, and they have On hand, but that's a problem. Apple and amazon don't care, right? Yeah Yeah, just show that on netflix here. This is the subscriber base for netflix from 2013 to present We're you know closing in on 250 million paid subscribers worldwide. So yeah, you do have to think like Even if uh, Things they're struggling right now. That's that's a lot of people There's got to be a way to figure out how to turn that around, right? Well, but but not not if you're spending money the way they spend money on content But the the for this slide the the terror on that slide is the first quarter of 2020 of 2022 Because that is the first quarter that the subscriber growth. I think I it was definitely first quarter. So maybe I'm looking at the Yeah, no, you're right. That's the first quarter that subscriber growth Didn't flatten it didn't slow it went down And the rule was that this that will never happen It'll just slow and plateau. They called it and then they discovered that the people who had people who gave up netflix Right, they weren't the people you expect to the people who got it In december of 2021 because they wanted to watch movies over the holidays or they got it because they were you know in 2020 They were they were it was during the pandemic. They were all home The people who gave up their netflix membership in the first quarter of 2022 were people who had been subscribers to netflix for two plus years Which was not supposed to be possible That the whole model was built on the fact that once you do it You're not going to check your credit card bill anymore. You're not even going to know what that is. You're out the house Whatever it is But they didn't that didn't happen which of course anybody anybody at like proctor and gamble or the frito lay corporation would have said You know, that's not going to work, right? That's not how consumers buy shit Um, but these guys have no met no no experience in that so they had no idea um So but my my long my short answer to your question nick is that no I I They should I mean if you look at all of the netflix, you know literature and the stories around netflix always they're hyper-rational kind of they have like data analytics up the yin and for in for employees to like, you know Hey, listen, you were employee number three, but you're no longer fit into the system So you can like you self fire yourself. You think this is a kind of a cult right a cult of rational Actors, right and yet the minute they touch show business Yeah, I can be on a kori feldman You know franchise. I got to step it out because we're going to turn this around Let's look at the um, uh, you know rob this actually relates to it too so You know part what you're arguing is that like the behemoth that have become Contemporary studios or entertainment complexes are too too vast their empires that can no longer maintain themselves because they don't know what they're doing They don't know how to do it. Well, but when we go back to content I've heard you argue and I think this is genuinely interesting Um, you know that it's also odd that at this moment, uh, when everybody needs a hit people in hollywood are almost religiously You know conscientious objectors against reaching the kinds of mass audiences that they once coveted And we want to run a clip, uh from rosanne which uh reboot the reboot of rosanne, which is like Basically the most successful broadcast reboot and it certainly in recent memory Came out in 2017 Let's let's look at a clip from this And talk about why hollywood doesn't want to make giant hits anymore She promised that she would get along and knowing the both of you. I'm guessing you're the one keeping this feud alive What's up deplorable first? Let's say grace jacky Would you like to take a knee? Dear lord? Thank you for this food And for bringing our son dj home safe from syria But most of all lord Thank you for making america great again. It's okay, darlin. How could you have voted for him rosanne? He talked about jobs jacky. He said he shaped things up I mean this might come as a complete shock to you, but we almost lost our house away Things are going have you looked at the news because now things are worse not on the real news So, you know this came out in 2017 rosanne's character is a trump voter and trump supporter Her sister jacky is you know wearing a pussy hat is uh hillary clinton supporter um Yeah, you know, why did this show do so well and why aren't there more of these shows? um I don't know I can't answer the second question because it's a giant mystery to me and there's a Is a corollary to that also in the feature side uh Yeah, and just to put the before you get into it I'll just Read for the people listening with the slide that we just pulled up showing that the first two episodes drew 17.7 million viewers the second episode 18.6 million viewers the It scored the highest rated today entertainment telecast In six years among adults 18 to 49 and tv's highest rated comedy telecast on any night in three and a half years since September 2014 Yeah, giant, right? I mean Yeah Creatively I'd say it's because that was a family talking about Jit that families all across the country were talking about and they were doing it in a funny way and that is Like that's it. Just just put a pin in it. You're done. I'm talking about what people are talking about in a funny way um And making sure it's funny, right because it was funny um That's it. That's that that's the whole job. That's all you have to do You don't have to think I mean that is hard enough by the way, but that used to be kind of what Show business was supposed to television. Anyway, we were supposed to do was to Kind of bring a funny or a scary version or a heightened version of what you saw outside your window in here Um onto the tv. That's what it was supposed to do And that's when it was at its best It was doing that whether it was telling you a story about You know people living in a city or telling you a little bit aspirational to what it was telling you The story about trying to raise your kids and you know, you know I don't know rich a little richie little richie Petrie or something and in newer shell or whether it's telling you about how how Horrible it is to have a stupid meathead hippie son-in-law in your house eating your food not All that stuff And it could be really funny. It's just that it's also terrifying um For the executives because they've been living in you know If you drive to work every day in a Prius or a tesla listen to npr and you get there It's like gonna be hard for you to understand what rosanne is even saying let alone in that clip especially