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- [00:01]
Carol Massar
When we go into a new region, networks matter. Experience matters.
- [00:04]
Tim Stanweck
For an inside look at the global connections that help businesses succeed, search for Turning Point Brought to you by Bloomberg Media Studios and HSBC Running small and.
- [00:16]
Carol Massar
Medium sized businesses is hard work.
- [00:19]
Lucas Shaw
Business owners need to be sure their.
- [00:21]
Carol Massar
Ads are working just as hard as they do.
- [00:23]
Lucas Shaw
Amazon Streaming TV ads makes your marketing.
- [00:26]
Tim Stanweck
Dollar work harder With Amazon ads.
- [00:29]
Carol Massar
Trillions of insights help small and medium businesses reach the right customers that matter.
- [00:34]
Tim Stanweck
Your ads will show up during the shows the people are actually watching and.
- [00:38]
Lucas Shaw
Measurement tools show you what's working the hardest.
- [00:41]
Tim Stanweck
Gain the edge with Amazon ads Introducing.
- [00:44]
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- [01:17]
Tim Stanweck
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News 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. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stenbec on Bloomberg Radio.
- [01:47]
Lucas Shaw
Billionaire Jared Isaacman is set to be in talks with Trump off over that top NASA job. You might remember he was nominated to be the head of NASA, but that nomination was pulled. Ed Ludlow from Bloomberg Tech has the exclusive. He joins us on site here at a Bloomberg screen time. This was really surprising to me.
- [02:03]
Ed Ludlow
It was a surprise. What we know from from sources is that Jared Isaacman in recent weeks has been meeting with the President and other government officials and the discussion has centered around a pathway for Jared Isaacman to be renominated to lead NASA. You'll remember he had been nominated, but the administration canceled or terminated that nomination in May. At the time the President, the White House talked about how it was historic, how it was his historic ties to the Democratic Party that were behind it. But you'll remember we reported quite deeply that actually had something to do with Jared's association with Elon Musk at a time when Musk had a fractious relationship with the White House. So this is ongoing. You know, we know from a White House official the President's made no decision. He's thinking about could change. But they are talking, and my understanding is they'll continue to talk.
- [03:00]
Carol Massar
Before we got going, I think we were all thinking, wait, is this also, though, something bigger, broader, in that Elon repairing his relationship with the White House, or is this Jared repairing whatever went on?
- [03:10]
Ed Ludlow
Do you guys remember came on the show a few weeks ago when the President hosted that dinner with different technology CEOs? Jared Isaacman was present. And Tim, you asked me, was Isaacman, who was there as Elon Musk's proxy, as had been reported in some of the media, apparently somebody there was there on Elon's behalf. My understanding is, no, Jared Eisenman was not there at that dinner as Elon Musk's proxy. He was there of his own accord. For whatever reason, the President invited him. But this is very recent. What's happening right now, the meetings between Jared Isaacman and the President of the United States, they're ongoing. He's meeting with other government officials. And right now, Sean Duffy, the Transport Sec, is a temporary leader of NASA. But at the time when the nomination was canceled, like loads of people across industry and government, you know, held Jared Eisenman in very high regard as somebody very qualified to lead the agency.
- [04:01]
Lucas Shaw
Let's talk a little bit about that, because there have been. There has been criticism oftentimes coming from the Democratic Party about many of the President's picks for his Cabinet. People who be Democrats and argue and also people sometimes in positions of science or academia argue are not appropriate picks. It wasn't so with Jared Isaac man.
- [04:22]
Ed Ludlow
You know, I don't cover politics. I don't cover the White House. I know that I try my best to break these stories, but the thing about Jared Isaac, man, is that he is a. Was a private citizen astronaut. Right? He'd been to space more than once in projects with Space X that he'd funded himself in the nomination process. For the initial nomination, he had recused himself of his ties to Space X and sold out of any financial conflicts, as is normal in that case. But people basically said, he gets the technology, he knows the players in industry. He is not a legacy politician. He is a successful entrepreneur. That was the direction that the space industry was going. There was some debate about what is Jared Isaac Man's philosophy aligned with The President and NASA's in that are we going to the moon or are we going to Mars, as Elon Musk wants to. But basically he was seen as highly competent. That's the point.
- [05:15]
Carol Massar
Yeah. It's interesting and it's an idea of it, is this the right person for the job? And if it sounds like that, it could potentially go back to that. Hey, just before you go, we're here at screen time. You're going to be, you're doing a discussion here. Tell us the kind of your impressions.
