Interview With Bruce Tuchman: Masters in Business (Audio)

the podcast, I have Bruce Tuckman. He helped bring a number of US channels overseas, number of television channels like Sundance and a m C and MTV and Nickelodeon and a bunch of others. Uh. Global Uh. And we really have a fascinating conversation, especially when we get loose in the podcast portion talking about the future of video and what it's gonna look like. Uh. This is an industry very much influx with both a rich um collection of

original content. He describes us at at peak television and there's no to go but down from here because it is so overwhelmingly excellent. But the nature of television is changing, the nature of content distribution is not going to be what it used to be, where it's just a fat cable or or satellite to your house and you buy a package in that that's it. Video on demand, streaming, downloading. These are having major changes on how the industry is progressing,

and it's really in a period of dynamic flux. So if you at all are interested in content creation, or in how the nuts and bolts of of content gets distributed around the world, or really what the state of media is gonna look like in five, ten, twenty years, I think you'll really enjoy this conversation. So, with no further ado, my conversation with Bruce Tuckman. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special

guest today is Bruce Tufman. He began his career as an m and a attorney at Scandon Arps before entering the world of television, where he helped bring such brands as MTV, Nickelodeon, Sundance Channel, and a MC to a global audience, taking American content to more than a hundred and forty countries around the world. Bruce Tuffman, Welcome to Bloomberg. Very good to be here. I appreciate your having me so.

I found your background really fascinating. Um, you're an expert on video content on modern television streaming and video one demand. So we'll get into Amazon, Netflix and a whole bunch of of related companies in a few minutes. But you began your career as a corporate m and a attorney. How do you go from that to essentially running a handful of television networks? Um? It seemed less secuitous. I supposed to me. UM. I always had a passion for

the entertainment business. UM. I also UM had really wanted to I. I had taken time after college, I moved abroad to Spain to develop some of my international business skills, my Spanish language skills. At that point, as a young man living in Spain, I decided grad school may make sense. I was thinking of taking the GMAT or the l's at. It had been a while since I was doing the cutting edge math that you need for the GMAT. So

I took the l's at. And I went to law school, and I worked for SCADD and I had a phenomenal, phenomenal training ground and learned a lot. But my passion had always been the entertainment business. And I reached a point in my career there after about five years or so, that I thought, I don't have kids yet, not married, I could make to shift with less risk, and I really started developing this passion, this idea that if you if you don't follow with your passion in life, you're

not going to be happy later in life. So I did that and no regrets for that. So, so, how do you go from SCAN to MTV? That is not a natural career path or is it? Was there a transactional relationship with Viacom or anything and suddenly someone said, hey, you'd be perfect for this. It's a great question. There

isn't that and it may not seem natural. But what I had been doing back in late eighties early nineties, I really focused on international M and A and corporate, So I spent a couple of years of my time in Scatton's London office. So he's learning a lot about

cross border transactions. And it just so happened at that time, pretty much in the cable and satellite business, these big brands from the US were beginning their international expansion and they had a lot of great ideas, a lot of creative passion, but they didn't really have a lot of people who knew how to structure one's presence in an international market. How would the media laws and regulations affect a business? How do you structure a joint venture with

a foreign partner? So I had those skills, so I came on board originally to spearhead the legal and business affairs aspects of MTV and Nickelodeon's launch into the international markets. That's quite interest. So really between Spain and London, that was your graduate school for taking television brands content brands overseas. It was the beginning and I had some really amazing insights.

I worked on one project in particular, which was the restructuring of news Corps debt back in the early nineties. That was so that was for scatting in the London office. News Corps is at that point not really a behemoth in the US, but huge in in the UK and also amazingly taken to task for funding Sky. Sky was their baby, that was bringing the whole ship down. Um now we all know what happened. They restructured and Sky

is a behemoth and an incredible business. Uh. But it was fascinating being there for the early years of Sky and seeing what that business came to and it was very um eye opening for me. Next along the career path, you ended up taking MGM Networks worldwide. Tell us what that experience was like, how did that start, What obstacles

did you run into? What were the surprises along the way? Sure? So, after I spent a year doing legal with MTV, and then I shifted to Nickelodeon to the business side, and I was primarily responsible for spring the growth and the launch of international channels all over the world. Again, this was a company that I have very few, if any channels outside of the US, and with me leading a team and a lot of other good people, we launched this network plus people. Was it was it all at once?

You rolled out to a hundred paces Towards six years working at and um SO, I learned a lot about the international cable and settled business was at its birth more or less than um SO. I went to MGM after that because I think the challenge I wanted after bringing this great kids network all over the world um I was really passionate about this business of launching new brands,

linear what we call linear now PayTV networks. So I had this opportunity with MGM, and what I loved about it is MGM really did not have anywhere in just a couple of places branded TV channels. It's a great brand. It's the biggest modern film library in Hollywood, at least at the time, and uh that was a gaping opportunity UH that hadn't been uh covered by MGM. So so before we get too deep into MGM, how do overseas markets for television and video differ from from US markets?

What's the demand like, what is the taste like? And how does the regulatory and corporate structure compared to what we have here? Great questions. As you can imagine, every country may be a little different the international markets. Uh, we're probably a generation behind the US in terms of just rolling out the physical plan. Give you an example, Uh in the nineties when I started bringing channels to India, of all places, cable and satellite was just born. There

were no homes. Now they're more cable and satellite homes in India by far than the US. So all this stuff developed very quickly. Um, every market's a little different, but many many markets. Now you'll find a majority of households have pay TV. Not all markets, but many regulatory wise, UM, as you can imagine over the years when this business just emerged. It was a wild West. There are few regulations. Now you look at a lot of markets, it's tougher

and tougher by the day. In terms of programming, Yeah, I'm Barry rid Hults. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week is Bruce Tuckman. He was the head of MGM Worldwide Networks as well as MC Global, taking US television networks to over a hundred and forty countries around the world. Let's let's before we get into a MC let's talk a little more about MGM and the massive library of classic and films

that they had. What are the tastes like overseas? How did you find the MGM brands played in Asia and Europe? How did that work? Right? I think overseas, again, depending on the market, you're gonna have a combination of two

things that work and pay television. Local content obviously is big, and I'd say the more removed people are from the English language media markets, the local seen as much bigger, so Japan, Korea, India, that's by far the dominant form of content will be content produced indigenously in local language. But every market in the world. They there is room for Hollywood content. It is very popular and larger or

smaller degrees, but it's always very popular. Now, what I saw with MGM was the opportunity to take a brand that arguably has some of the most long term goodwill of any brand. I mean, it is synonymous with film. How big is that library? Library at the time was forms. So the combination of some great films and the brand, well that that's what all pay TV was at that point in time. If you have a good brand, you

