Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My guest is David Madden, Global head of Entertainment for what Pad web Tune Studios. I've known David in many incarnations
as a creative executive. He's worked on the studio side for Fox Television Studios, as a network programmer for Fox Broadcasting and a MC network, and he's spent the past two years as head of television for the busy Gregg Berlante Productions. Now he's taking all of that experience and channeling it into working with a new form of storytelling. I'll let David explain what a web tune is and
how the watt Pad platform works. I found it fascinating to learn from him about how the company in corporate simple math and insights from readers to help find kernels of gold in a vast mountain range of users submitted stories. During an interview in his l A office, Madden grins when he says, for the first time in his long career, he feels like he's working for a quote one Century company and quote. That's all coming up after the break, and we're back with David Madden, the global head of
Entertainment for what Pad web tune Studios. You start by explaining to us what exactly a web tune is and how its popularity is growing around the world on social networks and various media like that. He started about ten years ago based in Toronto. It is the largest digital platform for web novels in the world if you actually exclude China. China goes off, but the rest of the world is the are just It's about ninety millions subscribers. Fifty five languages are represented in what on what pad
um it is. It has grown over time to be a mammothly meaningful site, especially for younger people. The audience that the readers on what pad a largely fifteen thirty five um But and there have been things in the past that have become films or TV shows that were based on white Pad stories. There have been stories that have come out of off what Pad that have become movies or shows. So the Kissing Booth movies that were there are three of them on Netflix were based on
what Pad story. We didn't produce it, but they did come from there. Um there's a movie called after theatrical movie Love Story that spawned five sequels. UM. While the optrical outside the US that was based on what Pad Story, So they that platform exists, and there was a web two platform. Web Tune is based in Korea and Soul. It is large digital comics and graphic novels platform in
the world. Ninety million people subscribed to that, so between the two platforms almost two million people or on either what pad of web Tune. Web Tune basically just means it's a something visual, a comic on the Internet. That's all it means, um so, but it actually looks different if you if you go on web tune, it's vertical scrolling. So instead of the way that we are used to reading comics where you go across the page, you go down the page, get to end of the chapter. UM.
Actually they call them episodes. So there are extra graphic novels on web tune that could be two five hundred, six hundred episodes long, and they're all carefully drawn by individual artists and creators and UH and have different UH readerships from from web tune. UM. Both what Pad and web Tune measure in things called reads. So if you which means like you could go on a story on what Pad or or comic on tune, you could be on it for five seconds, that's a read. You could
be on it for five hours that's um. So, we don't actually really know exactly how many people have finished reading a given book or a given comic, but there are titles on web tune that have over a billion reads. Um there are type over a billion. My eyebrows just jumped out. Uh that I'm not sitting here saying that a billion people actually reads that start to finish. But uh. And there are titles on one bob Pad that are in the hundreds of millions of reeds. Um So a
big global readership for these two platforms. And then there are titles that have virtually no reads. So it's it is genuinely a meritocracy where both platforms in their ways are built on word of mouth. Are they built on subscription or advertising? What? How do they monetize this kind of advertising? Well, and there's I could get a little more detailed. There there's advertising, um. There there's publishing. So the most successful of those books on either pad of
web tune. They are there are hard hard copies, they're in bookstores, they're they're by their own Amazon, they're they're viable. Um. There's a title on web tune called Laura Olympus, which has been on the top of the Graphic Novel Best New York Times Bestseller list multiple times. The new there's a one called Tower a Tower of God that has one point five billion titles. Believe Reads I Believe and that's the third season that is about to come out, and that will that has been on the top of
the list. That's another way to monetize them. Something called paid reads, where the most successful stories you can read for free up to a certain point and then if they continue. And it's modest as a couple of dollars, but that's it's another way for us to get paid um. Or there's paid a webtoon and get paid um. But that's how they monetize it. So that's it sounds like a literal trove of content. There's there is so much stuff. We don't actually know how much is on watpad, but
it's certainly in the hundreds of millions of stories. Uh so is it the user do users upload their own stories. Users upload their own stories. Anybody, anybody in any country can put their story on the platform. We check it to make sure it's not offensive, obscenes something terribly, but once it clears that filter, anybody can put them up. There's no creat there's no qualitative filter. It's all about kind of just offensiveness. Um. And anybody can go on
their read it's free. So so now the authors retain their rights, so we aren't by putting it on the platform getting their rights any any on both platforms. The creators retain their their creative prerogatives. Um. So it's so it's good for us because it gets people to come to our platform. It's good for the authors because it gets exposure for them and they hang onto their rights so they can sell something later on down the line, either the movies or television or traditional publisher or to
us as a publisher for actual compensation. So so the things that you are developing into more traditional television and film or other types of digital media properties, you you're still have to you still go and do a deal with that creator and a licensing agreement. It's not like a blanket. Once they put it up, then then what Pad web tune can adapt it. No, that's that's correct and sort of how it works. Just to go into
a little more detail. We love detail on a strictly business. Okay, then then here you go, uh so on what Pad, like I said, people can put up their stories. Um, if you are as reader, you're curious about a certain kind of thing. Let's say you're really into vampires. You and you went on what Pad and say, what are the top ten vampire story zone? Right now? The platform will point you to hear the stories that are most liked, that they've got most feedback against. All about word of mouth,
it's all about positive feedback. Everything is tagged, everything data is collected and everything. So you'll you'll, you may check out that vampire story. That's another set of needs. The more time something is read, that that creates more and more constituency, more and more audience for that particular title.
