Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in which we speak with some of the brightest minds working in the media business.
Today.
I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety Today on the pod a Twofer. We've got an interview with Phil Weiser, the CTO at Paramount Global. He sat down earlier this summer at the Collision Tech conference in Toronto with my colleague at Variety, Vip Heidi Chung to talk about a wide range of technologies that his company is investing in. But before we get to that, I'm going to try something new on
this Strictly Business podcast. For the past ten weeks, I've been writing a new column on Variety Intelligence platform called the Mogul Memo. Each installment is addressed to a different mogul in the media world, maybe a CEO like Netflix's Ted Surrounds or the new top executive at Elon Musk's ex Linda Yakarino, and you'll find it candid in tone that might actually be an understatement anyway. This week we're bringing the Mogul Memo to podcast form. Call it the
Mogul Monologue, if you will. It's addressed this week to Scooter Braun the pop star Svengali, who's been all over the headlines. So you don't want to miss this one, and you don't want to miss a Mogul memo. Check them all out if you haven't yet at Variety dot com slash Mogul Memo. Most are behind the VIP paywall, but now's as good a time as any to join VIP. If you haven't already, take advantage of a discounted rate. Head over today to Variety dot com slash vip save.
That's enough promotion for me. Enjoy the strictly business debut of the Mogul memo featuring Scooter Braun, followed by Heidi Chung's interview with Paramount CTO Phil Wiser, and We're back. Enjoy the strictly business debut of the Mogul Memo featuring Scooter Braun, followed by Heidi Chung's interview with Paramount CTO Phil Weiser. Dear Scooter, I would have reached out sooner, but honestly, it's so awkward. I don't know what to say.
Hallmark doesn't make any sorry your career imploded sympathy cards. After all, it's not every day a well known music industry manager watches a trio of his best clients walk out the door all at once. It's bad enough losing Justin Bieber, but for the world to learn that you also recently lost Demi Lovado and Ariana Grande.
That's rough.
That said, the terms of the suppose a departure are murky, to say the least, as a source from your camp issued a statement of Variety suggesting your clients technically haven't moved on, though you kind of have. Quote all of Scooter Braun's clients are under contract and negotiations have been going on for several months as Scooter steps into his
larger role as Hibe America CEO. End quote. Hib America is something of a side gig you've held down for the past two years, but as Variety's Jim as Wad recently reported, it's increasingly become your main focus, and that I think Scooter is central to understanding why you lost these clients, as a lot of the reporting this past week supports, I think you deluded yourself for too long into thinking that you could have kept them in the fold by delegating the management to others on your team.
That's a notorious no no, in the manager business, where bedside manner is everything. But I wouldn't beat yourself up too much about running out of steam when I think about the fact that you had a deal with handling the kind of personal lives Bieber Grandelevado lead not to mention until twenty eighteen, Kanye West, you qualify for hazard
pay early retirement. Maybe a lifetime supply is Zoloft. As for your own personal take on this PR crisis, all we have to go on was a joke you made on twit sorry X where you proclaimed, quote breaking news, I'm no longer managing myself end quote. Thanks for clarifying, Scooter. Since you've clearly retained your sense of humor, you couldn't possibly be upset, Or maybe you're just trying to look like you're not upset. The thing is, no one could
blame you if you were actually upset. Considering the legions of Taylor Swift fans currently calling you out on social media for the sin of buying her record company back in twenty nineteen, which Swift has characterized as stealing her masters out from under her lightning rod, that deal turned out to be It actually sparked a series of brilliant transactions on your part to flip your own company to South Korean k pop giant Hibe for just over a
billion dollars in twenty twenty one, giving you a seat on the company's board and the CEO position at Hibe America.
Of course, no.
