← Channels with Peter Kafka
Loading summary
Transcript163 lines
- [00:01]
Peter Kafka
Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up and audit dread. It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place, and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clearer visibility, faster deals, zero chaos. Call it compliance or call it compliance. Get it join the 15,000 companies using
- [00:24]
Mark Lazarus
Vanta to prove trust.
- [00:26]
Peter Kafka
Go to vanta.com calm
- [00:31]
Amazon Sponsor
support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for a first birthday party, a movie marathon, a renter friendly bathroom reno. And then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, a Blu ray player calling it quits. Stick on tiles that looked way better on the package for all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials, Save the everyday.
- [01:11]
Shopify Sponsor
Support for the show comes from Shopify. Every worthwhile journey starts with a handful of what ifs. But one day you'll be able to look back and realize that all those what ifs were small steps towards turning your dream into a thriving business. Shopify can help you get there. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US. Join them and turn those what ifs into With Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com VoxBusiness go to shopify.com VoxBusiness that's shopify.com VoxBusiness.
- [01:56]
Peter Kafka
From the Vox Media Podcast network. This is Channels with Peter Kafka. That is me. I'm also chief correspondent at Business Insider, and today we're talking about cable TV and how you run a cable TV business when everyone else has decided they don't want to be in the cable TV business. That's what Versant CEO Mark Lazarus is trying to do. And if you don't know what Versant is, I don't blame you, since it is a name that didn't exist until recently. When Comcast spun out a bunch of cable networks it didn't want to own channels like cnbc, msnbc, USA Network into a standalone company. That company started off life on its own at the beginning of 2026, and now Lazarus has to convince Wall street that just because Comcast didn't want to own cable TV networks, that cable TV networks are still a good business to own. Actually, that's not totally fair. What Lazarus is really trying to do is to convince Wall street that he can transform a bunch of money making but declining cable networks into something else. Just how he's going to do that is the subject of this chat. One little bonus for people who are looking for a bit of background on the future of the Vox Media podcast network. That's the network I'm recording this on right now. There's a little bit of that in this conversation too. So here's me talking to Mark Lazarus. I'm here with Mark Lazarus, CEO of Versant, which I think I have pronounced correctly. Welcome, Mark.
- [03:19]
Mark Lazarus
Perfectly. Thank you.
- [03:20]
Peter Kafka
I got it right.
- [03:21]
Mark Lazarus
Yes.
- [03:21]
Peter Kafka
I was practicing over and over and I still might screw it up if I call it Versant. Don't hold it against me.
- [03:26]
Mark Lazarus
Versant is our name. It does take a little practice. You think about conversant.
- [03:33]
Peter Kafka
I am recording this the day you have announced your Q1 earnings. It is your second earnings call.
- [03:39]
Mark Lazarus
Second earnings call. First. Truly as a standalone company, the first one was really a recap of 25 where we had broken out financials, but we were still part of nbcu.
- [03:50]
Peter Kafka
We have savvy listeners. Most of them know your backstory, but we'll spell it out. You guys were spun out of Comcast at the beginning of the year. They are one of several companies that have either tried to or have ditched a lot of their cable assets. There's a lot of question marks about what is this company that you have left and your stock got hammered for much of the year, but today it has come back or you've regained a lot of that. The earnings look like it's a glass half full, half empty situation. If you want to be negative, you could say, hey, you're a big cable company. You're a bunch of cable networks and those are in decline. That's why Comcast spun you off and that's why Wall street has question marks about you. Then the positive version is, hey, we were throwing off cash. We have these other businesses that aren't directly tied to cable networks. Those are growing. Wall street likes that, which you're a CEO. You have to be the optimist.
- [04:45]
Mark Lazarus
Of course.
- [04:46]
Peter Kafka
What do you think they responded to?
- [04:48]
Mark Lazarus
Let's start with your first premise that they ditched. We spun. We didn't get ditched.
