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With Canva Video you can generate awesome videos with one prom. Canva Docs lets you create stunning visual documents, reports, plans, whatever magic write can write in your voice using AI and Canva sheets make spreadsheets people will actually like. Canva lets you bring your big ideas to life as fast as you can think of them. Put imagination to work@canva.com this is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Massar and Tim Stanvak on Bloomberg Radio. Hi everyone. Welcome to a special weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week looking at some of our favorite guests from the Bloomberg Screen Time event in Los Angeles. Screen Time gathers the moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the next phase of pop culture. Over a day and a half in the heart of Hollywood, we discussed and debated the future of Hollywood studios, the boom in sports and live music, and of course, the effect of AI on the creative industries. AI is everywhere. We're going to hear from actors, studio heads, investors, and even a late night host. Not just any late night host, no. He's been in the news a lot lately. His name rhymes with Mimi Kimmel. That was so lame. But yes, indeed, we are talking about Jimmy Kimmel. We begin, though, in the media space in a conversation between our Lukas Shaw, who organized the event with the Bloomberg Live team, and the CEO of Skydance Media, David Ellison. The two of them in a conversation we got to start with Paramount. You chased this company for a couple years, if not longer. If you look at what they Own. They have a bunch of cable networks that have been in decline for almost as long as I've been doing my job. They have a movie studio that is by most metrics the last place movie studio the last few years and a streaming service that in terms of at least engagement is sort of in the third tier. So why were you so interested in it? What do you see in the company that investors and a lot of other potential bidders did not? Yeah, no, absolutely. It's a great question. First, I just want to say we couldn't be more excited about the place that we're starting with the asset that we purchased. Right. We have 80 million streaming subscribers. We have one of the best basically content libraries in existence with Paramount and cbs. And I also think you need to distinguish when you talk about the linear business, right? There's cable, which yes, has been in decline, but if you look at CBS, it actually is a remarkable asset that's been number one in primetime for 17 straight seasons. Incredible sports rights which were growing and is still highly, highly profitable from a cash flow perspective, and I agree with you, has not been run in the best manner for the last 15 years. And for me that's all opportunity. An opportunity to really reignite the creative content engines to navigate the transition that's required to really turn Paramount into a leader in streaming. And we believe we have the ability to both win in content and also become the most technologically capable media company to effectively navigate this transition. We always looked at, you can look at the music business 10 years ago. We believe we can navigate that. We also really looked at where traditional tech companies were, call it 10, 15 years ago. And there is a period of time where the Microsofts of the world, the oracles of the world were being disrupted and those companies that actually disrupted themselves and transitions are now all trading at all time highs. We believe we have the opportunity to do the same thing. So you talked about streaming. You mentioned the 80 million subscribers earlier. You look at it those monthly Nielsen reports that people pay a lot of attention to YouTube's at 13% of TV viewing. Netflix is at between eight and nine most months. Paramount, when you combine Paramount plus and Pluto, it sort of sits around 2%. You can correct me if I'm off there, but I think that's about right. So how do you get that up? Forget about 13 or 8, like Disney's in the 4 or 5 range. How do you get that up there? And you've talked about content and tech. Can you get specific on those fronts, like what you're going to do. Absolutely. So look, one of the things we really believed in, like what I'll say we're nine weeks in and I'm really proud of the momentum the team has been able to build over the last nine weeks. One of the things we really believe being the first owned and operated studio, to my knowledge, since actually Walt Disney built his own shop, was that we would have the opportunity to really think long term. That means long term partnerships with talent where you can basically say, don't just think about your next movie or your next show. We want to build a relationship with you over a decade and actually say we're going to make your next four or five movies, your next four or five series and really think long term and invest for long term growth. The great news, when you look at we had to win in content and I think we're well on our way to being able to do that. If you look at specifics right, we were able to get obviously the UFC deal is one of the first things we announced when we came over. We are incredibly proud that Activision chose to partner with us on Call of Duty, which is the most successful video game franchise of all time with 500 million units sold. We were able to have James Mangold come over and obviously call his, you know, he's one of the greatest filmmakers working to call Paramount home, Boulderlight, who obviously had incredible hits like Weapons earlier this year. In addition to that, we've been able to secure high profile packages with streaming with basically Paramount Plus. And then we're also really reinvigorating what we're doing in news with CBS News with the acquisition of the Free Press. And then I think when you look at CBS's broadcast lineup, I think we have the strongest lineup maybe arguably in the company's history. And so I think we've really successfully reinvigorated the creative content engines of the company in a really short period of time. And I think we're going to be able to do that at scale. So that's 1, 2. I think when you look at kind of 10,000ft, Silicon Valley has done an excellent job of really coming into Hollywood. I mean, the platform that Netflix has built, the platform that basically Amazon has built, and these are incredible companies. I'd say the platform that Amazon has built is not very good, but they do have the benefit of Amazon behind. Even people who work at Amazon would acknowledge the product could be better. I think when you look at the number of subscribers, I think they're doing okay. Just. And you know, from, from that standpoint, but what we really want to become, we talk about becoming the most technologically capable media company, believe we have the capability to do that. We're bringing in the appropriate leadership. You know, we just obviously hired our cpo, Dane Glasgow, who was formerly obviously running product at Meta for Facebook, who is obviously a phenomenal leader to come into the business. And we have really deep tech partnerships that are really going to enable, we think, Paramount for the first time, to actually build platforms that are competitive with Netflix, that are competitive with Amazon and actually successfully grow in scale. And I think you've said this, you've talked about this a lot. Given this moment in time that we exist in, great art and great technology need to work hand in hand together to effectuate the transition the overall business is in. Is there something concrete about the Paramount plus platform right now that you think is clearly substandard? I've heard you talk about the recommendation element and how you think that could be better. Does having a better recommendation algorithm really going to bring in 10 million new customers or make people spend an extra two hours a day with your service? So you have to do two things. One, let's just talk about the asset that we acquired, we inherited, right? Paramount, as it exists today, operates three streaming platforms, three separate tech stacks on two different clouds, which is both inefficient and wildly expensive. So if you actually said, I'm going to. If I had unlimited resources, this is not how you. And for those who don't follow, the three services are Paramount plus, Pluto TV and BET plus. Correct. So we're in the process right now of basically consolidating all of those onto a single. Onto a single stack, which will both significantly improve the operational capabilities of the product. And we're doing a lot to basically overhaul every single aspect of the stack. But also the more data that you obviously get in there, which is the more users, the better you're going to be able to recommend content. So we are definitely overhauling basically the product right now. But in addition to that, to me, technology is really in service of the content, not the other way around. And we're going to make significantly more shows at Paramount. We are investing in sports rights. When you look at the acquisition of the ufc, that is the largest sport that is basically not shared between multiple platforms. And to basically, they have 100 million fans, they've grown 25% from 2019 to date. They grew at that level sitting behind a double paywall. So we think when you eliminate that double paywall, it's going to Open it up and make it much more accessible. Literally one pay per view fight is what a Paramount plus subscription is. And then basically those 100 million fans are going to be able to get access to everything they love. And in addition to that, when you look at the overall sports strategy, which cannot be more important to us, Paramount had a really strong fall and spring sports calendar, but really light. In the summer you have football, in the fall, you have March Madness. In the spring you have the Masters, which we are incredibly proud to be partners with. And now with ufc, we have a year long sports strategy. And that in addition to all of the new originals that we're going to be making for P, there's going to be more content, there's going to be a better tech product that's going to yield additional engagement and scale. So I have a follow up on that. But I'm curious because you mentioned Pluto. You've talked a lot about combining the back end. How likely is it that you just combine all those services into one consumer facing app where if you want to watch Pluto, you're just going to Paramount Plus. So right now we're basically combining the back end. The back end. It's certainly something we've discussed and explored, but not something we're planning to do right now. Got it. And you're in the fun spending money, showing people you're here to reinvigorate