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Tom Freston, Principal of Firefly3 and former CEO of Viacom, on his book, “Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu”
00:18:01
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- [00:00]
A
So have you heard the story about the prescription plan? With savings automatically built in, it's where a family of any size can feel confident the cost of their medication won't hold them back. Go to CMK Co Stories to learn how CVS Caremark helps members save just by being members. That's CMK Co Stories.
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B
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio News One would expect a.
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C
Memoir from the co founder of MTV to include quite a bit of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Tom Freston's new book gives us that and quite a bit more. From hitchhiking through a pre Taliban Afghanistan using a drug smuggler to get clothes from Asia to New York City tariff free, to almost getting kidnapped in the Sahara desert with Jimmy Buffett, to getting unceremoniously canned by Sumner Redstone. Tom Freston Carroll he has seen a lot.
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B
Yeah, he certainly has. He's co founder of mtv, a co founder and the former CEO of Viacom. He's also principal of the consulting and investment firm Firefly 3 and the author of a new book which we want to talk to him about. It is entitled Unplugged Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu. It came out back in November. He joins us from California. Tom, so great to have you here with us. How are you?
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D
I'm good. Carol, hello to you and hi Tim.
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C
Hi.
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D
Nice to be here.
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B
It's great to have you here and there's so much we want to talk about. We do want to just start off with the media industry because it just feels like it's at a moment in time.
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C
I thought you were going to start with Beavis and Butthead.
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B
No, I'm not. But we'll get there. We'll get there. And to so much more. I'm just thinking about what you witnessed, you know, at the beginning, the dawn of really the cable industry and the build out of it. It's now being very much dismantled for a host of reasons. Some networks being sold for scraps. You know the headlines. How do you see this dismantling, Tom, continue to play out?
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D
Well, I mean we had during my era, the 80s and the 90s, so the early 2000s, sort of the cable TV revolution which morphed into the digital revolution and streaming and all that where people really got to watch whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted on whatever device. And now we're moving into the AI revolution. So the media industry is in a constant state of flux, always sort of or you know, influenced greatly by technology. And you know, it's hard to say where it's going to go, but we're going to see more consolidation amongst the legacy media companies, that's for sure. There's a few deals in place right now, as you know.
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C
Yeah, well, speaking of those deals, the fate of Warner Brothers discovery, David Zaslav, mentioned in your book a few times. Do you have a view on, on whether that company should go to Netflix Netflix or Paramount Skydance?
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D
Yeah, I think it's a better fit and you know, you hate to see another movie studio sort of disappear in a form of consolidation. And Warner Brothers is like the king of, you know, the most treasured studio of all. But of the two alternatives, I think the Netflix one is more interesting and bodes better for people in the business and bodes better for consumers. In the case of Paramount, you really have two legacy companies merging together. They talk about $9 billion worth of cost savings and that means more people on the street. It's not that interesting of a combination as taking someone like Netflix, which is a sort of a quasi digital company, and marrying that with the, with Warner Brothers seems to be, seems to be a better fit. If you were to ask me, which you just did.
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C
What about, you know, a lot of your book goes into your relationship with Sumner Redstone. We're going to get to, to some of that in a minute. What do you think he would think about today with what's going on at Paramount Skydance? You describe him as being just so obsessed with the company's stock price and always trying to, to, to, to buy more shares. You describe him as always being on the phone with his stockbroker at the time because that's how it worked at the time. What do you think he would think of, of what's happening at Paramount Skydance?
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D
Well, I think he'd be sad, he'd be sad to see what became of his, the empire that he, you know, was a major force in creating and how the values deteriorated and how, how Viacom sort of missed the moment, if you will. They missed a moment in the digital transition. You just compare it to Disney which spent, say they doubled down on their content creative abilities. They spent $16 billion buying Pixar and Lucasfilm and Marvel, which made them a little more invincible. On the other hand, Viacom spent $16 billion on stock buybacks, which, you know, was great if you were cashing in stock options, but not so good for the long term viability of the company.
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B
Hey, you know, on that, you know, I think about mtv, you know, you were one of the people who got this, you know, up and running. And for such a long time it was just so much a part of our kind of cultural fabric. And then went from music to you dealing with political issues and really the issues of our time, if you will, and became an important place for even politicians to show up at during campaigns. Having said that, it is reduced drastically and dramatically. I don't know what is it like to see that. And I wonder if today, could it be created today or could it be in some other form?
