[on-hold music] Welcome to the Rebooting Show. I'm Brian Morrissey. This week, I'm talking to Claire Atkinson, the chief media correspondent at Insider Business, which is confusingly not Business Insider.
Either way, Claire is someone whose work I've long respected, and she does a great job of covering where the media industry is right now, but also where it's going.
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Learn more at houseofkaizen.com. That's Kaizen with a Z. I wanna thank Matt, Peter, and the team of House of Kaizen for their support. Now on to my conversation with Claire.
Just to set the table, we discussed where the media is going, and through my theory that we're basically between eras, and we do this through four particular lenses.
First, we go into the messy end of the VC-backed era of digital publishing by looking at what sure looks like a turning point for Vice Media.
Claire wrote a great piece going into, I call it like an autopsy piece, going into Vice's history and some of the bets that it made that probably didn't pan out as they expected.
There are a lot of things that looked really good during a zero-interest rate era that we are now finding out are not so good when interest rates are higher.
But Vice's struggles as it limps to a sale and a probable dismemberment are happening when its peers at BuzzFeed and Vox Media are also facing their own challenges. So we discussed that.
Also, what a new austerity phase in streaming means. You know, the free spending days are a thing of the past when it was all about piling up big subscriber bases. Now, it's all about shock of all shocks, making money.
Imagine that.
The streaming wars could themselves go down as a zero-interest rate phenomenon, which brings us to discuss the broader future of TV through the lens of the travails of CNN and Fox News as they go through their own very different crises before what shapes up to be another insane election period.
I feel like I'm going to get a preview of this when I return home to New York in a few days, where I live a few blocks away from where Donald Trump will likely be arraigned, assuming he does, in fact, get arrested, as we've all been hearing lately.
And finally, on the future of TV, Claire and I discuss where live sports programming rights are going.
You know, live sports programming has been the linchpin of broadcast TV, and that, in my view, is likely keeping [chuckles] a large portion of this industry afloat.
Claire weighs in on what to expect in the upcoming rights deals and also why tech companies will likely never be the home of most sports programming. Now on to the conversation I had with Claire.
[on-hold music] But Claire, thank you so much for joining me, and, uh, I've-- I had written a little bit about your piece about Vice, so I wanted to have you on to talk about that.
But I want to talk about, like, basically, we're between two eras, I feel like, in, in the, in the media industry.
I think we're not really totally clear what, what the next one is, but it certainly feels like a chapter is closing.
So I wanna talk about those chapters that are closing and, and a few of them through the lenses of specific companies.
So the first one is Vice, and I think Vice is a great example, um, of an era of digital publishing in which there were a lot of... There was some VC money going into it, not some, a lot.
And, you know, these businesses have, have all in their own different ways, whether it's BuzzFeed, Vice or Vox, struggled, particularly, uh, recently coming out of the pandemic and all the economic distortions.
And then I wanna talk about the, the streaming industry, which is clearly out of the land grab phase and is now into the, the grimy business of, of margins.
And then I also wanna talk about the future of cable news, uh, with what's going on at Fox and CNN.
And then finally, we're gonna talk about, uh, it's not really tied to a company, but about, uh, sports streaming rights be-- or sports rights in general because I think, you know, sports is like the last bastion holding up, uh, cable TV.
If there was gonna be s- like some sort of like structural flaw in that is like if you take out like live sports programming, I think it's gonna... it would have, like, tremendous impact. So let's get started.
Let's get... You wrote like a, a... I, I said in, in my newsletter it was a, it was a classic autopsy story [chuckles] we used to call, even though Vox or Vi-Vice is not dead, uh, let's be clear.
But, you know, you went deep into what's going on at Vice, and you've, you've been covering this a lot. What are, what are the big takeaways that we can take from where Vice is right now?
Well, I, I wanted to write about Vice because I feel like I have lived the story for the past decade, and I've written about them when I was at the New York Post, when I was at NBC News and a couple of times at Insider.
And so I've watched the brand go through a lot of iterations and, you know, with this current kind ofYeah, it's, it's-- it did feel like this is it, this is it now.
Uh, I, I've heard them say, "We're gonna be profitable next year or at the end of this year," so many times, and they have put themselves on the block so many times, and nothing has ever happened.
And now we have the debt, uh, folks in charge, Fortress Investments gave them a lifeline of thirty million dollars.
And, you know, I read Ben Mullen's great piece in The Times that said they have sixty days, and then they're either sold, they're broken up, or somebody buys the thing whole, uh, uh, or it goes bankrupt.
And so, you know, I thought this is the end of an era. Vice is about to change in a really radical way, and I wanted to dive in and figure out what went wrong, what were the mistakes, who made them.
And I think it's a tale of... There's a couple of tales to tell here.
