Strictly Business is brought to you in part by City National Bank, the bank who makes it their business to be personal. A City National relationship manager can anticipate the financial needs that make the entertainment and tech industries tick. That's because they've been doing it for more than sixty five years. Need to figure out day to day finances done.
Someone that understands intellectual property, licensing and royalties absolutely. City National understands the industry because they were born in it. Visit c NB dot com and get started. City National Bank member f d I C. Welcome to Strictly Business, Varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm Cynthia Littleton, business editor for Variety Today. My guest is Ted's Surrandos, co CEO
and Chief Content Officer for Netflix. Surrandos has a view of the global entertainment industry like no other because no other entertainment company has ever had the global reach and local presence that Netflix has. In our wide ranging interview, Surrandos talks about what they've learned from their aggressive global push over the past five years and how it's changed
the way Netflix views the overall content business. He also talks about navigating coronavirus curveballs, the controversy over the French arthouse film Cutis, and why he recently made a big change in Netflix's senior management ranks. The interview was held in conjunction with the presentation of the Vanguard Award to Surrandos and Netflix from Variety and the mip COM Global
Content Conference. Welcome everyone, Thank you for joining us what for what is sure to be a lively conversation about the global entertainment business with none other than Ted Surrando's Chief Content Officer and co CEO of Netflix. I'm Cynthia Littleton, business editor for Variety and on behalf of Variety and Midcom. We are very pleased to award varieties Vanguard Award for achievement and Impact in the global Television Business to Ted
Surrandos and Netflix. Thank you very much, Thanks so much for joining us. Ted. In this virtual format, we would otherwise be on the croissette, but we we can have a toast in future years. Absolutely. If you know, if France would have us, we would have come, but I would I would not mind being on the coast of France right now. I hear you, I hear you. So thank you very much obviously to Variety and everyone at MIPCOM for this great honor and UH for the for
the jetting me this morning. Oh you're welcome. So I thought we would start kind of where it began for you on the on the in the global arena. Um. It's hard to believe, but it's coming up on five years. January seven, two thousand and sixteen, you were at the c E S conference in Las Vegas and you very dramatically flipped the switch and took Netflix into more than
a hundred and thirty countries on one day. I think that one move was one of the things that really I think galvanized Hollywood's attention and I think the global entertainment industry kind of looked and thought, woa, this is a different kind of company. When you were making that move almost five years ago, did you know did did you have a sense of what a profound impact that going global in that degree, you know, expanding that that to that many territories that quickly in one field swoop.
Did you know what kind of an impact that would have on your business? Well, you know, the company was an Internet company, even though we were only mailing DVDs around the US to start with. The the the ability to be a global company at the Global Entertainment Company was uniquely enabled by the Internet. UH. The way that being a A to Z DVD rental company UH was owned was uniquely enabled by the Internet back in the
beginning of Netflix. But I think that we've always thought that there was an interesting lack of equilibrium in the storytelling arena where the US represented such a small percentage of the world population and such a large percent of total watching of content around the world. So you knew, we knew that there were great storytellers, We knew that there was great content coming from all over the world, but the existing distribution models made it pretty difficult for
anything but domestic content to travel internationally. UM. But so we looked at it earlier, which was like, what the more time we spent in more countries, the more you got to understand about the local appetites and local culture, local history, local storytelling, local production ecosystems, and realized there was an enormous opportunity for underserved audiences who've been pretty dramatically underserved up to that point for us to be able to be um as meaningful to a customer in
India as we are in Indiana. That was kind of the way we thought about it back five years ago. M hmm. Were was did you have nerves at that time? It's kind of like, you know, you turned the lights on, did you have any worries that you wouldn't get meaningful numbers of subscribers? Uh, you know, at the time, it was really uh that that that that literally flipped the switch go live a hundred and thirty countries. It was at that time. It wasn't like we were specializing in
any of them. You know, we had a couple, we had some international territories launched ahead of that, but these hundred and thirty countries were basically just entering for the first time with the Netflix product as it was offered to most people in the world. Uh, localized in many countries and money languages, but at the time we didn't have local payment options in many cases, or local subtitles
and dubs in some cases. So and those that early early past, it was very much a hey, if you're like Western content and up international credit card, uh, and