let alone like are you allowed to say it? um And once you do that, uh Then you're not once you once you Once you do that you you're not in a mass media. You're not you're not gonna get a 20 share You know, you're gonna get a you're gonna get 800,000 people You're gonna get basically a very very elaborate podcast, which is what most TV is now just a really nicely done podcast Can you take us back? I mean are you expecting it? Yeah Oh, no, I was just gonna ask are you expecting a course correction on that just given the massive number something like You know, there's a whole story that we don't have to get into as to why rosanne got canceled But the fact that for the brief time that she came back that it was huge Indicates there's a there's an appetite. So do you expect some sort of markets you You'd think You'd think I mean just this week. I think it was just yesterday the day before maybe it was yesterday I don't know this week. Anyway the conners which by the way without her is still a hit. Yeah Yeah, um, it's I don't know what season it's in it's in like it's I don't Death season It has it now has an output deal. I mean it has a second light has a says a has a Has a syndication deal it's sign licensing deals signed with lions gate, which is a small studio And I'm the company deb mar mercury and tom warner is one of the people who put it together He was the original guy behind The cosby show and also rosanne And so they're gonna sell it to the global distribution, which is you know Streaming video on demand and other kinds all the kinds of rights cable rights fast rights all that stuff Um, and someone's gonna buy it probably net, you know, netflix is gonna want it Maybe who's gonna want it maybe all these people are gonna want it because these shows are popular Uh, the number one show on netflix is suits Right and suits is the kind of a I know it has the Duchess of Sussex on it But it also is like it kind of it was originally on like the usa network usa network It's what they call their blue sky during their blue sky period where the shows were kind of light and funny But interesting but you could just watch one and then you could go on your way You know nobody pays for homework And so and I you'd think that they would understand that in the feature business Right, do you remember like we've just been through a summer But even last summer when the movie business is back. Yeah, um, where's the big comedy like there was that like to be like a Big Ben Stiller comedy and a will ferrell comics be like five or six of those all summer and some of them were dumb and died And some of them were great and and the people talked about them for The dressed as those characters and how how many ron burgundies were there at halloween after anchorman came out Um, so barbie doesn't scratch that Itch a little bit But you know we the reason we talked about barbie so much because there was only barbie And also barbie's kind of artsy, you know has an idea behind it. There was no idea behind anchorman. It was just fun Can I ask is it a um, is it a failure of imagination? on the part of the studios uh, or and lower, you know, the creators who you know, ultimately, um, You know release their stuff through this system Um, or you know, I mean is is that just what it comes down to because you know, it seems rosanne shows this Various movies, you know top gun maverick, which I personally thought was horrible Didn't like maverick. I I tested it even more than the original one, but what the hell? What's your problem? I got a lot of problems. Rob. You do. Yeah, this is something for our next session With the uh, I have a lot of problems with uh, you know a movie with america It's about the is about the enemy, but it can't be named. Is it a rand? Is it russia? Is it china? Is it you know office stand? Who knows right? It's like, you know, it's a shadowy republic breakaway republic. I don't know, you know, but no, but um Is it I mean, so it's not that the audience it's not that the mass audience has disappeared It's that nobody is interested in reaching a mass audience Yeah, well, they're terrified of them. They're terrified of them the mass audience if you're in show business You think you mean somebody says the mass audience all you can think of is Those people at those trump rallies People who believe that jonith kennedy is alive that they that they think that bill gates is inside the vaccine Um, yeah, that's what you think instead of thinking that would just make it funny Just make it funny or scary that you don't have to it I have uh A small answer for you and I then have a look a big think answer Which you can you know take out later if you think it sounds too crazy Yeah, we don't want to insult our audience. Right. Okay. Yeah, right um, the small answer is that um, the Really for the first time the people making TV and movies Don't really like tv and movies They kind of begrudgingly think it's a kind of okay, but it's a little bit. I don't know really Like you're all gonna line up to a movie with a robot, you know Robots come from outer space or really you're gonna go see, you know, the the connor's living room is fake Right, you know that like nobody enters and leaves the room with a joke that doesn't There's just a little bit a little too good a little too smart Uh, too cool for school really and that's usually what you can tell we used to say that about uh When I was doing half hour comedy in front of an audience that there's a certain discipline to that like the audience You can't make the audience laugh at something. It's not funny Like as much as you want to so that you can go home You can't so if you write a joke and you leave stays there the whole week and the audience doesn't laugh You got to cut the joke because they didn't laugh because it's died Um, but if you're shooting single camera with no audience there, you could just say Well, I wasn't going for a laugh there was going for some kind of whimsical Light whimsy something quirky and then moving on we used to say about people who did the single camera shows Is the great thing about those is you get to go home at 5 15 like you don't have to stay late because what the hell There's no audience there. Um, there's no market in other words, right? So there's that they're too cool for school But there's also kind of a larger issue culturally which is this is going too far. So, you know Which is that we kind of I mean I try to work this out this theory I think it's brilliant. So I'm kind of hoping that it's brilliant, but it may just be dumb. So This is you'll tell by whether or not we laugh. Yeah, exactly. Um The smart people at