One really knows you from that job. They know you as a manager, and now they know you as a manager who has lost all of his best clients at the same time. Now, this wouldn't look as bad as it does if the gig at Hibe America you were moving on to wasn't such a hmm and I'm putting this charitably a work in progress. Hip America has to be understood first and foremost as an attempt at diversification away from the Hibe mothership, the k pop factory that
gave the world the Korean boy band BTS. And that's no small load to carry. Because BTS is currently on hiatus for the next few years. Good luck generating new business while that cash cow takes a breather. What Hibe America is primarily is Big Machine label group, the controversial home of Swift's first six albums, which you acquired for
more than three hundred million. Nearly four years later, you spent about the same amount for hip hop label Quality Control, home of chart toppers including Little Baby and Lil YACHTI. What's more, Bloomberg reported in June that Hibe was looking to arrange financing for another three hundred and eighty million to make more deals in the US, which all sounds great, Scooter, except for when I ask myself what no one seems to have noticed in this mess, which is, what have
you been doing for the past two years? You've already been at Hip America perus. The first details in your bio, for instance, and what is characterized as a quote elite portfolio of acquisitions and partnerships end quote does not seem very elite. For instance, it's mentioned a four year old alliance with Marvel Studios founder David Mazel that seems to be about building a new superhero franchise that so far
hasn't produced much but a forgettable and ft collection. There's also a partnership with veteran unscripted producer j d Roth that so far has yielded some pretty forgettable vanity projects for the clients you just lost. There's also an investment fund at the intersection of music and technology, featuring a former BMG president who hasn't been with the fund since May twenty twenty two. And there's also an investment firm, TQ Ventures, which, according to a New York Post report
last week, is looking to quote ditch you. Now, maybe all this is just another sign that you can't be both a mogul and a manager. Maybe you have another three hundred and eighty million in your pocket. You can make some moves that will truly convince me you can do something of note at High America. I have my doubts,
but I'm gonna tell you why. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt because I think this PR crisis is actually a gift in disguise that is going to force you to make a clean break from the management business. If you follow my advice, you see your swift rift reminded me. Looking bad in the public eye
is something you've acquainted with. You're one of the rare few to walk through this fire and realize the wounds do heal if you have tough enough skin, and unlike most managers who adhere to the cardinal rule of old school Hollywood representation, to remain in the shadows and let their clients soak.
Up the spotlight.
You've always broken that rule and built an image for yourself, kind of like someone who always had an endgame that involved not being a manager. If that's the way you think most in your shoes don't, then you probably believe in another old school Hollywood axiom. There's no such thing as bad publicity. And that's why you should look at last week's events, which most may see as an act of self destruction, as something like an act of reinvention.
So counterintuitive as this sounds, lean into it. Look, there's no getting past a perception you've experienced a big setback. But that's okay, because when a student of the dark arts of pr like your your self can appreciate is that there is a flip side to being thrust out of the management business as dramatically as you have, And that's you've sent as clear and loud as signal as you can to the marketplace that you've opened a new
chapter in your career. Maybe it wasn't voluntary, and maybe I'm not that confident you're ready for High of America, but your mogul phase has begun and your manager one has ended. You learn the hard way. Trying to straddle the two won't work. So think of your crisis as a chrysalis, a rebranding, or dare I say a rebranding.
Will be back in just a minute.
With Paramount CTO Bill Wiser. And now here is Heidi Chung with her interview with Paramount CTO Phil Weiser from the Collision Tech Conference.
Hi everyone, I'm Heidi, Thanks so much for joining us. I'm joined by the Phil Weiser, EDP and Chief Technology Officer at Paramount Global.
We're gonna get real intimate.
We're gonna talk about all things tech in media, and I guess to kick things off, we should start sort of from the new beginning, if you will. So the merger between Viacom and CBS in twenty nineteen. Tell us how the company has sort of evolved since then.
Well, the merger was a great opportunity to rethink what a media company is going forward. We merged CBS and Viacom and Paramount Pictures in the end of twenty nineteen, and we took that as an opportunity to say, well, if I were starting this scale of a media company now, how would I rebuild it.
So we went and looked at everything.
From the way we produce content, process it, distribute it, and obviously building out stream capabilities and from the ground up rebuilt that on modern Internet cloud technologies, which is a big undertaking with that complex of an organization. But now three and a half years later, it's really paying off and we've been able to grow some.
Businesses which we'll talk about on the back of all that.
Yeah, so launch was obviously huge, but now I feel like the streaming industry is sort of dealing with a new set of challenges.
So as a consumer, I don't know.
About all of you, but sometimes I get a little frustrated with apps because the user experience isn't necessarily always great, right, It's sort of hard to find content that you want to watch. Recommendations aren't really that good. So is it that something that you're thinking about? At Paramount Global as well.
Constantly so we'll hit a recommendations and a lot of these things were like, it's the new streaming, these are new problems to be tackled.
They're not new at all.
My last startup was in two thousand and six, and the premise of that was to use recommendation and Netflix at the same time, it just put out a challenge to the tech community to come up with better recommendations.
So we're here almost twenty years later.
Still talking about recommendations, right, So it's definitely improving. But what we found with recommendations is that user interface integration is the key to success. You don't magically pull a piece of content up and say you want to watch this now. You just have to make sure that you're modifying the user interface in real time based on that user and also based on the environment that they're in.
So we're definitely continuing to innovate there. We have an applied machine learning group that really is our primary focus is on modifying that UI based on now more and more AI.
