You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
KFI AM six forty more stimulating talk on demand anytime the iHeartRadio app. Tonight's podcast will be right after the show on the featured Segments section of KFI AM six forty dot com. And now there's no business like show business. Let's start with HBO No Max No.
Two years ago, the deep thinkers at Warner Brothers Discovery had the not so bright idea of taking HBO Max their flagship streaming service, dropping HBO, which was, as you know, synonymous as being the Cadillac of PayTV, and instead just went with Max. Yeah, that worked out really, really well. It turned out that not only did consumers not really respond to a company called Max, but by bringing in all of the Discovery content as a selling point, turned
out nobody's really watching the Discovery content. They were going on to Max to see the HBO content.
Now, hold on, I do love the HBO content, but I love watching house hunting shows because I I think I've mentioned this before, I mock the people on there mercilessly. If you want a genuine look into my ID, hang out with me while I'm watching one of those shows. I am a horrible, horrible person. And my son and I do this together. It's how we bond, and we laugh and we laugh and we laugh, Okay, Carrion.
And that was a real issue, and so the execsit Warner Brothers Discovery finally came around after two years and said, you know.
What we should do.
We should rename Max HBO Max. And so here we are. What's old is new again, deja vu all over again. Put it however you want. We're back where we started. And it's not such a big surprise because right now
Warnerer's Discovery is discovered they can't compete with Netflix. Netflix wants to be all things to all people, whereas Warner Brothers Discovery now realizes the way to position HBO Max as it's being re christened, is as a high end niche player, in other words, the Cadillac of PATV companies, which is what HBO was in the first place.
All right, Well whatever, as long as I got the content, I was just getting used to calling it Max. But I thought it was a dumb move too. But I've seen other companies that have rebranded themselves, and it takes a little while for us to get used to it, and then we do or we don't call the max.
I just called it HBO Max the entire time, and it's just like Twitter and X. Nobody calls it X you're weird. So yeah, it's so pointless. Just give me my shows, man.
I think you're right when when we've talked about Last of Us and other shows on there, we just say it's on HBO, don't we right? Yeah, you're right, you're right. I just don't care. But I don't have any investment in it. So as long as I know which icon I'm clicking on on my Prime or my yeah my, what do I have Amazon TV or my Roku or whatever I have one of each, then uh, I don't care. As long as I can log in, I don't care what it's called. Don't don't start cracking down on passwords.
That's the big one.
That and never take friends off of the streaming service. That's all I care about.
I think they're going to crack down on password schaaring. Why why do you say that I read something that they're cracking down on password chearing?
Oh okay, well yeah do it?
Yeah, yeah, I hope they don't, but I hate when they do.
Well Netflix said that they were going to do it, and I have not been impacted. I don't know about anybody else in the world.
But here's the funny thing is that I'm not the one who's who's stealing it. I'm not the one who's benefiting than me. Well, no, I share my no, no, no, no, no, no, I would share with you. I share with my kids, though, who are all like your age. I share with my kids so that they don't have to pay right, because they're broke.
Yeah, my brother shares with me because I live in LA and it's crazy.
It's crazy, right, right, So I share with my kids and they're like, well you can do that, Like, they don't have the money for it, so you know, as far as they're concerned, they don't care. And I think, now you want my kids watching your shows because they're going to talk about it with other people. And that's how you you know, remember when Netflix used to encourage people to share their passwords because that's how they get
word of mouth, that's how they get buzz. So some of these smaller streamers, you know, the HBO, I don't know. HBO has like thirty million subscribers, a hundred million I don't know how many of that, but not as many as Netflix. And so I think when you're the underdog, you've got to have as many eyeballs on your product as possible. I was saying, give it away for free. You got to get eyeballs on your products. Speaking of trying to get eyeballs on the product, how about the
greatest cable channel ever? You know what that is? C Span. Of course, c SPAN is getting ready to really live and things.
Up in a nation divided, a rare moment of unity this fall. C SPAN presents ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
This sounds like a Saturday Night Live bit, doesn't it. Cease fire. It's when we don't really do much that's exciting. Cease fire only on c Span.
In a town where partisan fighting prevails.