the company phase. When does the less fun part? So look, one of the things that I think is actually important is this business can be operated a lot more efficiently than it was operated in the past. And we've obviously announced $2 billion in obviously run rate synergies. We've said we're going to meaningfully, obviously exceed those targets. And from our perspective, we intend to do that as quickly as possible so that we can basically get that behind us and then have the entire team just building for the future. So do cuts start before the end of the year? You know, I can't answer that question. Let's go to a couple other questions you probably can't answer. We're going there already. All right, all right. Have you made an offer yet for Warner Bros. Discovery? All right, we're going to talk about tennis. We'll get to tennis at the end. I already, I don't know if you saw it. I asked Greg Peters who was better at tennis, him or Bill Gates? You can probably answer that question. He dodged. But the odd tensor. I actually can't answer that. Tennis. I've never seen either of them play tennis. So I don't feel equipped to be able to do that. Let's go back to the offer for Warner Brothers Discovery. So look, we're a publicly traded company and I think we're not in a position to be able to comment on rumor or speculation of any kind of. Because there's a couple of rumors and speculations obviously out there in terms of what we may or may not be doing. But look, what I can't comment on is people to kind of understand our mindset. Right. And I actually think, you know, ironically, it was David Zaslav last year that said consolidation and media business is important. And the way we approach everything is first and foremost what's good for the talent community, what's good for our shareholders and value creation and, and what's good for basically storytelling at large. And so from our standpoint, whether we were approach any acquisition, I actually do think there's a lot of options out there in terms of what actually might be actionable in the near future. We would approach that through the lens of wanting to make more, not less. Because the natural conclusion if you were to merge with Warner Brothers Discovery is you take two companies that combines, I don't remember the content, spend between the two of them, but spend billions of dollars. And much as you're combining Skydance and Paramount, you take money out, you would take money out there. Companies that merge don't tend to spend more money on the other side of it. So what I would say, and again, I'm not going to comment on Warner Brothers Discovery, but you said it when you talked about Paramount, you actually need more content to yield more engagement. And so we would actually want to be in the business throughout whatever lens we were looking at of actually producing more, you know, more movies, more television series, more to get to scale because you need that content, you need that great storytelling to yield engagement. And from that standpoint, we're also in the business first and foremost of creating long term value creation. And you know, and one of the things I think, I hope we've proven obviously with our family is we are in the business of building long term value for shareholders. And I think we've done that successfully. That's Skydance Media CEO David Ellison speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw. Coming up, more from our conversations at the Bloomberg Screen Time event in Los Angeles. Up next, we'll hear from Warner Brothers co chairs and co CEOs Pam Abdy and Mike DeLuca. This is Bloomberg. What's the secret to navigating uncharted waters in business? 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We are back on Bloomberg Week looking at some of our favorite guests from the Bloomberg Screen Time event held this past week in Los Angeles. Our Lucas Shaw sat down with the duo behind this year's blockbusters including Sinners, F1AMinecraft Movie and Weapons. Warner Bros. Motion picture chiefs Pam Abdy and Mike DeLuca. They break down the high stakes business of filmmaking in an era of shifting audience tastes and streaming disruption. I want to start on the state of the movie business because you are two of the biggest cinephiles in the world, I'd say. And I was listening to an appearance you guys made on the Smartless podcast earlier this year and you were talking about how there are not enough movies being made and you're sort of. I was struck because you guys run a movie studio that would seem to be within your power to decide how many movies you make. So why don't you and your peers make more movies? Well, we have made more movies. So you know, one of the first things we were tasked to do when we got to the studio was increase the output and I think we increased it from I think when we got there it was four to six movies and we're up to 12 this year, heading towards 18, hopefully. So we're doing our part, I feel like. And one of the most amazing things, the reason we're so optimistic about our business is Warner Brothers achieved 4 billion in worldwide gross this year, the first time since 2019. So at least in terms of our studio, we're already at pre pandemic levels. But I think the most significant metric is we did it on nine less movies than 2019. We did it on 11 movies and they had 20 shots at it, which I think shows that there's a robust theatrical audience just waiting for more movies to get made. They always talk about, you know, box office is down anywhere from 25 to 30%, but there's also 25% less movies in the marketplace. So that's why we always feel like it's a glass half full situation and if there were more movies, you'd see that box office climb. Well, one of the reasons that I assume that the number of movies is down is how expensive it has become to make them. So as someone who's not part of the sausage making process, why does it feel like every major studio Release now costs $200 million. I don't think every weapons did not. But can we agree that the cost of making movies has gone up a lot? Sure, we can absolutely agree. I think the way we look at it is a diverse slate, right. And we look at different metrics and different size movies, and it's really about balancing the slate. So there's no one size fits all approach to budgeting. You have to meet with the filmmaker. You have to look at what the story is, who the audience is, what genre it is. We share it with our teams around the world, and we all come up with the right size budget for that film. And it's really. It really leads with being based on vision of the filmmaker. Right. Okay. That does make me want to. I wasn't going to get here yet, but I want to zoom ahead to the movie you just released. One battle after another. Paul Thomas Anderson movie, great movie. Everyone thinks it's, if not the front runner for Best Picture, one of them. You gave $135 million budget to a director who'd never had a movie gross $100 million. Can you walk me through how that worked in the formula you were just talking about? Not confirming that that's the budget? No. But however, point taken, that it's certainly Paul's most expensive movie. And I think when we all read it, and as Pam said, in our organization, we are really big on sharing the script with our teams, both international, domestic. Everybody who's got a stake in that movie's success gets to weigh in. And we arrive as many studios, as all the studios do, with a model that basically informs the green light process. So we read this two and a half years ago as a satirical action comedy with Leo. And because it read like the masterpiece it is, we leaned in. We set up the kind of rigorous analysis that enables us to trigger a green light. But if it's a bold, provocative swing, we're just. Our DNA is to lean in and give it a shot. So Leo's comps kind of gave it the credibility to say, well, we can aim for the high case. But really what carried the day was just. It read like the movie it is. It just read like a masterpiece. And one of the overriding operating principles at the studio is to continue that legacy of Warners, whether it was Stanley Kubrick or Clint Eastwood or Ben Affleck. But get into these situations with the best filmmakers of the day and try to bring people, try to bring audiences or starve for originality, you know, new masterpieces, new modern masterpieces. And that's that's what we feel like Paul's given us. So we're going to set aside the masterpiece part of the conversation for a second. Do you think that the movie will be a commercial success? I do. I'm a believer it's a marathon with this movie, not a sprint. I think it's going to leg out to a number that we'll be happy with. Yeah, but it, but it's hard. We can't divorce. I'd be lying if I. If I said we're divorcing it from the pride we have in it. And, you know, it's. It's. It. And also with Weapons and Sinners, what those three movies say about the chances for original films to get made, you know, from the best directors working today. It's where Warner Brothers wants to be. And it goes into our overall strategy. You know, when we met with David three years ago, we sat down and we said very clearly, let's bring the best storytellers to Warner Brothers. And that's what we've done. And we've tried to do a mix of IP movies, genre films. It's really about the balance of the whole slate. And, you know, David, us, he's been so supportive in that. And I feel like this year our slate really, you know, shows what our mission is. Would you say that David has always been supportive? Yes. From day one. Then. Okay, we have to address the fact that earlier this year he was out there meeting with people. He was not being very subtle about potentially looking for replacements for you. Listen, we can't. We can't address the speculation and rumors and all that stuff. All I can say is, David, Mike and I had the privilege of seeing all these movies early. We knew what we had with the filmmakers and with these stories, and we just couldn't wait for audiences to see them. So David was completely supportive of every film and of Mike and I and the choices we made. Well, you got re upped yesterday. So clearly when you go on a tear, whatever your boss may or may not be thinking, forcing just a strategy. Thank you. Well, it got announced yesterday, but as you can imagine, yes, it had been done before. Fair. The hot streak for the year, I feel like, started with Minecraft. Is that fair to say? Yes. For a long time, movies based on video games, TV shows based on video games didn't work. And that's totally flipped in the last couple years. We just had David talking about Call of Duty. What do you think? Has there been some change in culture as to why these movies are now working or is it? I think it all goes back to talent. You