Okay, so algorithms one way that you're doing that as a lot of algorithms, Yeah, okay, great.
And they're not all AI algorithms. Good old analytics works in a lot of cases.
Okay, So I know everyone here wants to hear Phil talk about AI, which we will be getting to in short in.
A short moment, but I do want.
To talk a little bit about last year. I feel like the conversation last year and twenty two was a lot about the metaverse. It was a lot about NFTs, and I know Paramount Global was definitely playing those areas as well. Where do those initiatives sort of stand right now? Are you still thinking about investing there?
Well, why don't we?
I won't talk about where we're investing completely, but let's talk about the blockchain NFT world for a bit. And I've been, you know, big on crypto five years ago as a storage of value, but you look back and there's really no significant blockchain platform outside of value Store that's been successful and including NFTs, except for those that got in early and got out fast. So you know, we're definitely, you know, continuing to look at the space,
but not investing heavily in that metaverse. We're still looking at because there is something beyond a touchscreen computer in your pocket that's going to be a primary user interface.
And if you just walk around here.
I live in Manhattan, I bump into more people than I can count every day with their face stuck in a phone trying to walk.
That heads down experience is going to evolve.
Where it goes, whether it's you know, Apple's new device or something that Matter is doing I'm not really going to bet completely on that. Betting against apples generally a bad idea, but I do feel like that immersive experience is going to get more more interesting.
I don't think it's going to be a completely.
Isolated metaverse as we talked about last year, but we're still looking at that.
Give us an update on the NFT stuff that you were working on.
Well, we're still in the market.
So we started out with a star Trek launch with NFTs that were variations of the enterprise. We've done it with other brands. We'll work with a company recur that stands up a marketplace for that. We're continuing on that path. But I think, like everyone, we're just seeing that it's kind of it's stalling out to some extent in the market.
Okay, So when you're thinking about new opportunities when it comes to tech within media, how do you assess investing in different opportunities that you see and how does that conversation sort of play out in the boardroom.
Well, we follow the consumer, right, so we're not going to go to AI you tell me nice when you can unleash me, but and we look at what's really being adopted and we take an adventure investing approach to these technologies.
We go in small.
Our metaverse investments have been relatively small. What we're building, same thing with other technologies. But I'm really looking at, you know, where there's a pivot in consumer adoption because while we all know these things are going to happen, when into what scale is the hardest thing to predict. So we're very i think hopefully smart at being a fast follower, making sure we're in talking to the key players in these spaces and then we can accelerate when the market really diet distraction.
Okay, so are you ready for AI or.
I'm always ready for it?
Okay, let's jump in.
What is Paramount doing when it comes to AI? How are you thinking about it?
Now?
AI is not new technology, right, It's been around for quite some time, but this is a new revolution that we're seeing with generative AI. So what are your personal thoughts on it? What is the company doing?
Well, we'll get to the it's not new thing, but I'm glad that it's hitting this next wave. We formed our five machine learning groups six years ago, which was the last wave in that twenty seventeen timeframe. We started talking naturally to computers with Syria and others, and that was a big breakthrough in terms of language processing, so real time natural language processing. And also we applied it a lot for image recognition, so we stood up the ability to tag images or video and then we could
we could modify that. This new phase of generative AI to me is a fundamental shift obviously in terms of what we can do in all phases of our production and distribution. So we're looking at it primarily now in terms of globalization, because you know, the ability to automatically convert to many languages and release an asset around the globe is very challenging and traditionally we've windowed. So if we have, say a new episode of Yellowstone, and we want to push that around the globe, we have a
couple months before it hit different regions. Now we want that episode to hit everywhere in a couple of weeks, which is really not just feasible in many cases. So we're looking at how we can apply AI machine learning to tackle some of those globalization problems and deal with translation and make it feel very natural and high quality, because we do feel like it's a global marketplace and that's a great opportunity. We're also looking at for visual effects,
just basic simple visual effects. We talked about rotoscoping a little earlier. I think we've got a ton of people that are in their manually editing video. We applied this actually to the Cobert Show, one of our CBS properties, where they have to turn around some of these video clips in a matter of hours.
Based on recent news, we took.
A couple of our editors and applied this and they took a five hour task of creating a comedy clip and did it in ten minutes. So that just proves that and they're thrilled because the creative idea was there, they knew what they wanted to do, and then they had hours of manual labor to.
Get to the end result.
In this case, they could flip that around very quickly and move on to the next thing. So I think there's going to be a lot of impact on production and then also marketing we.
Should talk about as well.
Tell us well, you know, as a media company, we spend almost all of our money on creating content and marketing it.
And marketing is.