- [04:54]
Peter Kafka
But let's be clear. If they got rid of you, I'll say you won't say it because they thought it would help their stock and their story.
- [05:03]
Mark Lazarus
We believed that we could mine more value for the Comcast shareholders by splitting the company into two and having two businesses that could focus, have more focus than one company where the assets that are now part of Versant were really being harvested and the money was being used for other corporate priorities. We could now reinvest into our own businesses. So that was the. The thesis and the premise. The stock going down at the beginning was totally predictable and expected in that as part of Comcast, these assets were part of a company that many people of the investor base were there not for media. They were there for the cable side, for the broadband side, for that business. So they were natural people.
- [05:51]
Peter Kafka
Once they were handed stock in a cable network company said, that's not for us.
- [05:55]
Mark Lazarus
That's not what we planned on or why we bought comc. And even more importantly, we were no longer in the index funds. If you have an index fund that focuses on the Fortune 500, we weren't in that. They had to sell. They couldn't buy their charter, maintain their equity in us. So we knew there would be a large turnover of the investor base. Yes, it went down a bunch, but it's now moving its way back to around where we started. And it's arguable what you could say, where we started, right, the day we spun is a number. But really, we look at what it looked like over the first week as things started to churn.
- [06:37]
Peter Kafka
We'll probably hit this a couple different times and we've already done it once. I guess whether Comcast did this because it was best for Comcast or Comcast did it was best for you. And the Comcast folks were saying, this is really good for Versant. It wasn't called Versant at the time when you didn't say Spinco. But most people look at it and say, hey, if they thought it was good, they would keep it. And we saw this play out a bunch of times. Prior to being acquired by the Ellisons, Warner Brothers, Discovery was going to split itself up and put most of its cable networks off to one side. A and E is selling off its cable. People who own cable networks who are trying to get rid of them. And the story for all of them is these things make money. They throw off cash still, but they are in secular decline. Who wants to own that? So make the case that you should still be in Comcast or that everyone's wrong and that these are actually great businesses.
- [07:31]
Mark Lazarus
Well, I'm going to make the case as to why we're going to evolve our company and be a company that investors are only part of, employees are going to be proud to be part of, and that consumers are going to utilize our assets. So we have a series of Assets of which as you note, spin out a lot of cash. Seven linear networks, four digital networks. We bucket them into four verticals. We look at the strength of our iconic brands and how we can utilize those to build businesses and transform ourselves from at the beginning. A year ago we were 83% pay television dependent and 17% not. We're now over 20% not pay television dependent and just under 80% pay television. So we are spinning out a lot of cash. What are we going to use that cash for? Right. That cash is to one first we want to have a strong balance sheet, which we do. We have a low debt load. We're able to service that debt, still have a lot of cash. Invest in the company. Invest in the company in a variety of ways. Invest through organic investment in our brands, both in content or in adjacency business.
- [08:48]
Peter Kafka
Cnbc, what used to be called MSNBC
- [08:50]
Mark Lazarus
and is now and so we can invest into those brands and I'll call those, you know, it's sort of EBITDA accretive investments that help build a broader audience around not just pay television. And that's. We've done three small acquisitions to date. We bought Stock Story which is an AI recommendation engine and toolkit to help power CNBC Evolving D2C project that we're going to launch in the not too distant future. We bought Free TV Networks which is free over the air television which is an advertising based service, you know, not tied to pay television. And we bought Indie Cinema, a software business that will underpin and work with Fandango and service and provide differentiated and more service.
- [09:43]
Peter Kafka
When you go to the movies and you buy a ticket from Fandango, that's going to your company.
- [09:47]
Mark Lazarus
That's going to our company. Yeah, yeah. And then the. But the. Not just the ticket Exchange, but now we have a software business that's unrelated that can be worked whether you buy a ticket from Fandango or not. If we work with those cinema operators, I'm expanding that rapidly.