One of them is you should sell when you get offered a big number, and, you know, I think all founders feel like there's places to, to grow, and it can keep going and going.
But, I mean, nobody can ever know when we're at the top, right?
Everybody can maybe not know that two thousand and seventeen is kind of the end of the year of cable being, uh, you know, something that everybody has, and now everybody's, you know, looking to get rid of it. And so,
you know, it was really a story about Shane Smith, the, the co-founder at the heart of it.
But then it was also a story of what happened when he stepped back, and he gave the reins to somebody else, and how did they do at their job.
But I think to be fair to the folks who conceived Vice and worked really hard for them to win Emmys and Peabodys and really challenge broadcast news constructs and cable news constructs of how you deliver news, that its real problems were financial.
It wasn't necessarily the product. It was a layer, layer on layer on layer of investors who all had their own deal terms and all had their own ideas of what Vice should be that made it complex on the back end.
Uh, one of my sources told me it was the most complicated cap structure he'd ever seen, and it was a complicated business. It was too many things to too many people. It was a cable channel. It is a show on Showtime.
It is an ad studio. It is a website with multiple tentacles and a production studio in the UK and operations in California.
And it was this sprawling morass of f- which I think the CEO, Nancy Dubuc, tried to corral, and at the end of the day, they didn't make a profit this year, and game over. Yeah.
I had on Joe Marchese, I guess last year, and we talked a little bit about Vice. He has some kind of ties there, uh, with his investment firm, but not directly to Vice.
But, you know, I think that when you look at the financial structures, and that's when we talk about like... You know, we're talking about interest rates and all the stuff like this, you know.
I, I had to sort of fake my way through it, but like, [chuckles] you know, basically this is not a time to be in debt. I believe that's like a, a good takeaway.
And, you know, Vice had a really complicated and over-leveraged business, I think, when you look at it. And I think we're seeing this across the board where, you know, debt, all of a sudden nobody thinks about debt.
You know, it, it gets mentioned in like the eighth paragraph, you know, during basically zero interest rate times. But like now, all that debt is weighing down a lot of these businesses, and it's a forcing function.
It's gonna force difficult decisions. And with Vice, I mean, you know, with Nancy abruptly, I guess we say like abruptly moving on, basically having caretaker co-CEOs. Co-CEOs is not, not a great sign.
I mean, and also like they're insiders, so they don't have like a, a plan other than there's no plan B. You know, it, it has to be sold or broken up, right? Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, those co-CEOs will be there for a couple of weeks, I think. They're really implementing Fortress' plan, and who knows how long that lasts.
[upbeat music] What's really interesting is whether Shane Smith can buy the company back.
And, you know, I think- Oh my God. That's the classic. That is- Isn't it?
I love, I love, I love, love, love, love, love, love that idea because like [chuckles] it's like a lot of these companies you always see when like, you know, like for instance with like if, if Rich is listening to this, like BuzzFeed is, you know, this is like another story where like,
you know, John Steinberg was right. You know, he left BuzzFeed because they didn't sell, right? And like they should have taken the money from Disney.
They're never ever, ever, ever, ever gonna get anywhere close to that. And that was the right decision.
In retrospect, it's easy to, to, to say, but, you know, BuzzFeed has, has cobbled together these, these different assets, right? And like at some point you start to, to... I don't see how BuzzFeed even...
I, I can't imagine, I can't believe it, it's continued as an independent entity. I mean, it's like gonna be delisted at some point. And you start to think about it, it's like, "Oh, wait.
Maybe like Rich can buy back Complex," [laughs] you know? Yeah. Yeah. He's out there tweeting. So Rich, if, if you're listening, I think it's time for you to buy back Complex.
[laughs] I mean, that's always a good move, right? Sell at the top, buy back at the bottom. And that's, that was in my story. Yeah.
I had somebody say, you know-TPG offered them a valuation of five point seven billion, and Shane was a seller. And if the current number is four hundred million, then Shane might be getting a really great deal.
Yeah, we'll see. I mean, look, you know, people, you know, I, I know you did this story, too, and, and I think Semafor had a story. I'd, like, written a little bit about, like, media schadenfreude, and I get it.
Like, I, I, I always say, like, you know, if you have some kind of lavish party and things go south, it's gonna end up in the lead of one of these stories. [chuckles] Absolutely. So I never have a party on a yacht.
Like, just do not have a party on a yacht. [chuckles] It might seem like a good idea at the time. Things are going well, just, but, you know, skip it. Yeah. Skip the yacht party.
I have to say, I wa-- I was at some of those Vice parties at Cannes Lions, and they were very enjoyable. Yeah.
No, and actually, I went to a Vice gathering last Cannes, and it was very, like, low-key, and, uh, it was at some little, little island off of Cannes, which I guess is low-key for, for Cannes.
