Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Carolline Hyde in New York and Eva Low in sentences.
Go Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Tech Live from Bloomberg screen Time in Los Angeles. Coming up this hour, we're going to bring you conversations with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.
We'll we're speaking with top celebrities, ed the entrepreneurs, with the leaders across this very much changing media landscape. And we first go to the talk of the town here at screen Time, of course, it was Jimmy Kimmel, the late night show host, sat down on Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw and explained how he thinks his comments about the conservative activist Charlie Kirk were mischaracterized by the political right. Take a listen.
I didn't think there was a big problem, I you know, I just saw it as distortion on the part of some of the right wing media networks, and I.
Was I aimed to correct it.
I have problems like all the time, and it's kind of funny because sometimes you think, oh, this is not a problem, and then it turns into a big problem. And then sometimes it goes the other way where you think like, oh, oh, this is gonna be a problem nobody really notices.
And so at what point did you realize this was a problem?
I think when when they pulled the show off the air, Well, that's unusual.
Yeah, And what.
Were the conversations that Data and Bob that led to that.
I hate to disappoint you, but they were really good conversations. I'm not a thinking I mean, like really good conversations they are. These are people that I've known for a long time and who I like very much much, and who were you know, who wanted we all wanted this to work out best. And I will tell you like I mean, first of all, I ruined Dana's weekend. It
was just NonStop phone calls all weekend. But I don't think what I don't think the result, which I think turned out to be very positive, would have been as positive if I hadn't talked to Dana as much as I did, because it helped me think everything through and it helped me just kind of understand where everyone was coming from. I can sometimes be reactionary, I can sometimes be aggressive, and I can sometimes be unpleasant, and I
think that it helped me. Really having those days to think about it was helpful.
I have a dumb question about this as someone who is kind of reporting on it in real time, trying to figure out what's happening. So the show goes up there, you have all these conversations and when you made it or when you made a decision put the show back on the air, as my understanding at the time was, it still wasn't exactly clear what you were going to say.
They still hadn't resolved the issues with the affiliates. So what do you resolve in those conversations to know you're going back if you haven't figured out a lot of the things that come out of it.
I think just the.
Spirit of what I'm going to say rather than specifically what I was going to say, And I think that's something that we all agreed on, and I think that.
Ultimately I wanted to kind of.
Cover every base if I could, and sometimes you can do that and sometimes you can't do that. And it was something really that had to come from inside me.
It had to be truthful.
And I had to lay it all out there and just be honest about what I was feeling and what I'd experienced, and I think I did, and I think that it probably went about as well as it could go. I knew that it wasn't going to be perfect, and there were always going to be people that didn't like it and didn't accept it. But the important thing to me was that I was able to explain what I was saying, what I was trying to say.
You felt like your.
Initial comments had been mischaracterized.
I didn't feel like it they were.
It was intentionally and I think maliciously mischaracterized.
Yeah, there was Jimmy Kimmel there with Bloombog screen time host Lucas Shaw, who joins us now this morning. The story around Jimmy Kimmel is one of the most read on the Bloomberg terminal and the website, and it's being shared across the industry. I think that's not that surprising, right, Lucas.
The headline is really straightforward. He thought that the show was done, and in the course of what we just heard, he explained everything that happened in the days that followed being taken off air, confirming quite a lot of your reporting. I just invite you to take it from there. And the main takeaways from you from the conversation.
Well, I guess I was a little surprised on respect not shocked by how effusive his praise was for Disney, just because in the moment, my sense from people around him was that he was pretty pissed off at them, right they had taken him off the air. You heard him say, I didn't think I did anything that wrong. My comments got sort of weaponized by right wing media, and yet he's had nothing but positive things to say
about CEO Bob Bieger, about entertainment coachair Dana Walden. He sort of somewhat endorsed Dana Walden to succeed Bob Byger, which you know, I don't know that he or Dana were expecting to happen last night, But this turn from what could have been a really sad, ugly episode in his career to something that has made him something of a hero. And so I you know, this was I guess a little bit of a victory lap for him, a.
Victory lap, which then you get to the nittigritty of numbers, because that's what BlueBag does and you're trying to present him that. Ultimately, yes, he record bump in terms of numbers, but the numbers haven't been great for late night television full stop. How did he navigate what he thinks is the revenue positive or negatives right now for him?