have good content. That's what subscribers are gonna want and what cable operators are gonna want because they don't want to get behind unknown brands, unknown content. It's an easy sell. MGM meant too many people in the world. MGM means great movies, and the movies themselves were great movies. So it was a fantastic run and we went from about zero channels and in ten years we had tens and tens of millions of subscribers in about a hundred and

forty countries all around. So now let's talk a little bit about AMC, which over the past couple of years has become a monster monster brand not just for what I I think of them as American movie classics, we're kind of where what they began. But for some really definitive original content. So how was the AMC brand different than MGM and how did it play overseas well? A couple of interesting things. So I think for the core demo, perhaps that that is right now watching Walking Dead and

have watched Breaking Bad. Um, don't forget mad Men and another one. I'd say, by the way, these are those are three pretty much definitive original programs over the past ten five you know, Throwing the Sopranos it's hard, and then Seinfeld the decade before that. That pretty much dominates what what people have been at least talking about. I agree, you know, you don't sell games thrown short either, But um,

it was brand defining obviously for AMC network. And I think, and I think a lot of the people watching it now that demo may not even remember American Movie Classics. They think of AMC in those terms. It's Walking Dead and Breaking and not bringing up Baby. That's not that's not the NADA process, that's correct. So that raises the question how important is the development of original content to a branded channel like AMC huge. Um. There have been um evolutions in this PayTV market. It used to be

dominated by libraries, second run library content. If you think about even HBO and Showtime. In the earlier years, it was the second run perhaps it was movies. It was movies, and it was stand up comedy specials, and that was pretty much it. Correct. So the market got more and more competitive, and original programming became necessary to distinguish a channel from others and more competitive market, and especially now

with the slowing and in fact declining subscriber universe. UM, you've got to do everything you can to reach a big audience. And you just can't cut corners by showing cheap reruns anymore. That will not work. UM. So that that's the state we are in now with having to invest in all this original programming. So a question that I had that I think is I imagine other people would also is how similar is the taste of consumers of film and television watchers overseas to us in the

United States? Does Don Draper play overseas? Is that the sort of thing? Does Walter White have a resonance in Japan? You know, these are really definitive US characters on all ends of the spectrum. How are how are these shows and how are these characters um accepted in other markets? Correct? For I'd say the last six or seven or eight years, the what we're calling peak TV or the drama renaissance. This is global phenomena. Uh, not just here in the

United States. Not Golden Age of television is in the US, and from the age of television may have there. I think there's more nuanced to that. But the top quality dramas produced in the English language are are really romping around the world. Um. So you can go tell us what's big overseas right now? Well, I mean Game of Thrones is huge, Walking Dead, um, Stranger Things from Netflix has done incredibly well in terms of seeing what the

global demand for that is. Um. Mr Robots doing terrifically. Yes. So so these shows are really hot all over the world. Now it depends on the market. Do they dominate every market like they do in the US? No, not necessarily, because as I mentioned before, a place like India has an incredible local production industry. They're they're broadcast sting um original programming developed in India in a dozen different languages. However,

these shows breakthrough, these dramas. Breakthrough in every single market all around the world may not happen five years from now, but we have been in this phase of the business for the last i'd say eight or so years where this is very was working. Let me throw a curve

bowl at you. I remember moving out of the city to the suburbs a dozen plus years ago and not being happy that I couldn't get BBC America, which I was used to when I lived in Manhattan for twenty years, so I had to go to a satellite instead of the local cable. Now it's everywhere, but I recall shows like Doctor Who and top Gear really being global phenomenon a dozen years ago. Was the BBC the first network to really take themselves global? Did they set the uh

the original model for this? I I think the pioneers were both the major Wood studios that have always had incredible sales arms for their TV and movie production all around the world, and BBC I would also put up in that category, especially within the Commonwealth Nations. BBC was always an important brand and always had an extensive network of channels and programming, and they put a lot of money um resources into getting that stuff all around the World.

I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is Bruce Tuckman. He is a former m and a lawyer from Scandon Arps who entered television and ended up taking over a number of channels UH such as Sundance, am C, MGM and bringing them global to over a hundred and forty countries. You're on the board of advisors of Parent Analytics. Sure, I'm a board member. Board member. Let's talk about what

it means to try and measure audience UM. In the U S. We have Nielsen Ratings, which has been a lot of criticism and complaints that it doesn't capture UM, time shifting, it doesn't capture a lot of things. What's it like trying to measure viewership overseas well? I think it's funny even today after the election, we're seeing that

taking a sample like Nielsen does. Nielsen has thirty thousand or so paneled homes only recently stopped using paper to document what people are watching, and they're extrapolating from that what people are watching. That is part of the basic underlying concern about extrapolation based panel based surveying of TV audiences. We we get so much information on the web about

website performance. We could track how long people are on a site, where they're coming from, how how quickly they bounce off, where they click on the page, how how many different things they look at. It would make sense that there should be some technology that does that on the video so well, sure, and that's what Parrot Analytics is doing. So if you think about the internet is a huge billion three billion, three point seven billion people are using the Internet every day. If you think about

what you may be doing. If you like a show we mentioned Game of Thrones before, you may press a like on Facebook. You may read about um John snow on Wikipedia. You may follow something I'm reddit post something. You may even this happens a lot of markets. Uh illegally download four hours. So a company like Parrot Parrot is listening and scraping to all of these messages in the Internet, listening to everything, but more importantly weighing it all.

If you download four hours and pirated of Game of Thrones,

you're pretty passionate about a show. If you're liking it on Facebook, you like the show, but maybe not as much now if you weigh all that together, you could come up with a real, um, actual, genuine amount of data that people are expressing demand for TV shows, which I think is far more compelling than just having surveys where you're extrapulating, because but don't we run into potentially the same problem that hey, we're not actually measuring votes,

but we're we're surveying. We're looking at what people say and do about candidates, were about shows, and trying to draw a conclusion about it from that model the differences, there's no conclusion being drawn. It's empirical. It is Okay, we've measured now a billion data points. These are powerful computers, and this is the facts. No conclusions are extrapolation to be drawn. This is what people are saying right now. So this is going to revolutionize the business. It's going

to happen more and more. Obviously, I think a lot of these data measurement companies now are good compliments to Nielsen. There are sixty billion dollars of transactions going down based on Nielsen. But at some point the data has to come in and form a little bit. So so let's talk a little bit about that big data. How can we use big data and analytics to figure out how valuable specific content is. You can because you can see

what people are saying out there. And it's not only see what people are saying empirically, you actually can see who they are, what their demographics are. You can find out what products they like. You can say, Wow, this Game of Thrones person, I can see this person. I can see this person also likes Lincoln Motors and also

