Bloomberg's Sweeney on Liberty Media, Niquette on Polls (Audio)

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to Taking Dock with Kathleen Box on Bloomberg Radio. To the names Colin Chapman, Michael Schumacher or Jackie Stewart mean anything to you. Well, they do to our next guest, Paul Sweeney. He is US director of Research and senior media and Internet analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence. Of course, Bloomberg Intelligence providing unique in real time research and context for a variety of industries as well as markets and government

factors that affect business. Our terminal customers can access this function just by typing b I go on the Bloomberg Paul Sweeney, go ahead. I didn't want to give it away. What do all those names have in common? Formula one race car drivers? Yes, and you're here to tell us about the new owner of Formula one, right, it's and

I think a kind of surprising transaction. Yesterday, John Malone's Liberty Media Companies, one of his many UH liberty media companies tracking stocks UH announced that it's purchasing Formula one parent company UH for about four point four billion dollars um and really making a big, big play on a sport that is not well known here in the US,

but it's got a major global footprint. Well, I'm so glad to say here you say it was a surprise, because I'm going really when I when I saw this, right, But of course, UM liberal Media CEO Greg Maffei calling it's a formula ones digital operations. That part of it underdeveloped. And you know, we have seen like the tennis channel is doing quite well. The Sinclair Broadcasting just got them there. They want to get to what sixties seventy million households

from forty seven million. Not the tennis is a niche sport. However, it seems that a lot of people are betting on taking an audience that is is as my face has underdeveloped, and you know, not trying to be broad but really trying to make that niche be something strong and powerful and possible. Yes, it's it's interesting. It's a it's a really is a global uh sporting franchise, much like soccer is on on a global basis. It really is a

global basis. And the issuing interesting thing there is they have a you know, they have a television audience of over four million. That's a big number globally, but it's down from six million about uh ten, ten years ago, so they have a big over there audience. They have a pay TV audience, but there's a lot of markets

where they're really underpenetrated from a television perspective. The United States market in North America being the biggest, but there are also a lot of Asian markets where they feel like they're underpenetrated from a television audience perspective. So I know, listening to the Liberty folks yesterday, they think that's an

area of growth. But as you mentioned that, they highlighted some of the digital opportunities UM, where really that they believe that the long term growth is for this business, i e. Let's create a digital distribution platforms, whether it's direct Internet access UH, to allow more fans to get access to this racing UH and to dry to monetize those digital rights in the future, which is something that really Formula One, by its own emission, really has not done.

What happens to Bernie Ecclestone, Well, I think there's the current chief executive, Bernie, Yeah, Bert Bernie ecclestone really founded Formula one Racing UM as a global business, you know, twenty five, third third thirty years ago. But again I think UM, I think certainly in the near term he's gonna stay there. We'll have to see what happens of UH.

Liberty Media did bring in Chase Carry. He used to be a senior executive at Rupert Murdoch and is an extremely um well thought of executive, certainly in the media and telecommunications space. So he's gonna be the chairman of of this new company, and Bernie's gonna stay as the CEO. But the long term, you know, there may be some changes there. But because but clearly, I think Liberty Media is making a big bet here. I think they really

view this as a content play. I don't think they're necessarily big sports fans, but they necessarily I think they recognize it as an undervalued content asset um that they believe over the next five to ten years they can grow the audience and then they can grow the advertising and sponsorship revenue opportunities, because that's really what you're talking about when you think about the business of Formula One. It's it's global TV advertising and global sponsorship um support

around the world, and they think they can develop that. So, Dan, are you do you think this is a sort of a one time sort of deal for them or do you think they could look at other franchises, other sports that have these parts of the world that just aren't watching that much and find a way to leverage that. Yeah, I think typically for a John Malone type of transaction. The first thing I saw I thought of when I saw this cross the tape is he is going to use this asset as a wedge to get into other

global media companies. Um if somebody wants to do uh really partnered with Formula one, UM, I think John Malone will be willing to give up some equity and a Formula one business and exchange for equity in a larger global media company. That's kind of been his m O to use an asset as a wedge or a way to get into an equity ownership position in another company.