know, like, we don't. I think it's dangerous to traffic in blanket statements for any genre adapting from any medium. So I don't know how other people do it, but we look at adapting from a video game the way you'd look at adapting from a book or a play or anything that's not a movie and just try to apply the same basic rules of common sense. Do we have the right writer? Do we have the right writing team? Do we have the right filmmaker? I think anything can become a great movie if the filmmakers are cast. Well. Got it. That was followed by Sinners, Big Swing. Were you at any point nervous about how it was going to do? No. I mean, I think from the moment we read the script, Ryan is just a singular vision, visionary filmmaker. The moment we read the script, we saw it on the page, collaborating with him. I mean, I just think what this movie has meant to audiences and how it's ignited them in conversation. I mean, there was this amazing moment that happened over the course of the film when it was released. There was an open letter written to the studio and to Ryan from a young man from Clarksdale, Mississippi, who drove 90 minutes twice to see the film because Clarksdale doesn't have a movie theater. So we brought a movie theater to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and we went down there for the weekend and we met members of the community and this young man who is an organizer. And it was honestly, it was one of the most special moments of my career. I can't tell you the conversations that were had and the audience feeling that movie, feeling that music, meeting the musicians who live and who Ludwig and Ryan gathered for the from the Delta Blues to create this movie. You can't take that away. That is the power of storytelling. You talk about wanting to be in business with the best filmmakers. We have Ryan coming on later today. So I'm curious what, like, you've worked with, between the two of you, probably most of the best directors in Hollywood. What is it that sets Ryan apart from his peers? Is there something specific about him that you feel like, you know, we love all our children kind of a thing. But I'm not asking you to say why you should, but I'll tell you. I'll tell you straight up. Ryan is all heart, and he did a thing. We didn't think it was going to become a marketing tool, but he did a thing where he explained it was for Kodak. You know, why he picked the film formats he picked and why I Mean, he's talking about perfs and things that I should know. I mean, I kind of know, but he makes it completely, not only understandable, but he managed in an instructional thing for Kodak to connect with cinephiles of like, hey, the subtext was, I made this for you. I took the time to really pore over what would be the best presentation of this story for you, a theatrical audience. And they felt, wow, this guy made it for us. I'm gonna go see it on a big screen. Ryan's ability to connect with his audience, both in the material and then just talking about his movies is really unique to Ryan. And we're now making every director do it, even if they have to get training. One thing that was really well publicized leading up to the film's releases, in order to get the rights, you had agreed to give him ownership, I think 25 years after the fact. Why do you think that became such a talking point? And have you done that with other filmmakers previously? I think I just think there was an outsized conversation about it because it was unique, but it was unique to this movie and it was unique to Ryan's, to this deal. I think the importance of this movie and how it's affected audiences is what we should all be talking about. Because honestly, I went to the theater that opening weekend and seeing audiences on 70 millimeter IMAX, it's the greatest feeling in the world. Both you talked about the Kodak video. One of the things that I think Minecraft and Sinners shared is they both developed a lot of momentum online, which felt organic. And so I'm curious, when it feels like a lot of things become hits almost beyond your control, how do you plan for that? When you're thinking about green lights, when you're thinking about marketing, because you obviously can't factor in like, well, this one's going to go viral on TikTok and this one's not. Well, you know, the first one of the things David tasked us with was, you know, even though we inherited the organization, what's the right balance for the era that we're in? So that involved a reorg of marketing and distribution. So when we elevated the next generation of marketing leadership at the studio, we talked about. We talked about where audiences are getting their movie advertising now and what the kindling is for each project to light those bonfires online and getting that core audience, whether it was the gamers on Minecraft or the African American audience on Sinners, really white hot over something that we knew they were going to like and being able to amplify that heat to the general audience really became the coin of the realm in our new marketing department. So while you can't plan for it, you can arrange the chess pieces to take advantage of it if it happens. Are we going to get sequels to either Minecraft or Sinners? You're definitely going to get a sequel to Minecraft. Sinners is such a singular vision from a signature filmmaker and it wasn't really set up to be an expanded universe. We just think it's again another cinematic masterpiece we're lucky to have. Yeah, that's Pam Abdy and Mike DeLuca, the co heads of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures, speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shah. Coming up, more from Bloomberg Screen Time held this past week in Los Angeles. Up next, Lucas Shaw sits down with late night host get ready for this Jimmy Kimmel. They spoke just after coming off of Jimmy Kimmel suspension by abc this is Bloomberg. You're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got your core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that. That's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto, it's all there plus an industry leading 3.8% APY high yield cash account. Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.com and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com paid for by Public Investing. All investing involves the risk of loss including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member Finran SIPC crypto trading provided by Bakkt Crypto Solutions LLC. Complete disclosures available@public.com disclosure being a small business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. That's why they make your business business growth their priority. The Chase team takes the time to understand your mission, where you are now and where you want to go. Their broad range of solutions is designed with you in mind so you can bring your ideas to life. From banking to payment acceptance to credit cards, you can conveniently manage all your business finances all in one place. With their digital tools looking for tips and advice, their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn more@chase.com business chase for business Make More of what's Yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates. May apply JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2025 JP Morgan Chase & Co. Running small and medium sized businesses is hard work. Business owners need to be sure that their ads are working just as hard as they do. Amazon Ads allows businesses to track and optimize campaigns for better ROI from their marketing. With Amazon Ads, you can be more sure that your marketing is reaching relevant audiences during premium content and shows they're actually watching. Trillions of browsing, shopping and streaming insights help you optimize your campaigns in real time and measurement tools show you what's working the hardest. Gain the Edge with Amazon Ads this is Bloomberg businessweek Daily with Carol Massar and Tim Stanvak on Bloomberg Radio. We are back on a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week looking at some of our favorite guests. Actually, they were all our favorites. Let's just put it out there because they were unbelievable. The conversations, the people who are at Bloomberg screen time that was held this past week in Los Angeles. Late night host Jimmy Kimmel joined Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw this in the wake of his controversial and temporary suspension by abc. Kimmel reflected on the evolving future of late night TV and media in the President Trump era, divided audiences and the high stakes of satire in today's charged climate. Thanks for being here. I know it's been a weird few weeks. Has it? Yeah, I think so. I want to start at the beginning if we can. When I was born. Yes, it was in a manger. Well, so since you brought it up, we're going to talk about everything that happened. Have you listened to this AI podcast about your life? No. I found it doing some research. They have an AI voice that just narrates. The first episode is your life until you get hired on abc. The second episode is your career at ABC until recently. And the third episode is very recent. We can fact check it. Does it have the details of my divorce? No, but it does have a line. The Kimmels weren't wealthy, but they weren't struggling either. They were in that sweet spot of American middle class life where dreams seemed achievable and laughter came easily around the dinner table. That's pretty spot on. This AI is terrifying. How long after the initial episode where you made the comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Monday episode, did you realize there was a problem. I didn't think there was a big problem. I just saw it as distortion on the part of some of the right wing media networks and I aimed to correct it. I have problems all the time. And it's kind of funny because sometimes you think, oh, this is not a problem, and then it turns into a big problem. And then sometimes it goes the other way where you think like, oh, this is going to be a problem and nobody really notices. And so at what point did you realize this was a problem? I think when. When they pulled the show off the air. Well, that's unusual. Yeah. And what were the conversations with Dana and Bob that led to that? I hate to disappoint you, but they were really good conversations. I'm not asking for you, anyone. I mean, like, really good conversations. They are. These are people that I, I've known for a long time and who I like very much and who were, you know, who wanted. We all wanted this to work out best. And I will tell you, like, I mean, first of all, I ruined Dana's weekend. It was just nonstop phone calls all weekend. But I don't think what, I don't think the result, which I think turned out to be very positive, would