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- [00:00]
A
Indiana University is shaping the future of healthcare. Advancing discoveries that become treatments for Alzheimer's, obesity, cancer and rare diseases. And training the providers trusted to deliver them from the lab to the clinic. IU powers medical breakthroughs and the talent behind them. See how IU solves What's next iu. Edu Impact, Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News. Thanks for being here.
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B
I know it's been a weird few weeks.
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A
Has it?
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B
Yeah, I think so. I want to start at the beginning, if we can.
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A
When I was born. Yes, it was in a manger.
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B
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 until recently. And the third episode is very recent. We can fact check it.
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A
Does it have the details of my divorce?
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B
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.
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A
That's pretty spot on. This AI is terrifying.
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B
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?
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A
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 like 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, oh, this is gonna be a problem and nobody really notices.
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B
And so at what point did you realize this was a problem?
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A
I think when they pulled the show off the air. Well, that's unusual.
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B
Yeah. And what were the conversations with Dana and Bob that led to that?
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A
I hate to disappoint you, but they were really good conversations.
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B
I'm not asking for you.
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A
I mean, like, really good conversations. They are. These are people that 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.
- [03:24]
B
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. To know you're going back if you haven't figured out a lot of the things that come out of it?
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A
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.
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B
Because you felt like your initial comments had been mischaracterized?
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A
I didn't feel like it was.
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B
They were.
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A
It was intentionally and, I think maliciously mischaracterized. Yes. Yeah.
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B
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?
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A
What do you think?
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B
I think yes. I think if you talk to me. 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.
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A
Yeah, Very good friends. Yeah.
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B
And 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.
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A
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.
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B
Cause you've been a radio sports guy.
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A
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 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, it was like 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.
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B
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. Because 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?
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A
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, he's just presented himself so frequently at. It makes it just more digestible. It's more digestible and less digestible at the same time.
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B
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, there's more material to work with. What would you say his impact on comedy has been?
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A
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 stand up 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.
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B
Since you came back, have you asked Trump or Carr to come on?
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A
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 wants. I don't know. All right, I'll ask him.
- [10:14]
B
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 gonna ask him about that?
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A
Yes. You know how talk shows are. We basically, there's an understanding of what you're gonna talk about. Sometimes it veers off into various directions, but they always know basically what the topics are going to be and why.
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B
I guess. Did you feel it was important to ask him about that? Cause you had a point of view on comedians going to that festival, it seemed like you were against it.
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A
I wouldn't have gone, but I wanted to hear his reasons, and I thought he had some compelling reasons. And it's. 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. It makes me understand that position better.
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B
Have you done a paid gig for a despot? Is that.
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A
Let me think. Bill Gates wants.
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B
Yeah, that's two Bill Gates references in one day. Okay.
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A
And I would kill him in tennis. No, no, I would not kill him in tennis. He would kill me in tennis.
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B
But do you have. Because you've interviewed so many people, is there, like, a dream guest you've never had that you still really want to have?
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A
Yes, I would love to have Banksy on the show. Yeah, that's my dream guest.
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B
Okay. Some people have Daft Punk. You have Banksy.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You brought up Colbert earlier. You've spoken out a little bit, I think, largely about the coverage. You feel like CBS or someone is putting numbers out there about how much money he's losing, and you think, that can't be possible. Why is that it?
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A
Because it just doesn't make any. I know what the budgets for these shows are. I know what I make. I know what Stephen makes. I know what the ad sales people make. I know that there are values that nobody bothers to consider, like the affiliate fees that have to be. You have to account for a portion of that when you talk about an hour of television every night, five nights a week. So I know that It's. It's not $40 million. Is the show losing money? That. I don't know. I can't imagine it's losing a lot of money if it is.
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B
So what is the ballpark, the budget for These shows these days.
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A
$120 million and so.
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B
And they make about that much. A little more. A little less.
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A
Yeah. I mean, you never really know, you know.
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B
Cause how much do you attribute the affiliate fee to your show versus every other?
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A
Well, I don't know what the specific affiliate fees. Each market has a different, you know, amount that they pay. But I also know this. I know that if we're losing so much money, none of us would be on. That's kind of all you need to know.
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B
I mean, he's not on.
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A
This is not pbs, you know, so. Yeah, well, yeah, he is not on. But if they lost $40 million last.
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B
Year, they would have canceled it already.
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A
Yeah, they would have sent everyone home.
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B
Okay, so you set me up for that. When your contract is up next, may I believe?
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A
Yeah.
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B
You gonna stick around past that?
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A
Well, you know, it's funny. I often answer that question, and then I do the opposite of what I said.
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B
As you previously said, this is gonna be my last one.
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A
The last three contracts. I said, this is the last one. So I've learned not to say anything anymore because it upsets my staff. And it's best that I just, you know, when I make a decision, I will make that decision.