So you know, whether that's a talent company like Media Set or you know, something along those lines, one of the sky companies potentially, UM, I could see this is as a way for him to kind of broaden his global distribution platform. Paul Sweeney, thanks so much for joining us. He's director of North American Research and Media Analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence. Well, going up from forlo and racing to

a different kind of race now. Back to back appearances by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at a forum on the military Wednesday night, exposed and during weaknesses that both candidates had yet to overcome two months before the presidential election, joining US now Mark mcquette, government porter for Bloomberg News, joining us from Columbus, Ohio. So Mark, they didn't exactly

face off. They weren't debating directly at each other, but they were debating each other from from Afar in a way, right, right, I mean they were in appearances, Um, they were the same venue, but didn't appear on the stage at the same time. One went first and the other followed, UM, and they were clearly talking about a lot of the

same issues. Donald Trump was bringing up Um. Hillary Clinton's judgment UM she had to defend her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State, and she was calling out his temperament for being commander in chief, which was the purpose of the forum by um pointing out that he has not had had um much to say about what he would do with the Islamic State or other specific plans, and that was sort of exposed

in the questioning in this forum. Hey, Mark, I just wondered if he could speak a little bit about the actual forum that took place and the interviewer, Matt Lauer, because that drew a lot of criticism on the internet. It did. This was again it was they were not together.

Was Matt Lower interviewing each candidate uh individually? And you had questions from veterans in the audience as well, UH and the Lauer, the host of the Today's Show and NBC got some criticism that he wasn't treating the candidates fairly, that he was a little more hard on Clinton with his questioning, particularly about the emails her email problem, UM, and also that he didn't challenge Donald Trump when he said, UH, he was opposed to the Iraq war all along, when

in fact there's evidence that he said he was supportive of the war. So he wasn't sort of fact checking UH in challenging false statements when he was interviewing Ump. So, I mean, but it also sort of underscores the difficulty this kind of setting has, and as we look forward to the next debate coming out the first debate actually later this month, sort of underscores the problem of trying to deal in particular with Trump, who you know, makes

a lot of broad statements. You know, it's sometimes hard to pin him down on specifics of what he means. And also, you know, this this question of being able to challenge something that he says that might not be accurate at the time, he says it of so much criticism of the media being too liberal, maybe that's what he was trying to overcompensate for. I guess we won't know unless we get hit him on the show. But

mark the latest polls. Let's talk about those because they they seem to show some very stark differences between Clinton supporters and Donald Trump supporters that have been more and more persistent throughout these campaigns. Right, we have a poll up on our website now that it's called the Purple Slice Online poll that's done for Boomberg Politics, and we specifically looked at UM voters who do not have a

high school more than a high school education. These will be sort of uneducated voters or at least voters who don't have a college degree UM. And we looked at that because you know, Donald Trump has made pretty strong outreach to sort of working class voters voters in this demographic, and the poll showed that he does have very strong appeal among whites who have no more than a high school degree. He's leading Clinton by like to tht in

that group. But when you look at the total group of UH folks who just have a high school degree, Quintin is still ahead just because she has such an overwhelming lead among minority voters who don't have a high school degree. It's like to ten percent. So when you put all those groups together, Clinton still has a lead, but it shows sort of her weakness UH in that area, particularly white working class voters. And the poll suggests that a lot of this could come down to turn out.

You know, whose voters get to the polls, particularly in these key swing states like a Ohio and Pennsylvania. Are they minority borders who are more likely support Hillary Clinton or sort of the white working class folks who might be more enamored of Donald Trump. What about other Republican candidates and Hillary Clinton's call for them to disassociate themselves from Donald Trump's comments regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin? Right, it's kind of follow up from the forum last night

in New York. Hillary Clinton had sort of impromptu press conference on the tarmac before she flew out to a rally she was having in North Carolina today, where she linked specifically comments that Donald Trump had made about general's u S generals. He suggested they've been reduced to a pile of rubble, or weren't effective in the Obama administration. And praise he had for Vladimir Putin, the Russian uh

UM leader. Essentially, you know, Putin has said favorable things about Trump, and Trump said he was glad, and Clinton was trying to suggest that this is somehow unpatriotic to both criticize U S generals and praise, in this case, an adversary in Russia. Thanks very much. Mark Niquette is a government reporter for Bloomberg News, joining us from the battleground state of Columbus, Ohio. Thank you very much. You're listening to taking Stock. I'm Pim Fox. This is Bloomberg