have been as positive if I hadn't talked to Dana as much as I did. Because it helped me think everything through and it helped me just kind of understand where everyone was coming from. I can sometimes be reactionary, I can sometimes be aggressive and I can sometimes be unpleasant. And I think that it helped me really having those days to think about it was helpful. Okay, I have a dumb question about this. As someone who was kind of reporting on it in real time, trying to figure out what's happening so the show goes off the air, you have all these conversations and when you made or when you all made a decision to put the show back on the air, as my understanding at the time was, it still wasn't exactly clear what you were going to say. They still hadn't resolved the issues with the affiliates. So what do you resolve in those conversations to know you're going back if you haven't figured out a lot of the things that come out of it? I think just the spirit of what I'm going to say rather than specifically what I was going to say. And I think that's something that we all agreed on. And I think that ultimately I wanted to kind of COVID every base if I could. And sometimes he can do that and sometimes he can't do that. And it was something really that had to come from inside me. It had to be truthful, and I had to lay it all out there and just be honest about what I was feeling and what I'd experienced. And I think I did. And I think that it probably went about as well as it could go. I knew that it wasn't going to be perfect, and there were always going to be people that didn't like it and didn't accept it. But the important thing to me was that I was able to explain what I was saying, what I was trying to say. Because you felt like your initial comments had been mischaracterized? I didn't feel like it was. They were. It was intentionally and, I think maliciously mischaracterized. Yes. Yeah. Did you. I mean, do you feel like you have become more political in your commentary on the show over the course of hosting it? What do you think? I think yes. I think if you talk to me when. When my first interaction with Jimmy Kimmel was the man show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is you and Carolla, who at this point, as best I can tell, are on complete opposite ends of the political spectrum. But still friends. Yeah, Very good friends. Yeah. And it's. You know, it feels like you became far more comfortable and insistent on talking, not just about politics, but about personal things. Maybe because you got older, maybe because you got more comfortable in the role. Maybe because the world around us changed. All of those things. Yeah, all of those things, for sure. I think maturity is part of it. I think you figure out who you are. I think that when I started the show, I was mostly. My homepage was espn.com. it's kind of all I really cared about was sports. Because you've been a radio sports guy. I've been a sports guy. I did football picks on Fox NFL Sunday for years. In radio. Yeah. I was on KROC with Kevin and Bean. I was mostly interested in sports and. And I was interested in politics. I've always been a. You know, even as a kid. My parents are very liberal. I've been a Democrat since I was a little boy. I think the first, like, political cartoon I ever drew was of Jimmy Carter and John Anderson. You know, I was, like, 12 or something. And I've always been interested in politics, but I was never a particularly political person. I also think maybe. Maybe he did, but maybe he didn't have to be back then. You know, I mean, I think this is a very different situation that we're in now. And also my job, as I see it, is to talk about the news. Of the day. And these are the big stories of the day, pretty much every day. And how much of that, like, can you see a difference? Because we're in Trump too. Do you feel like it was the need to talk about politics is greater when he has been president as opposed to when other people? Like if you started when Bush was president, then you had Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump. It does feel like things have gotten more political over time, but do you think it is also sort of a. I don't want to use the word quirk, but a facet of Trump and his relationship with the media? Yeah. I mean, he's on TV all day, every day, so he gives us a lot to use to deal with. You know, that's unusual. That's not how it used to be. You occasionally get a video of George Bush, like walking the wrong way on stage, and then you'd make a week out of it, you know, or somebody trips or something like that. But now it's just, you hear him, you see him, you. He's just presented himself so frequently at. It makes it. It's just more digestible. It's more, more digestible and less digestible at the same time. Right. Do you feel like you interact with a lot of comedians? Do you think there's some writers and comedians I've spoken with who feel like comedy's actually been harder with him as president? What you just said is, in a way, it's in some. There's more material to work with. What would you say his impact on comedy has been? Well, is there more? I don't know if there's more material. It's just more focused in one area. I'm not a stand up comic. I know for standup comics, you know, they work out their material and they do mostly that material every night. So politics change so quickly. It doesn't necessarily lend itself to that job. For me, I've always been more interested in doing new jokes when I started on the radio every day and doing new jokes every night. I don't love the idea of repeating myself. It feels more like acting to me than broadcasting. And I think essentially I'm a broadcaster and I'm more interested in that. So I can't speak to whether it's made their job more difficult. I know a lot of them just try to stay away from it. And I get it. You know, I get it. You're walking into a town and you don't know who's in the room and you just want to make people laugh and not necessarily on A crusade. And I get it. And I don't think any of those guys should be required to speak the way I do or the way Stephen Colbert does or Jon Stewart does. And I think that applies to people on television, too. You don't have to do this. I choose to do it. Since you came back, have you asked Trump or Carr to come on? No, I haven't. I wouldn't necessarily be interested in Brendan Carr on the show, but yeah, I'd love to have Trump on the show. For sure. Yeah. I mean, I feel like he knows that he want. I don't know. All right, I'll ask him. I'm curious about. You had Aziz Ansari on this week and you pressed him a lot on this Riyadh comedy festival that a bunch of comedians went and did. Do you, as someone who interviews for a living, did you give him a heads up you were going to ask him about that? Yes. You know how talk shows are. We basically, there's an understanding of what you're going to talk about. Sometimes it veers off into various directions, but they always know basically what the topics are going to be and why. I guess. Did you feel it was important to ask him about that because you had a point of view on comedians going to that festival? It seemed like you were against it. I wouldn't have gone, but I wanted to hear his reasons and I thought he had some compelling reasons. And nothing's black and white. It's not something I would do. But I do understand the idea that if we close ourselves off to the world or we isolate somebody, that maybe it's not good. I don't know that my, my reasoning is the correct reasoning. I also, you know, we see it happening in this country, too. I mean, we travel abroad. Many of us don't want to be held accountable for what our president does and says. As an American, you know, going someplace, I'm fortunate enough to be well known and people know where I'm coming from. But I think it would be a different situation if people didn't know who I was. And I think I'd probably be the first thing I'd say as I got into every cab is I didn't vote for him, just FYI, you know. So I do think that there's, you know, that kind of makes me understand that position better. That's late night host Jimmy Kimmel speaking with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw. And if you missed any of it because it was a longer conversation, be sure to check it out. You can find it on the bloomberg and@bloomberg.com that does it. For the first hour of our special edition of Bloomberg businessweek, we've been checking out some of our favorite conversations from Bloomberg Screen Time that of event held this past week in Los Angeles with the whole Bloomberg news team still to come, actor Mark Duplass on making indie movies and the co CEO of the most valuable entertainment company Netflix on how the business plans to maintain its lead. Plus director Ryan Coogler on how he is looking to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate. You're listening to Bloomberg businessweek. We continue with more highlights from Screen Time. I'm Carol Massar. And I'm Tim from Stanvak. Stay with us. 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Gain the Edge with Amazon Ads this is Bloomberg businessweek Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We are continuing with some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Screen Time event. It was held this past week in Los Angeles. Screen Time gathers the moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the next phase of pop culture. Over a day and a half in the heart of Hollywood, we discussed and debated the future of Hollywood studios, the boom in sports and live music, and the effect of AI on the creative industries. Gotta say, it's a really fun event. They've been doing it the last few years and it's just so fun to see the people and the cross section of folks that are there when it comes to content creation. We'll hear from an actor, studio heads and content creators. We begin with a conversation with Mark Duplass. He's a filmmaker, actor and producer. We spoke about balancing indie spirit and Hollywood collaboration. You do it all. Is there one that I'm sure you get this a million times that you like more than most in terms of doing, producing, directing or do you love how everything think kind of helps? The other thing I do like the blending of all the things and I come from the independent sector. You know, I came into this business making $3 movies in my kitchen with my brother on our parents video camera. So I'm no stranger to doing it all. But that said, I think that as I've been fortunate enough to do both indie projects and also be on a show like the Morning show which you know, one day's catering on that show is more expensive than most of the work I make. I like the I like the Balance. You know, I like hanging lights with my friends and sweating