likes Dan and yogurt Um. So we're only at the beginning of all of that, and I think over the long run, a paper based survey is still based on essentially UM Johannes Guttenberg's ideas, it's gonna be very different. Is is the technology UM consistent between the US and overseas? Can you generate the same sort of analytics and is it as accurate there as here or vice versa? Yeah, because I mean it's a global phenomena, the web. There's

no cultural differences from the US to Europe to Asia. No. I mean, when you're just measuring what people are watching by using the Internet and using these sources where people are expressing their demand for TV, you're just finding what people are really saying. UM. So it's It's young, this industry, but it's powerful. Each year it evolves even stronger and stronger. I'm Barry rid Halts. You're listening to Masters in Business

on Bloomberg Radio. My guest today is Bruce Tuckman. He has taken a number of US television channels worldwide, over a hundred and forty countries. Let's talk a little bit about streaming, UH and video on demand and what that means. You know, when I was a kid, we had the three networks and a handful of syndication, and by the time I got to high school, this thing called HBO came along, and UH we had movies and curse words and stand up it was. It was revelatory. Today there's

content from everywhere. You have not only the networks but all the pay channels. There seems to be everybody producing their own content. I'm a huge fan of of f X, UM, am C, I f C. There's a whole run of shows that are spectacular. That's before we get to Netflix, Amazon Prime. I'm sure I'm forgetting others. There's just an embarrassment of riches when it comes to original programming. Is this really a golden age of television? And how long can this last? For? Yeah, it's They call it peak TV,

but I call peaked TV in a way that it's peaked. Um, it's already peaked. Well, I think it's just a matter of time, and I'll explain why. Um, there's about five original narrative drama is going to be produced in the US this year. Five You can never absorb all that. That's probably around three times as much as when Madmen came out seven or eight years ago. Really, yeah, so

what there is? Like any business, I suppose there's a copycat phenomena because the success of a MC ffects even what HBO and then Showtime and Stars Encore is doing. People have realized quality dramas not only rate, they define brands, they start the conversation in the morning. They add incredible value. So everyone's rushing to it. Is that sustainable, as the question? I don't think it's sustainable because people aren't watching all

of the stuff anyway. You're finding overall, with a few exceptions like perhaps Walking Dead or UM Game of Thrones, you're seeing ratings decline. You're seeing the overall cable universe decrease. By now, what's becoming scary significant single digit percentages each year, UM. And you're seeing advertising go down. So the economic basis, especially for basic cable TV, the overall revenue pool is declining.

To keep investing in this high quality drama is not going to be sustainable, so to shrink what what is this the chord cutting phenomena of basically the millennials UM, who who aren't enthralled with the whole run of channels they get with a cable package. They just want internet service and they'll buy what they want on demand and that work. What does this mean to the future of the content industry? And is this why you think we're

we're post peak TV? Yes? I think so. I think the basic cable bundle is under the most pressure because there's cord cutting, chord shaving. You've seen chord shaving, meaning you don't fully cut it, but you just go to the base one less stuff. Why do I want all the three premium movie services when maybe I just want HBO and I'll get Netflix or you know that that could be one thing or new household formation. Younger people aren't bothering UM. But the fact just that it's shrinking,

even by single percentage digits. This is an industry that has never seen that before. It's gonna it's a very hard learning curve to learn how to adapt to that. And this isn't gonna get better. This is only gonna get worse as the millennials, as the pig moves through the python. So it's gonna get worse. And and for Basic Cable, nothing's looking good in the right direction because there's too many Basic cablers in this original narrative drama space.

Their revenue base is shrinking, the competitions intense, and at the same time it the format isn't so great. When you're breaking a show for commercials every fifteen minutes. Sometimes you're conforming your storytelling to what maybe a very antiquated format eight minutes, six minutes. Yeah, so you've got to build a little peak and then you go away for four minutes. Now, if you look at what's going on Amazon or Netflix, they don't care about the length of

this show, right, I mean it's not they're telling. You're telling a story, and the stories are compelling and they don't break off. So I think both from a creative standpoint, business model standpoint, Basic Cables in big trouble. The Ola Carte networks. The streamers are much better shape, and younger people seem to find them convenient, but so do older people as well. I have to ask a question about

the commercials and what you've defined. I mean, other than the Super Bowl, I don't remember watching a commercial in the past decade. Every television has a DVR on it. They're now four thousand hours big, they're giant. Um. I assume everybody else uses DVRs. And all you do is if you want to start something, even if it's not on DVR, you pause it. You do fifteen minutes worth

of yours, and now you have no commercials to worry about. Certainly, live viewing is shifting more and more each year to DV yars or getting catch up on demand on your cable system, downloading something from my tunes that you've missed. Um, that's happening more and more there. It's gonna be it's really gonna be hard to to stop that. Um. That that is a challenge. That that's profound for the industry, and there doesn't seem to be a solution around that.

Let's talk about the DVD for for you young guns out there. They actually used to put video content on these round silver discs. I think you could still buy them at various stores. Is that over or is the DVD finished? Or is this going to be a format and blue ray and and four K and and everything else? Is this gonna have any sort of legs? Sure? Um, it will get harder and harder obviously in smaller quantities to manufacture at economies of scale this kind of technology. However,

I look at some markets like Japan. I mean, Japan really has a robust DVD business and seems to be a part of a lot of people's lifestyle. Go to the corner DVD store each night and pick something up. So don't they have a robust album like an LP uh full thirty three's? I think that's and as well as CDs. They haven't moved away from the physical und There is that, and let's face it, there's very few forms of predecessor media that completely vanishes. People are still

buying radios, right, They still do. It's not as big a business. You can go though, into any best buy or radio check around here and probably buy a transistor radio. Now they're gonna have to produce less at better prices, So I don't think it necessarily goes away right away, but but it's obviously fading and it will over time. Let's let's talk about the difference between streaming versus downloading.