you've heard about Netflix, now you can watch it. Uh. And then we just then just started more surgically looking country by country, territory by territory uh at doing everything from localizing the content that we had UH, to localizing the payment methodologies UH and also to uh in many cases producing original content and local language in those countries. Was there anyone market or region that really fired up your appetite for local language production to to really go
for it in that on that scale. Well, our first time out was um you know we did in Mexican Mexico when we made um Um Club the Cuervos, we had an opportunity to look at say, well, that's the show that not only worked really well in Mexico, but
it pretty much serves the Spanish speaking world. Uh. So you really understand that you've got some opportunity to build scale in some places in the world and other stories and other places where like Japan, which was, you know, such a huge media market and it's almost exclusively jepp Upanese content in Japan. Uh. His history, history, taste, culture, all those things that steer that population to mostly enjoy
the Japanese content. So you have these challenges of saying, how do you you know, one hand, you can take a stranger things that's almost totally global. But prior to that, we didn't have a lot of experience with um, non English language shows being very global. Uh. And then you know Fastival, you know launched. Uh. We have a new season of the Custody Papela just came out this year. And you think at that show, and that show is enormous globally, Uh. And the Spanish language and it's film,
you know, it's in a show from Spain. Uh. So you have the opportunity to produce at scale in local languages. Uh. It's an incredible It's incredible when you get it right. UM. And I do think and that is you know, trusting the storytellers in the region, giving them a big platform and the opportunity to talk to the world in some
in some cases for the first time. And and of course in this in this new on demand format which is in an of itself, is so it is revolutionary for markets where you know, the the overall the notion of you know, private private networks is still relatively young. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. Of course, in in your global network, China is a is a big gap in terms of where you are. You know, it's been well documented that the Chinese government has not has not welcomed Netflix. Is there any progress
or any any effort to get into that market? You know, We've not, I menially, in the last couple of years invested in trying to get there. I think that to your point, I think the local government in China UH is not like the Chinese versions of Netflix to be Chinese UM. And so I think we have a lot of a lot of folks in the industry I think have been you know, running into walls trying to make trying to change that and eventually eventually that eventually those
walls will come down. But I don't think it's gonna happen anytime really soon. And I'm glad that we spend most of our energies UH in countries that are that welcome UH Netflix to be part of the entertainment landscape. M Um. With all of the local language content that you are doing now, I was wondering, how do you must have to schedule your time to to watch some all of that content or watch at least a sampling of it. Do you do you literally like apportion your
schedule by continent maybe or uh? You know what I really miss in our current times of uh of COVID restrictions. What I really miss is the international travel. Uh. Beyond just the ability to get out and see people around the world. Uh, those long plane rides were really accommodating to catching up on the viewing, to catch you watching cuts of episodes and so so I do have to be more discipline about regimenting my time to make sure that I can get get in front of some of
the content. And the keith that really do that is when I we first started this, you know, we were doing two or three shows, and you can watch every cut and read every draft of every script. And today a you know, it's not unusual for shows to come on Netflix without me having seen any of any of it. And that's because we've got I've got incredible teams in each of these content verticals in each of these countries
that are producing great original content and they're really empowered. Uh. There's great, hugely experience that I get to step in sometimes when things are particularly challenging or particular particularly celebratory. UH that I'm part of that, But in general, the teams that I have enabled the entire thing to scale. UM I knew going you know, looking at those early days that if we bottle neck decision behind me, we'd
never get anywhere. So we really had to, particularly now that we're operating in you know, every time zone in
the world. So the opportunity to enable people to make great choices and come up with great television and film for the world has been one of the things that most gratified by how this all turned out, UM, and that it it really enabled it to scale in a way that I think entertainment companies have a difficult time scaling because their historical they are you know, wrapped around these kind of cult to personalities or golden this idea
of golden guts and all those things. I hopefully, if I have a golden gut, it's for people, UM, and their ability to make great choices. You have some local, local buyers, local managers have green have green light authority in essence, they can order and commission content correct on their own, on their own, and they you know, there's some things obviously you want to check in with, but for the most part, you know, they know those markets
better than we do. And you know, as as example, Um uh Min Young is an executive of ours in Korea. Uh she had come up pretty you know, pretty fast and at Netflix and her her sense of the production ecosystem in Korea was obviously far better than anybody in Netflix at the time. Uh. And she's had incredible success with our local language originals film and television in Korea that are serving in the Korean market but also serving throughout a pack and every once in a while you