the top of all of the big American industries or world industries really smart people in general Have just entered this age of blunder where smart people are doing just Insanely dumb things that they should know better because they're just too smart I mean it takes smart people to invade iraq Dumb people wouldn't do it. It takes smart people to Build entire financial models around whether somebody at riverside county can afford to pay the mortgage on five houses at once Only a smart person could come up with that dumb person would never do that It takes a smart person to say We're going to close all the schools and all the businesses because we figured out covid and would tell you how It's going to work. Only a smart person would do that. Only a smart person. I think would invade ukraine No, Putin's not dumb. He's just like we sit in this age of like the only a smart person would buy twitter and change His name to x right like you have to be smart to be Really stupid and so only the smart people who are running netflix or the smartest people from silicon valley only they could make mistakes this like Colossally dumb only bob eiger could add pieces to a business that the pieces don't belong So that means tomorrow morning. We're going to wake up and anthony fountry has been named the new head of disney Right. Well, it would be in the operation or well notice how all those people tend to like support each other because like Right, you know like well, you know, it's hard. Like we're really smart. We're the smart people Can I yeah, I I think this is pretty good theory, right? I like that theory a lot the age of blunder is That's that's really great. Um, can you say as we we end this conversation? Uh, can you say something good though about? Well, here is the age of cultural proliferation and the reason why I bring that up is because back when you were nominated for your golden globes In that same year, I was writing for reason magazine about just how totally fantastic it was that we were finally Chipping away at mass culture Um, and it didn't mean it had to go away Yeah, but but you know suddenly everybody could find their niche culture too or produce it themselves And they consume it the way that they wanted are these things? Is it does it have to be either or that like we either have this massive niche culture where nobody You know, nobody really sells that many books or nobody really see Maybe the big studios put out top gun maverick. Uh, and then you have the boutiques do, uh, you know Something great, but that's quirky and small, but it always kind of was that way. I mean, there's no reason you can't have that. Um you There's a there's a bunch of ways for this to work, right? But one of the great ways is that you do you're right you have this you have this, you know YouTube tiktok instagram experience where there's a lot of crap on it, right? But there's some Astonishingly talented people who are Legitimately hilarious and have like do are basically doing the same joke over and over again, but they are really really funny I mean you could put together a one hour one and a half hour variety show that would be funnier than snl Just from those people alone If you wanted to it would be cheap and you could do it if anybody would put it on But as long as you have this system where in order to get your Project funded it has to have an exhibitor which is kind of crazy It's not going to work. I mean you should be able as a studio to like flip through Find the funny people or the interesting people or that good-looking people which happens a lot on these social media sites just just to use this one example And uh, you know you take their thing and you try to turn it into a show And then you try to sell the show somewhere and sometimes you turn it into a show that really will only be kind of niche It's going to be weird, you know adult swim right or whatever Or maybe it's going to be really this is really really funny and I why on earth would this not appeal to a bunch of different people um And I think there's room for all of that it's just that what you want is you want exhibitors Who are in the buyers should be in the position of saying, okay? We're going to go shopping and we're going to buy the very best content we can And we have no stake in it like if I like that show I'm going to put it on and I'm going to you know I'll come back later. I'll make a licensing deal with you and then if it's a hit I'm going to come back later and just kind of nail you on the terms so that I get a piece of it or something Whatever um But that's the way it's supposed to work like it's supposed to work that you You know it like old show business they you know They really was that you know people would get on the bus and they come to Hollywood and they would get off the bus and if they were lucky They were in Schwab's and the you know somebody said you're going to meet mr. Zucor today And if they're unlucky, they were teenage prostitutes, but Although there was probably not much difference between being meeting mr. Zucor Yeah, if you're bad luck, you're going to meet harry cone today, right? Yeah, as they say, you know land attorney went into the studio meeting with uh, I think David Selznick and she came out to a movie star. Yeah All right, we're going to leave it there. Uh, rob long We have not seen if uh, if chat gpt or uh, google's ai has updated anything on you, but It will after this the glop podcast commentary magazine ricochet, of course and your various Hollywood offerings if people will answer your calls after Talking about the industry for an hour and a half Thank you so much for joining us. I guess a final point before we say, uh an actual goodbye Do you have any idea when the strikes are likely to end? None, I don't know. Um They had a meeting on friday, which is the first meeting a while between the wga and the and the Producers and it was it didn't go that well, but it didn't it wasn't didn't end in screening and you know chair throwing um I I can't see it ending, you know I can't see it ending in december, but I can see it ending like before Thanksgiving Um, my optimistic thing would be before Thanksgiving if it doesn't end before that it won't end until the middle of january All right. Thank you rob so much for talking to reason today zack wise miller. Thanks for joining me This has been the reason live stream come back every thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern time and you're gonna be uh, You're gonna hear us talking to people who are interesting Stuff like you now you you are just okay. You don't have to come back next thursday, although you should