on my indie projects. But then I like when my burrito is brought to me in the trailer of the morning show and I'm taking care of. So these are the things someone who likes when his burrito is, doesn't like a burrito delivery. Also a trailer. Pretty nice. Yeah. I'm wondering about if you were getting into the business right now and how that would be different. It's like you're, you're making movies and your kitchen with your brother. But maybe you'd be using an iPhone, you'd be editing it using AI. I think the headline is the, the democratization of the technology has made it so wonderful that you can make anything you want now so much more cheaply than. Than I had it. So you have it a lot better than me on that front. But you have it way worse than I had it in 2005 when I came in. Because you talk about that. But the distribution channels are not there. Right. And so we're now experiencing sort of the death of the hyperbolic television movement. Right. And we, we staffed up and we got all ready for it and, and here we are and then it just dried up on us. So now we're going to have to start hacking a new road of direct consumer distribution. You know, we're working in so many different models now. We're making television series completely independently and taking them out and selling them afterwards because it is the wild west. Well, you know, it's funny that you say that because I think about something like YouTube and how much I watch YouTube and specific channels and like anybody can put anything up there. When you think about distribute distribution channels, what, what seems to provide the most opportunities for you, especially since you say, yeah, you play a bit more in the indie world. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I'm very, very fortunate that I've been doing this for 20 years. So, you know, I at least have somewhat of a name that people are interested in, interested in working with us. But I think YouTube is certainly exciting because you can put it up, it can catch fire. But the monetization of that and sustainability is really questionable in my opinion. But then you have these smaller substreamer services, like you look at dropout TV and what they're doing in comedy and you look at shudder, you know, they've become the home of horror fans as a subsidiary under amc, you know, and they're doing things in a low cost model. So I think the future here is to going, going to be figuring out how to make things relatively cheaply, cutting your big producer fees, cutting a lot of everybody's fee across the board. And then when you're in a position to be on top and power, really share that back end with people. And that's how I came up. In independent film, we would make movies for $150,000. Everybody would make 100 bucks a day. It was creative communism. And then you get points. We could take them to Sundance and sell them for a couple million bucks and the sound Guy would make $50,000 and buy a home. It was a beautiful time. It's not quite that easy anymore, but there's something in that model that will still work. I talked to somebody who lives out here. He's in the industry. He's been doing this for 30 years. And he was like, I've got award winning casting directors walking dogs on Rover to make ends meet. No, it's real. Is it that bad? I mean, I live in the Valley, which is, you know, the place where basically below the line union heads were able to buy their homes, you know, and, and that was under the sort of unspoken promise that this industry would continue to boom, strikes, fires. But not just that. The death of the streaming wars, which were unsustainable from the. That was just an arms race to see. So Netflix, who could choke somebody out, right? Netflix and Apple are the winners. I mean, tbd, because we could see a merger happen in five minutes after this. That changes everything. And there are. I won't, I won't go that far. But yes, there, there are certain people that have interest in those mergers and don't have interest. So, so does. Do you see the industry getting better? I think the industry is going to change. Look, I've been in this for 20 years. I know people who are been in this for much longer than me. And we. There are times when, oh my God, it was the 1980s. If you had a movie that had, you know, a gun and blood and some fighting in it, you could take it to VHS and you'd make your money. And it was a killer. In the 90s. It was that for DVDs in the 2000s, the streamers came in and I got to make all these cool movies for Netflix and tv. But it's going to change. We don't know which way it's going, but we got to be vigilant. You know, it's. We've seen it in the media industry and we still like being in it. It's incredible to be 30 seconds still having fun. You like It. I love it. I don't say I'm having fun all the time. I feel a deep responsibility for, like, my brothers and sisters in LA and in New York and everywhere who are just getting choked out by this business. That's actor Mark Duplass. We also got a chance to hear from Elena Mayo, the head of Orion Pictures. She spoke with us about reviving a legacy studio with a modern mission. This is like the underlying theme of the entire how do we improve and why are we here? Well, I think we're here because we have so much change and so much dynamism. And the reality is that no one really knows what the next wave of media content, Hollywood is going to look like. So we're at this incredible inflection point and having to innovate in real time and build new systems while the previous systems are being dismantled, are evolving, are changing. So while I wish I had a quick answer to your question of how do we do it, what we ended up talking about mostly is how do we just create enough sustainability for artists so that everyone can sustain this moment in time? And so whatever is on the other side of this, whatever that looks like, that the creative voices that build our industry can still survive. Does it get worse before it gets better? I mean, if you look at it with a long lens, you know, define worse, Right? If you look at a lot with a long lens, it's always. This business has always been challenged. This business has always gone through dips, it's always gone through ebbs. And how long this moment of uncertainty last is probably longer than any of us would love. And if that's how you define worse than. Yes. But I think, you know, I think it's just going to always be changing. I don't know if it's going to get worse or better. I think we're going to continue to change and evolve. You know, I always think about supply and demand cycles. I've got a degree in economics and I think about the world in that way. And I think there was a period where we thought, man, if you're a content creator, you are good as gold. Because there's so many, you know, different platforms that need your services, they need your content. And then all of a sudden I think there's a lot of content, and maybe, I don't know, there was too much content and the oversupply. So where is the rebalancing or how do we get back to a different level? I think we're seeing the rebalancing now. I will say I Personally, am a little bit worried about the level of consulting consolidation that we have, because I do think that it is hard to keep things weighed in the favor of the creators and of the artists, which is really the community that we need to continue any sort of artistic endeavor in media. But, you know, I think Mark said something. He may have already said this to you guys earlier, but that I think is a really important bit of context, which is the past 10 years of the streaming arms race was a boon. Like, that was a spike. That was an. That was an absolute normal state of our industry. Right. So this is a little bit corrective. Right. It's not completely just the, you know, earth has fallen out underneath us. This is a little bit of a correction of something that was a real kind of an aberration in of itself. So a good thing. A little bit maybe, but not good if you're a content creator. Yeah, I was going to say, I think. I think the. The good thing is that there are more ways to monetize content. Right. And we talked about it. Everything from direct to consumer models to YouTube. There are a lot of different platforms in addition to Hollywood where you can monetize content. How you do that. Right. Is the thing that a lot of us don't yet know is, you know, when he pauses, this could be. It's political too. Yeah. The president has weighed in recently and he said the way to fix this is to put tariffs on films that are made outside the US you're shaking your head. I don't think that's the way to practice. Why should we be filming scenes about Brooklyn in Vancouver? I think that we. Listen, I definitely am personally invested in us keeping production inside of the communities that, you know, where the people that make them live. Right. Because it's not just about. Are we maintaining the integrity of the film itself by location space shooting. This city is where the majority of people that make stuff live. And we've got to keep this city healthy. And the economy and the infrastructure of that has to be supported by films being made here. And we've got to figure that out. At the same time, if we're going to make the path of supporting these artists is to be able to make more, to increase the amount of stuff that is being made, we've got to be nimble. And if that means that sometimes shooting things outside of the States or shooting things outside of LA and New York is the way to do that, you know, a lot of the films that we've been able to make that are really innovative and Original and risky have to find ways to cost less. And some of the ways that we find to make them cost less is to shoot them elsewhere. And then you have American fiction, which is a Boston set story that shot in Massachusetts. So, you know, we can figure it out different ways, but we've got to have some flexibility. I was trying forever to figure out what college that was. What was it? I went to college in New England. They didn't. I don't believe they shot. I would, I would, would be lying to you if I told you I knew exactly where that location was. But it may not have been a college at all. It may have been a conference room. I'm sorry to pressure about that. So being able to film wherever in the world, like that's part of it, right? 100%. We're, you know, we're a global community without a penalty, whether it's a tariff or whatever. 