Really a great application for AI right now because generally the content you're producing is derivative of the original content, and the machine learning algorithms now and AI are very good at modifying existing content or introducing new elements of
existing content. So we're applying that, you know, at scale to marketing again for globalization, also to create a lot of different variants, so we can create different versions of a promo clip or a trailer for a feature from different audiences very quickly, which is now very manual.
So we see a lot of opportunity in that.
Okay, So, Phil, judging by the way that you're speaking about AI and the way that paramount is leveraged.
Why did you get it?
You sound really optimistic, but we know that there are concerns out there, right, So despite your bullishness, what are your thoughts on sort of the idea that creatives are like, well, are we going to be out of a job in a few years?
Is a I going to take over? And are they going to be writing scripts?
Are they going to be you know, help helping with production to the point where some producers won't even be needed. Like, what are your thoughts on those concerns job security for the creatives.
Well, there's there's a basic reality that this wave of technology will shift where people need to spend their time working.
You just can't deny that.
But I think it's been overhyped that this AI is going to go and generate a script, generate novel, new ideas that replace what humans are doing. I think it's you know, maybe it'll get there over time.
And I've had a lot of debates on that topic about what that is.
It's kind of a more consciousness existential question that I won't get into. But the ability to assist in the way I describe that editor on the lay show is
very real. So we're looking in from a tool perspective, and even in the writer's room, if a writer can have an idea and then turn that into a couple pages of text, and then curate and modify that, and even take that idea and say I want to see what that looks like in a desert and see you know, pre visualization of that work in almost real time, that's going to make their creative process much more powerful. And I think we're gonna get more ideas, we're gonna have
more content. And the one thing we're learning from the streaming wars that we're all in still is, you know, consumers having limitless appetite for content, which is great as a content company. So we're going to have to continue to create more even when the pressure is there on streaming to be profitable, which you know, the level of high quality theatrical grade episodic content that we're producing is now,
you know, not maintainable. We're gonna have to figure out how to produce that high quality content at a lower cost.
So Paramount is a company with a treasure trove of IP right from SpongeBob to you name it.
Paramount has created it.
So when we're thinking about AI and intellectual property and protecting that IP, how are you sort of thinking about that now?
Well, there's a couple elements, Like one is understanding what our rights are and what I did a presentation for our senior leadership team at Paramount back in December where I lost the Saturday. I'm sure many if you have lost a Saturday playing around with mid Journey, Dolly, you name it chat.
GBT three had just come out. But I did a presentation and I went in there and I generated.
A picture of the transformers on the Paramount Pictures lot, which blew people away. Like we knew there would be a character from transformers in one of these models, but the fact that it could place it on our lots next to our cafe bleue people away. Just a level of information that's in there right now. Now we're not blocking that. Right now, we're trying to understand what it means for us, But there will be more and more
regulation coming in. I was actually somewhat pleased to see what was coming out in Washington, DC is ideas from Congress that were pretty pragmatic and not just going straight to it. All has to be explainable. You have to tell us everything you're training your models on. But more of like, if it's clearly a violation of copyright, there has to be some way that we can.
Take action on it.
I mean what you're saying with regulation, but I feel like if we've seen any other big tech hearing, these people sometimes don't know what they're talking about, right, So when it comes to AI, they seem a lot more I guess read up on it, more understanding of the technology. But do you think the government can regulate quickly enough? Because this technology is so quick right, It's rapidly evolving. So I guess like, are there any concerns on that front at all.
Yeah, my view is they should do the best they can while not doing damage. And that's actually what I liked hearing coming out, was that kind of mindset that clearly this is going to move faster than we can stop it. This moratorium concept's kind of ridiculous. Nobody's going to do that. But if we're thoughtful and we have people like Sam Oupman coming in and talking to us, then we can figure out what makes sense in the near term and set us up for a longer term.
I think doing nothing is the wrong thing to do.
I really do.
And we've learned our lesson from social media, which you've heard a lot, so I.
Think doing something but being thoughtful is the right right approach.
Okay, so to put you on the spot, but to kind of put you on the spot. Give us a little bit of a prediction where you think AI within media and entertainment could potentially be in the next six months to twelve months. Do you think it'll still be talk of the town? Are we still going to be talking about this at every conference? What are your thoughts there.
I'm not sure where the hype is going to go off the other side of it. I think we will, because you know, if you just look at the adoption rate and the stickiness of the consumer facing tools, there's something there that's going to persist. I think on the production side, it's going to be slower because we've got these complicated labor issues and we want to make sure we get it right and there's going to be a
lot of questions around quality. But I think there's going to be a Pixar moment where some creative really leans into this, like a James Cameron type figure who knows who it is and figures out how to apply this to a story that's really compelling, and can you deal with the limitations of video generated this way but really blow people away in terms of the way it impacts them.