- [05:29]
Ed Ludlow
Yeah, I think right now there's a lot of movement in this industry. So I expected to come and talk just about. I actually I think we look a lot deeper at the economics of media and entertainment. That's what I get from the Ellison conversations. Just happened. My panel selfishly is with the Twitch CEO Dan Clancy and then Pokimane, one of the most followed streamers on the planet. And she's so interesting because she's making a lot of money in a lot of different ways by going live on Twitch but also posting to Instagram and YouTube. And you know, the economics of being a content creator are like fascinating. Isn't that the point of screen time? Like learning about the money behind all the things that keep us glued to the screen?
- [06:08]
Laura Martin
Yes, yes.
- [06:09]
Carol Massar
Look, how many screens do we have here right now at Ludlow. Congratulations. A Bloomberg exclusive. Highly recommend everybody check out the full right through. It's on the Bloomberg and at bloomberg.com@ludlow, co host of BTech right here on Bloomberg TV. Ed, thank you so much.
- [06:23]
Lucas Shaw
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg businessweek Daily coming up after this.
- [06:30]
Tim Stanweck
What's the secret to navigating uncharted waters in business? Meet Sami Sriram from Clearbot, a startup reshaping autonomous shipping. Hear her take on the real key to success. Frictionless user experiences that move your business forward.
- [06:46]
Carol Massar
When you go into a new region, you need to make sure that the experience of using something new is good. Because if not, then you make the bad first impression. They never try it again. We are just trying to find the right partner, somebody who knows the right people to speak to. Somebody that is as invested as we are.
- [07:02]
Tim Stanweck
So for more on what it takes to unlock global growth, search for turning Point.
- [07:06]
Carol Massar
That intention really matters. We want to build something that becomes the norm.
- [07:10]
Tim Stanweck
Brought to you by Bloomberg Media Studios and hsbc. Wherever your business takes you, HSBC can help.
- [07:19]
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- [09:30]
Tim Stanweck
You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [09:45]
Carol Massar
Let's get to it. With us is Samira Bakhtiar. She is General Manager of Media, Entertainment, Games and Sports Industry at AWS Amazon Web Services. You know we think of AWS and we think about Amazon as a hyperscaler cloud and stuff, but there is so much more and getting to know what you do. I mean you're constantly talking with folks in gaming, sports, video. They're trying to engage with the consumer at all different levels.
- [10:09]
Tim Stanweck
Yeah, there's so much happening and I appreciate you laying out those stats and then also watching that presentation on nab. I very much appreciate That I think. Let me start with fundamentally, the cloud has become the backbone of media distribution globally. Without the cloud, it would be impossible for consumers to gain access to streaming services. If you're streaming this right now, as an example, these types of services become fundamental for global reach. The cloud also is critical relative to content creation, as well as the ability to create different types of audience engagement motions that can be monetized by organizations around the world. And so to those stats that you just described. At aws, we have the privilege of working with everyone from content creative studios to global streamers to broadcasters to game developers and game distributors. And it's been an honor to be able to work with them across this motion. One of the things I'm most proud of is that over a billion people right now are receiving their streaming content based off of the AWS services that we provide.
- [11:05]
Carol Massar
It's a lot.
- [11:06]
Tim Stanweck
And to your point about games, 750 million people are playing games every single month based off of those same services. And we're not just talking about AAA games like Fortnite, but casual gaming as well, like Candy Crush or wordle from the New York Times. By the way, again, all great AWS customers.
- [11:22]
Carol Massar
I play wordle.
- [11:23]
Lucas Shaw
You do play wordle. I know that about you. I'm guessing you have a text string of, like, people you compare wordle scores with, right? Maybe many of your siblings.
- [11:31]
Carol Massar
Yes, indeed.
- [11:32]
Lucas Shaw
This I know about you, Carol. I want to talk a little bit about some big customers. Netflix, for example, is a huge customer. When you look at areas of growth across us and, you know, kind of overlay that with consumer behavior, where is the biggest area of growth right now in terms of what people are demanding?
- [11:49]
Tim Stanweck
Yeah. So two things. One is, I thought Greg Peters did a wonderful job last night during the Bloomberg Screen Time presentation. I really loved how we talked about Netflix being a build versus buy culture.
- [12:00]
Lucas Shaw
Yeah, he's co CEO of Netflix. For anyone who missed.