Well, twofold one, he was like, look, there was a lot of reporting about how much his peer, Stephen Colbert's show was losing. He thinks that that's wrong. He knows how much money these shows cost to make. You know generally how much they bring in. I think he said last night it cost about one hundred and twenty million dollars to do one of these shows. But he also said, look, if they were losing money, they'd go off there. Stephen Colbert show is going off the air. We don't know
the future of Kimmel's show. His contract is up next year. I think most people assume that he'll be around for a little bit longer. They don't want to At a minimum, they're not going to fire him in the same way that CBS did Coldert. But obviously the big challenge for late night is that there's just so much more consumption happening online and you can't monetize it in the same way.
Found that's so interesting, Like his insight into how the industry works, budgets, talent costs, losses or not losses, because that's kind of the point of the rest of the day.
We have many very.
High profile speakers across entertainment and media generally, but just for you, what is your next big focus after last night?
My first interview is David Allison, who I think is, other than Kim Well, probably the biggest interview of the conference, just because he hasn't done a big interview since taking over Paramounts Guidance. He seems to be in the news every other day. He bought Barry Weiss's The Free Press. He may or may not be trying to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. We'll talk about both those things with him.
And you've got Warner Brothers Discovery at the table as well. That's gonna be fascinating considering the conversation you have with Greg Peters ocosio Netflix about how ultimately he's not after M.
And A WBD, That's gonna be a fascinating conversation.
Yeah, the code chairs of their movie studio, I'm sure that they will avoid talking about any big corporate matters and kind of refer that to their leadership. But look, they will be great to talk about the movie business with. They have been on a real hot streak with Sinners, with Minecraft, many other hits over the summer, Weapons and then the new Ppa movie which probably isn't a commercial hit but looks like an Oscar front runner.
All right, Bloombe's Lucas. Sure, who's leading our coverage here at Bloomberg screen time in Los Angeles? Thank you very much. But actually here on Bloomberg Tech carry so much more.
Coming up, we're going to be speaking with Catherine Meyer, NPR CEO. Look, public media faces threats, particularly under the Trump administration. Right now, what is the future of funding sick with us?
This is a BlueBag tech.
See, that's what happens when people get activated.
People got activated.
And demanded that Jimmy Kimmel come back on the air. And I think that there was a great victory. So sometimes you know, when you're struggling and you're going through all these changes because of the madness in DC, it's important to realize when you do win, when you have a victory, and I think Jimmy Kimmel being back on the air was a victory for all.
Of us Los Angeles mayor there Karen Bass reacting to Jimmy Kimmel's return, of course, to the air after a brief suspension of what he described as a mischaracterization of his comments about Charlie Kirk. Meanwhile, look, public broadcasting as a whole is facing new challenges. Outlets PBS, NPR, for example, seeing their share in federal funding cut by Congress over
the summer, and raisest questions about the future. The viability at the center of the debate is MPR CEO Katmah, who we're pleased to say not only has just been is joining us, having already been called before the Oversight Committee earlier this year. Kevin, how how do you navigate this time? How are you seeing the ability for MPR to thrive and drive forward?
Well, there's certainly no roadmap for this moment in time. I think this represents a step change for all public broadcasting. It's not just here in the United States. We recognize that public broadcasters around the world are under and increasing scrutiny and pressure. The good new for us is that we have a viable model because we've built audiences over
the fifty years we've been in existence. We have forty six million listeners a week, and so as we look to the future, we're looking at all, right, this is a change. It doesn't change our public service mandate, It doesn't change our mission and our obligation to the American public. It just probably will change how we have.
To do our work.
When you say how you do your work, does it ultimately mean that you have to think about the resources that you put to work there? Can you be as expansive in the coverage that you have in for so many years.
It's a good question.
It's something we're trying to figure out. NPR received traditionally about one percent of our budget directly from the federal government, but we have just one percent. But we have a network of around two hundred and fifty member stations which received as much as seventy percent in rural parts of the country, and so we're waiting to see what some of the fallout will be for those stations. We have projections.
We're concerned about this, and we're looking at how we can buttress some of their work by cutting fees to them and thinking about how to make a dollar stretch a little bit further to continue to serve local community Cavin.
I think there would be a lot of value in you explaining the business model.
It is amazing.