They even found like the boring is v O guy who's got a place. Don't get me wrong, I never want to knock somebody in the business who's you know, working hard, but it's like they're trying to build excitement. And then they go in a world, in a world, in a town where in a town, in a town, right, you gotta in a world, give.
The most boring delivery, drive delivery you could possibly get. That's kind of what the note said when they.
In a town.
Where in a town, in a town, and if you want to come by, it's okay, it'd be great.
No, you gotta be like you want to be a town in a town? Yeah right, I just like I kicked it by my EQ.
In a town where partisan fighting prevails, one table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground.
No.
No.
In a town, one table, two leaders, one door, only one gets out alive veins only on c SPAN.
In a town where partisan fighting prevails, Right, two leaders, one goal.
Only one survives.
To find common ground.
No this fall.
Ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides only on c SPAN.
Listen to that uplifting music Ceasefire, turning down the rhetoric. I support it. I think it's going to be very intelligent, and it is also proof that we are never going back to a world of civility ever, because if it's on c SP, it is officially uninteresting and way too smart. We are not going to sit down and try to find solutions. That is not what America does anymore. We don't so good tri c span and you've ruined everything. Well,
speak of politics in entertainment. Did you see that the the tariffs that proposed, you know, the one hundred percent tariffs and things not produced in Hollywood could wreck Croatia? Did you catch this? Poor Croatia? It turns out that the town that the Game of Thrones was filmed in has been in a number of other projects as well, and they are really worried.
Dreams of tourists flocked to the ancient Croatian city of Dubrovnik to visit Game of Thrones filming locations.
And now that we've got writers reporting in their high English accent, we know it's legit.
But US President Donald Trump's threats to impose a one hundred percent tariff on all movies produced outside the US have alarmed the entertainment industry. Some locals in Dubrovnik, which was also used to film Star Wars The Last Jedi Thear directors, may no longer film there. Central European countries and the Balkans have been used by Hollywood for years for their dramatic scenery, architecture and tuop filming costs. If a movie or series is a hit, those locations can
become hugely popular with visitors. At Dubrovnik, tour Guide said the numbers of visitors there have hiked, with one thousand of tourists joining a Game of Thrones tour every day.
Wow. Here Throw has been off the air for a few years too, and they've still got a thousand tourists a day for that.
New souvenir shops were opened and jobs created for tourist tribes and locals. Assisting in form.
Was that let's say it's not too shocking, because don't people still.
Do the walk for Lord of the Rings. Oh yeah, probably in New Zealand probably. Yeah. Last Jedi, she said, was film there twenty eighteen's Robin Hood. Did anybody see that? Not like that was one of those where it was in the theater for a week. No. Yeah. James Bond franchise specific scenes are limited and often focused on locations
outside of the old town. The city's stunning coastline and architectural beauty have been featured in the background of various sequences in James Bond movies, as well so a few other things that have been in there. It's a really cool old town, kind of a medieval, kind of deal, and yeah, they're worried about tariffs and it could could wreck everything. All right, we'll continue. There's no business like show business.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
There's no business.
Line show business.
The latest on Diddy Diddy or Didity Union Tea and his ex girlfriend. I guess, Cassie Ventura. Fine, she's married now and she's eight months pregnant. I took the stand as a tough spot for defense attorney because they have to you basically say to the victim, You're not really a victim, are you? That is awkward.
Cassie Ventura on the witness stand for a fourth day in the federal criminal trial against hip hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs. The defense continuing cross examination this morning, confronting her with dozens of her own messages, many explicit, hoping to convince the jury she was an eager sexual partner who matched Combs's desires. I'm always ready to freak off,
one message, said. Ventura testified that she had no free will in their relationship, and that when she tried to leave one of those drug fueled performances, this violence captured on cameras at a Los Angeles hotel ensued you can.
Oh yeah, you remember you saw that video. That's the one where he comes She comes out of a hotel room and heads to the elevator, and he comes out wearing nothing but a towel and flip flops, catches her at the elevator and then just smacks the hell out of her, kicks her, drags her by her hair. Uh yeah, that's the video we're talking about in Sea.
Combs kicking in, drag her.
But the defense said Ventura's participation in the freak Offs was at times her idea, showing a text message from days earlier that said, baby, I want to fo so bad. You proposed a freak off? A defense attorney said, you kept asking him. Combs's lawyers revealed he overdosed on painkillers in twenty twelve.