And it was actually a really interesting group, like, there. He had on, like... You know the guy f- they had the Coodie from [chuckles], from the, the Kanye documentary? Yeah. Yeah. [chuckles] Kanye wasn't there.
I think to me it was like it was a state of, like [both chuckling] of, of digital media sort of thing- Yeah...
where it's like, well, you can't get Kanye, but you get, like, his, like, alter ego who made the, like, you know, the Netflix documentary, Coodie. [chuckles] Yeah. So.
I mean, y- you know- You gotta take what you can get...
there was a time when big media, traditional media wanted to buy into the digital media story and see what was going on, and you had NBC buying pieces of everything, Axios, Peloton, and BuzzFeed, and on and on and on, to just kind of, like, get the learnings and figure out, like, how people were doing things differently.
And obviously, those bets have not paid off. Yeah. And I guess, you know, the question is what comes next to these three companies that are often put in the same boat, Vice, Vox, BuzzFeed? Yeah. And they are different.
They're very- Yeah... different businesses in some ways, um, 'cause Vice is, like, a bunch of different businesses. I mean, I think we-- you went through a lot of them, but there's also an ad agency in there too. Yeah.
Right. Like, I mean... And also they're-- I, I think to be fair with a lot of what went on,
you know, with when Nancy was CEO is just those international deals that they had, 'cause I think for years everyone looked at Vice and was like, "Wow, they pulled off global," and, like, it's really difficult- Yeah...
to do. And then you start to, like, unpack some of these deals, and they-- some of them were licensing deals, some of them were part ownership. Like, it was quite a quilt [chuckles]
a corporate quilt that they knitted there, if I could continue this terrible metaphor.
So I think the big question ends up being, I don't know if you have a, a read on this, when we do have to l-lump all these, these things together 'cause it's a podcast, is whether it's, it's this question of bundling or unbundling, you know?
'Cause, like, I think the, the normal instinct would be, all right, this stuff's gotta be rolled up and we'll wring out, like, costs, and that's the answer, and that is always an answer.
I mean, look, Vice bought Refinery, which doesn't make any sense. I don't think that Refinery is probably gonna be part of Vice. I have no inside information of that. I just don't think it, it makes a ton of sense.
And in the same way, BuzzFeed, you know, was, was going out there and they were buying, they were buying Complex, they were buying HuffPost and stuff. I think the question about...
And obviously Vox, uh, was built through obviously a lot of organic, but they, they bought and added some of these things, is whether the fate of, of many of these, these companies that were high flyers in a different era is actually to be unbundled rather than bundled.
Like, I don't know if this is-- if the problems facing these companies, and they're all different, th-that, like said, can be solved by, like, making them even bigger and more complicated. Yeah.
It's hard to know what, what happens next. I don't think bundling is the right idea.
I know that Shane had talked about getting together with Jonah Peretti in one of the old interviews that I'd read, and so it's fascinating that, you know, they had maybe thought about what they could do together at some stage.
I guess it's all driven by, at the end of the day, that the investors want to see growth, right? Nobody gives you money to do what you do better than you do.
They give you money to grow, grow the audience, grow the advertising, and see if you can dominate the landscape.
And so, you know, I guess we have these cycles of everybody buying things and then everybody shedding things. But I think kind of, you know, where BuzzFeed is concerned, maybe that goes private.
Maybe it comes off the market. Clearly, it doesn't seem like it was supposed to ever be a public company. Vox has got its money. One of my sources today sent me a message saying that they were soliciting funds.
They were NPR looking for folks to just give them money because, which I think is kind of an interesting tack to be taking. Well, that's what-- Well, vox.com has been doing that for a while, right? Yeah.
And I think, you know, obviously everybody has to get money and, and become profitable in whatever ways they can. It does feel like everything is a struggle and, you know, it doesn't feel like a...
Well, I guess it is a struggle for the tech companies, but it's not as much of a struggle for them because, you know, they offer this huge scale and can go deep and deliver audiences.
At the end of the day, they get the lion's share of the pie when those advertisers are looking to divvy up their big spend for the year, as they're about to do in the upfront in a couple of months. Yeah. Yeah.
And the final thing on this is, is just, like, I just don't know if, like, scale is the way out of this for these particular businesses. Like, I think they've, they've tried that.
They've tried so many different things, and at some point, like, you know, it's, it's, it's not working, right? Like, uh, at the...
Like, it's hard to see a path of an independent, publicly traded BuzzFeed that Jonah talked about being the bellwether of the digital media industry. If this is the bellwether, this is not a good sign at all.
It's trading at well- Yeah. Uh, I mean, it's probably worth pointing out that Axios is a digital media business, and they seem to do fine. Yeah.