100%. And also, what about the movies that we produce out of Hollywood that are not set in the U.S. you know, we also produce movies that are set all over the world. You know, Mission Impossible doesn't just all take place here, right. So I think we have to be a global industry. We have to, you know, be a global economy with artisans that are working all over the world. But the argument that I understand is that shouldn't be to the expense of the film industries locally. I really, I feel very strongly about that. You came of age in an industry while it was like undergoing this massive shift to streaming, which you alluded to. When you began your career, did you ever think that you'd be making movies at a company that was owned by Amazon? No, I couldn't. I shouldn't say this, but I remember when Amazon first started making television shows, I was at Fox and I laughed. I was like, this is ridiculous. People never laughed. And everyone was like, this is pretty good. They started making incredible TV shows. And then, you know, to track from that moment to now working at a film studio that is under the Amazon umbrella. I couldn't have predicted any of this. I will say though, when you talk about all of those places that I worked, part of the reason why I got my dream job, the best job that I thought you could ever have in film. I was a movie studio executive at Paramount. I was on the Paramount lot. And after being there for five or six years, I realized that the world around me had changed. And I went to Vimeo very intentionally because I thought there's all of this cool stuff that is happening in this digital space and I need to understand it. And then I said I I got to work with close to the talent and I've got to produce and be able to be scrappy and produce for different platforms and different mediums. I went to go work with Michael B. Jordan and so it's been ever changing for the entirety of the time that I have had the blessing of having a career in this industry, which is why I think it's not falling, you know, it's not all falling apart. That's Elena Mayo, the head of Orion Pictures. Coming up, more from the Bloomberg Screentime event in Los Angeles earlier this week. Up next we hear from from the co CEO of the world's most valuable entertainment company, Netflix, that when we continue with highlights from Bloomberg Screen Time held this past week. This is Bloomberg. You're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got your core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investment and Public gets that. That's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto. It's all there plus an industry leading 3.8% APY high yield cash account. Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public public.com and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com paid for by Public Investing. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Crypto Trading provided by BAKKT Crypto Solutions LLC. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosure being a small business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. That's why they make your business growth their priority. The Chase team takes the time to understand your mission, where you are now and where you want to go. Their broad range of solutions is designed with you in mind so you can bring your ideas to life. From banking to payment acceptance to credit cards, you can conveniently manage all your business finances all in one place with their digital tools. Looking for tips and advice. Their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn more@chase.com business chase for business. Make More of what's yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JPMorgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2025 JP Morgan Chase & Co. Running small and medium sized businesses is hard work. Business owners need to be sure that their ads are working just as hard as they do. Amazon Ads allows businesses to track and optimize campaigns for better ROI from their marketing. With Amazon ads, you can be more sure that your marketing is reaching relevant audiences during premium content and shows they're actually watching. Trillions of browsing, shopping and streaming insights help you optimize your campaigns in real time, and measurement tools show you what's working the hardest. Gain the Edge with Amazon Ads this is Bloomberg businessweek Daily with Carol Massar and Tim Stanweck on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We are all in on Screen Time Bloomberg Screen Time it was held this past week in Los Angeles. At Screen Time we heard from Greg Peters, the co CEO of Netflix. Greg joined Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to discuss the company's growing investment in live sports and video games, as well as its efforts to keep viewers engaged for longer. He shared how the business plans to maintain its lead while investing in what's next. Everyone acts like Netflix has won everything, right. I get a lot of people don't people, even people at Netflix don't like it when you say that Netflix has won the streaming wars. They think it's the wrong. But I want to. So I want to start with something. Let's go negative. All right. You're speaking to my personality here. What is something that Netflix needs to do better? We need to do everything better. And I think the reason I hate when I hear we've won everything, whatever. Actually, I think the worst position for a company to be in is to feel like they've actually won everything. Because I think success has this vulnerability where you start to breed complacency, arrogance and things like that. And I think in the world that we live in, entertainment, this has been the most competitive entertainment environment that's ever existed in the planet in the history of humankind. It's getting more and more competitive and if you don't maintain the sense that you are constantly vulnerable, I think you will lose. So the biggest thing that people point to as perhaps a sign of vulnerability, at least that I notice, is that your engagement, the amount of time people spend on the service, has been pretty flat over the last couple of years. And then you look at the regular drops from Nielsen. And you see that streaming share of TV time has gone up quite a bit. And your share that's gone up is a pretty small fraction of that. A lot of the growth has gone to these free services. So how do you address that? Well, I think you just essentially explained it, right, which is that we move to on demand very early on in the process. So we sort of got the benefit or basically built our business around that benefit, and then everyone over a period of time caught up. And essentially from our perspective, they're all now moving to that model and moving to that benefit for consumers. So frankly, the fact that we were actually keeping pace in that sort of shifting tide, if you will, I think is a reasonably good thing. It's not great. I mean, good thing. But from everything I've heard inside the company, the goal was basically to replace television, right? Have Netflix be the one. If you can watch basically anything on television on Netflix, except for news and until recently, sports. Well, I think, you know, expressing that as an ambition and also that as a way to organize how the company thinks about what we're trying to go do is great. I also think that that's not consistent with saying that we thought it was realistic that we were going to be the only thing that people were going to watch, right? Because I also don't think that that's realistic at the end of the day. So I think there's always going to be like multiple sources of entertainment, even in the categories that we serve. We want to be, you know, we want to win as much of that as we possibly can. So I'm not, you know, don't back to being complacent. I'm not happy with the fact, you know, that we're not growing engagement. We should grow more engagement. I think we will. I expect you'll see engagement numbers will go up for us. But also I don't think that. I don't think there's a world in which we be the only thing that people watch. A big project, I assume to help grow engagement was the new user interface UI that you rolled out over the last year. Plus Yep. Can you point to some key ways in which that has already helped or you think it will help? Well, I would say a lot of what we've been doing is essentially re architecting the entire stack. This is from how algorithms get calculated. We used to calculate overnight everyone's recommendations. When they show up in the morning, we would have that baked. Now we do it dynamically on the fly. And now we've created a UI where essentially you can connect those algorithmic pipes in and also launch new modules. Can you use words that. I'm not even going to insult the audience here, that I will understand. Yeah. So thank you. Basically, what happens now is that when we think about what titles do you want to watch? Right. We used to do that overnight and you'd show up and we'd give you those titles. Right. But now the way that we do it essentially is as you're navigating the ui, we think about, oh, what are signals that you're giving? I skipped over this thing really quickly. I'm not interested in that. That's right. So I think that's something that's going to take us, I think, a while to really build the fullness of how that delivers benefit for our users. But the thing that I can point to right now that the new UI structure is designed to go do and is doing for us is serving new content needs. As we expand beyond just film and series, we expand to live events. And the UI has to do a different job, which is like, why do you want to show up at Thursday at 7pm because, oh, you're going to watch a boxing match that you wouldn't otherwise get to see, or why do you want to play a game? Or those kind of things? That's what it's doing for us right now, right? When it comes to live, that was something that you sort of famously said you weren't going to do sports for a while. And I know it's not just sports, you also do other live events. But the sports have been the biggest, right? Your NFL game was really big. Boxing match was huge. Or both boxing matches, the Logan or the. The Jake Paul one will decide if it's really a boxing match or elder. You can offer your own. If it was, how much more are you going to invest in live events over the next few years? And are there things that, you know that you want to add to the service that you don't have right now? So I would say start with, you know, live, we think of as an important additional form of entertainment that we can deliver members. It's sort of a different style of entertainment where actually it's interesting because in contrast to our on demand service, which has tremendous benefit because you control the entertainment when you want to watch it, the big benefit alive is that we're all experiencing the same thing at the same time and that has tremendous sort of social and conversational relevance. So we want to do more of represents a very small fraction of our total investment. It represents