So when you download something you essentially own it or rent it for a period of time, versus just streaming on demand. How are those two businesses different? And as either of those um likely to become the dumb and in methodology or are they going to co exist? They have to coexist, and I think download is getting um a dangerous short shrift, by which I mean it used to be my personal frustration as a guy on the

planes A lot is with Netflix. I can't download anything, I can't watch anything, I can't stream in an airplane. We all get frustrated about that. But that is, let's say, an elitist problem. Maybe that's very much a first world issue, but you know what, it's a bigger third world issue. You know what I'll tell you, because think about this. In a developing world, it costs a lot of money to stream. Bandwidth is actually really slow, yet on demand

contents really valued. So what a lot of people are doing in countries that represum one two three billion people. They'll go, for instance, to a mall where there's free WiFi, they watch there, but where they can download, that's where they download. So they download everything for free, go home and watch it. So the idea of even emporary downloads is so necessary for the long term health of the

streaming business, and not just to please your consumers. I mean, if you're in Dubai or if you're in Thailand and you're paying forty dollars and data charges to download, you're gonna be upset at your provider. But I would also say for the studios, the producers of content themselves and get wigged out about downloads. If you don't offer temporary downloads to your paying streaming customers, it'll be pirated then

the next day. So you make the choice really well, yeah, because if something is available at a reasonable cost, you're already subscribing to a streaming service and it's their day and day with the debut of the show in the US, you'll get it on your streaming service and everyone gets

paid in the value chain. And if it's not there or you can't download it, and you're gonna have to pay a fortune to streaming and you're never gonna do it because the quality of streaming is bad anyway, someone just gonna go home on their connected broadband and pirated. So let's talk about piracy. How significant is piracy? How serious do you think piracy is? Um to the content

producing side of the world. Look, it's huge and there's all different stats on measurement um, but it hasn't stopped um the producer of the Game of Thrones being in business. They're making a ton of money. It's just how much more money should they be making? I don't know, nor does anyone know the answer, but some of the solutions are For instance, I think iTunes did a great job of offering really an easy interface, a fast download at an affordable price, which kind of made it almost a

no brainer. You know, I don't care. Let's not rip it off because it's it's really painless. A couple of bucks, five bucks for a movie. Why wouldn't you do that? And it's for a song? Um, the the video business has to be doing that. You have to offer people, most importantly, big shows literally simultaneously, day and date, all around the world. If Game of Thrones is here at ten pm one night and they're doing this now, it's

got to be shown everywhere. Otherwise someone's pirated here and send it over there, right yeah, or pirate it over there because it's it's all connected. Now we've been speaking with Bruce Tuckman. He used to run MGM Global and AMC International, bringing a number of US channels to a

hundred and forty different countries around the world. Uh. If you enjoy this conversation about video streaming and on demand, be sure and stick around for a podcast extras where we keep the tape rolling and continue chatting about all things television. Be sure and check out my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com or follow me on Twitter at rit Halts. We love your comments and feedback. Be sure and write to us at m IB podcast at

Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry Rihults. You've been listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio, brought to you by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Seeing what others have seen, but uncovering what others may odd. Global research that helps you harness disruption. Voted top global research firm five years running, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated. Welcome to the podcast, Bruce,

Thank you so much for doing this. This is really quite interesting when when we first met and talked about what you did. I was very much intrigued, not just because I'm kind of a classic film fan and and really a television idiot, but the idea of taking us content and saying, let's turn this into an international business is really quite fascinating. So, UM, let's see what questions I missed before we jump into our favorites. Um. Oh, Sundance.

We really didn't talk about Sundance Channel, which I wanted to. So the original Robert Redford sun Dance Festival eventually became a channel, and I kind of remember the line something about honoring Robert Redford's mission to celebrate distinctive storytelling from independent voices. Is that more or less the That's correct, and I think he's always said it best. Um, and I would add to that because what he's always also said is that's another not otherwise being heard in the

mainstream media. That makes sense. That's what drove me in terms of the Sundance International expansion. They're doing different things now in the US that I didn't run I won't speak to, but um, that propelled justin three years I was able to take with my team that channel from a couple of countries to about eighty countries around the world. With that in mind, when you think about it, Uh, the US majors are producing maybe a hundred twenty films a year and that's what dominates the pay movie TV

channels all over the world. Yet at Sundance alone, there's thousands of independent films that are submitted, So so it a hundred and twenty US mainstream films per year feature film and just submitted to the festivals over thousand, thousands, thousands, And that's just Sundance. So what's I think happening, and what Robert Redford was speaking to is so much more content is being produced independently and it's not getting it's

let's say, strict fair share of the air time. Now, some of the content may not be great, and a lot of the Hollywood film content it's not great either, But I think what allowed us to expand so much and get so much real estate with cable operators are

all around the world was just simply that premise. You're missing a lot of great content and it's actually not that expensive compared to what you're paying for some of the Hollywood film content, and it's just going to add to diversity of voices, and we'll bring in a lot of and what we did a lot around the world. We've run a lot of local independent films. So when I think of Robert Redford, he's an I an icon.

Um here we are post election, everybody had on Twitter had the shot of the candidate, which was a very famous film of his. You know that. Now what do we do now? Right? That's exactly it. So I saw that last night. Go around, Um, they're butch casting the Sundance kid. Go down the list of films, um that he was active in. They're just an amazing run of movies. But it's such an American brand. Does that play overseas or or am I imagining that people overseas are are

are more different from us than perhaps I should? It plays overseas and that if there's any brand that's anonymous with independent film, it's Sundance. Now will your run of the mill guy walking down the street in some country two thousand miles away, No, Sundance. Maybe maybe not, but I think everyone, Uh, there's there's a big market wherever you go for independent film, especially independ in film that features stories and characters from your own country. That isn't

just the mass package, commercialized stuff you're getting out of Hollywood. Um, so that helps. But particularly in this business of channels, you're you're selling to usually big cable operators, and the people running these big cable operators and very sophisticated. They've been to Sundance, they're very familiar with it. So let's talk about AMC a little bit. We were talking earlier about Walking Dead and mad Men and Breaking Bad. By the time you joined AMC, I'm doing this from memory.

I'm guessing mad Men had already been in production for a while, Breaking Bad was just starting, and then towards the ladder end, that's when Walking Dead came exactly. So as this comes first comes out, do you have any idea what sort of a giant cultural impact these are going to have and how do you think about taking

that and applying it to overseas me that's a great question. Um. Madman certainly was, by the way, that is such an again iconic, like just when you think of that late fifties early sixties era and Don Draper has become an arch type now, that arch type of of you know, the hard drinking three martini launch, smoking womanizing sort of guy. Again, does that play overseas or is it such a cliche

that they eat it up over it plays overseas? And interestingly, that guy now and and his acolytes won the election last night. I don't mean him. I was thinking, by the way, it's as I was saying that I was going to say something witty about that sort of hard drinking, heart smoking womanizing. Although Trump doesn't drink, you know, he famously is a teetotaler, but that sort of presidential candidate, and I thought better of it. But since you brought

it up. Uh, When Bush was president and you traveled over the overseas, there was a sense that he was really looked at as a cowboy. He's from Texas, goes from the gut, invades various countries. There was really a stereotypical American, uh, perception of Bush that way. So so how do you use how the world perceives the United States? As much as they may on occasion criticize us or dislike us or argue with us about different things, they seem to overseas seems to love American culture. They love