- [10:02]
Peter Kafka
You guys said you want to get to 50% of the business will be non cable TV.
- [10:05]
Mark Lazarus
That's an aspiration and that's a years long project. But that is our goal and we've done that in the golf business. Our golf business about 13, 14 years ago was 100% Golf Channel. We now have Golf Channel Golf now which is a tee time business where we book 40 million tee times. Golf Pass, which is a direct to consumer business and an underlying software business. And that golf, you know, bucket of assets is 50% pay television and 50% non pay television.
- [10:41]
Peter Kafka
Does it matter to you whether these new non cable businesses have some connection to the existing cable businesses that still power the company? Or if you find some asset that's got no connection to anything, but it's just a nice media business or whatever business you'd like to have it.
- [10:56]
Mark Lazarus
We're open to the best ideas on
- [10:59]
Peter Kafka
our podcast network I could sell you.
- [11:02]
Mark Lazarus
I've read about that, the basis of it and I think audio is a very good business and we have a large audio business between our networks streaming on Sirius XM as one and the myriad of podcasts we have across mostly our news networks, but some in the golf space and some in the entertainment space.
- [11:22]
Peter Kafka
So there's no illusion about. No, no cable networks are going to come back. We know this is a declining asset. The trick is to leverage what we can out of that and sort of outrun the decline with news.
- [11:33]
Mark Lazarus
The trick is to arrest the decline as best we can by being by raising ratings. I mean this quarter we happened, we raised ratings across many of our networks. That doesn't arrest the subscriber decay but arrest the audience decline. So to do the best we can to mitigate that decline and build assets around those and use those assets like we did with golf. I mean golf now was local tee time businesses. We used the Golf Channel to power that business and make it a very successful business.
- [12:04]
Peter Kafka
I remember talking to some of the folks you used to work with at Comcast, at NBC they had put a bunch of money into digital businesses including Vox Media where we're sitting right now, buzzfeed and I think they bought a bunch of Snapchat channels at one point.
- [12:18]
Mark Lazarus
All those three, that's, that was a
- [12:20]
Peter Kafka
press release saying we've spent, you know, more than I can remember. The number was, but it was a big number. This is how much we spend in digital. And within a few years I was told, you know what, these digital advertising based businesses, we're not so interested in those, but we love the golf tee time business. Things like that, where there's an actual transaction. We like that.
- [12:37]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah.
- [12:37]
Peter Kafka
And you were around for that?
- [12:39]
Mark Lazarus
I was around.
- [12:39]
Peter Kafka
Investment.
- [12:40]
Mark Lazarus
That was done. The thesis then was let's invest in these businesses, learn from them and see if we can create some, because we were minority investors, create some strong commercial relationships between our company and theirs and see if we can work it into growth. That's not a strategy that I think is right for today.
- [13:02]
Peter Kafka
You don't want to buy money losing web publishing businesses.
- [13:06]
Mark Lazarus
Likely not. And I don't think for minority investments or passive investments are not the way we're going to grow or change our company. We need to buy companies that we believe in, that we either are profitable or we see the short path to profitability and that we're going to operate and consolidate results.
- [13:24]
Peter Kafka
As you're speaking now, I'm remembering just I wrote a story last week when buzzfeed more or less sort of quit. And thinking about when they were doing those deals with you, how confident the buzzfeed people were that they were going to teach Comcast Universal how to make television shows and movies for millennials.
- [13:41]
Mark Lazarus
Well, I've been around long enough to remember when AOL said the same thing about Time Warner.
- [13:47]
Peter Kafka
We're very old is what we're saying.
- [13:49]
Mark Lazarus
Exactly.
- [13:50]
Peter Kafka
You spun out of Comcast, but you're still connected to the mothership. They are selling your ads. They just did their upfronts. You guys are a big part of that. They're telling advertisers you can buy NBC and all the Versant stuff as well. That goes on for an hour.