a small fraction of our total hours. But we think it all also does a different job. So it sort of. Does it have a different impact? Like, do you see. Because from the third party data I've seen, you tend to see huge surges in signups around some of those bigger events. Yeah, I think we expect that it will do the same work ultimately that our other content does, which basically is a reason to sign up and a reason to stay. That's, you know, at the end of the day now, I think we. Back to your point about, like, what do we know we want to get and stuff like that. We're still really learning in the space. So we're really trying to figure out, like, okay, what, how is this delivering value to members? How is this delivering value to the business? And there's definitely different phenomena, which these are punctuated moments to your point. Right. Which, you know, people go like, okay, if I may be on the edge of signing up for Netflix, this might be the thing that pushes me over, you know, to actually do that. So I think we'll see different things for sure. But we really are learning as we go. I want to throw one poll to the audience before we. I asked the next question because they are related. So I just want to. I promised Greg I would do this. Keep in mind how much these sports cost. Football is the most expensive. Tennis is the least expensive. Everything else sort of fits in between there. So even though Greg and I both like tennis, probably smallest audience, but also least expensive, big international audience, what would you say are the odds that you make a bid for one of the football packages when the NFL out of its current deal in 29. It doesn't really fit with our strategy as we understand it right now. So again, back to your point, we think about what we're doing as an events strategy. And turns out, as you said, sports are big events. And so we can plug those into that strategy. But we also want to make sure that we're being really, really disciplined about are we buying? Are we investing in ways that are profitable for the business? And some of the big league sports things we don't actually think have a way to figure out that math. Soccer. Okay. All right. Although it doesn't. I mean, isn't the sort of the magic of football? I get that the NFL is maybe tricky for you in that it's not global and how expensive it is, but the reason it's so successful, it's the one sport where like every Sunday sort of is an event. It's amazing in that regard. Right. But I think to some degree that lack of substitutability is, of course, what gives the rights holders the leverage. And. And they've done a pretty good job at getting paid. Yeah, I know. I can tell that you guys have this vision of where you have more leverage than the sports leagues in a negotiation, and that has basically never happened in media. That's right. Until it happens, I would say you should have some skepticism about that. Okay. One other thing that you guys have basically never done is large scale M and A. But the bigger you get, the more you tend to get tied to different companies, different deals. There's been some reports around you guys being interested in Warner Brothers Discovery. Is there any truth to that? I'd say this. We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers. I also think that one should have a reasonable amount of skepticism around big media mergers. They don't have an amazing track record over the history of time. So I would say it's our responsibility to evaluate all our options and try. So you'll look, you'll have a conversation, but the odds of an offer are pretty low. Yeah. Our job is to figure out what's the best way to grow our business. And we have to think really carefully. How do we invest our capital, our time and our attention, and if that's the best way to do it, great. And if it's not, then we should do something else. What area? You're investing a lot of capital right now. Or you might quibble with a lot of. But it is gaming. Small fraction of our total investment. But appreciate you saying that. You've been offering video games for four years. How would. What would you. What grade would. A little over three. Little over three. Sorry. What grade would you give your gaming efforts so far? I'll give us a B minus. How's that? Okay. Yeah. I would say, look, you want to maybe just start where we're at. Right. One, you know, it's a big market, you know, $140 billion. X ex China, ex Russia. That doesn't include. That's just consumer spend. That doesn't include ads. So we think it's a real opportunity for us to try and earn a percentage of that over a period of time. A lot of what we've been doing is really just building the foundation. Right. We've been doing a lot of, like, you know, real hard plumbing work. But now we're getting to a really interesting place where, you know, we're going to deliver more of what our vision of what we should be doing in the space is and we call it games because that's a real a rubric or a name that we all can relate to. But really I would look at this as how do we add more interactive capability. So that means even things like taking our live program back to the live program. How do we add interactivity with live. So we've got boating right now that we're in testing on with David Chang and his live cooking show. You'll see that interact those interactive features. Come up with Star Search when we do another live event of non sports, live event of Star Search. So that's an exciting place to be. And then it gets also the Dave Chang. Yeah. So you can see this is sort of how the Dave Chang experience is working. And you know, again, this is, you know, the tip of the iceberg. And we'll get deeper into this as we go. We're also, I think, more clear around what are the gaming areas back to the, you know, the more traditional gaming areas that we are operating in. You know, it's a lot of interactive games around our ip. So you think about what you did with Squid game. I don't know if you saw Throng based on the Black Mirror Universe, but it did not. It's worth checking out because if you're a Black Mirror fan, it's so in universe. And the fans of Black Mirror just loved it because it was like they were having a meta experience there too. But even like Happy Gilmore, we did a golf game with Happy Gilmore that got a remarkable amount of consumption. Do most of the people who use Netflix know you offer games? I would say, I mean that's part of frankly, what's been hard about this. And I think it's, it's hard for any brand that has a deep consumer sense of what are you doing for me, Right. And then you're like, well, I'm going to do this as well. And you have. It takes a while to really build up that sense of what's happening. That's Netflix co CEO Greg Peters coming up on Bloomberg businessweek. More from the Bloomberg Screen Time event held this past week in Los Angeles. Coming up, director Ryan Coogler on the state of Hollywood, the vision for his multimedia company, and how he's looking to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate. Sinners, anyone? Well done. Well done. That's all coming ahead as we continue from Bloomberg Screen Time. This is Bloomberg. You're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got your core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that. That's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto. 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With Amazon ads you can be more sure that your marketing is reaching relevant audiences during premium content and shows they're actually watching. Trillions of browsing, shopping and streaming insights help you optimize your campaigns in real time and measurement tools show you what's working the hardest. Gain the Edge with Amazon Ads this is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio. We are back on a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We are highlighting and Checking out some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Screen Time event. It happened all this past week in Los Angeles. Ryan Coogler and Sev Ohanian are the creative forces behind Proximity Media in films like Judas and The Black Messiah, Creed 3, and this year's Oscar frontrunner Sinners. Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw caught up with the pair and heard from them on the state of Hollywood, the vision for their multimedia company, and how they are looking to push the boundaries to tell stories that resonate with. But I want to start with the origin of your relationship and your company. So you guys met at usc, right? Where did the idea for Proximity come? And what was the mission for it when you started it? That's such a great question. So under normal circumstances, there'll be three of us sitting here. We're going to talk about our partner, Zinzi Kuvler, quite a bit. She's our partner and she's my wife. But it really started, you know, it really started there, man. Like, I went to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. I started in 2008. Sid, when did you come in, bro? Was it fall 2008? Yeah. Yeah. So I started in the spring and we met in the Robert Zemeckis center for Digital Arts. It was basically like where we have our stages and we would rent equipment and Sed was working in the front desk there. I was working in the equipment room. And before that, I found out I wanted to make movies. And Zinzi Coogler, she was Zinzi Evans, then bought me my first final draft screenplay software helped me to start writing screenplays. I found out that Sev had already made a feature film before he even came to film school. If you want to talk about that first movie you made. Yeah, before I got to film school, I started making little YouTube videos poking fun of my Armenian parents out of love. At the time, it would have. Today, they would have been probably like TikTok videos. But these videos got really viral in the global Armenian population. So it led to me making a feature film on my dad's mini DV camera. I say this all the time, but I wrote it, I directed it, I shot it, I produced it. I did everything except for makeup. And then the makeup artist quit. So then I did that, too. Awful makeup. But that movie, it was called My Big Fat Armenian Family, totally Love Letter to My People. And I screened it locally in Glendale, and it had, you know, it did really well with my community. And that empowered me to want to go to film school, you know, where we met, you said recently, got the keys to the city in Glendale, too. No, but he said he got nothing for it. Nothing. He can just tell people he has a key. But yeah. So you know Zinzi, she was doing sign language interpreting at Fresno State, but she was basically like auditing classes at sc. I would sneak her into class all the time. So we got two degrees for the price of