get one, it just serves the world. Um. We had a film and original film that came out this quarter, um hashtag alive. Um that it was a big global success, one of our top non English films ever on Netflix. M Um, have you having you know, watched the flate you know, a sampling of shows undoubtedly from so many regions, you know, looking at comedies and dramas and I'm sure narrative and non narrative. Are there anything you know? I would imagine that you've become something of a student of
cultures around the world. Are there any similarities that you find in dramas or similarities that you find in comedies, or differences that stand out in your mind for content in various regions. I'm always interested in what, you know, how similar the world is more so than I am. And like what are the unique differences, because I think people are mostly surprised at how similar tastes are, you know, like there's all this conventional wisdom about the entertainment is
about what does and doesn't travel. Most of it turns out not to be true. What really travels is UM great already telling UM super authentic characters that you can
really that people can relate to somewhere in the world. Uh. And I think that this um notion of trying to reverse engineering global storytelling is silly because really the most things have been most successful the things that are most authentically local, So that the better we do at identifying those stories that are authentically local, the better success we have. So that helps a lot playing down the other convention convention past, like French French comedy plays huge in France
and never travels. Uh. We we we had a great show called Plank Core, great rom com uh that plays all over Europe and all over the world. Uh. Just by way of example, right now, our show Emily in Paris, which is obviously an English language show American characters set in Europe. You think that's kind of reverse engineering story, but it's just a it's a classic fish out of water Story, so I played. That's why it plays so
well everywhere in the world. So I think in general, the one thing that that have been most fascinating Mexico was one of our early launches and one of our the original content plays and the telenovelas obviously are quite popular in Mexico, and we've kind of evolved what a what a telenovela can look like. Um and I think you know this this year recently we released a show called Dark Desire Um that was an enormous success in Mexico but also played everywhere that people really love that
kind of highly serialized, soapy storytelling. Uh. And so that show is a huge success for us in India and in Turkey, uh and in the US because it speaks well to the Spanish speaking community. In the US, we have seen a bit of a cultural class a culture clash in the world and kind of coming through Netflix. In the last couple of weeks in the United States, there's been a bit of an outcry over a movie
that you have on the platform. Cuti's um, a movie that you know played Sundance gathered a claim at Sundance when it came on Netflix and was very available to the world. You know, I don't have to tell you there has been some outcry in pockets in the US. How how do you feel about that? Does it? It seems too many people that this is a you know that this is UM, it's a it's a dangerous on a First Amendment UM, on a First Amendment basis in the in the United States. But it's also interesting in
that Netflix really has created something of a global village. Yeah, I'm I'm frankly, I'm I'm surprised that it has been more discussion about the First Amendment implications about this film. It's a film that I would argue is very misunderstood with some audiences, uniquely in the in the United States. UM. I think the film itself speaks for itself. It's a very personal coming of age film. UH. The directors, the
director's story, UM. And the film is you know, obviously played very well UMU at Sundance and without any of this controversy, played uh in theaters throughout Europe with without any of this controversy. UH. And the film I think does speak for itself. And I think it's it's a little surprising that in America we're having a discussion about
censoring storytelling. Yeah, and you I mean, I think I know the answer, But you have not considered making any changes to the movie or or or limiting its access in any way. M hm Um. Let's talk about a little more specifically, like are there are there certain conditions in markets that you look at before you decide to
invest big in original content? Is there like a you know, broadband penetration, or is there like a certain number of subs that you need in a market before you'll go kind of deep on original original content for that region. I think we're looking at like some some markets. Um, when we look at the opportunity, right, we're looking our addressable audience. Really is everybody with access to the Internet
in a screen. Pretty big that way. So if you only think about it as broadband penetration, you missed the big population of folks who watch most of their content on mobile phones and then and connect to the Internet via mobile. So I do think that we have the opportunity is bigger than broadband penetration or pay television penetration. Uh, those are the easy ones because I think it goes to um, socio economics of that country. Uh that you know,
you have an opportunity to reach audiences quickly. Um and so, but I think it's in the next piece of it is kind of the entertainment cultures, right, of these countries that really thrive on storytelling, big pay television markets, big uh movie going, all those kind of things. So there's a whole list of things that line up sometimes perfectly.