- [14:05]
Mark Lazarus
You're getting more comfortable.
- [14:06]
Peter Kafka
Yeah, let's practice. That's another year of that, right?
- [14:09]
Mark Lazarus
Yep.
- [14:09]
Peter Kafka
And then what happens at that? Do you keep going with them? Do you say we're going to stand on our own?
- [14:14]
Mark Lazarus
You know, I think they. And we will evaluate how it's going in the back half of this year. I mean, they're in the middle of the market right now. I believe that it's been good for both sides. You know, I have a long history in ad sales. Personally, I over, you know, before taking this role, one of the responsibilities I had at NBCU is running the media group and ad sales was part of that. Mark Marshall and his team are, I think, the best in the business. So it's working right now. I think it's mutually beneficial.
- [14:51]
Peter Kafka
Right. Yeah. The pros are you're part of an existing ad sales operation. Everyone knows how to do it. Also, you've got a lot of stuff on your plate. It's helpful for you to have some.
- [14:59]
Mark Lazarus
Helpful for us, they've, you know, we provide a lot of reach. They have a lot of, we'll call them shiny objects, you know, very high demand products. So there's a good reason that it works well. Now, that being said, it has to work well for them. Has to work well for us. We both have optionality and we'll get together probably in the fall and decide if it's working and under what terms.
- [15:22]
Peter Kafka
Yeah. And how do you weigh the sort of. Just the dependency Right. That if this is going well now, but if in a year and a half it's not going to work, we'd rather sort of get out ahead of it and start building up our own sales.
- [15:33]
Mark Lazarus
So there are certain guardrails in the deal that will protect it. I mean, this was meant to be good for both sides. We'll make a decision. There's a variety of options, right? We stay with them, they want to stay with us and we want to stay with them, then that might be the best option. There's other third parties that have approached us and asked us if they would represent us. That's another option. And then there's an option of us doing it on our own. Or maybe there's hybrid versions.
- [16:03]
Peter Kafka
We'll be right back with Mark Lazarus. But first, a word from a sponsor.
- [16:09]
Shopify Sponsor
I keep seeing celebrities posts me in the 90s versus now. While the person staring at me in the mirror is definitely not the same person that could pull off boot cut jeans. Time creeps up on us so slowly you don't see it until suddenly you do. Same thing goes for your bills. A dollar here, an uptick there. It's a slow burn until one day you realize the price you're paying now is way higher than when you sign. But AT T mobile customers had the lowest wireless bills versus Verizon and AT&T over the past five years. And with T Mobile on their experience plans, you get a five year price guarantee so you know exactly what your plan price will be for the next five years. So at least that's one thing that won't change over time. I can't guarantee you'll still look good with frosted tips, but T Mobile can give you a clear guarantee on your wireless plan.
- [16:57]
Peter Kafka
Lower bills based on Harris X billing snapshots from Q3.21 to Q4 25 compared to average AT&T and Verizon bills. Comparison excludes discounts, credits, price guarantee on talk, text and data exclusions like taxes and fees apply.
- [17:08]
Amazon Sponsor
CT mobile.com support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for a first birthday party, a movie marathon, a renter friendly bathroom reno. And then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, a Blu Ray player calling it quits. Stick on tiles that looked way better on the package. For all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday kayak gets my flight Hotel and rental car. Right. So I can tune out travel advice. That's just plain wrong, bro.
- [17:55]
Peter Kafka
Skycoin Way better than points.
- [17:58]
Shopify Sponsor
Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade.
- [18:05]
Amazon Sponsor
Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right.
- [18:11]
Mark Lazarus
Kayak.
- [18:12]
Amazon Sponsor
Got that right.
- [18:19]
Peter Kafka
And we're back. You mentioned a DTC direct to consumer product. You have a couple of them already, right?