Well, the reason I ask actually is in preparation for today, I suddenly stopped and looked at mprs following on social platforms for example. It's very very big. Yes, you know, how do I consume some MPR content like on YouTube for example, But that isn't necessarily a big, big income generator. View is that? Is that right?
Right?
So?
I think people think of us as radio because that's our origin, but in fact, fifty percent of our listening comes from digital platforms. It comes through podcasts, it comes through YouTube, it actually comes through reading online. And you can see in our numbers that our demographics are actually
very well distributed. We've been accused of being too liberal, but what I can tell you is that when we look at the audience data as to who comes to us, it's actually a very represent representative distribution of the American public. So fifty percent of what we're doing is for digital audiences, and fifty percent of what we're doing is for radio audiences. On the radio side, we have these roughly two hundred
for fifty members across the country. They serve ninety nine point seven percent of the American public, So in some ways we are one of the largest national networks. And we have three thousand local journalists around the country who then serve back into the network with stories that they're filing for their local communities and for their states.
How does it make them feel when they're deemed to be too liberal.
And how not good?
Yeah?
Really not good. I mean, we have reporters who are covering tribal areas who are primarily focused on the issues of Native American communities. We have reporters in rural Alaska who are focusing on the issues that their communities face, some of the issues around for example, fishing and access to access to the sorry the National Wildlife Preserve and
what does that mean for economic opportunity for Alaskans. They're having nuanced conversations that represent the full spectrum of the American debate on any of these issues, and so to be called liberal or to be demeaned in that way is really a misrepresentation of the work that they do.
Nuanced is a great word, maed more of it.
Well, we try to make sure that we're hearing from all sides of the story. In every story, and that means that we are representing sure, of course communities in California that perhaps have one point of view, but also communities in Indiana that have a different point of view.
You know, we talked about this as a team, and one of our producers, Oreie Thomas, brought up the idea that there is like the NPR strategy, and then there's what the local stations are doing on the politics side of things. You know, how are the local stations reacting, for example, if a lot of their listener base did vote for President Trump, you know, with what's going on,
how are you factoring that in? But also, like in the business model, do you end up sort of also competing at the MPR level with the local station level because you're trying to pursue different subscribers things like that.
Well, those are sort of two very different questions. I mean, we aim to serve the entire spectrum of American conversation, right, So, we had the White House Press Secretary on just last week speaking directly to the American public about the administrations thinking on the current government shutdown. We invite members of both parties on all the time. We invite independent voices on all the time. This is important to us, but
it's not just our politics coverage. It's also coverage of American life all of the cultural aspects that make up our differences as well. And that is one of the flexibilities of local reporting is it means that our station in Utah can run stories about the local reaction to the Charlie Kirk assassination as well as contributing to our national coverage, so that Americans all across the country can hear from those perspects.
What is the feedback from American from the American listeners about everything that's happened, Well.
I mean on the news, of course. I think what we hear very consistently is that this is a concerning time. People dislike the amount of polarization. We do hear that our coverage and the way that we approach things tends to bring people closer to an understanding of their fellow Americans because we really do focus on finding the personal story.
We'd like to say that everything that happens in America happens somewhere, and so we're always trying to find this somewhere that that is happening, whether it's the implications of tearfs or you know the conversation that's happening around For example, Jimmy Kimmel, who you were just recently referencing.
Listeners are so loyal you turn to them for funding. Have you seen big billionaires, big donors wanting.
To step up into this moment.
We have seen a outpouring of support, absolutely so. New Hampshire Public Radio for example, raised a million dollars in response to the defunding efforts and over the course of a short period of weeks. We really appreciative of this, but that won't fill the gap for these rural communities that are already sizzy economically strapped. There's a reason they have been federally funded. We know that for sorry, we know that twenty percent of Americans live without local news.
There's a reason for that. The market cognitions don't allow it, and that's where public media has filled in the gap. So that still remains a challenge.
We have seen a.
Lot of support, of course, across the board for public radio. I think there were three million people who wrote into Congress to support the to support us at the time of defunding.
But it won't be enough.
To fill one hundred and twenty million dollar gap relative to the defending of your.
Own background is so fascinating.
Having been for a stint with the Web Summit, making huge, big events and for a tech community, you're on the chair of the Signal Foundation, You're also been at Wikipedia. I'm interested as to how in this moment of belt tightening, your technological savvy comes into all of it.