That anybody ever been invited to a freak off? I never got invited to one. I wonder why.
I don't think I'm cool enough to get invited to a freaking yeah or unlucky enough.
Usually they just tell me to buzz off freak but never a freak.
Off, So asking Ventura.
Were the worst years associated in any way with his drug use. Yeah, I would say the defense.
Oh, the drugs made him do it. Oh, that's the problem.
I'm hoping to convince the jury Combs became violent not to coerce Ventura into sex, but because.
He was an addict.
They argue he may have been abusive, but that he's not guilty of sex trafficking.
Yah. That's the defense you get when you've got the guilty as sin defendant. Like, he may have been very violent, he may have beaten the the s out of his girlfriends, but he's not a sex trafficker, is he? Trump? Stop it, don't go down that road. Don't you dare you? Don't you dare to?
As attorney's optimistic outside of court, get us in trouble, doing great.
I said she was ready, and I think she's demonstrating that. Okay, But there's a twist to this. Remember I said she's eight months pregnant now.
In a letter to the judge overnight, federal prosecutors argue that defense lawyers are trying to purposely prolong their cross examination of Cassie Ventura, hoping that if she goes into labor that there could be potentially a mistrial. The defenses argue though, that they have a right to thoroughly cross examine the witness fill up.
So they're like, well, maybe we just have to we just have to delay as long as we can, so maybe she goes into labor and then they have to call the whole thing off. You gotta love the American justice system. Were We're like, well, you know, what are we gonna do? She went into labor, so I guess we can't put this sex trafficking guy behind bars, So you know better look next time. Sorry? Did he did send her a text after that elevator incident. You want
to hear what it said? Mind you, this is pretty gross. Okay, So here it is. So he beats the hell out of her at that elevator. It's the video that we all saw. And then just days after the incident, did he texted Ventura and said, I'm so horny for you. Ventura said she was surprised and replied, you are What made you feel that way? He said, I felt that
way from Friday? What you doing? Yeah? She said she thought it was a little strange that Colmbs would say that he desired her sexually after he kicked and punched her that day. She said that wasn't a good vibe. We need a different vibe than Friday. And he said f Friday. Lol, I don't even want to do that again. She said, lol. True, So that feels like a healthy relationship. Meanwhile, just see, Chris Brown got dragged into this this ole diddy thing. His name got dropped at one of the trials.
So Chris Brown's the name gets dropped, and he came up when Combs lawyer asked Casey Venture about the time when the Bad Boy Records mogul was mad at her. Do you remember when Comb's thought you were dancing with Chris Brown? She said, I do, but I was not. I wasn't dancing with Chris Brown. And then he moved on to another topic. So Chris Brown came up in the conversation. Chris Brown has got his own problems. Though Chris Brown is now under arrest in the UK.
A UK cort has ordered Chris Brown to be held in custody for twenty twenty three nightclub assault. Police arrested Brown in Manchester for his alleged attack on a man at a London nightclub two years ago. He's been with grievous bodily harm with intent Brown is currently on tour in the UK, but it's unclear how this case will impact his remaining shows there.
Yeah, not the not great news for Chris Brown. You just got brought up in a sex trafficking trial, although not really associated with anything, and then now you've been arrested for assault. Incidentally, did you see what sug Knight said? Sug Knight said that Trump is gonna pardon Diddy if Didd he is convicted. What are the odds that happens? Is Trump gonna pardon did he if he found guilty for sex trafficking and racketeering?
I don't think Trump said anything about Diddy.
And hasn't sug Knight did.
Yeah, I know, but I think if Trump was gonna do that, Trump would have probably said something, don't you think, Uh?
You know, they they pitched to Trump that he should that he should pardon Derek Chauvin. That's the guy that killed George Floyd. Who do you think what would be worse? What would be a bigger mistake? Let me phrase it that way, would be a bigger mistake pardoning Diddy or partning Derek Chauvin.
Both of them are awful, horrible.