- [12:02]
Tim Stanweck
Yeah, thank you. And so it's very important that we ground ourselves on that too, because at aws, we want to be able to provide the building blocks or the primitives to allow for anyone to be able to build anything that they could imagine. And Netflix has really leaned into that very technical organization. We're delighted to be able to partner with them for so many years. And then to your second question about, like, what are we seeing fundamentally? I'm hearing three things from customers all around the world that they want. The first is they want to be able to create more content, high fidelity content at a lower price point. Much faster than ever before. And this includes live content like the ones you're watching right now, to episodic content, to theatrical content, to animated content, you name it, they want to do it faster, cheaper and better. The second is that they want to really cultivate multi channel monetization opportunities. So this means being able to go beyond an ad impression, but really look at being able to monetize against a 360 degree perspective of how their IP shows up across different mediums. And then finally everyone's hyper focused on next generation of fan engagement. How can you really enhance the experience so that you don't just retain subscribers but you have people coming back from for more and more. And I think the through line underneath all of that is the availability of generative AI and what that can help do to help to really augment our capabilities and accelerate innovation, but then also just make us so much more productive.
- [13:21]
Carol Massar
One of the things I thought, because I thought about your world and all the things, whether it's media, entertainment, games, sports, which thing is kind of driving demand at aws. I'm just curious cause we keep hearing so much about gaming, everyone getting into gaming.
- [13:36]
Lucas Shaw
We're going to talk a lot about gaming over the next three hours on our program. It's a big theme here.
- [13:40]
Tim Stanweck
Well look, we've again we have customers across all of those industries. Let's start with what's going on in the industry. PwC released a study recently saying that by 2029 the entertainment industry is going to be worth $3.5 trillion. That's up from 2.9 trillion last year. So like an ad of $600 billion worth of opportunity out there. And I think that if you work backwards again from those generational preferences that we're seeing, like you talked about, Gen Alpha, Gen Z's propensity for games, for social, for user generated content, for music, for audio. This really signals to more traditional established entertainment brands that it's no longer sufficient for them to be good at one type of medium anymore. They really need to diversify, they need to create much more interactive and immersive experiences. And so we're seeing this convergence of the tech come together to be able to allow for new product propositions to come to market faster than ever before. And one of the things that I'm very interested in is what that type of pressure is going to do amongst software startups versus that more established legacy brand. And now you had mentioned gaming. Like we, I, I think that some of the incredible convergence that we're seeing across game tech if you look at what Epic did last year with Fortnite and the concert that they had with Snoop Dogg. I knew you had Snoop Dogg on this program last year, but they did an incredible job. They did a live concert. Snoop Dogg was there. It was in the game. They were able to attract millions in game, millions more across digital platforms and they had thousands show up and in Times Square. But then Roblox is also doing the same thing. And I was just upstairs with Eunice from Scopely.
- [15:09]
Lucas Shaw
She's going to be on a little later.
- [15:10]
Carol Massar
Oh.
- [15:11]
Tim Stanweck
So, hi, great AWS customer. But you look at what they've been doing with Pokemon Go, that that again speaks to that convergence because you want to meet consumers wherever they are across all, all demographics.
- [15:21]
Carol Massar
So just to follow up then, so is it gaming where you see the most growth? Where you mean like traditional media, if you will, that's where they want to go, or is it all of it? You know, we mentioned sports. Sports has also been an explosion. You guys have done a lot with F1, so I'm just trying. Is it all growing kind of at the same levels or is it one thing, sports over gaming or something that's really leading the way?
- [15:41]
Tim Stanweck
So I think the question comes down to where is the engagement the best? Definitely live sports has an engagement factor that's unlike other types of traditional mediums. Again, that's why we work really closely with Formula One, the PGA Tour, the NBA. Actually, just last week we announced a strategic relationship with the NBA. We're now their official cloud and cloud AI partner because we're going to be able to launch something called NBA Inside the Game, powered by aws, where we're going to be able to create a platform to ingest billions of data points from these games in order to create a more interactive and insightful gaming sports viewing experience. Like really get you behind the game. So that's one element of it. But then I think you also can extend it too to the engagement that occurs across, again, traditional gaming. But then there's also betting and gaming as well. Yeah.
- [16:27]
Lucas Shaw
So to follow up on that, on the live sports part of this, early in my career, I remember covering the Yahoo NFL game that was broadcast. This was hard to believe 10 years ago at this point and there was so much attention on this because it was like the first streamed NFL game. A tech company was doing it. Now this is table stakes.
- [16:44]
Tim Stanweck
Absolutely.
- [16:45]
Lucas Shaw
Especially when it comes to us.
- [16:46]
Tim Stanweck
Right.