Well, I actually think that technology is an enormous advantage for the complex structure that you have. You asked me about the business model earlier, and I think it's a great lead into this.
Right, there is a.
Way in which we could be in competition all of these local stations seeking to now transform their work for a national audience. Technology actually offers us the place to
bring all of that aggregate reporting together. And so if somebody is running a really great story here in LA about a local band that is about to go on tour, and I reference that because music is a big part of what we do at NPR, we now have the ability to serve that to any audience member anywhere across the country who might be interested in what that.
Band is about to do.
Right, we wouldn't have been able to do that in a previous era, but the ability of digital platforms, the affordances for us to serve audiences seamlessly. They don't think of us as our local station versus our local station. They think of us as one public media experience, and that's really what we're leaning into.
So, Sweden, what are you going to do differently are in this environment? What are you going to change to bring in more money that you need?
Well, certainly investing pretty heavily in the fundraising piece. I mean, I don't think that that's dissimilar from what we've seen in nonprofit news as a whole. We've seen tremendous success in the nonprofit news sector in building subscriptions and building memberships. That's an opportunity for us, and in fact, we've been doing it for a long time. We have millions and millions of loyal donors across the country. It's time to bring in the next generation. You mentioned I come from Wikipedia.
We have a little experience in this right, So that's one piece of it. I also think that it's an opportunity for us to think about how we're doing our news gathering and news production more effectively. And so we have all these journalists across the country. What does it mean to do the national editorial planning where we're really thinking about how to elevate these conversations that are happening
around the country into the national story. And then of course we have this great international and national reporting that we mean to now weave.
Into the next Cafreine mayor MPR CEO, thank you very much for being with us here at Bloomberg's screen Time. Meanwhile, Warner Music Group is said to be in close agreement with Netflix to create a slate of movies and documentaries based on the record labels catalog of artists and songs. That's according to sources. Here's what Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kilhle said about a potential deal.
I cannot confirm anything, but but the you know, if you step back and think about this, it makes a lot. You know, our company has tremendous catalog, Prince Madonna, Fleetwood, Mac and it's just it just goes on and on and on. The stories that we have are incredible and they haven't really been topped.
It more like Marvel for music.
I said, that's that's that's where we are and it will be unlocked and so it makes a lot of sense for us to partner with a company that can bring it to life all around the world. And it's exciting both for acts who are no longer with us, but we make their estates happy and satisfied, but also for acts who are with us, who then can actually help bring young audiences to the streaming platforms.
Robert kinsil One, a music group CEO.
Then I think it's it's hard for any brand that has a deep, you know, consumer sense of what are you doing for me? Right, and then you're like, well, I'm going to do this as well, and you have it takes a while to really build up that.
Sense of what's happening.
But it's not it's not that dissimilar to let's say we were launched, you know, in a new country, like you know, you went to Japan, right, So when we started in Japan, two percent of the Japanese population it ever heard of Netflix, So nobody knew what wo But you can nobody even know your name much let's be
able to tell you what we were doing. And we're doing pay TV service in a country that doesn't really have a great PayTV you know, operation we're doing over the internet in a way that was totally new, and so you've got to every day build a little bit of like what are we doing, who we are, what are we you know, how are we here to serve you? So that ten year journey, let's say, you know, just
at the tenth anniversary in Japan. You know, tremendous progress over ten years, but it took us a long time. And I think, you know, the gaming situation is not dissimilar to that.
How much is it an impediment that for the most part now you can only play it on on your phone?
Well, I would say, you know, the phone is what's great about it is it's a well developed gaming ecosystem, right so you know, folks notifying games there. But it's also a highly competitive gaming ecosystem, so it's developed. This gives you both that upside and the downside. But what's exciting is that now we are moving beyond the phone to the TV. So I mentioned like one of the big gaming areas we're going after. One of the big gaming areas we're going after now is you know, so
gaming experiences. It will show up on your TV. So we are now announcing we're announced here actually that we're going to have these social party games, a pack of social party games that you can play on your TV with your phone as the controller. And it's things like you know, recognizable games like Boggle. You got Pictionary, We've got a Lego party game, We've got Tetris, We've got
like a Mafia style Who've done it? This is this is me and our CTO Elizabeth playing Boggle here, which is it's we're two very competitive people, so it got it got pretty ugly.