American content. It's been interesting in my career because my international career started with Reagan in office, So Reagan and Bush and I suppose Trump. It does become difficult just in casual conversations with people. Um often it wasn't like meaning meaning. So my personal experiences is you fly into Berlin from New York and when when or I flew recall trips to London as well, and there was a very diffident if that's the right word. Cool oh an

American like a real at customs. Yeah, Canadians were always nice to go to Montreal, Vancouver or you know, they seem to be very um uh friendly to Americans, but the Europeans were certainly post uh the Iraq invasion. There was definitely a little bit of a chill, and part of you was like, am I imagining this? And then once Obama was elected and you went overseas, it was a completely different come on in it was it was

a whole different attitude. And I was like, I recall going back to Berlin and back to London and thinking, you know, it wasn't my imagination. They're much nicer now than they were the last time I was here, when when it was a different president. So we have no idea what the rest of the world is going to be like when it comes to Trump, other than I think we have a good idea because you hear a lot. I have a lot of friends abroad, I do a

lot of business abroad. Um, I often find you have to defend and explain u S policies for good or for bad. Bill Clint was also very popular. Um, that's just what it is. But when we're in that position of people think there's bad developments in the US, that does, from time to time wind up impacting the political environment of a country you're operating, which sometimes bleeds into the regulatory environment, which sometimes makes it a little harder to

get your stuff done. So that I imagine that, and then part of me again it's like, now you're being paranoid. That's not really well, okay, I'll give you an example. So okay. So the EU, especially with the UK out, I imagine, is going to get more line with the French and German point of view in terms of regulation of meat it which is much stricter than where the Brits have always been, where the Americans always been. That will get tighter and tighter. You need diplomacy between the

US and the EU. If that's lacking, and they're not going to listen to our entreaties to say, loosen up these rags. Loosen up. It's not gonna happen. So that's that's what are the regulations like. And so just between the US and the UK, we know they're libel laws are very different. They're much stricter. In the United States. If you're slandering a public figure, you actually have to show malicious intense. You know, it's an excuse to say, oh,

I was innocently wrong, I read it on Facebook or whatever. Um. In the UK, there isn't that. It's a much stricter you're telling me. Go to France and England and it's even stricter. Well, what I was talking about was content restrictions or licensing regulations rather than liable. I can't speak to libel, so let's talk about about content. Well, let's talk about privacy. On the other hand, they're much stricter.

Well you've seen that with Google, with Google searches, you have to delete people's searches in France, which is certainly not the case here. I don't know how Facebook deals with that in Europe, right, So I think as we try to harmonize these regimes, especially for technology, and that knows no borders, less strict regime here in the US, more strict within the EU EU. I don't know which way Trump will go on this, but the point is governments have to talk about that. And if governments are

not getting along, they don't agree with each other. And that's a big challenge that we face. That's really fascinating. Um. But on the other hand, ironically things make it easier. With Russia, which has become very regulated in terms of media, didn't used to be that way. Um. If when one

savings grace, I I don't know that US sets everything else. Well, when you say regulated, do you mean you know, killing journalists or do you mean their actual So just for my business linear TV business, funny quick story in or seven, I believe I did a deal. I launched the Nickelodeon channel in Russia. In Russian and they're emerging pay TV businessman's a million two million subscribers. Are so proud of that. I went there for launch. Really meant a lot to me.

And at that time I didn't need a broadcast license. I didn't need any interference at all or anything to do with the media authorities. Now twenty years later, you need several broadcast licenses. You cannot own a majority of your own brand. And the reason so all of these regulations over time have gotten stricter and stricter. What gets them less strict or more accommodating to US interest is really through our trade reps are diplomats who try to

negotiate things that work across the board. So my kind of joke is it makes it easier with Russia, because that's about it. That that's a but that's a really interesting point. And we really haven't talked about the eight pound guerrilla in the room, which is China. What's it like bringing television to China? Do they want us content? How easy are they to deal with? Piracy? Seems to be rampant there? Tell us about China. US content too,

is hugely popular in China. Local Chinese content is more popular. But China has a fascinating business which no one even appreciates and you don't see in other countries. But I call it a vod or advertising video on demand or free video on demand. How does that work? There are five or six different sites you can put on your laptop. You can get an app for your TV. You can

watch on your mobile device. You go. You literally it's free and it features first run day and day programming often from US studios and everything else, and you watch and it's ad supporting really so instead of like Netflix, And it could be that. So that's the YouTube model, or or theoretically the Yahoo model. It is the YouTube mode as its ad support. It's the only market that can probably do that because it's so big and nobody so it makes sense. It's you have to have volume

in the U again, first world issue. We would rather pay up for the premium model or the technology like a DVR to go bypass the advertising. They're happy to take it because it's free. I think that's that. That could be it. Yes, absolutely it is. Now as they start to make more money, are they are they going to have the same issue that we have where a little bit of wealth and people become impatient. Then I

want to watch to be determined. But what's happening in China now because the wealth really has to get there. A lot of this viewing is on um probably even better working show me devices, you know, very good hand set tablets, and a lot of people are watching that way, especially a lot of the young people, they may not have two or three TVs in their homes, so that's how a lot of content is being watched. And they have more money. They have more time than money, so

they're happy to do it if it's free. Sure, huh, that's that's quite fascinating. What before we get to our standard questions, Let's let's what else can you tell us about China that we probably don't know? I think, um, there's questions obviously about the macro economy and China the banking system, but at least what I say, huge amounts of debt. But I mean from from what you do, what do you see that booming, booming, entertainment booming? Uh? It was it will soon be the largest movie market

in the world. That's it's not already. I just assume given the number of people, it's about to cross that threshold. Obviously that has already changed so much if you think about what's being shown in our own theaters. I read a while ago that because the overseas um rights are so valuable that very often when there is a expensive film to be made, even the storyline has to be built so that it's going to be a Winner in China, and you you pre sell the foreign rights before you

even make the film. So where it used to be perhaps that the Chinese was the bad guy, now it's a Cold War enemy, it's the Koreans, it's the Russians, it's somebody not Oh, it's evil China. You're not gonna have that made. If you're producing a mass market movie where you want to break the bank in terms of box office, if you're not thinking about how things are gonna go over in China, you've just cut off nearly half of your potential revenue, or at least that's the

way we're going. So why would anyone make that business decisions sort of like making a car and deciding I will not ever put the driver's the wheel on the right side for the driver. So just you give up the UK, you give up Japan, you give up any of the UK former territory right way that they still are. You gotta you gotta adapt. Yeah. Um. I think it was in Guila where we rented a car and they pull them around and I'm like, oh, that's right, and