I think he could get away with. Politically speaking, I think he could get away with pardoning Derek Chaulveren because I think a lot of his his accolytes are like, oh, that was a terrible trial, that was all media and racism, and Derek Chauven was just being a good cop. But if you pardon a sex trafficker, then that's a bad deal. Like, you'll have no support on that. But I'm with you. How about you don't pardon anybody? That would be fine with me too. I hope Chaven rots for the rest
of his life behind bars. That's what he deserves, So I hope nobody gets a pardon. It just frustrates me that these names even get thrown out as potential pardons.
And then this political climbing. You just never know what's going to happen. It's like, you know, you were talking about the White House having its own channel or streaming service service, yeah, entertainment service.
Yeah.
It's like it's it doesn't feel like political reality. It seems like a reality television show.
And it's plausible though, Like you throw that out and you go, I believe that could happen, right, nobody goes that would never happen. We all go, yeah, I could see it. Oh, unbelievable. All right, we messed up with No Broke Broke. Next, you're gonna find out just how broke we all are.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
How are spending my Sunday evening of news? Thank you so much for being a part of it, Chris Merrill, I AM six forty on demand anytime the iHeartRadio app. How much are you spending on your subscriptions? We just made mention the last I don't know, two seconds ago, whatever it was, we made mention that HBO is changing their their name or I guess Max is changing their name back to HBO Max. And we were talking about how I don't really care what the what they call themselves.
Just don't crack down and password sharing because I share my password with my kids. My kids are adults, they're all they're all in there, rule breaker. Yeah, I know, I'm a real rebel. Uh and uh so I share with them. They're broke, they ain't got nothing, huh and uh As we all know, nobody's messing with No Broke Broke.
Saying see you go, dig u machine mess and win. No broke broke up saying, see machine, well, how much are you spending? Because I got to think it about this. I have a lot of subscriptions I've made mentioned before. I dumped Netflix because it was my most expensive subscription, and so every time I see one of those, Oh, this show on Netflix is breaking records and this has one hundred percent Rotten Tomatoes score, I.
Kind of feel like I'm missing out. But I just uh, I just added Disney Plus and so I've rather Disney Plus Hulu package or whatever. And then, uh, I was just thinking about this. I got Apple, which I like best value, although I got around Christmas. I got Peacock for two dollars a month for a year, So that's pretty good value. Hell yeah, Peacock rules, it's pretty good value, especially two bucks a month, Right, how do you pass
that up? But I also have I got Max and Amazon Prime, and I feel like I'm still missing one in there somewhere.
I just feel like, and they all have their own strains, but I feel like Peacock has like the broadest library because technically it's NBC, right, right, But you've got shows that are from CBS, Fox, Kate or not Kate DLA. But the CW Yeah, like they it covers so many great lot of them.
Yeah, I'm with you on that. I get it. I get it, which is what you know, Netflix was trying to do with so many And that's one of the reasons I like Hulu so much, because Hulu's got a bunch of that too. It's not just ABC products, it's it's it's a bunch of other stuff, including Wrexham, which
first two episodes of Wrexham are stellar. So I was thinking about it and I go, man, I'm putting in you know, it's ten bucks here, it's eighteen dollars there, it's fifteen dollars here, and then Amazon Prime keeps going up. To come to find out, Seene did a study and they said that Americans spend over one thousand dollars a year on just subscriptions. Now we're not even only talking about We're not just talking about streaming subscriptions. These are other subscriptions as well.
And.
That's adding up quick like. But by generation it's a little bit different. The generation that spends the most is Kayla, that's you girl, You are spending the most.
I've really helped me.
I can't do it millennials spending the most, but also the millennials tend to and I'm going to lump you in with all the other millennials, Kayla. They tend to be at that age where they're settling down, starting families, that sort of thing, and so they're starting to assuage the night life and engage in the family life. Kaylee, you're not. You're still crazy.
I'm a millennial doing exactly that what you're talking about exactly.
Okay, let's use Brigitta a lot.
That's an example. I'm outside party. I was spending so much too as a family woman.
Okay, on streaming or on other stuff.
Oh I just jumped into this conversation.
No not oh yeah, no, on streaming and on just subscriptions in general, every service, yes, everything.
The other thing too. If we take a look at the breakdown, it's not just it's not just streaming services. We're spending it on. Hold on here, what I got in front of me. It's not just streamers, industries under pressure, blah blah blah blah. Oh, that's that's about streamers specifically, But it's it's like you said, magazine or online news articles. It's about other subscriptions that we get wrapped up in.