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B
Okay. Since we're not gonna get into the decision, have you made a decision and you're just not ready to talk about it, or you haven't made a decision?
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A
Well, that would kind of say that I'd made a decision. Right. So I think I'd just rather. Rather not talk about it.
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B
Let's imagine a world.
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A
I'll tell you when I decide. Okay. All right.
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B
I appreciate it. Let's imagine a world after the show, because there will be a moment after the show we're not talking about when you don't.
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A
No.
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B
You don't think.
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A
I can't imagine that the world is gonna go on without me, but.
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B
Have you given any thought to what you'd want to do after it? You're friends with Ted Sarandos. You could go on Netflix. You're friends with Bill Simmons. You could do a podcast. Not sure you'd want to.
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A
You mean besides playing Boggle on Netflix? Besides playing Boggle on Netflix, yeah, I've given a thought. You know, I. Because I thought I really was going to leave, like, nine years ago, or whenever I said I was going to leave, I started a production company, and I'm interested in a lot of things. You know, I have a lot of ideas. Most of them are not good ideas, but some of them I think are really good ideas, and they're not just television related. I have a lot of different projects that I'm interested in. I'm just like. I just.
- [15:51]
B
What's one you're really into right now?
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A
Well, I'm working on a show with Mark Rober on Netflix, and I'm working.
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B
A YouTuber for those who don't.
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A
Yeah, Mark Rober's a YouTuber. Your kids know who he is. If you don't know who he is. I've got a sitcom with a guy named Chris Disteffan. It was a very funny comic. I've got some really. Some other projects that are not television related that I can't necessarily talk about yet, but I think are going to be really a lot of fun and hopefully successful.
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B
You mentioned talking about it being the end. I was curious. I didn't ask you earlier, was there ever a moment in that kind of the week or two of chaos where you thought your show was never going to go back on?
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A
Oh, yeah, yeah, right. I did. Because. And I'll tell you why. Because, you know, I'm a troublemaker just by nature. And I. My first year, the Lakers beat the Pistons in the NBA playoffs, and I said something to the effect of, well, I hope they don't burn Detroit down. And everyone in Detroit was very unhappy.
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B
This was the 04 finals that the Lakers ended up losing, but they won a game, maybe in Detroit.
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A
Yeah, it was a game. You're right. No, you're right. But I said that, and people were mad, and they pulled me off the air in Detroit. And a guy who's really been like my mentor at abc, Alex Wallow, said to me, he said, you know, if we don't have Detroit, you're done. The show's over. And I said, really? And he said, yeah, you can't go forward without a major market like that. Which was news to me. So I went to Detroit and did the show for a week there and kissed as much ass as I possibly could. But the idea that I would not have, whatever it was, 40 affiliates, I mean, knowing that D Choid could take you breaker, I was like, well, that's it. Because there seemed to be a list of demands presented to me, and I was not gonna go along with any of them. And I was like, well, I guess we're done. I said to my wife, that's it. It's over.
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B
Did you see any. That thing about the number of people who canceled Disney?
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A
I did, yeah.
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B
Do you think that's real?
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A
I hope so. I don't know, I mean, it gave me a feeling of power that I've never had before.
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B
You brought up YouTube, which I think a lot of people would say has been sort of one of the primary sources of the downfall of late night over the last little bit. How have you changed your show to kind of appeal to people on YouTube and why do you think you can't make more money there?
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A
I never have changed my show to make it for YouTube. I'm very, very conscious of the fact that ABC pays for the show and YouTube pays nothing and YouTube gets to sell it and keep half the money. And that's quite a deal for them. It really is. But I've never made the show for YouTube. With that said, I love YouTube and I love being on YouTube because all you really want, deep down, is for as many people to see your stuff as you can. And I know that it has hurt because it is so easy to watch the monologue on YouTube now. I know that it has hurt the ratings not just for our show, but all of the shows. And maybe that's kind of what has killed late night tv. More likely the fact that our lead ins are a tenth of what they were when I started. That's probably more likely the reason. But I love the idea that people in other countries are watching YouTube. I love the idea that.
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B
Do you look at the views for your.
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A
I do, yeah.
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B
I looked recently and I was alarmed to see that the most watched video from your show had fewer views than the average MrBeast video. And I don't know what that says about the state of the world, but.
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A
I think it says MrBeast is kicking ass is what it says. Yeah. Well, you know what? There is a big difference. When you do the show every night, you're not gonna get as many views. But we still. I mean, I woke up this morning, there were 2.2 million views of my monologue the night before. So for everyone who says late night is dying, it's just not true. We still have, you know, probably at three and a half million right now. Like, we'll still have five, six million people watching the show every night. That's a lot of people. I mean, that's more than most of the primetime shows. Right. And you don't hear that about primetime.
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B
Ratings get kind of covered in a weird way. Like you talked about 2.2 million views on YouTube. Right. And the metric for a view on YouTube is totally different from the metric for a view on TV.