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D
Well, it's sort of like looking back and seeing your old high school on fire. Yeah, it's. They haven't really put any money or effort into MTV for, I don't know, 15 years or so. I think all the music people who were there left. They even saw the music television off the bottom of the logo and it became sort of a repository for grade B reality shows. Well off its original mission. I do think that MTV could be reinvented in a digital format to be a more interesting curator of music. These days. Music still a huge category and there's a huge amount of listening going on. So it's crazy not to think that MTV couldn't recapture some corner of the music business. I mean, on one hand you have a lot of consumers are sort of tired of the algorithmly programmed streaming services and so forth. So I mean, I don't think it's a layup, but it's certainly worth it. It's a brand with worldwide recognition and I do know that they're working on that at Paramount with Jeff Schell and David Ellison.
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B
Well, you know, Tom, I think about your book and this journey, right? And then so many journeys, if you will, which is really fun to go through. But I'm wondering, a 35 year old Tom Freston today, would you create MTV or something against the platforms that we have, or would you do something different when it comes to media and content?
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D
That's a good question. You know, the media world is so different right now. I mean, my default is sort of media and entertainment, so I'd be interested. It's harder to carve out a place right now. I mean, I think the closer you get to talent and content creation, the better off you would be. The days of the monoculture where you had the rise of MTV as a really important gatekeeper, those are gone. So I'm in the lucky position of not having to worry about working in the business right now. In that particular business, I find it more interesting sort of on the fringes for myself.
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C
We're speaking with Tom Freston he's the author of Unplugged Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu. He's a co founder of mtv. Tom on that I was surprised when I was reading the book as, as like an elder millennial. I grew up with mtv so it totally, everything you wrote about made a lot of sense. I remember all the shows that, that launched on MTV and on Comedy Central too. There, there. You mentioned though a few minutes ago, this kind of common refrain that we had about MTV Even in the 90s, which is it doesn't show music videos anymore. What, what I was surprised to find was how strategic of a decision and how important of a decision that was and what you found sort of early on in showing music one music video after another and why that didn't necessarily keep viewers for extended periods of time. Explain how that transformation started and why it did become a place that wasn't just music videos.
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D
Well, when music videos sort of hit, I mean they were really kind of revolutionary. People hadn't really seen anything like that six or seven years in. I mean a bloom was a little off the rose. That's not to say that the music videos weren't good. But a new device had come along technology wise called the remote control, which was maybe the biggest disruptor of all, that little soap bar sized device. And people would check out after three minutes or so if they didn't like the next video that was coming on. We thought though that we still, we wanted to stay close to music. It brought us so much. But we thought maybe we could be a bigger place and a more reliable place and less reliant to the peaks and valleys and of the music industry if we created our own programming that was about some of the things that the music was about, about, you know, I'm talking about fashion and movies and you know, beefing up our news area. We thought we could take say 10% of our 168 hours a week and devote it to non music programming or stuff that related to the popular culture and we could have a sounder and a bigger business. And that turned out to be the case. Now the problem was that these shows would get higher ratings than music hours. So gradually over time and like I'm talking Now, the last 10 or 15 years, there was a decision to just get out of the music business entirely because the idea that, you know, you could compete with something like Vevo and YouTube where people could get any video they wanted on demand on the Internet. Once the Internet was capable of really streaming video in full force was, you know, it was an unattractive proposition. So you ended up with what you have today, which is a network berish of music, whose name used to be music television. That's not to say that, as I said earlier, that it couldn't be reimagined for digital in a way that they could make a business out of it using a digital on demand technology.
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B
What do you make of the growth?
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D
But.
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B
Oh, go ahead, please. No, no, no, no, please finish.
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D
No, I was just saying. So it was a strategic move to get in the non music programming. And I would also say that the creative cadre that we had at work always wanted to stretch out and do new things. So we came up with new formats like the Real World, or we would find young animators and bring them into the fold and do shows like Beavis and Butthead that we thought had the same attitude as mtv, but it wasn't necessarily music, made it a bigger place.
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B
We think about, I mean, how much of TV today is reality tv. And I put quotation marks around it and you know, Real World, you write about it in the book. I mean, you guys were a pioneer when it comes to reality television, which so dominates the landscape. Tom and I think about the Apprentice and we think about how many have said what it did for Donald Trump, who at the time was not actually doing well in business and, and the image it actually projected. Not my view, but what a lot of other people say. And I just think, how do you think about Real World, the beginning of reality tv and do you feel in some way responsible for the creation of what that is today and helping create a path for Donald Trump? How do you think about that?
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D
Yeah, I know the question. I know that question. Look, we started, you know, we started the Real World because we couldn't afford writers. We just wanted to do a soap opera. So in the end we said, forget writers. We were good at post production. Let's put seven or eight people in a loft and tape them and then make it into episodes. That became this new low cost form of programming. And then we did celebrity reality show with the Osbournes over the first two real reality shows. And it was very attractive to the networks. As their business model began to deteriorate, they could make shows that people wanted to see at a much lower price. And yes, it led to like Naked and Afraid and the Bachelor and worst of all, or maybe best of all in some people's mind, the Apprentice, it brought us the new President of the United States. So I don't feel responsible necessarily for that, but There is a through line that when television programming became less scripted and more real, you know, and it's.