And they, you know, sold to Cox and seem like they made all the right choices.Yeah. But I think the, the right choices they made was to really have a narrow- Yeah... you know, fairly narrow business, really.
And how long were these businesses going around outside of Axios saying, "The platforms have to pay us. The platforms have to pay us." The platforms didn't have to pay them, okay?
And the massive audiences that they thought were their own were really, they were just renting them from, from Facebook for the most part. And they're doing all the tricks to get their Comscore numbers up and whatnot.
I don't, I don't blame the players, I blame the game always.
But, you know, what Axios saw, to me, is there's all this money going into these corporate affairs, you know, advertising for a very narrow set of people, and that is a pot of money that literally the tech platforms not only can't compete for, but they're the largest sources of it.
So instead of like, it's like why compete with Facebook? Why not have them pay you as, as a customer?
Like, and I think that was where, you know, Axios really exceeded because Facebook and Google, like, they're cutting people left and right, and they obviously overexpanded during, uh, the post-pandemic weirdness.
But they are all facing tremendous pressures on the regulatory front. I mean, look, look at the TikTok. Like, I mean, there's a brand-new category just opened up for Axios [chuckles] and Punchbowl and the rest of them.
That's true. I was listening to NPR this morning, and they talked about how much more money TikTok was spending on lobbying than the, the year prior. And I know we've been done... doing a lot- Yeah...
of reporting on that. We have a great reporter called Dan Wakely, who's been digging into TikTok and how much they're spending in Washington.
[gentle music] And it's smart.
Look, I mean, like if you think about like on the other side of it, like literally on the other side of the country, yeah, you've been, you've been writing about like Vox and, and Penske, and I think Penske doesn't get enough credit for sure about like what, what Jay and, and his team have built there because it's like a little bit of like, you know, they've got some scruffy assets, nothing like to some trade stuff and whatnot, but- I wouldn't call Variety and Hollywood Reporter scruffy assets, Brian.
Well, yeah, but they're not... Like, [chuckles] I don't think like he-- He's, he's got like the boy genius. Like, I mean, you can tell they bought into like Rolling Stone and stuff like this.
Like, I don't think many people would have put Penske Media in this group. And like Penske Media could come out as like- Yeah... the one left standing in this group. Yeah.
Like, the deal for, for Vox, it wouldn't-- it doesn't take much to think of like a scenario in which Penske is- Yeah... the owner of Vox.
And I think the collection of assets they built, I would just say are, you know, they've got some interesting, interesting stuff there, but it's like sort of the for-your-consideration ads. Like- Right...
you know, they mon-almost monopolized the for-your-consideration ads of trying to get like people to vote for the Oscar movies. That's another one that's like very lucrative ad category- Yeah...
but, you know, often overlooked. Yeah. Uh, but let's, let's talk about streaming on that. Like, let's...
Because I think, you know, streaming is obviously between eras, and this is definitely one where I'm gonna rely on your expertise. I would always rely on Suhils and stuff, so explain where the streaming market...
First of all, where it's coming out of and then where y-you see it going next. Yeah. Well, streaming is still a priority for Bob Iger.
He said that on the, the last, uh, interview he did with the, uh, investors at Morgan Stanley. So everybody is moving ahead full steam. It was the first quarter that we've seen Disney+ lose subscribers.
So I think to your point, we are entering an era where either you've bought the streaming services you want or you haven't, and the growth is gonna come from everything outside of the US.
The slight problem with that is foreign exchange rates, which means that, uh, whatever is coming back to the US is a lot less than it would be because of the strong dollar. And so,
you know, everybody is in this era where they've spent their billions, they're still spending their billions this year, but they've got to cut back. Wall Street's saying, "Where are the profits, guys?"
And the problem is, you know, they replaced a really good lucrative but slowly declining business with one that is not nearly as lucrative.
And so what we're hearing right now are a lot of conversations about, do we need to have everything exclusive, or can we be selling content to third parties and putting some revenue behind that line item of, you know, program sales that's kind of disappeared over the past few years?
And then next year is the year that is-- Wall Street is expecting to see profits. Disney has said they're gonna get there by the end of next year. And so this is the result.
We're seeing everybody cutting costs, everybody looking at layoffs in this chase to get into the black. I mean, I can just reel off a couple of- Yeah... numbers for you, Brian, if you want.
Like, Comcast spent on Peacock two point five billion dollars, Disney in the November- Yeah. Peacock's like three bucks a month. I think I... They're still hitting my credit card.
I think I got them one time to watch an Eagles game- [laughs]... and it was like three bucks. Three bucks. Like, and so I haven't canceled. Yeah. Peacock, if you're listening, you still get my three bucks a month. Wow.
But I don't, I don't know your economics, but I don't understand how that works, to be honest with you. They're not making money off you, that's for sure, Brian. [laughs] No, I don't think so.