And then you have places like Brazil, um, which you know, very young, vibrant population, great storytelling culture, great move great television market, great movie cultures, uh, and just people who are just hungry for great content. So we're uh. That was kind of one of our early breakouts if for international, was our success of Brazil, and I think he has a lot to do with the excitement and vibrant for
the population in Brazil. We'll be right back. Strictly, business is brought to you in part by City National Bank, the bank who makes it their business to be personal. A City National relationship manager can anticipate the financial needs that make the entertainment and tech industries tick. That's because they've been doing it for more than sixty five years. Need to figure out day to day finances done. Someone
that understands intellectual property licensing, and royalties. Absolutely. City National understands the industry because they were born in it. Visit c NB dot com and get started. City National Bank member f D I C. Welcome back to strictly Business. Here's more of my conversation with Ted Surrandos, PO CEO
and Chief Content Officer for Netflix. Do you find that in like the bigger in the bigger global global markets in Europe and Latin America and Asia, do you find that your biggest competitors tend to be regional or local players or are you going you know, you feel like you get this the same sort of um competition from an Amazon or from other from the other you know some of the some of the competitors that are active in the US as well. Yeah, they're pretty much the
same pool of folks. You know. The thing that we're competing with mostly is for you know, with folks for what time that they're spending on screens, so that can be through traditional television or through various uh subscription services and also things like YouTube. You know, many countries television
watching is dominated about YouTube. So we're we're looking at all that, we look at all those markets and all those folks who we compete with, but we mostly focus on our members and mostly try to focus on how do you make these folks happy? How do you make the shows that they can't live without? Um. And if we focus on that, we don't have to worry too much about competitors. UM. We know that it's a big,
enormous market and there's gonna be multiple players. You know, there's hundreds of channels of cable television around the world against satellite television. There are uh countless numbers of video competitors on the internet. UH. So you look at that and say, you know, we we always know there's gonna be folks. Yet we're competing with for people's affinity and love and attention and time. Uh. And we do that by with two great storytelling and delivering a great product
for people. So when they push play uh anywhere in the world, uh, it works UM. And it's in many cases in the local language. UH. And it's oriented to what your taste is so that you could find great things to watch. Uh. And that's that great kind of convergence of of great tech and great storytelling. M HM. And I think you guys have have accurately said that one of your biggest competitor yours is in fact sleep.