Who I'm not going to say that means he lost?
Oh does it why she watched a video? My friend? You triggered my competitors.
But this is again, this is you know, so it's your phone, which is an incredible device, and there's all sorts of things that you're going to be able to do on your phone that you can't do on a normal controller like touch screen. And this is us basically picking our words on that, and it's you know, it's dead simple to use, it's intuitive. And then this is us on the earliest days of how we actually can
use that. And if we you know, basically are going to like unleash this with a bunch of creators and they're going to go figure out stuff that we didn't even imagine that they can do with that interactivity.
That was Netflix co CEO Greg Peter's key conversations coming up gaming with Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, Unice Lee of Scope Lee. One of the top streamers out there is Poke Maine. So much more from Los Angeles and Bloomberg screen Time. This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg Tech. We live from Bloomberg screen Time in Los Angeles. Amazon streaming platform Twitch. It's growing online stars by the minute. It's averaging more than one
hundred and five million monthly visitors globally. And here to discuss the current state but also the future state of the live streaming business model is Twitch CEO Dan Clancy.
Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
So Twitch is such an interesting thing, an entity. There are loads of people out there that aren't familiar with it, and actually I thought the most sensible place to start is like, can you just explain what Twitch is, how it works.
Hopefully for those so simple space.
So Twitch is a live streaming platform where people go live. Okay, and so if you say it's a live version of YouTube or something like that. But the thing that really makes Twitch unique in the kind of need that it meets in people is as human beings, we are all yearning for community. And what happens on Twitch is people go live and they basically share their lives. They let people into their living room, they go out in the.
World, and they explore, they gain.
And then what they do is very authentically engage with those people that are watching. And since people spend a fair amount of time watching these people, community forms between the folks that are watching, and I think that is really the magic of Twitch and which distinguishes Twitch from many other platforms that have live streaming. The phrase I use is we're community centric live streaming because people find a place where they belong.
So the simple origin was like people would be playing video games in simple terms, and they would be filming and streaming themselves playing this game, sometimes with others. But it's kind of evolved into a much broader set of content irl or just chatting. Is the things that you know I'm following on the platform. Is there a still a heavy proportion of activity that's gaming related or is it now much more diverse?
Well, it's very diverse, and the interesting story is even before Twitch, Twitch started as justin TV, and in justin TV it was life casting, so in fact it wasn't about gaming, okay, and then Twitch life life casting is what they called it back then, where you were just casting your life, and then Twitch pivoted and focused on
gaming and that's when it really took off. And now it's kind of come full circle because while gaming is still a big part of Twitch and will always be a big part of Twitch, more and more creators are out there just doing all sorts of things you said, IRL, which is in real life, which means you go out on the streets, you go climbing a mountain.
I've watched you stream from a water slide in a doughnut. Yes, content that irl, that's ir.
It's in real life.
DJ Cancy, I think, is who you're streaming as I'm interested though, like it does such a great job on the show reminding us of the sheer scale in the power of numbers of gaming. When we think about big movie hits, it pales into comparison of the amount of money earned by James versus video games. And what amazes me is how much the content creators are winning in
terms of content. They are getting one hundred million dollar contracts to jump from you to kick or from Kick to you or to YouTube more than Lebron James is earning. Can you go to actually who your competition therefore is, and how you fight for that content in this moment.
Yeah, the way I look at it astually, we're fairly unique in this space, and I don't focus on the competition because as a live streaming platform at our scale, they're smaller ones.
But you know, really, when we think of the social.
Media space, you have YouTube, you have TikTok, you have Instagram, but Twitch is really the only one that solely focuses on this community centric live streaming experience. And the way I describe it sometimes is we actually are a long form platform and that people sit there and watch for one hour two hours. So in that sense, we're like Prime Video and Netflix, but we're social, so we're sort of right in the middle of what I'll call the
streaming platforms and the social media platforms. We're really a long form social media platform.
They're also, dare I say, right in the middle of the culture wars.
And I'm just really.
Interested as to how you navigate that in leadership when people are bringing them into their homes in a more intimate setting and feel that they can share anything that they feel, but that then can blow up in many different ways.
Yeah, so, first of all, it's very important that we take it very seriously in terms of having a set of guidelines and what's appropriate on Twitch and what's not, And so we spend a lot of time thinking about that and letting our creators do what they need to do to protect themselves.