You know, in, in a single quarter, Disney had lost a billion five in the streaming division.
That's less, uh, in the quarter just reported, but it kind of led to Bob Chapek's departure because that number was big and unexpected. The only one who is lessening the streaming losses is Warner.
Their streaming losses, the last time they reported, was two hundred and seventeen million dollars. So they are very much aheadI mean, they're in a different boat because they, you know, HBO wasn't built from scratch.
They have been-- David Zazlav came in with this idea that there was gonna be many legs to the stool, and streaming was not gonna be a, a pit where they just burned cash. Yeah. And so, yeah.
Well, he was like, he's, he's got, he's gotten a lot of grief, but he was like, you know... I mean, look, the, it was I think, I assume the, like, th-the writing was on the wall.
But, like, he went out early with, like, basically being like, "Look, this is over.
This land grab phase, like, unprofitable, like, just trying to pile up new subscriptions and getting rewarded for that number by Wall Street is, is over, and this stuff's gotta be profitable." Yeah, absolutely.
Um, and the first move they made was deciding that CNN Plus, CNN's streaming service, was gonna get shut down, and they'd already... the company under AT&T had already spent hundreds of millions launching it. And so,
you know, this kinda leads into- Yeah... our other conversation about the future of TV news. But, you know- Yeah...
a lot of people will only pay for cable if they're gonna get something they can't get elsewhere, and the news is one of those things, and sports is the other. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about the, the news and sports.
It's a great, great segue. When we think about... w- at least when I think of cable news, no offense, MSNBC, Newsmax, I think of CNN and, and Fox. They're just, like, the, the- [chuckles]... best sort of shorthands.
And I think both of these, you know, companies are in, they're in their own, like, version of crisis, right? Like- Yeah... to some degree. Very different versions.
And they're both, like, trying to figure out what they're going to be. And, like, CNN is undergoing [chuckles] at least on the outside, like, a massive amount of change going on there with Chris Licht.
I will say this, as, like, a consumer, I'm like, you know, who just visited his, like, elderly parents and saw too much cable news going on, like, I'm like, "Okay."
I was like, "I like this idea of just reporting [chuckles] on news." But, like, it's pretty rough over there. Explain...
Let's just start with CNN and then, and then go on to, to Fox 'cause they're different, but they're both in, in these identity crises.
So, you know, the peanut gallery of critics on CNN is pretty large and always has been. No matter who's in charge of it or who owns it, people love to talk about what's wrong with CNN.
But, you know, one thing I learned working in the TV news business and working at NBC News was that you can't just turn over the table and expect viewers to kind of figure out, like, who's who and what's going on.
Like, people need stability. Yeah. These are people that are in your living room. You invite somebody new in, viewers have to get used to that person for quite a while.
There's a reason why Joe Biden's press secretary, Jen Psaki, did not go straight to an anchor chair. She came in for a couple of months, and she was dotted around the schedule.
And, you know, viewers had to get used to her as a person that they were gonna get their opinions from, and now she's got her own show.
So I think what Chris Licht is doing at CNN is maybe there's too much change going on all at the same time. There's a lot of reshuffling. Obviously, there are a lot of very familiar faces, but...
But what I think people forget is, uh, there's a lot of, uh, viewership of TV news who are people who are old or they're homebound, and it's on all day.
Like, cable news is their f- these are the friends they have at their house. And so people feel extremely attached.
When they change the morning show or they decide to put somebody different in at nine o'clock, that creates disruption and risk, and ratings have, have declined under Chris, you know.
And, and ob-obviously, TV news ratings are tied to news cycles, but I, I do think that he's made changes that the audience seem to not like. Yeah.
It'll be interesting to see this, but this is also on the other side with Fox.
Going into this, what's shaping up to [chuckles] be a pretty crazy presidential election, I think we can just agree that it's gonna be a little insane. What presidential elections are not crazier than sane, Brian?
[laughs] I feel like the last few have been- I don't know. I, you know, I was like, I was, like, 11 when, like, Reagan beat Mondale, like, in every single state except for, like, one. That one was pretty placid. Yeah.
[laughs] That's quite some time ago. [laughs] I don't know. [laughs] I think, I think Walter won Minnesota, but not much else. [laughs] But yeah.
Uh, Clinton-Dole was, Clinton-Dole was like, "Ah, whatever," like, you know, "That's fine." Yeah, but I think Clinton-Dole maybe was the last, like, semi...
So obviously Fox is going through this, this Dominion lawsuit, and a lot of its, you know, dirty laundry is coming out.
I used to always joke that if, if Putin really wanted to, like, you know, go after the United States, he would just hack every company's Slack and, like, publish all of their, like, direct messages [chuckles] and all the shit talk going on in them.