- [18:26]
Mark Lazarus
There's a CNBC plus, there's CNBC plus CNBC Pro and but there that's going to be reimagined in a whole new set of product line and there's more coming right? Ms. Now. Which Ms. Now. And part of this goes to the whole theory of the spin is Ms. Now. Then MSNBC was part of the news group. The news group had certain resources to spend against digital products. They chose to work on other things rather than have Ms. Now have its own digital footprint. Really up until really ease and as today it's essentially a text based website with some show clips. That's not a modern media company. We're investing in creating a D2C product for a very large, very engaged, very passionate Ms. NOW audience that we believe we can create a nice subscriber base
- [19:23]
Peter Kafka
and so for all. Maybe each one of these has a different arc. But I'm assuming that the idea is not to say hey, instead of watching us on your cable, your linear cable distributor, you can watch it on the Internet because that kind of already exists or does exist. Right. Is the idea we can generate more revenue by giving you extras and it's basically a sort of a fan club.
- [19:44]
Mark Lazarus
It's going to be more of a sense of community. It's going to be having.
- [19:48]
Peter Kafka
Is that across all of the DTC
- [19:50]
Mark Lazarus
stuff they will all have a different. You will be able to have the stream, the linear stream in there, but there will be many other aspects. That's not the selling point is the community and they're different for each one selling point for Ms. Now it's about community. It's about being around, you know, getting more voices in the, in the tone that you're interested in. It's about, you know, different kinds of mindfulness, wellness. It's about direct access to talent, live shows with talent, interactive stuff with talent. I mean a lot of, you know, the luxury we have is these talent. These personalities have real connection with their audiences.
- [20:28]
Peter Kafka
And so that's a direct example of even though linear TV is dying, we can make more money from this product.
- [20:35]
Mark Lazarus
We think we can create a product with the same tone and voice that people will want to pay for that is additive to what they're watching on our linear.
- [20:43]
Peter Kafka
Have you seen examples like that in other places that work?
- [20:45]
Mark Lazarus
I mean, Fox Nation, I think Fox Nation is a very good one. I mean they over time have created a similar tone and voice as they have with Fox.
- [20:55]
Peter Kafka
If you are a Fox News super fan, you want more, we're going to give you more stuff.
- [20:58]
Mark Lazarus
We'll give you more in a different way. That's and I think that that's a perfectly good strategy. I think it's worked for them and I think it's something that we can do. I think the New York Times did it right. We're going to give you the newspaper, but we're also going to give you games and food and other things that align with your lifestyle. So I think there's a myriad of examples out there.
- [21:19]
Peter Kafka
And with the Times case, right, they're saying you could buy games or cooking on your own, but really it's all part of the bundle. It makes the thing more worthwhile to you. But that's not what you're doing here. You're saying this is a separate add on for people who are already watching.
- [21:34]
Mark Lazarus
It's a different and we think, you know, we think it'll be different enough that we can promote it some on air and get our viewers to want to buy it. And you know, I got asked today on the earnings call, you know, by one of the, one of the investors that I see, I see you've been promoting fandango and golf. Now, I don't know if you heard that. I said, well, yes, we've got a lot of time. We got inventory. But it also proves the value and power and the reach we have with our linear services to drive transactions.
- [22:09]
Peter Kafka
I feel like this is an ongoing question for 20 years about whether TV audiences move to the Internet, whether Internet audiences move to tv. Obviously there's going to be less of that for you. Do you think that you're going to have folks who are watching Ms. Now who are your core audience who will then migrate to the Internet?
- [22:27]
Mark Lazarus
There might be some. Sure. I think people use both now. I don't think it's either or. I live with multiple screens.
- [22:38]
Peter Kafka
But you're a young, vibrant person.
- [22:39]
Mark Lazarus
The knock on the we just said we're old now. You can't have it both ways.
- [22:43]
Peter Kafka
I know, I know. But the knock on all the cable news products is an old audience. And are they really going to move to the Internet. But you think that's a settled question?