And you kick them off too if they take them off if.
They're not adhering to them. That's really important for our platform. But really what it is is that's just one of the things you have to deal with if you want to get that authenticity because this key difference between Twitch and many other short form platforms. If you're just making a short clip, you can put on a mask. When
you're live streaming, you can't put on a mask. And one thing that's been leading a lot of celebrities, entertainers, athletes, influence all sorts of people now to live streaming is they want that authentic, honest connection with their fans and turn those fans into community.
Done to interrupt team, Let's bring up the Gavin Newsom session then and just play a little bit of it if we can. There's some sound associated with it, Dan, But in very simple terms, Gavin Newsome went on the twitchcsion and not providing due process, went on the Twitch platform. My understanding is that you know he was engaging with one of his children's favorite content creators, that that's the governor of California using Twitch to communicate. Just explain how you feel about that.
Yeah, the way I think of it, what he's doing is he's he's just authentically interacting with you know, those people that may have an interest in him, right, And
I do that myself. I stream and have a great time doing it, And when you do it, you realize there's like there's something really special about having that impact on people and having that feedback, that visceral feeling of you know when I when I stream, I'll play the piano and sing and they'll say, oh, I love that song, and it really kind of makes It's very different than just looking at metrics like you do on other social media.
You've been really clear there are guidelines for the content creators, there are guidelines for the viewers in how they interact, but Twitch is one of a number of platforms that is caught up in a wider discussion about people that want to talk politics or even in the context of radickzation. Just give us your sort of blanket policy and approach to managing that environment on the Twitch platform, please, because DC is paying attention not just to Twitch. I get that, but it is important well.
This show, I'd say, like, first of all, our policy is you know, you could freely express your views. It's how you say it that's important that you should not be attacking and hate and harassment is not allowed on our platform, and we're very clear about that.
But we understand that people are going to.
Get super quick who adjudicates that.
We have both automated techniques and we have a large group of people that work whenever something's reported to then analyze it and see if it did hearst our community guidelines, and then if there's a violation, we take an enforcement action.
What's so great as you two are going to be on stage together a little bit later, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, we so thank you for your time with us on the show as well. Now coming up, we're going to be speaking with scopely Coo UNEs Lee about the growth and competition in the mobile gaming industry tech. In the realm of mobile gaming, there are a few key players increasingly dominating the space. One of those is Scopefully. It's the publisher behind Marvel Strikeforce, yat see with Buddies Pokemon,
my kid's favorite. Scope Ly Chief operating officer Unis League joins us.
Now and we see.
That ip and it stands out so much units. But competition is really building. How do you see that as a really helping you focus on the business, scale the business, but also drive off those competitors.
Sure, I mean it's always great to have competition because it only fuels that drive to innovate and to you know, exceed expectations. For us, we welcome all of it. I think scope Ly and forarticular, is always focused on a community first approach, and so the games that we're building, we think about how are we creating these highly social engaging experiences. And I think that's what sets us apart ultimately because we always start from that core premise.
I'm that highly social engagement drives revenue. I'm assume mean just talk us through the business model.
Sure, I mean it's pretty astounding. Last year, we achieved over ten billion dollars in lifetime revenue.
We're really excited about that.
We have five hundred million plus daily active users touching our games in the last twelve months. There's just amazing things happening, and we're so excited about adding Pokemon Go to our stable or amazing portfolio of games. They continue to grow and reach new players every day, and so yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Unis terribloembog screen time. There's been a lot of industry news. I wondered if we could run through some of it. So like last night, Netflix to me basically demoed a technology that casts a mobile game from your phone to your TV screen. As a hardcore gamer in many different domains and formats, wasn't blown away by that? What do you make of that concept and idea. I mean, it's a mobile game cast to the television.
I'm also a hardcore gamer, so I feel you. I think at the end of the day, we're trying to create again, highly social, engaging experiences and for our scope, Lee it's about trying to be on the different mediums where our players want to be, and even bringing our community together in real life as we have with the
Go Fest, which is for Pokemon Go community. So I think for us, we're just look, we're going to always keep an eye on where people are playing, how they want to engage with our content, and try to serve that up to our community.