- [16:47]
Lucas Shaw
What goes into producing something live versus delivering content that's already recorded? Is it much more processing? Is it much more Pressure. What is it?
- [16:57]
Tim Stanweck
Yeah, how much, how technical can I get here?
- [16:59]
Lucas Shaw
You can get technical.
- [17:00]
Carol Massar
I was also going to say like what takes. There's a whole bunch of people behind here, what it takes to put this together live.
- [17:06]
Laura Martin
And it's, it's incredible.
- [17:07]
Lucas Shaw
And we are wearing these like the football announcers.
- [17:09]
Carol Massar
I know.
- [17:10]
Tim Stanweck
I actually feel like we're commentating a live event here. So look, a lot, a lot goes into it, right? So I think fundamentally there's, there's elements that are similar, right, with like distribution of the technology, especially associated to streaming, but there's, there's quite a bit that goes into the production of content. You need to be able to ingest live feeds, you need to transcode those feeds, you need to package those feeds and all of those have historically been done through more legacy technology. Stacks that have had to reside on prem. Actually just last, last month we announced the 10 year anniversary of our AWS Elemental Media Services. These are purpose built services for broadcast and production and they allow for us to do all those things that I just described that have historically been on prem. You could do them in the cloud and customers are adopting them at scale. We work really closely with customers like Fox, the BBC, NBC Universal, just to name a few.
- [17:59]
Lucas Shaw
And when you say on prem, you mean on premise? It's the idea of actually having this equipment with you at a certain location versus having it in the cloud?
- [18:06]
Tim Stanweck
Yeah, absolutely. Because I think to your point about the transition, why would you want to do that? You would want to do that because there's sustainability benefits associated to it, there's cost benefits associated to it. And then if you're in a position where you have to actually roll out, less physical infrastructure allows for you to create more content, more shows. What would be preventing you if you had infinite resources from being able to cover more events like this around the world simultaneously. That's what the cloud really provides.
- [18:31]
Carol Massar
I am curious about the stack.
- [18:34]
Lucas Shaw
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business coming up.
- [18:39]
Carol Massar
Generative AI, large language models, every industry, finance, health care, you name it, that are tapping into it. So we think about Amazon on that level. But then I'm hearing about all the stuff that you are doing specifically with specific clients and it sounds like that's another in the pecking order. So talk to us about that stack.
- [18:56]
Tim Stanweck
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm hyper focused on serving the media, entertainment, games and sports industry. Everything my team and I do is really grounded around taking the AWS services that exist. There's over 200 that have numerous features and making sure that we have a subset that are very purpose built for the needs of entertainment customers. And then we're also focused on ensuring that we can help advance the industry associated to it. So as an example, we're active participants in the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. We actively engage with C2PA, which is focused on provenance. We actively engage with Movie Labs, which is really focused on this vision by 2030 of being able to create entire pieces of theatrical film in the cloud. And we're the only technology provider that's been able to satisfy five of the 10 different principles that they're aiming to go after. So I share that with you because I think when you look at aws, we are the world's most comprehensive and most broadly adopted cloud and we have 200 services that can be used to invent almost anything. My job, my team's job is really to make sure that we bring that subject matter expertise to bear to be able to ensure that the outcomes that matter most our entertainment customers can be realized and that we're able to bring the industry along with us a lot.
- [20:04]
Carol Massar
I know we're going to continue this conversation. The future. So great to get some time with.
- [20:08]
Edward Hamadi
Thank you.
- [20:08]
Tim Stanweck
It's a pleasure to meet both of you.
- [20:09]
Carol Massar
Same here. So appreciate it. Samira Bakhtiara, she is general manager of media entertainment, games and sports industry over at Amazon Web Services.
- [20:18]
Tim Stanweck
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [20:33]
Carol Massar
Carol Massar, Tim Stanweck live here at Bloomberg Screen Time. We are in Los Angeles. There are several names in media entertainment Internet spaces that you've got to listen to and that includes our next guest. Laura Martin, senior analyst at Needham and Company joins us. She covers media entertainment Internet spaces. Usually we are talking to her remotely, but we came to her home. So delighted to have you here with us. When you come to an event like this and I'm sure you go to a lot of conferences and so. And so what is it that you're looking out for?
- [21:00]
Laura Martin
You know what's great about Bloomberg screen time is you have everybody that's important in media, both old media and new media, which a lot of conferences miss, either one silo or the other and they are converging and therefore their competitive statements are relevant to both sides of the business.
- [21:16]
Lucas Shaw
Who's making this convergence the best?