you ever drive that for the first time? Yeah, oh yeah, you just basically my rule of thumb was um, just make sure that you're you're What was worse was we were driving a left hand drive on the oh that was that was the car showed up where they pull up on the wrong side of the road with the left hand So my thing was just make sure that the curb is next to me. So in the US the curb is next to the passenger. Now you have to be so wherever you go and and left and

right's got to be a little confusing. It's released. I'm still amazed that they will let you drive instantly because I think for people who haven't done it before, I'm not sure if there were drivers drunk or if there worth doing that. It's very just gonna say sober. It's not difficult. But you go to dinner, you have not

even drunk. You have a drink or two with dinner, and you're a little I we went to this place and I drove back from it, and the first five minutes of the drive back, I'm on the U S side of the road, and I was sober enough clear, you know, a drink with dinner is not gonna someone my size is not gonna make me that compromise. But for the first it feels like five minutes was probably the first thirty seconds. Oh gee, I'm on the wrong

side of the road. I have to get out. But by the way, what country was it Sweden that they stopped at noon and reversed the sides right? I don't remember if it was Sweden or somewhere else, but literally everybody stopped one day. And but my point is a drunken person driving in the US all right, is shouldn't be driving, and they're dangerous. And a neophite person who's never driven on the other side of the road in the UK is also dangerous president and they quite as dangerous,

but it could be closed. And then trying to shift, well, the stick shift is easy, but you make the turn, and you know, your brain goes through a set of muscle memories, especially right, a left turn here, is a right turn there, and it's just too easy to make the turn and end up on the wrong So that's how I ended up in the wrong side of the road. You come out of a driveway and it makes sense from a restaurant, makes sense to stay. But I digress.

So so um, I don't know how we got to that point, but it's the Chinese film market and how volcanic you can't encounter it comes. This is really gonna drive content. China's going to help drive content for the future. So I know I only have you for a finite amount of time. Let's let's jump to our standard questions. And you know I only briefly talked about you at Scanton Arps. So you're at Scanton Arms, you're doing M and A work. How did you end up? What was

the transition from lawyer to television channel executive? How did that come about? Um? You know, you become a more senior associated as I have been doing, and you get to the point if you're doing well, you run your first or second big deal and it's exciting. You learn a lot and a lot of people, meet a lot of people. But then you realize, you know what, I'm going to be doing this around the clock for another

four or five years if I can become partner. I've learned a lot and UM, but I've always been driven just by passion and I didn't want to give up that opportunity. So it took a determined effort. This was before the internet. I sent out cold really yeah, I really, UM, and you have done enough television related work that you had expertise in it and you could talk about beast Guy B and everything else. Yeah, but more so I did.

I did a lot of international work, which I think was even more valued because there's plenty of people, you know, television at the time, at least in terms of TV branded channels that warning out a lot of people who knew how to set things up internet. So you sending mail out, you're coming from a firm with a great reputation. Who was the first entity that that? So I got a MTV Networks among others, said come on in, and

I was thrilled. As a young man, I was thirty maybe and I'm like, this coolest thing happening to maybe back way back in the eighties and nineties, MTV was his hip posit. I just wanted the business card. I just wanted that business card. And uh, I tell my kids now, because things are different, I say it was the Google. Then you just gotta understand, it's like, what do you think that in terms of hipness that that

might be. There was a period of time where MTV was was huge, absolutely huge, and around that time was when you um took them into national Yeah, I mean, I I helped that. I was more I was coming up in my career then, so I was part of

a team that really did that. But it was great work because MTV was so influential in my life because it came right at that, you know, seventeen or so when it came out, and uh, it's about right, we're about the same manage, and that was you know, that was my home base for years up until I probably had kids, and then it became news channels. But um so what do you kids find cool and hip today? That's the MTV of of the modern era? Is it?

Is it Snapchat? Is it things like that? Or? I hope my my thirteen year old won't get mad at me for this story. But she once said to me, Dad, I want a TV in my room. I go, why you don't watch TV? She goes, well, Jordan, her older sister has one. Go yeah, but you don't ever watch it? Um, yeah, right, I just want a big iPad on my wall. And that's what she's looking at. Yes, So they're every Really there's so little linear watching going on. And it's just

not my kids. It's it's the generation. There's no generation. There's no doubt about that. So you mentioned you are part of a team. Let's let's talk about your mentors. Who who mentored your career? Um? You know, I had a lot of a handful of people have really inspired me throughout my career. So UM, I wasn't one of those kind of people who have traveled from my companies with the boss who got moved to these other companies. I forged that on my own. But big inspirations to

me at Scattered. There were two attorneys in particular, guy named Finn Fogg who was a big m and a guy from the eighties and nineties just not just a brilliant lawyer, but I learned from him how to be cool as a lawyer, just how to be charismatic, what's important, what isn't Um, they don't teach that in law school. They don't teach that in law school. So I really learned a lot from him. Another attorney there, Nancy Lieberman, really taught me the value of how hard you have

to work for perfection. It's not good enough that you can't have a type. You shouldn't have a type of people are paying you a lot of money, not just for your substance, but everything else. I learned a lot from her, UM I think UM. I was also inspired a lot by when I worked at MGM Alex uman Agian, who was Kirk Korian's right hand man who ran the studio. That just a very good faith man who believed a lot in the principles he has spoused, looked out for

his people, but also challenge people. UM and had a just ran a tight and a smart ship. UM. Tom Freston inspired me at MTV Networks because I just think is the first time I saw someone who who always put creative first. But that made sense because you know, these are a lot of people treat the media business

like their businesses. They get too focused on the balance sheet and the p n L without realizing you've got to make the product hot, and you gotta make the brand hot, and you've gotta value those kind of people who can figure that out. I I just finished reading

We'll get two books in a few minutes. But I just finished reading two Pixar and be and by the former CFO who was Lawrence Levy was recruited UM by Steve Jobs to basically come rescue Pixar, and amongst other things, he said their secret source was how the corporate side, how the finance side essentially left the creative alone, and it was actually built in to the corporate culture and the entire structure. Hey, the geniuses who are creating toy story,

you're not gonna you can't mess with that. No notes, No, you know movie executive saying hey, can we can we bring in a girl to this, uh, you know, a toy to be Woody's friend or whatever. It is the sort of nonsense that you hear about with that. It's that same concept of of you have to to keep

the creative side separate. Still aren't. And I would ask you look at any media company right now and their story and where they are and their revolution in their arc, and more often than not you can explain it as to whose rule in the house is that the right brain or the left brain side of the brain. Um. So, when you see a mediocre television show, when you see a film, do you ever look at it and say, oh,

you could see the the accountants messed around with this. Definitely, you can see all the compromis, the suits got suits or whatever, or when it becomes so obvious why they skimped on this character or they put that in or whatever. And and that's the challenge from movies because sometimes you know, it looks that way, not always. I have one other great mentor though, in TV business, guy named Bruce Paisner, who's the CEO and president of the International Emmy Organization

long term hearst executive. I mean for years he has just been a good friend of mine and a great leader and incredibly gracious and wonderful sounding board. UM. So those have been my mentors. And so so let's talk about, um certain business bull who influenced, um, your concept? Who who affected how you look at running a studio, running a channel, running a bringing a US property international? Um?