- [22:51]
Mark Lazarus
I think many of them will. But I also believe that if we do our jobs right on the D2C products and CNBC will be different. CNBC will have a focus on the retail investor and give them unique and bespoke tools and the ability to do things there that they don't have today through our D2C. But on MS, if you think about who makes up the audience that watches ms, or at least the audience that's likely to want to watch ms, I'd call it somewhere from maybe center right to all the way to the left right. There are a lot of young people that fall into that big bucket and we're not capturing them. But can we and should we have the right to capture them given what our content is? And we're just not reaching them in the right way. And we think we can do that here.
- [23:42]
Peter Kafka
Let's talk about sports. You've been playing up the idea that you are a sports play as well. And obviously in sports there's the NFL, which owns all of television, and then there's everything else. The NFL is only going to get more expensive. You talk about this in the call a bit today. What are the kind of things that you imagine you can afford, negotiate, bring to your audience?
- [24:05]
Mark Lazarus
Well, I think that first, having been involved in sports and the NFL for the last 15 years, it's an amazing product. It's. I believe that the NFL will be able to garner increases from their existing rights holders. And I think that that will leave the media companies needing to make content choices and they will make that across their entirety of their day. Part mix. Will they reduce their news budgets? Will they reduce their entertainment budgets? Will they rebalance their sports portfolios?
- [24:42]
Peter Kafka
Right. So we saw ESPN was F1 and they said, actually Apple, you can have one.
- [24:46]
Mark Lazarus
Right. I think there will be other things like that that come to fruition. You know, and as I said, I did say this on the call. You know, in the last year we've renewed and expanded many of our sports relationships. The USGA for the US Open, the PGA of America with the Ryder cup, the WNBA were the largest exhibitor of WNBA games, including having the wnba, including having the WNBA finals. This year we added League one Volleyball. I do think that there will be leagues and leagues have a lot of content. And especially as the regional sports network business is kind of dissipating a lot of people, they're putting some games on local broadcast, but there's still more content. I think the leagues are going to roll up more of that content and they'll be more available potentially for national distribution. And we think that we would USA Network in particular a fully distributed, in today's parlance cable network with people who understand the sports landscape, people who know how to produce and market the sports. A company that can market it across the range of our portfolio. That we will be a place assuming we have decide to allocate our capital, that way we can buy some rights
- [26:06]
Peter Kafka
is the ultimate goal. To say we are the home of fill in the blank wnba, that's sort of what you're known for. Or is it? We have a lot of sports and you can try a lot of different things. And maybe you didn't know you wanted to watch professional volleyball, but here it is.
- [26:20]
Mark Lazarus
I think the goal is somewhere in the middle. I mean, we're likely not to be big enough to be an exclusive purveyor of anything or of many things, but we can be a significant player in a bunch of things. Having sports for sports sake doesn't make
- [26:36]
Peter Kafka
a lot of sense because there aren't sports fans. There's fans.
- [26:39]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah, there's fans of particular, you know, particular events or sports. You know, we have three main constituencies. Forget obviously Wall street and Washington. All those are people who look at what we're doing as a public company. But we gotta have stuff that audiences want to watch to have stuff that has value to our distributors. We have to have stuff that advertisers want to support. And if, if there's a. If there's something in a quantity that we can value that reaches all three of those, that's a bullseye. If it reaches two of those, it's still likely a really good thing. It only reaches one. May not work.
- [27:17]
Peter Kafka
We'll be right back. But first, a word from a sponsor. When you finally find your thing, you want the whole world to know about that thing. So you use a thing called Canva to make it an even bigger and better thing. Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing, you can do anything so people can see your thing, feel your thing, love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing.
- [27:51]
Shopify Sponsor
I'm Mitch Purse, two time NWSL champion, championship MVP and forward for the US Women's National Team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have what people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset and unseen battles on the path to greatness. So take a seat and learn from the Confessions of an elite athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Maria Sharapova, host of the Pretty Tough podcast. Each episode I sit down with high achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology. This week, journalist Dean at USC and now along with her husband Bob Iger, owner of the Angel City FC women's soccer team, will obey.