- [21:19]
Laura Martin
Amazon, I think. Amazon and YouTube, I think if you.
- [21:22]
Lucas Shaw
Think about Wall street because they're both like new media. Yeah, Right. They're like. They're not incumbents. Yeah, no, they could be, but no, not.
- [21:29]
Laura Martin
And I think sometimes incumbents ignore them. And I think Wall street doesn't think that's actually the smartest move.
- [21:34]
Lucas Shaw
There was an interesting comment in the Jimmy Kimmel conversation last night.
- [21:37]
Ed Ludlow
Yeah.
- [21:37]
Lucas Shaw
About how Jimmy Kimmel looks at YouTube and if he's changed his show as a result of YouTube. And he said, I haven't ever changed my show for YouTube, but I do like to wake up and see that a few million people have watched it. But he did say ABC doesn't make money from YouTube. YouTube is the one who makes the money.
- [21:54]
Advertisement Voice
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- [21:55]
Carol Massar
I know youtubers who are sailing around the world and they're making millions of dollars a year. Sounds like a good life to me.
- [22:00]
Lucas Shaw
But there's a. There's a disintermediation happening right there. So even if he's getting more eyeballs, he's not seeing the revenue.
- [22:06]
Laura Martin
I think the important point here is we have a funnel. You need to have young people at the top of the funnel to create a tv, let's call it a habit. And not just video games or not just interactivity or not just short form on TikTok. So television has to have top of the funnel. YouTube does that for you. So this notion of money now versus money later, you must have that top of the funnel for young people to come to longer form, high quality programming.
- [22:31]
Carol Massar
Which makes me think about the interest in Warner Brothers Discovery on that. Greg Peters of Netflix said, or he was asked about it with Lucas Schoff. He was interested in Warner Brothers Discovery. He talked about it last night. Let's listen to what he had to say.
- [22:45]
Edward Hamadi
There's been some reports around you guys.
- [22:47]
Lucas Shaw
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. 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. Right. And then we have to think really carefully, like, 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.
- [23:33]
Carol Massar
All right, that of course, Greg Peters over at Netflix talking with Lucas Shaw last night. Warner Brothers. And then there's also David Ellison, that there's been talk that maybe he'll be interested. Is that a good, I don't know, is that a good mix of businesses? Warner Brothers? Is that about going after the younger consumer?
- [23:50]
Laura Martin
No, it's not. But I would say this, that Netflix continues to try to create IP from scratch. And as we know from the sequelization of the box office, creating, having, starting with the embedded fandom from 30 years ago, 50 years ago, and then holding on because it creates value in your old stuff when you create something with that IP in the new. Like current.
- [24:09]
Lucas Shaw
Like a happy Gilmore 2.
- [24:10]
Laura Martin
Yeah, like that.
- [24:11]
Carol Massar
Or.
- [24:12]
Laura Martin
And if so, I ultimately think he gave a non answer. He gave a very thoughtful non answer.
- [24:18]
Carol Massar
Does that mean that maybe they are interested?
- [24:19]
Laura Martin
I think ultimately they must buy established IP because it's so risky. Not necessarily Warner Brothers, but they must buy IP that they have library value, that they can then make me new and own it.
- [24:31]
Lucas Shaw
I did not get that from his answer. I love that you're saying this. My, my response to hearing that was okay. He says they're builders, not buyers. They haven't traditionally made big acquisitions and.
- [24:41]
Laura Martin
They said they never do live sports and they said they never do advertising. So like non answers. Outright denial. Maybe he'd be more likely to buy, to be outright denial.
- [24:50]
Lucas Shaw
So who should they buy?
- [24:51]
Laura Martin
You know, good question. They need something with deep IP. These 50 year old libraries are far and few between. They didn't buy Paramount, which would have been also a very big deep library and it would have been a quarter as expensive. So we'll have to see. But in the end, I do believe Netflix must own deep IP and stop just taking the risk that you're creating something from scratch because maybe it's cheaper.
- [25:12]
Carol Massar
All right, so let's go to David Ellison of Skydance Paramount, who also was asked about. There's been rumors about that they are getting ready to make a bet on Warner Brothers. What do you think about that company?
- [25:23]
Laura Martin
Well, I think the thing about David Ellison so far is he has been really quiet with Wall street about what these individual tactical moves he's making, how they fit together. So he overpaid for USC outbidding Netflix. 7 billion a year. I mean a billion dollars a year for seven years. Waste of money. I think he wasted a billion dollars mostly of his money, but public shareholder money. And now he just bought the Free Press for 150 million I think it was worth 20. So it destroyed 100 million in the scheme of life, not destroying billions, but totally unclear how these fit together, what the vision is, you know, so the idea of him buying Warner Brothers, like, if he isn't articulating a vision, I don't know why public shareholders are paying part of the bill.