But we want people to sleep. Though we do want don't sacrifice anything, and don't don't sacrifice any sleep time. We want some of you more of your screen time, but your sleep time. Please keep keep sleep. It's important. UM. Obviously, COVID has been the curve just has been an enormous curveball for virtually every economics sector and every country on
the planet. Have you, um, have you did you have to adjust either up or down or make big changes into your into the your plans for your content spending in has it been much revisions? The main thing I'm really proud of, you know, we throughout the one thing that really benefits from being UH Internet Global company is that throughout the early stages of the COVID shutdown, UH, in some places they did not shut down, like in
Iceland and Sweden. UH. And we were able to figure out safety prod of calls that have served us really well all over the world, and our productions were mostly up and running. UH. And with our productions all over the world, we're shooting about a hundred yards from where I'm sitting right now on a stage UH, and it's I and it's making me a little crazy. I can't go over there because our code, because of our protocol
safety protocols that I don't go visit the sets. But those sets and the safety protocols have kept these operations incredibly safe and healthy, uh and make the talent feel very comfortable, uh that they are being protected and looked out for. UH. So at first it was we don't. We didn't really spend that much time thinking what's it
all going to cost? Um, But because because it really wasn't optional and it was not a great thing to cut corners on we're talking about, um creating a safe work environment of any kind, So we didn't, and we really built what I think is a state of the art safety protocols around our productions and uh and the art of this thing going forward because I'm afraid that you know, COVID nineteas be with us for a while, UM, that the art of all this is really gonna be
how to manage in a world with COVID nineteen UM and how to keep people safe and working. And that's what we've been really focused on. And the cost of it has been um, you know, uh, not the leading priority if of course, it's a factor. Uh. And what's really nice about it is because of all the safety protocols and people being very supportive of the safety protocols, that productions run much smoother. So you actually save some
shooting days. Sometimes shooting days are shorter. Um, the sets are better run, a better organized is fewer people on set sometimes, which you keep it easy. It keeps the trains running on time. So there's been some recovery in
that too. Uh. And so we just we find is that you know, the the other thing two, as you get unforeseen benefits, financial benefits of when people aren't sick and getting sick going into blue season, all these safety protocols for COVID are going to prevent people also from getting the flue as frequently as they did and you would lose shooting days to the before. So in general, I think it's been uh not as um uh not as as as difficult to financial pain point to do
the right thing. Uh. And we've been managing both. Have you found are there? I mean there are there. Obviously there are countries that got up and running sooner. Has there been any examples of how they're handling the protocols are just aspects of dealing with life in a COVID time. Any places that have impressed you, you know, outside the US, any places that impressed you with the way that that that local governments or you know, authorities have gone about
dealing with the COVID crisis. I think everyone has got their different flavors of these things. So I think in general that you know, we I think, you know, North America was very slow to reopen relative to the rest of other places in the world. And I don't fault that, you know, this is not this is a good time to be careful, but in a way, I gotta give everybody the opportunity to figure out things. I think one thing that was great was the country is um like
South Korea. One of the benefits that I think that what they did right was um you know, uh, large scale testing, a big federal response. I think the countries that took that, that took this series at the federal level UM have advanced things like production in all forms of essential work U is back to you know, near normal in many of these countries who took a big federal uniform response to to COVID. Mhm um. Let me ask you in terms of as you're you have an
ever changing lineup of content. What are what are your most important metrics for evaluating shows? How there are programming, you know, program shows, movies, documentaries. What are the key things that you look at to see if they're resonating? In this way, Netflix is pretty traditional, like the meaning the audience measure audience matters. There are people showing up?
Are they loving the shows? Uh? The things that we could bring to that that you know, that's more a little more difficult to measure in in old in traditional media, I said almost at old media, sorry, Uh is things like, um, you know, what people watch in the first twenty four hours, so that gives you a good signal that people actually join Netflix to watch that show, So that show is more valuable than other shows in that way. Are they
finishing the show? Do they finish it quickly? Meaning are they so addicted to the show that they really love it? And that kind of watching, that kind of level of passion is more valuable than just casual watching. And it's monetized, you know, through positive word of mouth and retention and all those kind of things. So they're all signals that are relatively easy for us to manage to to measure um, that to to to land on the in a world where all viewing isn't equal um and so in that way.
But at the end of the day, relative to what the show cost, does it attract you know, a big enough audience who care enough about the show to keep going. M hmm. Interesting? Um, how do you should point out
to you know? It's interesting the because I think the television world has so much grown up around you know, the core financial model of syndication, that the whole measure of success is how long a show runs, and getting a show too in the syndication getting to the magic hundred episodes with so much the measure of success in old media, uh that I just don't think. I think that that's why that gets an undue attention when shows don't go longer in the new kind of premium sad world.