The industry has seen seismic shifts in the last two years. I think that's a completely fair statement. You have some financial relationship with Saudi through various investments that they've made. The biggest, most recent use is the take private of Electronic Arts. My question is very simple. Have you had discussions about cooperating with EA? You know, you are very strong in mobile gaming. EA is not so strong in mobile gaming.
We are.
We have so much respect for what EA has been able to do and the amazing you know, brands and ips that they've built, so we have we come from that place first. Right now, we're not in specific discussions, but post deal, if those opportunities arrive, we're definitely open to discussions for sure.
And we think about ultimately where you've come from the fact that you were busy over an activision with Call of Duty.
You are someone who calls yourself a hardcore gamer.
Where do you think the balance shifts in terms of mobile versus console. How do you see that continuing to evolve?
Honestly, I think our community, our players want to access our content in different ways and it's not this huge battle so much. But again, as I mentioned earlier, it's about serving our community where they want to engage with our content, where they want to play, and I think there's a place for all of it. We are also we have several things which you can't talk about but in development that are a cross platform and across platforms you may not expect from scopeing.
Okay, keep us tuned on that respect, but we can go global with you because you're a woman who is international, very core. You've been in London, you studied in Asia, and I'm thinking about how things change from global aera to global air. Pokemon go inherently for us a very Japanese bit of IP that has become a typical global phenomenal.
Yes, absolutely, I mean for us again, it's there's a whole wide world to appeal to. And what the beauty of games is that it brings these folks together across the globe. It transcends geographies, cultures, and that's super exciting for us and that's that social connection part that we want to continue to promote and continue to see.
So we're talking about this thing right, the mobile right, and gaming is one thing I can do on my mobile phone. Do you guys consider your rivals to be TikTok?
Literally?
This is Bloomberg screen time? You know, how do you assess a marketplace where the competition for eyeballs isn't necessarily in the time spent on gaming?
Yeah?
I mean I think the gaming space itself is so fast moving and evolves very quickly. So wherever eyeball's intention is again, wherever our players are fans because they're looking at IP through various mediums, so being conscious of that it's not just through the game, there's different ways of the IP coming to life, so us staying on top of that is super important at scopely, again, how do
we connect with the community where they want to? Mobiles one of the most tactile and easiest ways to do so, but it's something that is always on our minds.
Roadblocks. C dem Zuki told us very recently that sometimes on a Friday night their servers melt because of all the condensed activity in the mobile gaming domain. Do you ever come across like flash moments like that where the world is just playing at the same time.
I mean, we have so many people engaging daily, hourly with our products because of their deep love of these ips. Star Trek Fleet Command is a great example. Yes, seventy five percent of our players of that game, they are touching it every single day, every single day, and in meaningful amounts of time.
I mean, I know it's for your business.
I think for Star Trek fans, it's like amazing to be able to be in that universe, and those are hardcore fans that that IP attracts real loyalty, and so our ability to do that, you know, for that community is pretty special.
How many years has it been I've done like that on television? Unis Chief Opera I have remember I did do it once. Well, let's leave it. Unisslee, chief operating Officer at SCOPEIA. It's great to have you on bluebo Tech. Thank you so much.
So.
Hollywood's typically focused on the people in front of the camera, but today increasingly we're talking about streamers, people like imin anis more commonly known as poke Main. She's one of the most popular streamers on Twitch, with nearly ten million dedicated followers and another twenty million across other platforms. We're talking YouTube x, Facebook, Insta and delighted to say that Pokey joins us. Now we've been talking in recent weeks.
It's great to finally have you on Bloomberg Tech. Like guys, now, bear with me on this one, but let's just start by asking what is your day job? How would you describe what it is that you.
Do in technical terms? I'm a content creator. How I might want to describe it is just I love sharing my life online. I love to entertain people. I love to make people happy about it.
I'd say it started with video games on Twitch, like quite a long time ago. You've got a long history with Twitch, I sure do. Twenty thirteen, twenty thirteen and like, and that's something we share in common. You know some of the titles in particular, but we just had Dan Fancy on the program earlier. For you in particular, it is expanded to IRL and just chatting. Is there a moment where that happened? It moved beyond video games?