And then the crazy thing is you've got a lot of places that are making money on you that promise to track your subscriptions. Have you seen what's the is it quick Books? It's got the They're like, oh, are you anyway do you have a subscription? You don't even know about it. And everybody's to spend a Spotify and Pandora and maybe they got to satellite radio. Don't do that, you got iHeart free. But a lot of other subscriptions
going on as well. So people are going, I don't have any money, and then they take a look and they go where's my money going, and go, oh, it's going away fifteen bucks at a time. And we are shifting. We are shifting to a rental economy. I tried to explain this to my kids. I said, we rent everything because you can't take anything with you. But the longer you own it, the less your payments on the rent.
So for instance, you buy a house, I own this house. Sure, you do until you're dust, and once your dust, you don't own it anymore. That house is getting passed on to somebody else, or it's being sold and somebody else is going to take the profits. Ultimately, everything that we have is temporary. And I'm gonna sound a little bit philosophical here, and I don't mean to get too deep in the weeds on this, but everything is a constant payment,
even after you get something paid off. Like, for instance, I got a car. I'm making payments on my car right and I know that once I have that car paid off, the longer I hold on to that car, the more value I get out of every payment that I made along the way. Okay, so everything is a constant payment. But what happens when you go and buy a car? What does the salesperson always say? Salesperson doesn't say how much you want to spend? No, no, no, no no, no, salesperson knows. They say what do you
want your monthly payment to be? That's because we do everything now. We don't base our lives any longer about building equity. For many people, they've given up on the American dream of owning a home and they just go,
I'm gonna be a forever renter. And rather than saying I'm gonna squirrel away money so I can come up with a down payment, we start seeing the news articles in California about how you have to make three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to be able to afford a median home in Orange County, and you go, I'll never do that. But I can keep renting my current place at three grand a month or four grand
a month, whatever you're paying, I don't know. And you go, I can do that, but I can't keep squirreling away enough money to come up with two hundred thousand dollars for a down payment. Instead, I'm gonna take any extra money. I'm gonna put that in a vacation front and I'm gonna go live my life. I'm gonna rent, and then I'm gonna spend the rest of my money on living. In other words, we're not concerned with building equity any longer. It's all about cash flow, not a great way to
build wealth. A lot of people saying, yeah, but I'm living my life. I'm not saving money. I'm not squirreling that away for a down payment in order to build wealth. But I am going to enjoy the new season of Wrexham or Last of Us or ted Lasso or whatever's on Peacock. That's what we've decided we're gonna spend our money on instead, and we've basically resolved ourselves to saying life is about rentals, It's about cash flow. And since I can't take it with me anyway, what do I
care if I have a lot in the end. When you're gonna care is when you want to retire. That's when you're gonna care about it, because honestly, building wealth, as long as you're taking those cash flows, that's fine until it comes time to retire. And I don't know about you guys, but I hit my mid forties and I went I only got about twenty some years left here, and that means I better make sure I got enough money. And if I got enough money, if I've got enough wealth,
I can enjoy another twenty years after that. Of course, probably not. My heart will probably give out, probably have some heart attack day before I retire. My wife will collect all the life insurance. I won't enjoy anything. Just don't get any fights, that's right, because, as we learned earlier on tonight's show, every time I get in a fight, I get my ass kicked bad. All right? If I kick off, will my wife DI have a broken heart syndrome. Probably not, according to science.
You're listening to kfi AM six forty on demand.
Thank you so much for spending time with us tonight, Chris Merril kfi AM six forty. Thank you to Foosh the who stepped in. Thank you buddy, Thank you Foosh stepped in for Raoul tonight. And of course you'll hear Foush all the time during the week whenever people let him talk on the air. And then h Kayla, Kayla as always stellar, mediocre job, so well done. Kayla needs to chill.
Just love Kaylea all right, I have just learned about that drop today.
