You're listening to Taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim Fox on Bloomberg Radio. Did anybody see Ben Her? Did anybody see Star Trek Beyond Teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles two Out of the Shadows? Well they all fell short and the studio's parent company, Viacom, of course, has been embroiled in a boardroom drama for months, leading to the departure of the chief executive, Philippe Doman. Here to tell us more, Mark patrick Off. He is the co head of Technology, Technology,
Media and Telecom Group for Hulahan Loki. Mark patrick Off, thanks for being with us, my pleasure. Thanks for happing me. Have you seen any of those movies? No? No, I think you have a lot of company with a lot of friends. Yeah, exactly. Give us a little detail on the studios right now. Who's running what and who is leading the pack so we get an idea of who's in a position of strength and who needs to up their game. Look, I mean you want to get the Paramount.
So let's start with Paramount and Icom and think about the fact that in a way this should be a good new chapter for them because nobody's been running anything there for a long long time. I mean there's division heads. But I spoke to a friend about six months ago, just kind of joking through. He'd worked at Vicount for a long time, somebody everybody knows by name who left
about ten years ago and stays in close touch. And he said, when he was there, if he asked something the red Stone, what was the secession planned, you know, he'd kind of looking and laugh, and I think, Um, obviously he hopes and plans to live forever. And that really impact of the company terribly. The leadership has been you know, keeping hold there for a long, long while,
and it's troublesome. And certainly if you're like come Stareholder and thinking about how do you maximize value, it's a very tough time to point to Paramount and say this is a great time to do something to monetize that investment. The other studios, you don't have their own issues, but clearly I'm always a big believer in Disney and feel good about their direction. Um, I even like MGM and
what they've done. They still have, you know, a very strong franchise in James Bond that has been under exploited in lots of ways. People don't really realize that. But not much has been done with James Bond outside the movies, So I think that's you know, copies in a strong position, and the other guys sort of know how to create franchises in a way that clearly Paramount just doesn't at least not Sorry, that's okay, So I guess then what
what happens next time? Looking at our Bloomberg news story today, and it has a chart that shows what a turbulent year this is for Viacom. This year is recovering from a more than five year low in February. So despite recent stumbles, there's still somewhat of an uptrend here. Why the uptrend and can it continue? What has to happen? Well, first of all, it can absolutely continue because I think of where it started, and I think people knew that at some point this year what happened in the last
few days was going to happen. It was inevitable. And I think leadership is going to be stable. I think dually is in a good position to keep a good to keep the job, and I think they have good franchises. MTV and some other assets have performed pretty well. As you said from above expectations in the movie business, there's no real there's no real you know, it's still an art, so it takes a little bit of art along with
the science to make it work. And you know, I think I think steady leadership in the direction and a stronger point of view about what the long term plans are will show directly in the results and performance of the stock talk if you count a little bit about what has been and I guess in an ongoing story, UH Gawker Media UH sold to Univision after the forty million dollar judgment against Gawker. Well, it was a I think, by most people's estimation, a surprisingly good outcome last week.
I think that Univision has had an interest in the business for a long time. Obviously with their recent filing and what they did with the Onion and needing to enhance that digital presences was a really good rational assets I'm to acquire at the right price. I think they got it a discount. The fact that there was real
competition certainly helped. I think the Nick Denton, through a lot of the public interactions, you know, and private interactions with Peterteo and on Panels, etcetera, has a cleared himself pretty nicely. I mean think he's learned a lot. He will have a great second chapter in his career. I believe that. But the business was valued even at that number, at a price where the buyer was gonna win. It's a profitable company with really good performance across you know,
seven different brands. Obviously Gawker dot Com or not be part of the business going forward, but key employees will and all the content that's created will go into the other brands. I think Isaac and the team at the univisional will run it properly and be very happy they bought it. Another big story this month's Time Warner requiring a temper since stick in Hulu. You know, it's looking
at the future of TV. It's second quarter of results proved there's still plenty of life in the traditional cable model, but they to pun over legions of growing legions in fact of court cutters who don't want to pay for cable cable or satellite TV. You know, I think the whose story is very interesting. I was talking to someone the other day about the Time Warner move and thinking is that is that a beginning of a step in
the direction of acquiring the whole business. And obviously there are other partners at the table, and you know that will have to be figured out. But brands really matter, and I think Netflix brand is working and they spent a lot of money in original programming. I don't think you'll see who who do the same thing. They've already you know, tried a bit and not had great success, but they've done well with their brand in a way. It's it's appointing that they think that the free product
and the way they integrate advertising worked really well. But they're all trying to line up at the starting line in a sense, in an equal equal way, so they can compete with the cable operators and try to create brands that connect directly the consumers. And for years obviously HBO never had a direct relationship with their consumers. Now they do through their apps. I mean, I think that you know, it's going to be a race to create
the biggest best ran. It will be room from one to forty years ago, you know, room for multiple networks. Mark Patrick, aw thank you so very much. Co head of Technology, Media and Telecom at Coolahan Loki. I'm Kathleen Hayes along with Pim Fox, This is Bloomberg,