- [26:02]
Carol Massar
So he's not doing a good job.
- [26:03]
Laura Martin
Not doing a good job.
- [26:04]
Carol Massar
Hmm.
- [26:05]
Lucas Shaw
Why do you think the Free Press was not a good buy?
- [26:08]
Laura Martin
I think he overpaid. I think Wall street hates, like, I think it's unclear. You can monetize podcasts, and I think we hate everything that is, like, doesn't have a clear revenue stream associated with it.
- [26:19]
Lucas Shaw
He argues that, and he said this during the conversation with Lucas earlier, that he. He wants to appeal to the 70% of people who identify as right of center and left of center. That's who he wants to bring in. And he thinks that Bari Weiss can help do that. Do you agree?
- [26:35]
Laura Martin
Well, I mean, looking at her, I mean, we'll see today, because she just showed up in the CBS boardroom, but she's, I would say, a highly polarized figure. So we'll see how she does and how long she lasts. Not. Not.
- [26:46]
Lucas Shaw
Do you think the news business is. Is. Is long for being at cbs? Do they keep it?
- [26:52]
Laura Martin
Yeah, yeah, I think they keep it. I think. I think they need. You need live programming, and live programming is sports, which is really expensive, and news, which isn't quite as expensive. And really smart people that have a point of view, they get paid to have a point of view, and they're deep thinkers. So we'll see. I mean, he's trying to make a. He's doing tactical things without communicating an overall vision. And I don't know what that means. Like, I understand niche audiences. I understand if you want to target conservatives or if you want to target liberals, it's a polarized political environment. How do you target both? Like, that doesn't actually feel like a target market. It feels like a mass market. But that is what CBS did before, and it sounds like he thinks he's doing something different. So I'm confused.
- [27:30]
Carol Massar
Laura, does what is going on at CBS and Skydance and Paramount, does that impact the owners of, I think about the traditional networks of NBC and abc. How does that. What, that deal impact the rest of the media space?
- [27:43]
Advertisement Voice
Or do you know you don't.
- [27:44]
Carol Massar
Because you don't sound like you respect what he's doing.
- [27:46]
Laura Martin
Yeah, no, I don't think he's done good work yet at least he hasn't communicated. I mean there is a communication function when you're a public company that he is give. I'd give him a B minus at doing. But.
- [27:56]
Carol Massar
And he says he likes being public.
- [27:58]
Laura Martin
Yeah, I don't know what that means, but. Okay, good, good. We're paying part of the bill. The public shareholders are paying part of his bill. So I guess he should, I would say, look, we just wrote a piece saying that abc, which is Disney should just shut down ABC because then they become unregulated and the FCC on the Kimmel thing is getting involved in free speech. So if Disney just shut it down, we think it's a $10 billion write off, one time only. And now they would be unregulated. Yay. Seems like a lot of, you know, Wall street would add it back. It's a one time write off. We think they should just shut it down.
- [28:27]
Lucas Shaw
Good for Wall Street. Maybe not so good for the Voices competition.
- [28:31]
Laura Martin
It'd be bad for a lot of things in D.C. but I could say the same thing about CBS. Like now I think, you know, Larry Ellison has a, I mean Larry the dad has a privileged position with Donald Trump. So no need for him. I mean Brendan Carr is not going to get in his way because of the friendship with the President and, and the FCC is an executive branch regulatory agency. So he doesn't need to shut it down. But I think broadcast investors are irrelevant today.
- [28:57]
Carol Massar
Not us though.
- [28:58]
Laura Martin
No, not you.
- [28:59]
Tim Stanweck
Be careful.
- [29:00]
Laura Martin
We like you.
- [29:00]
Carol Massar
Laura Martin, senior analyst at Niederman Company joining us here.
- [29:05]
Ed Ludlow
Bloomberg Screen time.
- [29:06]
Carol Massar
Do not go anywhere.
- [29:07]
Lucas Shaw
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
- [29:14]
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- [31:27]
Lucas Shaw
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- [32:59]
Edward Hamadi
This.
- [33:00]
Lucas Shaw
Is the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg 11:30.