I don't know when that's going to come, but somebody's going to do it, and I think that's when, on the creative side, we get a real tip in the market.
Great.
Great, Okay, So let's take a little bit of a step back. I feel like we talked quite a bit about AI. I do want to get some additional insights from you on just what else within whether it's streaming, within production, Like what other tech strategies are you thinking about operationally right now.
You know what's interesting we didn't touch on is it's actually a VR variant is virtual productions. So the Mandalorians, obviously, if you've heard of it, the Mandalorian was filmed on a virtual set, so they didn't have to go to a physical set. It was all led volumes and that approach took a while to figure out. But now a lot of content is being shot inside of a game engine. So the use of Unreal engine in the middle of high quality productions is I think going to continue to
take off. And Epics done a great job, you know, updating the Unreal engine for high quality video production. So I think that's going to be a really big, super interesting trends.
One other thing, I feel like we have to talk about gaming because the last panel really went in heavily there. But you know, we have companies like Netflix making bets on gaming. A lot of folks in media think that's like the next big opportunity.
How do you view gaming at paramount?
I think gaming is a great, huge market. Obviously it's eclipsed, you know, the theatrical market. But we like to license our brands and the people that know how to make those experiences. I'm a skeptic that integrating a lean forward gaming experience into the middle of a laid back video passive consumption experience, I don't think it makes any sense, and people can I debate that all the time, So I'm, you know, not the only one thinking that.
I have a lot of people that don't agree.
But it just it hasn't It hasn't played out, and I've played around with people that have tried to do different narratives, and the one thing that I would point to is five years ago, everyone thought all streaming services
were going to be consumed on mobile phones. That was obvious logic given what happened in the in the twenty tens, and what we're seeing now is most of the video minutes consumed are on a lean back, big screen TV, and that is something that we have to learn from to say there is a distinction between those experiences, and I just don't see the convergence of them at a single UI. I think there's going to be more and more gaming that's derivative from RIP, but I don't see it completely.
Integrated rest in piece quibi right, But.
Look, the next phase of it could be something beyond leaning down and touching a little screening you have to carry around in your pocket. And you know what Apple unveiled in terms of a very high quality, large scale, leaned back experience.
That could be the shift.
And we've been poking around at that for ten years as well to get the form factor of the hardware right, get through some of the physical limitations of that. But if they get it right, that could be the next shift to make it more interactive.
So mixed reality, mixed reality, Yeah, I mean I was pretty shocked when ball By came out on stage with or he came out to talk about that. I was not expecting that, But it looks like a lot of folks are thinking about that being a major, major opportunity going forward. So anything else that you kind of want us to be thinking about when we're thinking about technology within media and entertainment, Well.
Hit on the AI thing again because I think there's a big challenge to the technology and entrepreneurial community, like nobody can create great video with AI, yet, like you've got people I'm on multiple Twitter feeds every day.
If people like.
AI is going to take over Hollywood and then you go watch the same stylized dogs you.
Know, shooting guns clips that.
Are stitched together and like, that's not going to kill Hollywood, and then when you look at the video, it's very flickery. So there's fundamental architecture issues that need to be resolved. So whoever can figure out how to build a multimodal system that stitches together different models and can be a real high quality production tool in the middle of these
video creation processes, that's that's super interesting. I'd love to talk to anyone that has ideas on that because I'm you know, going deep on it and working with the big companies and it's to me that's the uncharted territory at this point is really you know, getting video production, you know, coming out of these models in.
A meaningful way.
But by your estimate, how difficult and how long do you think that would take.
I've got my you know, my six months you know, deep dive view on it. I think there's going to have to be an architectural shift in the models. So you know, GPTs are not going to solve it. So I think it's not a matter of just throwing a bunch of data at it. There's going to have to be some architecture design, which means it's going to take a little bit longer. But I would imagine there's so
much energy around it. In the next say two to three years, there'll be something really significant that breaksthrough, hopefully a GPT type of technology breakthrough that enables it to perform.
Better for video.
Any other parting thoughts, No, just keep going at it.
It's really excited. We didn't talk about it. My background is the startup land. I came out of the area if you're invested in a couple of dozen and started two of my own companies.
So I just love the energy here. It's great, good it could be here, real hunter.
Thank you Phil, Thanks everyone, have a good day.
This has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in next week for another helping of scyntillating conversation with media movers and shakers, and please make sure you subscribe to the podcast to hear future episodes. Also leave a review in Apple Podcasts
And let us know how we're doing.