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B
Funny, I think about, you know, we've got a world where everyone can be a content creator and we have a. Our president, who is very good at creating content. For better or worse, people can make the debate. Is it free speech at its fullest when you think about the ability for anybody and everybody with their phone that can make content? Or is it kind of a reveal of mankind at its worst? I'm just curious how you think about this.
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D
Well, it's a reveal of mankind at its best and its worst. I mean, it's true. Everybody is their own, like, individual broadcaster. They can create content, share it, comment on other people's content, people comment on yours. I mean, that's really been the social media revolution. It's really been a whole new paradigm for media. And, yeah, it can be very disappointing at times to see what people do and come up with and what they say. And, you know, that's a much larger issue owing to a larger discussion for which, I don't know, there's a solution. But, yes, all the guardrails and program standards and things that we used to enjoy and adhere to in the 80s and 90s, they've all vanished.
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C
Tom, you know, you're known for a creator as AD mtv, but I do want to talk a little bit about Comedy Central, too. I was struck with sort of the creative process of coming up with this idea for Comedy Central. The potential competition that you were going to get from HBO at a certain point, and the staying power of some of the programs on there, including the Daily show, the Colbert Report, and notably South Park Today. I mean, the idea that south park could be as relevant in some, you know, in some cases in 2025, 2026, as it was in the mid-90s, I think could be surprising to a lot of people. Talk a little bit about how, you know, within 10 minutes you guys came up with this idea for Comedy Central and how you landed Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
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D
Well, I was having a staff meeting. I was in the early 90s, and someone slipped me a piece of paper, said, hbo is announcing they're going to have a comedy channel. And they were at the time, the big players. I mean, they were on pay tv, they had Robin Williams and George Carlin. They did all these big comedy specialists, said, oh, they're getting into our business and they're going to start with a comedy channel. They'll do a music channel and a kids channel, kind of, eroding. Our Nickelodeon and MTV business. So we decided in that meeting, like, let's announce our own comedy channel. We didn't really have a comedy channel or even an idea for one, but we thought we announced we could be in every news article that was ever written about theirs. And, you know, so we, we kind of announced that we were doing one. And we came up with a format quickly, which was sort of TV comedy, an extension of what our Nick at Night brand was. And so that was how we got into the business. We had a war with HBO for a couple of years, and then we ended up merging and forming Comedy Central. And the thing that really pushed Comedy Central into public consciousness was South Park. And south park was a cartoon. It started as a. One of the guys at MTV found Matt and Trey and had him do a little six minute thing for as a Christmas car that he sent out to his friends. And it got wide acclaim. And then we saw and we said, well, let's make a TV series out of this. And we've done it. And now it's like no Christmas card in history has ever paid off. Like South Park, I think they're in their 25th or 26th season and those guys are geniuses. The other thing I'd say about Comedy Central is it's interesting to me. We always had a great eye for new and emerging talent. And if you look at the amount of people who started their television career on Comedy Central, Bill Maher, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, Matt and Trey, Dave Chappelle, all of these people, most of whom have gone on to bigger, bigger lives outside of Comedy Central, they're sort of the front line of the Trump resistance today. A role that was filled, like in the Richard Nixon era, largely by musicians. And, you know, you have to be really proud to see how, you know, with our ear to the ground, we were, we were able to give all these people their television start. Very satisfying. Comedy Central had a more cultural cachet than I think any of our networks. And outside of Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live, I don't know of any other entity that's been able to discover and cultivate as much comedic talent.
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B
So we already know we want like another 60 Minutes with you. And I know you've talked with our producer and I think you're gonna come back and talk with us. Cause we would like to continue this conversation.
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C
We barely scratched the surface.
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B
I mean, I have to say, the way the book is written and you talk about your travels all around the world, and we've been in the newsroom talking about, like, Afghanistan, which I think so many people have one view of what that is about. And you remind us, you know, an incredible land, people. And we want to get into it because we want to talk soft power with you and so much more. So I hope we can truly get you back here real soon and continue this conversation.
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D
Well, I'd love to do that. We'll stay in radio contact. I'd love to come in the studio. This has been fun. Okay.
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B
We've really enjoyed it. Tom B. Well, have a great weekend.
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C
He is.
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D
Thanks, Carol. Thanks, Tim.
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B
Yeah, Tom Freston. The book is Unplugged Adventures From MTV to Timbuktu. And we are going to continue that conversation. It's really been a great read for us. So we really appreciate Tom's time today.
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A
So have you heard the story about the prescription plan? With savings automatically built in, it's where a family of any size can feel confident the cost of their medication won't hold them back. Go to CMK Co Stories to learn how CVS Caremark helps members save just by being members. That's CMK Co Stories.