Yeah, what was it like three weeks ago that some guy said that I love it. That's my favorite thing ever. It's so good. Kayla needs to chill, calm down, Kayla exactly. And then Brigitta. Whenever Brigitta comes in, everything gets a little bit better. So we're we're so glad that when Brigitta joins the show at six o'clock. Yeah, just everything feels likelies come home. Yeah, yes, perfect. Speaking of family, there's nobody we like more than our big sister, doctor
Wendy Walsh. She brings to doctor Wendy after dark, starting at seven o'clock. Doctor Wendy, I wanted to ask you about this. What's a broken heart syndrome? I was reading about this week. It is the thing, and I've said before my grandmother died like a year after my grandfather, huh, and when he passed, she just didn't know what to do with herself. And when she died, it was I mean, it was a surprise, but well it was like I
think it was a broken heart syndrome situation. Yeah, And they're saying that it kind of manifests itself in uh, you know, like.
Right grieving.
Here's the thing about relationships, You actually kind of emerge and become one identity. Obviously, you have to have individual autonomy to have a healthy relationship and some overlap, but that overlap is what dies.
Right.
And actually my own parents, my mom died of breast cancer and like about six months later, my dad got lung cancer and died in six weeks.
Really, oh yeah.
And I was young. It was it was, it was bad.
But anyway, So we had a cardiologist on our show a couple of years ago who said two things that was interesting. He said, broken heart syndrome really is a thing and people can die from it. But secondly, he's never known anyone who's in deep love in the early stages of love to ever have a heart attack. He thinks love is very protective of heart disease.
Interesting, is that like maybe the adrenaline or something, maybe.
All those hormones, all of those hormones.
Yeah.
Interesting. So, doctor Wendy, I wanted to kind of talk with you about that and then the things that you've talked about about relationships, that relationships have like a time period and you go and this relationship was great until it was over right, But like in the case of my grandparents is fifty years together and I'm guessing your parents were together a long time.
You know, thirty thirty five, thirty years thirty five.
So I mean, when we talk about a relationship, it was good and then we were just done and it was fine, and that's that's part of the cycle of relationships. But how does that how does that reconcile because this broken heart syndrome seems like, as you mentioned, people start to kind of meld into one identity.
A lot of people can suffer great mental health and physical health after divorce as well, not just death. And that's from really secure, long term attachments. But I think the other thing you're kind of getting that here is that because of our very long life expectancies, you know, we're outliving our relationships, right, and they end when they end, and closure and culmination happens. I hate the term a failed relationship. No such thing, right, But in our grandparents' time,
there were different expectations for relationships. You didn't expect to find your soulmate and have romantic love until death to us part. You kind of stayed in your own lane, and you each had your job to do, and it was one of survival and exchanging enough care to get some kids up and out of the nest and everybody stay alive. And today relationships are far more fragile because people are putting much higher expectations on them.
Is that fair?
It's not fair at all. But I'll tell you what relationships have become a replacement for the village. We have lost our interconnected village. So our social support system used to be our friends, our family, our small town. But now because of the last of really i'd say thirty forty years of the mobility needed for modern capitalism, mobility of employees. People are just moving around the country like
crazy and being pulled away from their support networks. So they're putting it all on their significant other to be everything. And it is really unfair.
I've really but I yeah, yeah, why is my wife soone fair to me? I've done that. I mean radio, You know how radio goes. You work your way up and you move from market to market.
Yeah.
Yeah, No, this is if you're moving.
You're moving her uprooting her and bringing her around. That means every place you land and the people you've left behind you replace them and their jobs in her life, their emotional jobs.
Yeah, but she the same thing for me, right, I mean, so.
You start to rely on each other more.
Right, But I always thought that was a good thing for the relationship, like, hey, we're always there for one another.
Yeah, but humans need a wide support system. Yes, you do need a best friend that you can rely on in your relationship. But it also makes them more fragile because most relationships can't live up to that expectation of all be everything for you.
And this is why I keep telling her to lower her expectations of me.
I actually think it sad, but it sounds like good advice see listen.
If you want to warm up to Doctor Wendy, you want to listen to my show starting at four o'clock every Sunday, and the Doctor Wendy will take it home. But if you want good relationship advice for a few hours beforehand will before you get the great relationship advice, I'm here for you and lowering expectations is where it starts. Dr Wendy Walls Doctor Wendy after Doctor it starts right after we check O News with Brigitta, Doctor Wendy have a great show, Camp Doctor next week to check it's
Chris Merril KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere in the iheartradiob kf I AM six forty on demand