When it reaches a certain threshold for us, it's one thousand reads, then it kind of gets on our radar and it goes to a very large group of book scouts in Toronto, which would call the Content Group H and they review anything that's reached that threshold. They then anything they think could possibly be a movie, could possibly be a TV show, they sent to me and our teams. We have a film team, we have TV team, we have an animation team. Um. We then they said this
maybe thirty things a month. Let's say. Um, we then look at those things and will cherry pick the things that we actually think we can sell, things that actually feel like they fit the television and film market. And once we've identified a title we like, then we reach out to that author and we say we'd like to
make an option persons deal shopping agreement. Um, we make that deal with It's so far, every single time we've reached out to a water paddle author, we've made a deal because there there, they like the platform and they're excited to be there. Uh. They feel flatter that somebody's actually wanted to try to make a move your show
out of them. Uh. With web tunes similar, although it's a web tune, authors creators have sometimes already found um revenue opportunities in Korea, so they may be a little more uh careful about what they what rights they want to give away and not give away. But basically it's been a very positive relationship between what authors, web web tune authors and US and once we make a deal, h then we now we're out like traditional producers trying to package things, put them together in such a way
that we can sell them too. Platforms are you are? Are things being uploaded in multiple languages from uages for for what pad web tune because it just takes a lot more work to put a web tune up because it's all artistically created. Are basically either in English or Korean, m mostly in English, but but it's perfectly easy for anybody to type in their rock pad story. So, like
I said, lots of lots of different languages. And what we've done is both position things to be in the US market um which are previently told by American authors telling American stories. But we're making shows in Indonesia and Malaysia and the Philippines, in Spain and France and Italy mostly from authors whore writing in the in the appropriate language.
And the plan is to distribute these shows on the same platform so that you get to that you reach that audience, or you're going to license these You're gonna license these two more traditional network and streaming channels. The plan as to as of today is to sell them to other distributors. So we are selling to Netflix or Amazon or or or networks in the US. UH. And we have slight deals with companies like by a Common Freeman Freemantle where we have multiple projects with them which
we are selling in multiple territories. Um. There are Indonesian networks and and and other Asian networks that we're selling things to down the line. Could there be some platform of our own maybe, but but for right now, we're really trying to work through through traditional distribution systems. We see Indonesia is like one of the growing markets in virtually every metric for media and entertainment. It's a really
interesting market to watch. It's basically it's the number four country in the world in terms of population and it's a big it's a big market for us. What pad is a very meaningful word as this web tune interesting? Um? Is there? So this is a kind of a new kind of storytelling. Is there are there qualities to adapting this to TV and fill to other types of media?
Are there qualities that you're retaining? Is there something that makes it a web tune or a what pad story that you're trying to retain as you adapted for other formats. It's it's a it's a it's a good question. I think that it's hard to generalize because so many different authors are right for these sites. We have on what pad alone, five million writers working on our posting at least once a month. Five million writers. Um, it's a lot of writers. So it's very hard to generalize across
five people. Um. And it's a it's a slightly smaller number. Is so much smaller number for web tune because it just takes more work, But there's a lot of different authors. The thing I would say, um, is that coming from traditional media as I do, I'm used to writers who have grown up in Hollywood, who have who are reading Variety every day, who are very knowledgeable or think they're very knowledgeable about what we'll sell or will not sell, and they walk in with a certain degree of cynicism
about what idea they may want to present. People who are writing for these platforms are the opposite. They are writing from their hearts, they're writing their stories. They're not even thinking about Hollywood mostly when they're writing them, they're
telling their narratives. There's a lot of very personal perspective in there, and you'll just find ideas that either feel genuinely authentic and true to that particular writer, where where that persons lived, where that where that what their culture is. Or sometimes you'll you'll read ideas that you'll just think that's nuts, that's a crazy idea. But we live in a world where the craziest ideas tend to have the
most traction. Uh So, you know, the writer's on what Pad and web tune debt tend to have no field, cynical filter. There's nothing in them saying, oh but that will never sell to two Netflix is they're not buying this kind of thing. One of the things that's really interesting about what pad if. I don't know if you ever read a book on this site, but it's a very different experience, or at least it candy. So you can read a pad story and you can read it