So I was like, basically, we would be, we would all be at each other's throats, like, nonstop. [chuckles] Yeah. That was my theory. [chuckles] Don't give Putin ideas though, Brian. Putin, if you're listening...
No, talk to me about this from a business angle. Like, because, like, you know, I read about it- Yeah... like in The New York Times and stuff like this, and I'm, I'm, like, lapping it all up and, and whatnot.
Well- And then I'm like, "I don't think this is really gonna have an effect on their business." Yeah, I doubt it.
I mean, there's always some people who will say, "Gosh, this is terri-" I mean, look, at the end of the day, you know advertisers go in with everything they've got to try and negotiate rates down.
And so I'm sure the Dominion conversation will be top of mind as the TV news upfront kicks off.
[outro music]You know, at the end of the day, does it affect the audience?
And that was what Fox was most concerned about after the, after the election, and I wrote about this on my first day at Business Insider, it was, "Get a story on what's happening in Fox News today after the election."
And you know, what I really found was there was this panic about whether Newsmax was going to steal all the Trump audience and wh-where exactly Fox News should tack.
And I guess the answer was some of its commentators were very in the tank for Trump, and some of them less so. I'm thinking about Neil Cavuto at Fox Business. Uh, and, and obviously Shep Smith, who ended up leaving.
Not everybody wanted to be nice to Trump or to trot out his lines or whatever else.
And so, you know, Fox News was in this situation where they had to figure out, like, where's the audience gonna jump, or where do they need to be?
And, you know, that's kind of at the heart of the problem now facing them, and in a couple of weeks they'll have a, a jury selection, and Dominion will roll out all of the evidence that we've seen.
And, and 12 people who, I don't know how you can find 12 people who are likely to either not watch cable news or not either watch CNN or Fox, so- Or have a preformed opinion. Or have a preformed opinion.
I mean, my God, they're gonna do jury selection in New York City for a trial against Donald Trump. [laughs] I mean, my God, like, what are you gonna be like, "No, never heard of it. Never heard of it."
[laughs] "Who is he?" Exactly. So I think that's gonna be, like, fascinating. I think- I don't really have an opinion on Donald Trump. E-exactly. Like, I'm sure a lot of people- Right.
Have you ever been in, like, a jury selection where people, like, they go through great lengths to try to get out of it, which I think is, like, terrible. Yeah. Like... Yeah.
But I think, you know, at the end of the day, advertisers go where the numbers are, and if Fox's audience doesn't change, then- Yeah... they still get to, to win on the, on the upfront.
So let me ask you this as someone who doesn't really know the, the internal dynamics of the, the TV news business. Is, is, isn't this a business in decline that was just...
Th-th-like we, we talk about distortions coming out, like Peloton, like with the, the, the pandemic, or like I saw Tonal. Like, you remember Tonal?
They were one of those exercise mirrors, and they, they're, they're raising money at a, a ninety percent down round. [laughs] Oh, wow. Wow. But, like, I think Trump was its own...
Wasn't Trump, like, his own distortion in some ways in that- Yeah...
like, there was this unnatural period, and I know some people think we're gonna go back to it because, like, it's hard to think of change at, when, when you're in, in the midst of it.
But it was really strange period of time when news- Mm... and political news was an obsession. Yeah. Like, almost like a cultural obsession. And that was really strange.
I mean, that was reversing a complete decline of... We were told constantly that the problem was apathy, and now the problem is people are too into politics. [laughs] Yeah. It's like, whoa. It did take over.
To me, like- Yeah. It took over from, you know, entertainment- I just don't see-... basically. I don't see... Yeah, I don't...
And, and maybe the politicians have understood the power of Trump making this a, you know, like pro wrestling and whatnot. But I think, I don't know. I g- I, I don't understand how it's a growth business.
When, when you look at the, the, the overall secular declines across other types of media, of traditional media like this, I don't see how... Like, maybe this is the new normal.
Like, when, when they're fretting at, like, oh, there's only two million people watching Fox primetime instead of five million during Trump.
It's like, you know, two million's probably the normal, like, not the five million. Mm. Five million was the abnormal. Yeah, the challenge is to extend the brand, right?
And that's happened in streaming, and Fox News has Fox Nation. NBC News has NBC News Now in streaming. CBS and ABC also have their own nonstop streaming services.
And with the exception of Fox News, those streaming offshoots are very, very different. They're not opinion for the most part. They are about just the kind of news reel, news of the day.
How, how they make money from those streaming services is a good question. I don't know. You know, CNN is the outlier here. They, they are still a cable-only network.
You cannot watch them on streaming unless you're paying for pay TV.