And I don't know that it is necessarily the measure of success. I think that we get the opportunity to tell stories for exactly as long as you should. You know, I think a lot of times you watch a lot of shows and they run out of creative a lot
sooner than they run out of episodes. Uh, And in general, I really but I'm really thrilled about is sometimes we could, you know, sometimes the perfect shelf life for a show, the perfect running time for a show is three seasons or four seasons, or six seasons or eight seasons, whatever it is. But the unit form measure of success being you know, long running. I don't think. I think it's
a very unusual thing that emerge. I think mostly tied to the golden prize of getting this syndication that is really no longer, uh, you know, the pot of gold that it once was in television. And I feel like I have for for minimum five years, probably closer to eight years, have been writing nothing about how things used to be and how they are now, so so that
that is absolutely so true. It used to be that you built, you know, the the the absolute end goal was to build something that you could last as long as possible because it was tied to time sensitive schedules and time sensive schedules and everything there. And there are times that there's a story or a world or or some I p that is really built perfectly, you know, for fifteen years of storytelling. Not there's not not that frequently, but they exist and they're usually valuable when you could
if you could find them. But you know, I do think, you know, we go. I think our shows if what I don't want to ever get into the position of doing is uh, you know, trying to prop up a show beyond its creative life. I know think creators are happy doing it either so, and I like the opportunity of doing a lot of you know, having a lot of slots, uh, is that to get the opportunity to
tell another story? You know? The big reason why I think people wanted these shows to last forever is that sometimes they didn't get a second or third shot at it because it was because this the shelf space was so limited. It's the bringing in cousin Oliver syndrome exactly, the final season doing you're punching sharks and you're trying to keep you know, you're trying to go Maybe do you is this something that you talked talk about with
your creators early on in the process. Do you talk about, like what is the what is the long arc for this? Do you see this as three seasons or four seasons? Are you having those conversations earlier? Given that the mindset is I want to go as long often is I
want to go as long as possible. Yeah, And I would say, look, going back to our earliest shows, Um, The Crown, Peter Morgan could tell you nearly every story beat of six seasons of The Crown when we met, and you know, not that many there's not that many people who can tell you. Basically, you get a season, you get sometimes a pilot script, and sometimes I see a season bible and then a kind of very loose
series bible, like where is this going over time? And you know, and they by the time you get to the fourth or fifth when it's a sentence. Uh. And in this case that you know Peter had talked about uh literally the stories that when they would break, how they would break, you know, through every season of this show. And that's why it's been such a thrill to watch it unfold so closely to how we pitched it. Uh. In most cases, I don't think people really have that
clearer vision of the creative vision. I think they think they can say, this is a world that you can keep exploring and keep going deeper. Um, these are characters that you want to age with. Um. All those things are possible in television, is just not that common let me ask you, Ted, you i'll be had a major change in your uh, in your operation in the management side recently with Cindy Holland, a long time lieutenant of yours has left Bello Bajaria was was elevated. Can you
tell me what drove that? Why did you change the structure in that way? UM? Some of it was triggered on the coast CEO arrangement with read meaning I was taking on some other responsibilities inside the company. Uh and and and had me second look at my direct report organization and how to how how to kind of streamline things a bit. And we've had great success running film and animation uh and and uh is uh is as global organizations. Our stand up comedy group was doing you know,
global stand up comedy. UH. The only thing that really was regionalized this way really was our television efforts. We had very strong teams regionally. Uh and I looked at that and said, I wanted to have a global head of television. Du could had that up and in that world thinking about the things that we're going to be incredibly important to us for the next decade um, you know,
local language, original programming, UM. UH. The the enormous growth has seen an unscripted and unscripted television which is still kind of been its infancy. Um. Uh. Bella built the unscripted team inside of Netflix now headed by Brandon reag as you brought over with her. I remember when I when we hired Bela, she had never worked on scripted television, and she built you know, brand Brandon and they architected this team in this slate of original unscripted shows. Uh
so successfully. Um. After doing that for a little while, she stepped into the role of the local running the local language originals everywhere outside of the US, again having never worked international television. Uh and it has had a remarkable track record of building and rebuilding that team for me. Uh. And when I look at that, on top of the fact that she had such enormous success at Universal Television.