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A
Right.
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B
You watch it for 30 seconds.
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A
TikTok is three seconds. I think YouTube is 30. You have to watch it for at least 30 seconds.
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B
Yeah, we have YouTube comms right here if you want to.
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A
And TV I think is like a five minute chunk that you have to.
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B
It's usually the quarter hour average number of people watching it over the full course is what the rating that gets reported.
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A
Right.
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B
We had Greg up here. Why do you think the topical comedy thing has never really worked on Netflix?
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A
I don't know. I think maybe people are expecting something different. People are very regimented.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, when we started our show we wanted to, we wanted to do everything different. It was like, oh, we're going to do this and this is going to be different, that's going to be different. And over the years we realized, oh, they just want to see a desk and the guests and a band and you know, don't fuck around with it. It's a great format. It's, it's. Steve Allen invented it 50 something years ago and it's exactly as it was then for a reason.
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B
Yeah. Do you feel like, I know you're not part of the decision making process on this at all, but do you feel like there will be like the Tonight show would be the last show to get canceled, I would assume?
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A
Yes, I think so.
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B
Do you think that that show will last a really long time or do you feel like eventually all these shows go away and have to get reinvented and whatever?
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A
I think there's, I don't think there's a reason for these shows to go away. I think there are different. There are ways. You know, it started out, these shows started out because it was, they were a way to get high priced talent for almost free. That was the whole trick. That was the whole reason they started these shows. It was deemed to be promotional. So the idea that these shows need to cost $120 million is craz. Need to cost $120 million and somebody will figure it out and just, well.
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B
It'S like what a Hot Ones is, makes the similar concept for considerably less money, right?
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A
Yeah. I mean, I think you could still have the same format. You could still have a band, you could have all of those things and still do the show for a lot less money. It's just the people aren't going to make it, the host is not going to make as much money and audience isn't going to be as big. But that's okay because I love seeing these. I love the idea that people can make a living with 200,000 viewers every day or every night and they can talk about weirdly specific things. And those people who are really interested in those weirdly specific things have a place to take those to absorb that stuff. I think that's great. I love the idea that a 16 year old can have their own TV show.
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B
What is the weirdest channel you follow on YouTube or TikTok?
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A
I'm not on TikTok. I do not put that on my phone. I follow, let's see on YouTube. Well, we're the. My eight year old son, he adds subscriptions to our list. And there Suddenly were like 11 Jesus channels on my thing. I was like, is this kid a priest or maybe the Messiah? I don't know what it is, but yeah, that's the weirdest one on our list.
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B
Okay, I have one last question for you. Who's going to be the next CEO of Disney?
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A
Oh, that one. I'm never mentioned in this. Right? And nobody ever. I mean like there never is any serious discussion. No. Well, I will just say I wasn't actually gonna. It would be very foolish for me to answer that question. But I happen to love Dana Walden very much and I think she's done a great job. And I think what has happened over the last three weeks I think was very unfair to my bosses at Disney. I don't think anyone should ever be put in a position like this. It is insane. And I hope that we drew a really, really bold red line as Americans about what we will and will not accept. I mean, I really hope that that's what comes out of all of this.
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B
That was not actually my last question because I did not think you were going to answer it, but I appreciate it. I guess related to that, if you could give you talk about how comedy's changed. If you could give one piece of advice to an up and coming comedian or an up and coming broadcaster. When you see those people and you see the changes in media around you, what do you, other than like follow your passion, what do you tell them to do?
- [24:53]
A
I would tell them what I didn't get to do when I was a kid. And sometimes I fantasize about just starting all over again. Because what I had to do when I started in radio, I was hang around the radio station for like three years and then they let me on a little bit and then they let me on a little more and then when they thought I was funny, they let me on more. But it took so long for me to get on the air and to learn to do the job that now I would say start doing a podcast or start a YouTube channel. Do it every single day. It doesn't matter if anybody's watching it. Just keep doing it over and over and over and over again. And you're gonna get. If you have any talent, you're going to get good at it. And if you're good, I mean, really, YouTube is very. If something is good, it will catch on. You know, if something is interesting, people will take note of it. And it may take five years, but you'll have something at the end of it.
- [25:53]
B
This is great. Thanks for doing it.
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A
That was advice for you.
- [25:55]
B
I appreciate it. There are two kinds of people in the world. People who think about climate change and people who are doing something about it. On the Zero podcast, we talk to both kinds of people. People you've heard of, like Bill Gates. I'm looking at what the world has.
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A
To do to get to zero, not using climate as a moral crusade and.
- [26:16]
B
The creative minds you haven't heard of yet. It is serious stuff, but never doom and gloom. I am Akshat Ratty. Listen to Zero every Thursday from Bloomberg Podcasts on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you get your podcasts.