What was creat about the opportunities I've had. I was really there at the first wave of bringing these channels abroad, and um, we had invented as we went along. So I hate to say this, but I often learned by other people's mistakes, people who may came a year or two before me, or who were hired before I got hired, And at first bringing these channels abroad for a lot of people, this was a financial bath, much like it is. Really. Oh yeah, I'm stunned. I would have thought that this

would have been a gold mine. It took years to become a gold mine. It did. Now it's going to fade again because linear is fading. How so wait, let me, let's digress a little bit. How long of the process was it. Did this go from g was spending a ton of money and we're not seeing anything to wow, we put X number of years and and the money is just rolling. So no one who copped to it, But I'd say overall longer than expected for a lot

of people. A lot had to do with people started launching before the markets were even there, so it seemed like a no brainer. Cable and satellite or cable big in the US, so it's gonna be eventually in Europe and it's going to be eventually. Was it better to be early than late? Do you run into a competitive disadvantage? Or those people who hung in there started early, had four site and said I'm gonna lookive fifteen years. Of course they've done well. They have the best position in

the market right now. So yes, And there were people and I admire some to Redstone for things like that, for hanging in there and wanting to just keep going at it. Those people at foresight and not everyone else did. How long did it take before this actually became profitable? The pends on the channel and the market. Some people, if I said five years, am I out of line? Five years seemed to have been the normal business plan projection. But honestly, with some of the businesses I launched, we

gotten the first year profitability. Others took a lot longer, and still others for other people may not have made money to this day. So let's talk a little bit about books. Everybody always loves this segment. I get questions quest all the time, Hey, what what were the books? As somebody recommended? So tell me some of your favorite books that either relate to this field or wholly unrelated. I'm a big fiction guy. Uh huh. So I jotted down those guys who's really influenced me throughout my life

when I was a young person. Jersey Kazinski, who my mind that was being there and Painted Bird by the way, Being There eventually becomes the Peter Seller's movie correct Painted Bird. I don't remember what became of that, but that was a big book. Yeah. Escaped young boy who escaped the Holocaust and led a group of refugees, um but gripping intense, and at the time there were not a lot of books like that other than uh nonfiction UM descriptions of

what happened UM. I was really influenced as a team by Garcia Marquez A Hundred Years of Solitude. I still consider that my favorite novel. UM. I love Philip Roth. I mean, I'm very happy Bob Dylan got the Nobel play before Let's Let's go back before you um so again, same same age, same demographic background. I was a little annoyed at Portnoy's complaint for writing my autobiography before I had a chance to write it, and I don't know if you had a similar I read as a teenager

right right, I was. I was literally a teenager on the beach when I read it, and I was like, how is somebody allowed to even write this stuff? It's amazing and hilarious. One of the funniest books I've ever read. I don't know if it's today, if a seventeen role picked up that book, if it would be as funny to them as it was to It's not, but it established the genre. No one was talking with that kind of profanity personally about sex, and there would be no

Woody Allen. If it wasn't even for that book, that's somewhat true. I could certainly see that that that progression, there would be a hilarity saved for that book. I think he started it all. But then if you look at his transformation, if you look at some of his later ones, like Indignation, they could be too totally different human beings. Um, what's the most recent book he just put out? I guess would it be Indignation? I mean they just made that into it? What was the one

right before that? Every? Okay? So uh, you know these last several books have been thinner, sparer moving plot against America. You know everyone's been pointing to that as what foreshadow what happened last night? Um? So I think he really was and is the most worthy author of the Nobel Prize. And um, one day he'll get his due. I really like a French offer Michelle Welbeck, who's just mind blowing, and just his last couple not so much. But um,

what what's your favorite title of this? I like a lot of people like Adamized, but mine is Platform is a novel he wrote which really blew me away. Just I think he he's fearless he broke a lot of norms with that. UM a nonfiction book which really moved me, and I gotta say probably really recommend anyone is Zuned by Dave Eggers. This is about someone who survived Hurricane Katrina,

Muslim man. What happened to him? Muslim building contractor who and this is nonfiction nonfiction zits z Tun the fellow's last name. Great guy who was saving people at businesses and treated quite unfairly by the authorities. Who he was. UM that movements one can imagine how that plays out. That moved me. UM. I really liked UM. I just read Jonathan Saffran Four's new novel here I Am. I liked a lot, especially as it went on. It was

very thought provoking. UM. Sacred Games is a Man Booker Prize runner up from India from Chandra that really someone else referenced victim genre and I don't remember who it was. I'll have to have to take a closer look. Great novel and I really liked it. Really, I still think about it's so creative that the Yiddish Policeman's Union, the Shabon book where it's an alternative history. My wife read it.

I haven't I haven't gotten so after the war World War two, Israel is not created and instead the US gives homeland to Jews and and sit Calaska, and how that all develops, and there's a there's a fuse on it because they it's gonna end after I think it was fifty years the gift of the franchise, so um. But the world he created the way he wrote that that book. Really, you know, there's been a run of

alternative historical realities. The frame of reference for me has always been Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle, which a talk show host wakes up and the is surprised to discover that World War Two didn't play out the way we all recall. The US lost to Germany and Japan, who have divided up the US and are um in the process of absorbing it to the parent company countries. And it's just he's infamous for multiple layers

of reality. But I love the concept. I just started watching it a couple of months ago, and it's I thought the quality of of how it looks in the set design, and they really didn't admit you could see there's some real money beyond. We were talking about this earlier. They are not afraid to spend money on stuff and it and that made the difference because you know what, if you cheaped out on showing graphically what this alternative

universe would not have worked. You had to get a certain tone and a certain tenor, and the way it looks and feels, and the way they do the maps and some of the I conography, and the way like they the Nazi symbols are Nazi symbols, but it's not just black and red swastika's. It's yeah, it's it's a little it's much more interesting and sophisticated. Then I think they nailed it. I mean to me that after seeing that, that's when I really started developing this theory. It's not original.