- [28:57]
Mark Lazarus
I said, bob, are you interested in doing this? And he said, absolutely.
- [29:02]
Shopify Sponsor
But I was definitely the driving force,
- [29:05]
Mark Lazarus
I think, in the conviction about Angel City.
- [29:09]
Shopify Sponsor
Check out pretty tough new episodes on Wednesdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app.
- [29:27]
Peter Kafka
And we're back. You mentioned Washington. This administration very interested in the media world and should it be more regulated and some things get regulated and don't. Brendan Carr found a way to investigate Comcast over its diversity pledges. Do you fall under FCC anymore? Is there any way that he can touch that? No, we don't today acquire a broadcast station.
- [29:48]
Mark Lazarus
We would have to be in that business. We don't today. But you know, we are a company that, you know, listen between CNBC and Ms. Now we're a player in Washington in terms of them wanting to be part of our world.
- [30:04]
Peter Kafka
Donald Trump comes on cnbc.
- [30:05]
Mark Lazarus
Donald Trump comes on many, many in the administration. Come on, you know, people from Congress on both sides come on both networks. So we spend some time there getting to know them and them getting to know us as a new company. It's important. There are other elements in Congress which this is new learnings for me in many ways. There are groups of congressmen and congresswomen who think about the golf industry, that's important to us. They think about the motorsports industry, that's important to us. With our NASCAR relationship. There's other reasons for us to be there.
- [30:43]
Peter Kafka
This is speculative, but is there a point where you would say, hey, this is an interesting asset, but if we buy it, it is going to bring us renewed or increased scrutiny from so and so.
- [30:55]
Mark Lazarus
We wouldn't think about it that way. Obviously, we would have to be cognizant of that. And if you have to seek approvals, you seek approvals. But we're going to look at the assets on their merits, not on the, the extra stuff that could get in the way. I mean, Obviously, that'll be something we'd have to address, but that wouldn't be how we evaluate a particular asset.
- [31:17]
Peter Kafka
You throw off cash. You've talked about buying stuff. I mentioned the podcast network. I'm recording this for right now. Reportedly, you were looking at that. Can you tell us about your interest in podcasting?
- [31:32]
Mark Lazarus
We are a part of the family already. With the investments you talked about earlier,
- [31:37]
Peter Kafka
is that interest in Vox Media, did that carry over to you guys, or does it stay with nbcu?
- [31:42]
Mark Lazarus
It came to us.
- [31:42]
Peter Kafka
So you are part owner of the studio I'm sitting in right now, so
- [31:45]
Mark Lazarus
I guess that probably should be. We should disclose that.
- [31:48]
Peter Kafka
Yeah.
- [31:48]
Mark Lazarus
Okay. You just disclosed it, so. Yeah, listen, I've known Jim a long time. Jim Bankoff, Jim Benkov. I was there at the beginning when he started to put together SB Nation. I was on his advisory board. I have a lot of respect for what he's built over time and how he's transitioned over time. We had some good conversations. There are more assets, as you know, than just the podcasting piece and his job for the shareholders, of which we are one. But obviously not in the room when these conversations, if he can maximize return for them, then we support that.
- [32:25]
Peter Kafka
And a translate. You were interested in the podcast network. He is negotiating a deal to sell more than the podcast network. And he said, go with God.
- [32:33]
Mark Lazarus
Yes. Okay. I think that's. That's likely the outcome, but can't speak to it anymore. I don't know any more than that.
- [32:39]
Peter Kafka
And neither do I.
- [32:40]
Mark Lazarus
Right.
- [32:41]
Peter Kafka
Well, I'm not reporting on it, let's put it that way. I find reporting on companies I work for and with to not be super helpful for anybody. What other kind of stuff would you look at? You guys have done a deal with Crooked media.