- [33:18]
Carol Massar
So we are speaking to the moguls, we're talking to the content creators, celebrities, entrepreneurs during the next, you know, phase of pop culture. These are the drivers, Tim. They are doing it all. Having said that, all of this requires a lot of money capital. And that's where Edward Hamadi comes in. He's chief investment officer of the Steward Trust, which is the family office of the Steward family. The president of the entertainment company Polarity, also involved with Lion Forge Entertainment. It's an Academy Award winning black owned animation and live action studio. He wears a lot of hats, which is why we are really delighted to have him here on set with us.
- [33:52]
Lucas Shaw
Welcome to Screen Time. Good to see you. You just wrapped up a conversation where you were talking all about private investment flowing into different parts of entertainment. I mean we're talking sports media ventures, perhaps no bigger example of this in recent weeks than the take private deal of EA $55 billion. What does a deal like that signify to you?
- [34:12]
Edward Hamadi
Well, it takes a big deal. First of all, a lot of capital concentration is how I would look, look at it. But it, you know, overall that space has a lot of momentum right now, a lot of capital velocity. But that's a, that's a significant valuation.
- [34:29]
Lucas Shaw
I think that's fair to say. Is it too high of a valuation?
- [34:33]
Edward Hamadi
I, I couldn't comment. I couldn't comment. I haven't seen the deal.
- [34:37]
Carol Massar
What about valuations in general when it comes to media and entertainment right now? I mean there's a lot of stuff sloshing around. We're seeing consolidation. Folks who want exposure to certain things, folks who want to get rid of exposure to certain things, talk to us through that.
- [34:51]
Edward Hamadi
So what I would say is that we are seeing, I'll call them interesting, but some things are overvalued in my opinion. I mean, if you look at sports right now, the valuations are sky high and it's, and it's crushing the who can be buyers, you know, and that's why they've opened that up to private equity. Yeah, I'd say on the media side it's interesting. And why do I use that? Because it depends on what the formula of the IP is. So there are some things that have big audiences where you can quantify it pretty nicely and say, look, this has real potential. There are other things that have become sort of legacy, stagnant properties. And then you wonder, does this thing, what kind of juice does it really have? Do you have the team that can come in and buy it and give it some new life? So it's going to depend on what the nature of it is. And then obviously, you know, we had David Ellison speaking and he's been pretty bold in what they're going to do in their space. And there's some really compelling IP plays there and big names that have been around for a while.
- [35:53]
Carol Massar
What do we need to know? I always think about Tim and I always think about the Bloomberg audience, investors, you know, the changing trends, the disruptors. David Ellison is a disruptor when it comes to media. What are the, what are the focal points that he's doing that you think investors should be taking note of?
- [36:07]
Edward Hamadi
I think the first, the, the tech first component is a big deal. I think that there was room for a lot of new efficiency that especially when you're building and streaming, it's a, it's a platform and all the things he described it was key for some consolidation. Having too many streaming platforms, that's smart. Also just having the Oracle backbone makes too much sense for them. So that's a big synergy that they can bring to the table and the things they're doing from a content acquisition perspective. He talked a lot about the intersection of sports. Anything you can do to bring sports to streaming is the holy grail. And UFC is an annual year round event, whereas most sports have seasons.
- [36:52]
Ed Ludlow
So.
- [36:52]
Edward Hamadi
So he is 100% correct to do that.
- [36:54]
Lucas Shaw
As I mentioned, one of the hats you do wear is your CIO of the Steward trust. And I'm wondering what your investment strategy is there with regard to media. Is it. You also have DNA and private equity. So is it like a private equity approach where you buy it, then you improve operations and hopefully sell it for more, or is it a permanent capital where you're like just buying and holding and you're taking those cash flows?
- [37:17]
Edward Hamadi
So we've done in building our companies, we look at it with a little bit more patient approach. We're obviously not going to never say, oh, we won't sell this. But fundamentally this is a family of entrepreneurs who want to build interesting platforms. So our companies like Lion Forge and One Press are on upward trajectories. We've brought in some outside capital in the case of Lion Forge to have more smart money at the table. But fundamentally, we want to, you know, Lion Forge's quietly stated mission is to be the next DreamWorks. And so kids and family is a big opportunity. We also look at where we can do intersections with sports because we think that has broad appeal as well, but in IP and doing things like shows and movies.
- [38:00]
Lucas Shaw
What do you mean by that? What's the opportunity there?