I guess that in that kind of format, with that kind of money, where you're not doing commercials where you could do it a a hundred eighteen minute episode or whatever, they're just taking storytelling the whole different place than Basic cable, and certainly that broadcasts can Season two is kind of On December, I was gonna say, I'm almost done with season one, and uh, I'll binge it over the holidays

and and get ready for season two. I've also loved some of the comedies like Catastrophe, which is so interesting and just not anything you would ever see on on US television. And I used to love these shows on on BBC, like Coupling was this hilarious. You always thought Friends was kind of toothless. It was just a randy, funny version of a uniquely British version of of of six young people engaging and everything they engage in, and they tried to do in the United States and they

just and then they actually turned that concept. If you've watched the Matt LeBlanc Show episodes, it's about bringing over this really intelligent, well written show from London, uh in in a a boys school with all the class issues and everything else, and they bring it over the US and they make the headmaster into a hockey coach, like they couldn't dumb it down anymore. And then it's about the battle between the writers the actors, and it's very

much a I loved Larry Sanders show. This is very much long the uh but I'm supposed to be asking you about books, not talking about television. UM, any other books you want to reference, nonfiction or fiction? UM, that's that's a good run. Yeah, I'm reading the Association of Small Bombs. Is that the novel that was also I think a man Booker runner up? Was it this year or that last? I just started it. See, I wish

I had more time for novels. What I read is non fiction or biography, your history or or market related. But um, I have a list of novels. I'm just dynastis you know the travel I had to do that. I traveled so much abroad twelve hours. This is the only reason I've been able to read. And this is the only reason that I literally is flying back from Asia. And I'm not boasting or maybe I sound pathetic, but I watched all ten episodes of Man High Castle, all

of them. I'm one trip back. I watched ten hours worth of it. I couldn't put it down. That that's uh, that's fascinating. Are you using physical books or is it a kindle or no? I really, um, if it's important to me, especially fiction, I'll only it's gonna be my old school little thing. I'm always only going to use the physical book. I have a kindle in my my briefcase. But if I'm home and I want to read something like you're traveling, I don't. I used to go vacation,

I bring eight books. I'd read four of them. You're dragging like a whole suitcase full of books. Now that doesn't happen. You have a vacation, you bring a kindle, but it's still not the same as if it's not the same, and I'd like finishing the book. I like putting in my bookshelf. We're doing that for years, you know. In in some ways, I suppose it's like people who

do deals and they want their loose sight que. You know, it's your loose cue if you read it, I remember read it, and uh, I hope we don't know that. Um alright, So beyond books, we we talked about what's changed in the industry. What do you think the next shifts are going to be in in streaming video, video and demands and just generally in in entertainment and content creation. So I was at a conference recently and I was in a minority. They said, will TV be all apps? Apps?

All apps? All apps? And I said yes, And people say, that's that's far fetched. But let me explain by what I mean. UM, right now, he's proprietary, non internet technologies to not stream but but transmit cable to your household, broadcast or or these are not scalable efficient technologies. They're going to come under more pressure as the markets decline because you just because of cost, because of cost, and because of scale, because less and less people are going

to be using it. Now streaming is uh, it's it's self improving every day. If you want to improve your cable network overnight and do a whole bunch of things, you may have to take out boxes, rip out chords. Internet's very different, it's becoming very robust. So the future, which I think is not too long from now, everything will be streamed. It may look like you can watch CNN and it looks like linear and at whatever. But soon I think the whole technological base of TV will

be based on IP protocol. So in a sense that is an app alright, you may not have to download. It doesn't look like you buy it in the it's not it's not the same. It's not the same, and it's I P. And that will lead us to a whole world where uh, you can do You'll be able to do amazing things with your channel, not even watch a channel. You'll be able to watch the on demand elements, the social commentary elements. I think that's where it's all going. So that's why I say the world is going to

be looking more like apps then it looks today. And and my last two and favorite questions. If if a millennial or recent college grad came to you and said, Hey, I'm interested in a career in television and video and content, what sort of advice would you give that, I'd say digital social marketing is whoever figures that out and knows it the way. Don Draper new advertising is going to do really well in life because that conventional way of

advertising is going gone with that next generation. Um, that's a big business, UM, I think. And then content creation and just really being on the cutting edge of that, UM,

we'll continue. People are always gonna want to see good TV in the US tends to except excel at that are are the difference between US and a lot of other places in the world aren't as big as it was twenty years ago because the technology is now closing that gap and allowing people to you know, go into a Mac and and create things that would have required a twenty million dollar investment in an Avid and a whole bunch of other things back ten years ago. So, um,

I think those are the two areas. And then in my final question, what is it that you know about content video overseas licensing today that you wish you knew when you started this career path twenty plus years ago? Um, I would have gone much much even though we knew the Internet everyone says is gonna eat our launch. Um, you eventually will. I would have personally gone much bigger into all of these stocks back in the mid nineties. Um, despite the dot com crash. Yeah, yeah, you gotta hang

in there if you believe, because I think so. We always my whole career have been talking about how the Internet is really going to change everything. But now we're seeing it, and I think people thought it's going to profoundly change everything. But in my view, in the next I don't know if it's five, ten or fifteen years, it is going to be everything. And so how far along the transition from analog to digital from I love the expression meat space to online. How far along that

process are we? So you know there used to be the last mile that there was the last hundred feet, there's less ten feet, which is about six seven years ago, and then that was breached. Now I call it the last three seconds of patients. That's it, because now you get these apps and your TV. It's kind of confusing, but each new generation TSE makes a lot and lot more seamless. The minute becomes entirely you don't even have to think about what you're pressing, and you don't know

if it's Netflix or if it's CNN Live. That changes everything, And you know what, that's the easiest part. It took trillions of dollars to wire the world with fiber optics. That was the last got you the last mile. Then to get you to that last ten feet, people were digging up your driveways. I remember FiOS was in my house for a week and a half. I don't know how they ever made money off of putting me onto files.

But now this last thing, this is gonna be This is happening right now, and someone's gonna really figure out how to integrate all of these experiences seamlessly over your television set, over your devices, and it's game over and it's a different game. Then that's where it's all going. Bruce, thank you for doing this and being so generous with your time we've been speaking with Bruce Tuckman. He was with MGM International, amc UM Global and a number of

other channels he helped bring worldwide. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure you look up an inch or down an inch on Apple iTunes and you could see the other hundred and something plus UH shows we've done. Uh. Be sure and right us. We love to hear your comments, feedbacks and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss if I did not thank Taylor Riggs, our booker, and Michael Batnick, our head of research, for helping to produce everything you've

been listening to. Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio, brought to you by Bank of America Merrill Lynch committed to bringing higher finance to lower carbon named the most innovative investment bank for climate change and Sustainability by the Banker. That's the power of Global Connections. Bank of America North America member f D I C