And so to me, you know, we're gonna talk about sports, but CNN would appear to me it's one of the big reasons why a lot of people kick cable, 'cause they wanna watch the news. And so- Really? Y-you know- Wow...
at the beginning what we thought- But, but l- l- well- Uh, Ryan, a very- But let's, let's use that- Very quick thought. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
What we thought was gonna be the killer app beyond Netflix was going to be whoever could deliver a streaming app that had news, sports, and general entertainment TV and movies.
And what Warner Brothers Discovery didn't do was wrap in CNN to the HBO Max super app.
And so that says to me that they knew that they needed to keep CNN for the cable operators, for the video bundle to have some chance of surviving a bit longer. Yeah. I don't know. I'm, I, I...
Sometimes I think I'm just, like, I've, I've entered into the grumpy old guy phase of my life. Because, like, I think, like, HBO Max, like, kind of pisses me off. Like, it's, like, kind of...
I wanna, I wanna go there for Succession. I go there for Succession and stuff like this, and then they shove all this other stuff in there, and I'm like, "No, I don't want that."
It's like, it reminds me of, like, when, like, peop- like, restaurants don't stay in their lane, and all of a sudden they're like, you know, they're offering sushi and buffalo wings, and I'm like, "Wait a second."
[laughs] Like, I came here for the omakase, not for the wings. Nothing against wings. I like wings. Yeah.Well, the beauty of streaming, I, I- I, and, and it's one of those, it's like, I get it.
The business model like drives it and stuff like this. I just wonder like how you develop like an identity and whether those...
Yeah, you know, growing up like with three channels, like you just like turned on the TV, and you just didn't think of like NBC. It was NBC. Yeah. You know, it was channel three, and you just got everything there.
Whereas I feel, I don't know, I think people are in different mindsets sometimes when they're going to these programs.
But let's, let's talk about like sports 'cause I think sports is, is fascinating, and it's the linchpin for really the future of cable.
Like and sports was the bulwark that was, that was really mitigating cord, cord-cutting. Remember like cord-cutting was like the- Mm-hmm... obsession.
A-and there was, and there was like a group of executives that like, God bless them, had to go out and deny it was happening- Yeah... [laughs] and that it was going to like affect their businesses.
And like- Chase Carey... I, I remember it's like I wasn't covering the industry. I'm like, like, "Are we seriously like repor- Like that doesn't make any sense. Of course it's going- Mm-hmm...
to affect their businesses." John Skipper would be out there like, "No, we don't see any effect on the..." I'm like, "Of course it's going to affect." And they all signed off. He knew it would. Of course.
[laughs] I know, but it was like... I'm like, "Nobody believes this." We're, we're acting as if this is like an actual thing, but it's not a thing.
But sports is still the bulwark, and I think what, I think what's interesting is the tech companies are finally gonna come in here. And it's to me, I was thinking that this was gonna happen like so many years ago.
I remember when Twitter first did like an experiment with like Monday Night Football. It was just like, "Oh yeah, this is over." Like all of the tech companies are gonna have the sports streaming rights.
Talk to me about where... First of all, the role sports rights play, uh, with, with propping up cable and how that is, is in the midst of change.
Well, I think what's emblematic of what's happening right now is, and I, again, I followed this from the beginning to the end, the Sinclair acquisition of the RSNs.
Disney inherited them from Fox, and then they had to sell them, right? Right. So Diamond Sports Group. It's Bally Sports I think people know it as now.
They did a sponsorship deal to rename them, and now they're in bankruptcy.
They're in bankruptcy because, uh, Sinclair borrowed tons of money imagining that they'd still get money from cable operators, and then w- the viewership fell off, the cable subscriptions declined to such a precipitous point that it couldn't be a viable business anymore.
And so, you know, now it's headed off as a streaming service. All the leagues are involved because they all sold rights.
And so we're waiting to see what comes out the other side of this and who actually picks up some of those rights or whether Diamond survives in a new- Mm... iteration.
But I think, you know, it's a little overplayed what's happening with the tech companies because while they've played in the space, they haven't been willing to, to do last leader type deals, the kind that broadcast has.
And from a league's perspective, you need to make sure that people are watching it, and if they're not watching it or young people aren't watching it, then your sport dies.
And so it's in their interest to spread the rights around the dial, whether it's, you know, broadcast cable or streaming, everybody's gonna get it. But I don't see a, a point in time at which any league is going to say,
"I'm gonna relinquish broadcast, and I'm gonna just go on streaming," because how many people really at the same time are gonna sit down and watch that sport on streaming? [upbeat music] It's just not there.
The numbers are not there yet. They're just not. Look at the numbers the NFL puts up like every Sunday. I mean, it can be like a, like a Cincinnati Bengals like Cleveland Browns game, and it's like, it's massive. Yeah.