like a traditional narrative. We read like a traditional book you've got from random house, or you can read it and you get to a certain point in the narrative where something meaningful happens, where somebody kisses somebody, or somebody dies or something significant happens, and you can write in the digital margins that say that was awesome, that was horrible. I can't believe they did that. Why do that? You
can get get it into arguments with people. You can look up how many people like that given moment, and people hated that given moment. You can react in a social media is way to the book as you're reading it. Uh, if you choose to. Again, you're not obliged. But I think it's part of what the attraction has been to younger readers is that of billinge to react right now, a little more interaction into the book, um, which is
on the one hand, fun for them. On the other hand, it gives us all this information about it's your focus group. Well you know it's it's like we can we can we can look at actual statistics of they love that moment, they hated that. So it helps us a when we're kind of working with our writers, say hey, don't cut this character out that's their favorite character, uh, or or
guide them whichever way. It also helps us tell platforms, and this is a big part of I think the attraction of hey, not only do we know that they liked it, we know why they liked it. You know what what and they don't know exactly what they what, what meant something to them and what is because we have all this literal information that we've collected, so it is it is like a focus group, but it's the focus group of hundreds of thousands of people, not twenty
four people. In more coming way, don't scroll away, We'll be right back with more from David Madden of what pad web Tune Studios. And we're back with more from David Madden of what pad web Tune Studios. What is your mandate now coming in to you know, to build out a studio and to to get what pad web Tune into the business of more traditional TV and film content creating. What is your goal do you want to do you have a do you want to reach you know,
ten shows in two years? What do you can you give us some sense of kind of what your what your goal posts are at this point? Uh, I don't know that our goal posts are necessarily numerical in that way. Um you know, I think that that and the different in the business are are are moving at kind of different speeds. We're a little farther along in the film side. So right now we have we have two films in post production that are actually not in post production, they're
finished posts. They're actually now selling at the a f M with the American Film Market as the erectly as we speak, we're kind of four lanes on the film side. Lane one fully financing our own movies, and the kind of five million dollar range co financing movies that are a little more expensive. So we're doing one that we're closing a deal on with a distributor you would recognize, Uh, that would be like a ten million dollar movie that
we would co finance. We we really want to do bigger movies where we wouldn't finance it, but there there would be studio sized movies, major streaming sized movies that we've just worked for fees. Um. And then we have a whole international movie business. So for example, we did a movie in Spain called Nana Uh my span it's just it's non existent through my window, which which came out earlier this year. It is now the number four movie non English language movie on Netflix in its history. Uh.
And it spawned two sequels. That was that was based on a wit Pad story. Um. So so we want to do movies all over the place. Um. And you know, I think in terms of goals, I'd love to be making uh four to six movies by twenty a year by UM. With television, we're a little more early stage. Uh and it's just kind of in the nature of how the two companies came together. Uh. So we have a couple of things that Disney Disney and Company, Netflix
and the things we are in early stage about. But I don't expect us to have anything uh greenlit in even three I expect us to set up a lot of things, but I think, you know, by let's i'd love to have board of six shows on the air. Uh, you know, but we have some growing to do to get there, especially like scripted scripted TV drama series. Those
those can be big financial commitments. Are those Is there a world where you would UM finance that or do you aim to more like a cost plus model with streamers to kind of get you on the board if we could, if we could, Uh, I mean, I don't believe this is a market where you deficit finance a TV series the way one used to ten years ago, Right,
it says when you say it almost sounds like an anachronism. Well, and it is economically at this point but sure if if we if we can be in a position where we can be the studio on a cost plus basis, Um, that would be great. Right now. I think we're perfectly happy to partner with traditional studios, especially if we're doing something at a platform which has an in house studio connected to it. We're happy to partner with people. Um,
we we want to walk before we run. Um, but in the longer run, could we if we could own more, would be better? Sure? M. You seem to have a lot of fair amount going on on the movie side. Are the are you finding those relatively low budget movies there you can make enough to make it worth your while. We'll find out, you know. I think that that you know, we're playing to a very in the movie side, certainly on the smaller movies, we're playing to a specific target.