- [38:02]
Edward Hamadi
Because, you know, if you look at. Let's pick sport. If you look right now, there's a lot of opportunity in women's sports. You don't necessarily have to own the sports league. Why don't you make shows where you have rights to do things like cover the lives of the athletes? We're seeing it. Wrexham, for example. Great show. It's doing really well and it's rounding out how people view that. Well, if you want to access women's sports, for example, I think there's a more robust story to tell. Telling stories about young girls playing volleyball and how do they get prepared? There's a huge audience for. I'll use volleyball as the example. 37 million people are. Are the audience of women's volleyball under 18, between their families, the women who participate, etc. And the people want to watch it. There should be some great stories there to tell about, about that.
- [38:54]
Carol Massar
In case anybody doesn't know, women are pretty spectacular. So I'm just going to put it out there. So why not do more stuff?
- [38:59]
Edward Hamadi
Again, very entertaining. And it's. It's just an area that hasn't been focused on. You know, we always talk about the big sports, which are robust, high valuations, et cetera. But there's these. All these other things that are coming up. And then you have. Oh, by the way, you know, every four years you have the Olympics, which is like the culmination of whatever things you do. So there's a great thing you can do to. To really build around those things.
- [39:22]
Carol Massar
You know, it's interesting. I think we thought for a while, because there were so many streaming services and so many different platforms, that it was the era of the content creator. Creator. Is it still the error of the content creator versus those who deliver it?
- [39:33]
Edward Hamadi
Yes. I think that what has happened is now you look at things like YouTube, you look at things like micro dramas, you look at, you know, podcasts and all the sorts of things. You have an ability now and different platforms to create an audience around something new. So we have a show that we're going to make the full series of. It is for Young adults called Lost Links. It was on YouTube. The audience loved it. It was these little episodes, you know, one and five minute episodes. But you have 2, 3 million followers who are now clamoring to see a full series around such a concept. That is a, that's a de novo new thing that people want to see.
- [40:15]
Lucas Shaw
You are not based in Hollywood.
- [40:16]
Edward Hamadi
No.
- [40:16]
Lucas Shaw
You are based in Boston. You're Californian, you're in Boston. Advantage, disadvantage. Well, doesn't matter.
- [40:24]
Edward Hamadi
I think so first of all, my, you know, because I work in the family office, I can exist if I have a laptop and a cell phone. I can be anywhere and do a lot and, and you know the stewards joke that I'm like Bosley, you know, I just, sometimes I call in and make stuff happen. But being in Boston, you know, we have a lot of GPs that we've invested in and that, you know, it's, it's a great market to be in. It's number one in healthcare and in biotech.
- [40:51]
Carol Massar
You talk about general partners.
- [40:52]
Edward Hamadi
Yeah. Okay, so from, you know, from our alternatives investments. I mean that's a great place to be. You're close to New York.
- [40:58]
Lucas Shaw
What portion of the portfolio is media then?
- [41:00]
Edward Hamadi
So media, it's hard to quantify, but I would say it's under 10%.
- [41:05]
Lucas Shaw
Oh, interesting. Okay.
- [41:06]
Edward Hamadi
I mean we've made big bets, but you know, they're relatively small one. Worldwide is your, your core holding. I've probably, I probably overstated the media play.
- [41:16]
Lucas Shaw
So Worldwide is still. Is held as part of the.
- [41:20]
Edward Hamadi
Well, it's a 20 plus billion dollar company.
- [41:22]
Lucas Shaw
But that's included in the family office assets, correct? Okay.
- [41:25]
Edward Hamadi
Yes.
- [41:26]
Carol Massar
All right, we are at screen time 22nd. So you're sitting down on the couch, had a long day. What do you watch? Well, quickly.
- [41:34]
Edward Hamadi
I like a lot of stuff, but I like for example, Ted Lasso, the West Wing, you know, to give a couple that are all time favorites.
- [41:41]
Carol Massar
West Wing, an old series my daughter just recently discovered.
- [41:45]
Lucas Shaw
Everybody's rewatching it too, and they have been for years.
- [41:48]
Carol Massar
I love it. Well, there's a lot of places to find all that stuff you used to watch. Edward, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
- [41:54]
Edward Hamadi
Thanks for hosting. Thanks for having me.
- [41:55]
Tim Stanweck
Yeah.
- [41:56]
Carol Massar
Great to have you. Edward Hamadi, Chief investment officer of the Stewart Trust President Polarity, joining us here at Bloomberg Screen time.
- [42:01]
Tim Stanweck
This is the Bloomberg businessweek daily podcast available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live Every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
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Carol Massar
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Carol Massar
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Carol Massar
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Tim Stanweck
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Carol Massar
Oh no.
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Edward Hamadi
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Tim Stanweck
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Edward Hamadi
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