one technically. And Sev and I became friends. He started producing movies for a lot of my classmates. Got a big reputation as one of the top producers at the school. So we always wanted to work together. And I got the opportunity to make my first feature film shortly after I graduated. That was Fruitville Station, and we made it back in Oakland. Zenz was kind of like helping. We were living together. We just got our apartment. She was on set every day, you know, leaving our day job. And Seb actually came up and produced that film for us. So it was a fantastic start to our relationship. You know, after that, we kind of went our separate ways. I made a movie called Creed after. And it had a lot of. Creed had a lot of. Big fan, I'm saying, fans. Creed had a lot of story producers on there, you know, like Sylvester Stallone, Irwin Winkler, Kevin King, Templeton. And I tried to get my buddy on. I tried to get Sev out there to help, but we weren't able to make that happen. So Mad Creed. And then I got the opportunity to work on Black Panther. At the same time, Sevak was making movies with a young man named Aneesh Chaganty. And they made a film that was all on screens called Search that ended up getting acquired to become Searching won a couple of awards at Sundance. Sun Show. Yeah. And right around that same time, a good friend of ours, Charles King, who was my manager, he was just really hard on me and Zinzi to start a company. He was like, you guys gotta do it. Now's the time. I was pulling my hair out trying to finish a Marvel movie. I thought he was crazy, but we took his advice and Zinzi and I sat down and coming up with the concept for the company, we kind of said, hey, the only way we would do this is if we could have Sev come join it with us. We can kind of reunite the team that worked on Fruitvale together. And Sev and Anish came to Screen Searching at. And Natalie. And Natalie and Natalie Kasabian, who. Sev was Sev's wife and an incredible producer in her own right. They all came up to Screen Searching at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. I think I might have opened the San Francisco Film Festival. And we kind of sat sev down in San Francisco, Men's Ends and pitched him on Proximity. And thankfully he said yes. So that's kind of the game. Yeah. And what a lot of filmmakers, actors, talent, when they create their own company. And I think it's especially. This is especially tricky for directors. It can be hard to have the company be more than just like, Ryan Coogler movies. So how do you approach it? How have you tried to diversify? And do you have models that you look after other filmmakers who you think have done that? Well, that's such a great question. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and honestly, for us, it kind of worked out because, you know, Black Panther 2 wasn't a proximity movie. We actually started the company, like, right. You know, right before the Pandemic kicked off in late 2018. And our first three movies that we made, I didn't direct them. You know, it was a crash course in producing. You know, we did Space Jam, A New Legacy. We did Judas and the Black Messiah, and then we did Creed 3, which was Michael B. Jordan's directing debut. So it was really a great opportunity for us to kind of show to the marketplace that the Proximity wasn't just about movies that I wrote and directed. We actually had a chance to put three out that I didn't write and direct. I don't know if you want to talk about it. No, I mean, as a matter of fact, we've made a number of movies, a lot of shows now, documentaries, and only one of our projects has been a Ryan Coogler directed film. So like Ryan said, right out the gate, we had Judas and the Black Messiah. That was a film that honestly was one of the reasons we sparked us starting the company. We realized that there was an opportunity here to help support incredible filmmaker Shaka King and getting that movie made. And I think Jupiter is a good example. Like a lot of the projects that we make, the ones that Ryan directs and not are not necessarily films that on paper seem like obvious hits or sure things. And I think having that be our first film, really as a company, I think it helps set the tone for what we were trying to do. Both. Correct me if I'm wrong, both Space Jam and Judas and the Black Messiahs are came out into Covid. And Judas was part of the whole Warner Brothers experiment where it was on streaming in theaters at the same time. I forget Space Jam was too. It was too. Yeah. Did you feel like. And I realize Pandemic skews all this a little bit. But having had movies come out in all different ways, do you feel like having it drop in theaters and streaming at the same time was a different experience as a producer, as a filmmaker? Did it have any more or less of a cultural impact? That's such a great question, man. It was our first time doing it, you know, so. And you gotta remember, man, people were dying, bro. Like, it was. It was. Everything was shut down, you know, I remember talking with Malika Andrews. She was talking about going into the COVID bubble to. Yeah, like, the NBA wasn't. Like, nothing was happening. We didn't even know if our careers would exist anymore, to be honest. So when we had to make. When we got. When we found out on both films, that that was what was happening. And, you know, we called both filmmakers. Malcolm D. Leo on Space Jam and Shaka King on Judas. And I remember, you know, Shaka, God bless him, he was caretaking for his parents, trying to keep them. Cause they were elderly, trying to keep them from getting sick. He was in the heart of New York when New York was going through all that they were going through while he was trying to finish the movie. And he was just happy that people were gonna see it. You know what I mean? Like, that was kind of his. Kind of his reaction, you know, looking back on it, the world was going through a lot. We were blessed to have the opportunity to have Creed 3 come out, you know, theatrically, with Amazon, MGM, you know, and there is. There is a difference, you know, when folks have a chance to see the film in theaters and it gets to be a moment before it actually goes to the streaming space, you know, but at that time, you know, we were just getting started, and it was kind of happening to so many different. So many different films and filmmakers, you know, it was kind of just what it was, you know? Yeah. I'm curious on that. Have you. Have you ever thought about. Or would you make a movie for a streaming service? Would you make a NETFLIX movie, man? That's a great question. I'm waiting for one where I ask and you go, that was a shitty question. Yeah, I mean, you know, you good at your job, bro? Like, is this actually the first time anybody's ever asked me that? You know, I'm not here to say what I would and wouldn't do in the future, you know, but the theatrical experience is one that means a great deal to me. It means a great deal to us, you know, and, you know, like, I think that I feel a certain Responsibility. Like, if Fruitville had happened a calendar year later, it probably would have come out on streaming. You know, I've been fortunate enough that everything that I've written and directed has been a theatrical release. So I feel a duty to try to protect that, you know. But that's where I'm at today. Yeah, that theatrical experience triggered. We were talking with Mike and Pam earlier about that video that you made related to Kodak before Sonic came out, which sort of went viral on the Internet. How did that come about? And why do you think that resonated with people so much? Probably a lot of people who have no idea what you were talking about. Yeah, I mean, it came about from just conversations with us, you know, internally. One thing that I thought it made sense to do was to let audiences know why we shot the film the way that we did. Let audiences know that it was a unique thing that hadn't happened before. In this day and age, everybody's fighting for everybody's attention, you know, and it's a lot of really compelling things that anybody can find on their phone, on their newsfeed. There's so much happening in the world. There's so much. So many talented creators. I saw y' all had Twitch streamers on here, and, you know, all of that stuff is incredibly compelling and addictive, and people need a reason, you know, to hire the babysitter to, you know, to make the date and to go out and stand in line and go, you know, and for us, you know, we felt that we should put it all out there for folks, you know, we never in a million years like Zinzi and said were there with me. That's actually Zinzi's handwriting on a. On the whiteboard, because my handwriting's chicken scratch. You know what I'm saying? But they were right there that day. We all worked on it, and Warner Brothers was incredibly supportive with the video, gave us their BTS team to shoot it and stuff. We never thought that millions of people would see it. We were hoping that we would be happy with a few thousand. You know what I mean? Like, people who were really interested in film projection and interested in the theatrical experience. But it really took off in a way we couldn't have. We couldn't have imagined. That's Ryan Coogler and Sev Ohanian, co founders of Proximity Media. And that does it for this special edition of Bloomberg businessweek, featuring some of the highlights from Bloomberg Screen Time. It was held this past week in Los Angeles. If you want to check out all of the conversations. Just check out the Bloomberg Terminal or head to bloomberg.com Be sure to tune in to Bloomberg Businessweek daily Monday through Friday starting at 2pm Wall street time on Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio and on Sirius XM channel 121. Also check us out on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Free in the Apple App Store or on Google Play. You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Podcasts we're simulcast on Bloomberg Originals, available at bloomberg.com originals and streaming platforms including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung TV and more. Find our Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast@Bloomberg.com, apple or wherever you get your podcasts. And the latest edition of the magazine is available on newsstands now@bloomberg.com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. I'm Tim Stenbeck. And I'm Carol Massar. Have a good and safe weekend everyone. Check out Watch something Streaming a movie? A sports event? Check sinners out if you haven't seen it. Good idea, but do stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now. Hiscock Small Business Insurance Knows there is no business like your business. 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