Like, I mean, these days massive, not like MASH final episode massive. But like... And you just can't... You, you look at like the top ten programs and usually like seven of them are, are NFL games- Mm-hmm...
that were like aired at like three o'clock on a Sunday. Yeah. I mean, when streaming's in a place- This is so true... to do those kind of numbers, then, then we can come back and have this conversation. But- Yeah.
And I think it's smart. Like the, you know, the leagues are always gonna have a portfolio, right? Yeah.
So some of the portfolio, I think a lot of times we always, you know, and, and maybe that's like a, a flaw also of journalism, like that you, you sort of treat things as like all or nothing when it's like, no, it's in between most times.
And, you know, there might be a rebalancing of the portfolio more towards, you know, streaming for, for some, you know, small like, you know, like with the NFL. You know, Thursday Night Football, absolutely.
I mean, that's, that's the one to, to do. Monday Night Football, eh, maybe. Sunday night, absolutely not.
It's gonna stay on the broadcast, and, and the games on Sunday are, are always gonna be, to me, like for the foreseeable future on freely available broadcast. Yeah. I mean, the game changer could be the NBA.
That's coming up in- Yeah... another year or so. But if that, you know, leaves TNT, then that's a whole other story for that network. And, you know, we're all- I mean, that's massive. It is.
That's gonna, that's gonna have a cascading... Like what happens to Bleacher? Like what... BR? What are they calling it now? You know, they're basically like, you know, supporting that, that NBA. Yeah.
Without, without the NBA rights, it-- that doesn't really even make as much sense- Yeah... with them carrying it So I, I think the NBA is gonna be a game changer.
But w- you know, what happens in this cycle of, of the evolution of programming or video, let's say, is the sports rights always get jacked up. Everybody else has to pare back.
And, you know, the prices almost always rise.
And what we've seen in the UK was the sale of Chelsea FC when Roman Abramovich had to sell it-We set the table for all the sports teams to say, "Hey, I'm worth a whole lot more, and I'm gonna go and sell my team now."
And then, you know what happens is they all have to make their money back through media rights, and then the players need their cut, and on and on and on. Yeah. And I just wonder how long it can continue, right?
Like, 'cause anytime we-we're told, it's like it always goes up, you know, when you hear it about real estate [laughs], it's like it always goes up. Yeah.
It's like then all of a sudden it, like, crashes and you're like, "Oh, it doesn't go- always go up." You know, during the, like,
the, the stock craziness of two thousand and one and Davey Day Trader, whatever, Barstool, it's like stock... They just go up and stuff. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they stop going up.
And like rights to me, it's just, like, almost like college tuition. It's like at some point, it just doesn't make sense. It cannot- Mm-hmm. It can't keep rising at these rates with...
To me, it's like the only way it could con-continue to do that is if the technology platforms viewed it as a, such a must to, you know, compete for, like, more substantial rights and were able to throw money.
'Cause like I, it seems to me like the broadcasters, they're like it's, it's a f- they can't afford to lose this. Like, without this- Mm-hmm...
like, their model collapses, and so that's obviously tremendous leverages for the- Yeah... leagues. The economics at some point have to make sense. They do.
I mean, you could argue that sports is what kind of made cable so expensive and ultimately drove people away to streaming, that they were caught in these long-term- Yeah, those ESPN fees- Right...
that, that Chad Skipper was talking about. He's like, "We're still getting the fees." Exactly. Like, the carriage fees were...
You know, that was sort of what made this idea of unbundling cable very attractive for people. They were saying, "I don't- Right... I don't watch sports.
Why do I wanna pay the equivalent of, like, five bucks a month just for ESPN to be on that I don't even watch?" Yeah. Better in theory than reality.
Now, now those same people are paying, like, two hundred and thirty dollars, and they have, like... don't even know they have a Peacock subscription. [laughs] Yeah. All right, Claire, we're gonna...
I, I wanna, I wanna wrap it up here. Sure. But, like, so everyone can find all of your great coverage on... Do you, do you go with Insider or Business Insider? I'm trying to keep Business Insider alive as like a brand.
Actually, it's Insider Business. The vertical is the business vertical, but if you go online, you would see businessinsider.com would be the place. Oh my God, that's perfect.
So businessinsider.com to go to Insider Business. Exactly. You guys are truly a mature media company now. [laughs] Thanks for having me on, Brian. Awesome. This was fun. Yeah, definitely. Let's do it again.
Thank you so much for listening. Again, please do send me your feedback. My email is bmorrissey@therebooting.com. Thanks a lot to Jay Sparks, who is producing this podcast.
If you're thinking about doing your own podcast, and again, they're hard to grow, but the depth of engagement is amazing, so don't let that scare you off, get in touch. Jay can help you out.
He is at podhelpus, that is podhelp.us. [outro music]