We're playing to y A, We're playing to young romantic stories, young thrillers. Um. So it's still a market actually that that consumes movies. UM. You know, obviously harder with people my age. Um, I'm very old by way for anybody's listening, but so uh so, I there seems to be a
lot of appetite for for the brand. So we've both in the US and internationally, so I think that people know that there's especially if you can say to people, hey, we have eighty million reads on this, there's enough people who love this book that they're gonna want to check out the movie. And if you can make a movie for four or five million dollars or le stephen, uh,
it's pretty safe. It's pretty safe that you know that you'd be that as long as we don't make a disastrously bad movie, that the audience that so that either read the book or knows of the book is going to be stimulated. You want to go, m h. You must be as you develop things, and you know, with the anticipation of getting shows before cameras, you must be having to arrange some creative marriages between creators and people with the skill to really, you know, put a TV
show on its feet. Is that I know, we all know that can be tricky at times. Has that been Has that been a big focus for you in terms of matching the right creative partners to get things? What have you found people that have experienced I mean, are people are like more seasoned writers writing in these formats? Um, what are you talking about? People who are adapting them. Are you talking about the authors of the original book
The authors are the originals. Well, the authors of the original books are, um, you know, they're starting, some of them are starting to have enormous amount of success and therefore have the different degrees wanting to influence or shape the way their stories are being told. Uh. And we
respect that and we're happy to. But it's not just similar to working with traditional authors of traditional book business, um, in that both in the traditional book world and in our world, they're writers who take go with God, don't care to send me my check, or are rooting for you and their authors you want to be more involved. Uh. And either is fine. But you rarely find an author
that is equipped to become a show writer. And I think that's again, I think that's true in both an immediate It happens, but rarely and and you know, I think that if I think many authors love the ability to sit at their computer and create that their own story with very little micro managing. And if you're gonna go with the television or film, you have to be able to put up with micro management on a lot
of different fronts. Uh. It's like a professional So it's just again, some can adapt to it, most can't, and and even most even more than that, just don't want to. Yah. That's interesting. I mean, David, you've had such a breadth of experience on the studio side, working for Fox Television Studios, working for the Fox Broadcasting Network, Game Scene Networks. What we've given all your experience in traditional television and film. What do you see is? What do you see? What
is the sort of special opportunity here? Used to be able to walk into a studio or a network with an original idea, uh, and the writers of something that they came from them and pitched that and have a chance of sellient um. And that's super hard. Uh, it's you know, it's a rare thing that even the most experienced, even the most lauded writer, ken walk in and just tell their story. Uh. The phrase I p or the to those two letters didn't really exist when I started.
Nobody used that expression. Now it's the expression that ever everybody's lips. Uh. When I was in my last job as a producer, working with BRILLIANTE, so many people, even though we were very powerful producer people wires walked in and the first question they ask is do you have any any i P um And so the building now in this job. But I think is unique is we can we we have the blessing of a having i P that is that has a built in fan base, that that we can prove and demonstrate that the i
P has has audience. But it's coming from writers that they are actually telling original stories from their heart who are not writing from calculation. They're they're writing from their spirit. Uh. And that quality, even if those writers can't be the person who actually writes the script, those are those qualities of freshness, of of true uh audacity um. That is a lot of it attracts our adapters to the right
to the stories that are on our plan form. So I think the opportunities just to tell stories that break some rules because they're coming from people who don't know the rules uh and yet have ingrained popularity, popularity that we can demonstrate. And I think that's synthesis of originality and proven success. Is a pretty unique thing that these two platforms can actually offer. What's been the responses you talk to people in the creative community more, you know,
more traditionally seasoned producers and writers. Has there been is there are people intrigued by these stories? Uh? Well A Sometimes when I have a first approach, it's it's sort of like I told you, I reacted like, well, what what is that? What? What? What? There's a little education. I have to kind of go through this entire speech many times. UM. So if it seems familiar to me, that's why you can send this out in advance. When you go, I'll send them copy of the podcast. Thank you,
happy to be happy, to be a service. Um No. But but I think once you take people through it, uh, then I think they are treated because I think it is again that combination of oh I can walk into Netflix, I can walk into Disney, I can walk into Paramount Plus with data with stuff. Uh and and that's meaningful. That makes you feel less naked as a writer, like you're walking in with something where it's like here, look, there's people who like this. Um And at the same time,
it's you know it. There's the liberty of doing something that's kind of crazy and nutty. It doesn't have to be uh like, oh, you're you're doing something with I P. But it's for Marvel or it's for d C. So it has to follow all these rules. That have built into that world a little bit of that you have to kind of fit into a very tricky box sometimes, at least so I'm told. UM so so I think it's so far, um, I mean four months in so far people have responded to it really well because they
feel like, oh, there's a chance to do something different. Well, I think original ideas are are as scarce as rain in southern California days. And that is not to diminish the importance of either. David, thank you so much. Thank you for the education. Hopefully we can be of service here too with with a good explainer, but really appreciate it. I can sense, and having known you a long time, I can sense your enthusiasm and your excitement about this.
I genuinely am. I mean, I've enjoyed all the jobs I've done, I've had some great bosses, I've I've I've all the steps in my path I value. But this just feels really different, and and if I can say it this way, I feel like I'm working for a twenty one century company, having spent all of my career prior to this working for twenty century companies. Nothing wrong with twenty century companies, but they're clear economic challenges facing
those companies. This company feels like it's all potential, it's all outside. Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcast. We love to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for the free Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business