Uh and in fact, it was a great supplier to Netflix before she joined us, the veloping great Joe's like master of None and I'm breakboo, Kim Schmidt uh and was really instrumental in getting UM never have I ever to Netflix. I thought it was a no brainer that Bella had the experience, uh and the leadership skills to take on. All those things are gonna be so important for the next you know, next twenty years at Netflix. Uh, and Cindy was a great partner getting all this built.
But I think in the if you know, looking at it, the challenges and the opportunities of the next twenty years, the Bella was so perfectly positioned to lead through that those of us that have known Bella a while are not at all surprised that she is in fact on top of the world now. Fantastic. I guess my last question for you, Tend you sort of touched on but m you were recently elevated to co CEO with Read Hastings.
How does you know you've been an architect of Netflix for years now, but how does the view look different at all? If how does the view look different, if at all as co CEO? Well, you know, I like, like to your point, Read and I've been doing this
together for a really long time. You know, the migration from DVD to streaming and streaming to original production, and from the domestic to international and global, all those things we were, you know, very closely aligned and making those decisions both how to time them out, how to invest
in them, how to build the teams to support. You know, we've done all those things together for a very long time, so Read very generously says, we've been I've been co CEO for a long time, but um, this is more uh so people. I would say that my day to day hasn't changed very dramatically because we've been running things that way for a long time. UM. And I think it's been you know, under Getting the opportunity to do this with somebody a real visionary like Read um has
been a remarkable gift. And I think being able to to co lead Netflix with him uh is the gift that keeps on giving because it's a it's surprised to me to have an executive Usually people have very good in the weeds? Are they very good on the clouds? And Read is really good in both you know, and his ability to look see around the corner, uh to ask hard questions about things that he really doesn't you know, may or not have experience in um has been something
that has enabled me to run fast. His kind of lack of ego in this uh to been able to to allow me to exist at the profile that I do with Netflix all this time is really unusual as you know, uh in an entertainment company. So it's been a great thing and I think my day to day, while it hasn't shifted much, I really are looking forward to the to the next several years doing this together.
So it's really an exciting time. Well again to you can't find two executives that have had a bigger impact on the global business of entertainment in the in many decades. So uh, ted, we thank you for your time, thank you for answering all of my questions, and uh again, congratulations on the Vanguard award from Variety and mipcom. That is very very well deserved. Thank you so it Do you mind if I take a second and thank a
few folks for this once again. I wanted first of all all of our members around the world, many of which are stuck at home or sometimes some have who have been affected by the by the impact of of the of the COVID nineteen Uh. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and our goals to keep you entertained while you're home. Uh. Obviously I think nip COM and Variety for this great honor you send it to me
ahead of time. Thank you so much. Uh. I've got One of the great gifts of this role is you get to to meet all your heroes and uh, in the last lesson, just in the last year, uh, some of got had lost a few of them. We have gotten to be very very friendly, very friendly with and inspired by like Leonard Goldberg, who put almost every show
that I cared about on television when I was young. Uh, Carl Reiner on top of being a real architect of television, you know, starting back, you know, with with your show of shows. And think Ben Dyke's enormous influence on me, um and getting to know him before he passed. A real kind of guy. Basically, I think of Carl Ryner is like the origin of American comedy. Uh. So it's just it was a real joy in my life to
get to know him before he passed. Uh. And then it makes you really appreciate the legends who are still around, who I could pick up the phone and get advice from or support from or kicked kicked by. And that's folks like Bob Dailey, Uh, you know, he right after
right after Bill Paley in television. It's a really remarkable resource to get to have to have Bob WoT speed dial a Norman Lear uh, who you know who is not just a legend from the beginning of television and maybe the first guy who was first to be a television writer before he was a radio writer and still doing it, still making great television uh, and such an incredibly decent human being. And I'm just it's a real gift to have access to folks like that and and
doing all this work. Um, it takes a lot of time, and it takes me a lot of time away from home. Uh. And of course I just none of that, None of this would be possible without the sacrifice and support and love of my wife Nicole uh and my kids, Tony and Sarah, whom we met. We all make trade offs to make all this work. And I just endlessly appreciative of the time and support, bigot. Thanks for listening. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of
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