I would say, interestingly enough, when I first started streaming, you weren't even allowed to stream IRL or just chatting. It was just games, right, anything else you might get banned for a few days. And so as the platform started not only allowing but supporting different types of content, I of course only wanted to try out those different things. And I also love how it allowed me to showcase
different parts of my life. Now instead of traveling and feeling like, oh, I can't do my job, I can't game, I can't speak to my community, I could travel and stream myself in those different countries. So as both the platform changed and what the audiences like and enjoy changed, I followed in and I was able to explore so many different types of content.
And then we've seen you go to crew, We've seen you go to around the world. But what's so interesting, Pokey, is that your demographic must have broadened from League of Legends out to now wanting to see horse ride, talking about some of your health stories. How can you break down the demographics and who it is in your community?
Absolutely? What I find the most interesting is that it entirely depends on the piece of content and the platform. So on Twitch, of course, the platform itself is maybe majority men, sometimes younger depending on the game or what you're streaming.
But on TikTok.
A lot of my videos are like majority female. I do get readies with me, makeup halls, all sorts of different things, and I really adore that because it allows me to really tap into and share all the different facets of my hobbies and what I.
Like to do.
And you do share your community of friends, they appear with you. There's also the perhaps your brother who doesn't appear so much on screen, and you're here in LA. There are safety concerns, whether it's in real life or whether it's online as well.
How do you think about that navigating?
Oh my, it really depends on the exact safety concern and what aspect it brings. So there's online safety and there's also in person safety. So what you said earlier about I L streaming, I typically don't IRL stream in LA unless I have security with me, otherwise I feel
a little bit better streaming IRL in other countries. When it comes to moderation online, oh, it's been a trial and and error kind of situation learning how to moderate my platforms, how to feel safe online, how to make sure my community feel safe.
So it's really a lot.
Of different things.
Hochy is part of the IRL and just chatting content. Sometimes you have discussed things that are more political or societal issues. How do you choose those that you want to weigh in on? And then the safety piece you just explained how you factor that in.
I would say my priority for starters is of course speaking to my direct experiences and how I know those things affect others. For example, the safety issues that I face online, I'm not the only one, and it's not just creators. Any woman, any girl, frankly, any person online can be victim to those same safety issues. So I love to be a spokesperson for the things that I
have direct experience and knowledge in. And then secondly for me political topics, what I really feel passionate speaking out about is simply just human rights, respecting other people what their rights should be in regards to the things that they can say, that they can experience, that they can share. I feel like that's what I.
Feel comfortable talking about.
And so aside from that, Luckily, the safety aspects that I have in place right now allow me to feel comfortable discussing anything.
Hook you've made a career of this, would you please explain to our Bloomberg Tech audience you know how it works how you make money with respect if you're able to, Like you've also set up a talent agency for content creators. You know how big a piece is that for you? Is it different Twitch versus Instagram, for.
Example, so your streams of income do differ greatly depending on the platform. I would say the unique thing about Twitch is that there's a subscription model, which means, as opposed to YouTube, where you can subscribe to someone for free and your essential just following them, like you follow someone on Instagram. For Twitch, when you subscribe, you're sending them five dollars every month. It's a monthly subscription that
also generates income. But for me, the large, large, large majority of my career income has come just from sponsorships and contracts, and then probably the second largest piece has come from business ventures, and then the third largest piece might be subscriptions.
So I'd say that's the unique.
Piece that most people don't know about Twitch, but for ig in most other platforms, it's primarily ads and sponsors.
We could talk to you for so much longer, and I'm very pleased that it's going to.
Be on stage with you.
Imman Ais also known as Poke main with so pleased that she joined the show, and what a show it has been, because that.
Does it for this edition of Newbag Tech. But the story doesn't stop. There are so many people going to be on stage. I've got the Foster sisters, You've got a.
Great Pokey and Dan from Clancy, Like I want to understand the content creator economy so much more because as we just heard, it's so different. And then tomorrow, well not miss this. We're going all in on defense technology. We will speak with the leaders of Anderill, Palenteer and many other leaders in defense tech from Andreil's head quarters right here in California. You don't want to miss it. There is a lot to recap from the last hour. Check out the pod loads of you are listening to.
It's super grateful for the feedback we've had. Listen on Apple, Spotify, iHeart and the Bloomberg platforms. Caro take us out.
I mean, what an amazing array we can do right here in Los Angeles and the world a content creation to the world of defense tech.
There's a lot to be had.
Yeah, this is Los Angeles and Bloombog screen time. This is Bloomberg Tech