- [32:53]
Mark Lazarus
The left. Yeah, that's a commercial deal.
- [32:55]
Peter Kafka
Is that something. Would it make sense to buy something like that or the mold work, which is the kind of the same thing?
- [33:01]
Mark Lazarus
Maybe those are. You know, I think as we think about a podcasting platform or any sort of alternative media platform, the word platform is more important to me than an individual piece that is reliant solely on an individual or small group talent.
- [33:17]
Peter Kafka
But I think a lot of these are, though, Right?
- [33:19]
Mark Lazarus
A lot of them are, but of differentiating scale.
- [33:23]
Peter Kafka
The Crooked media is basically for hosts.
- [33:27]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah, three.
- [33:27]
Peter Kafka
Yeah, three and a half.
- [33:28]
Mark Lazarus
Three and a half. But it's really the majority of their business is what we take a compilation of in Pot Save America. But we'll be in the market looking for things that, again, can be accretive to our bottom line and add value to the rest of our businesses. Short of something larger and more transformational, which at some point may be something we're able to figure out.
- [33:56]
Peter Kafka
There was a lot of talk as you were in the spin about whether or not you'd be in the market to roll up all these other networks that might have needed new homes.
- [34:04]
Mark Lazarus
Is that of interest limited I mean we don't, you know, we're very focused on vertical. The vertical space of our four, the four large verticals we operate in today. Horizontal, you know, acquisitions aren't as interesting for a couple of reasons. One delays the decay, but it doesn't end it. So it doesn't really do what we're talking about in terms of transforming our company, transforming our business into a next generation media company with strong iconic brands as the base. It also, and we've thought about this a lot, there certainly would be some synergies and cost out that you could take. But we're operating under the assumption that all these other folks who had these businesses have been responsible like we have been at NBCUniversal and taken a lot of the costs, you know, the extraneous cost out.
- [35:02]
Peter Kafka
Yes.
- [35:02]
Mark Lazarus
So I don't know how much more of that there really would be. There is. So I think that would be a concern. Now. The only shift, and there's nothing specific, we have four verticals today. We have nothing that says why don't you have five verticals? If we found something that we could was actionable and that we could build another vertical around, then we would be interested in thinking through that.
- [35:28]
Peter Kafka
Do you think more of that stuff is going to come on the market? I mean again, the Warner stuff was. And then it's not. Because Paramount wants it all for now.
- [35:35]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah. I mean, I can't speak to their strategy. I mean there might be things that people would be willing to part with that might make sense for us or for somebody else. I don't know. I can't speak to their strategy. But there's a variety of businesses out there. Some of them carry a lot of debt. We love the fact that we have this strong balance sheet that we can invest in the company. We can return capital. Shareholders, we announced today our dividend. We announced another buyback. We bought $100 million back in the first quarter. We've committed to the same number in the second quarter.
- [36:15]
Peter Kafka
What does this look like if. And again, stop saying you're old or the world, but you've been around this business for a long time. You've been within Comcast and NBC for a long time. What does it look like if you did this five years earlier, would you be on different footing?
- [36:29]
Mark Lazarus
Oh, I think we'd be certainly. I think the linear landscape was different five years ago. As you talk about, we've been around a while. I did nearly 20 years at Turner Broadcasting before this, and we were the disruptors. Right. So I've been a disruptor and now I've been dis. And then I was flat and now I've been. We're being disrupted and it's it. So I think when you think through the changes five years ago certainly was a long time ago, and the trajectory of the linear networks was not known to be as complicated as it is today.
- [37:09]
Peter Kafka
I kind of feel like it was. And that was kind of part of the argument for why you and Fox and Disney were all investing in companies like Vox And Vice and BuzzFeed was, hey, our audience is going away, but maybe we can find them on the Internet. And 2015 was the big change, right. When Disney said, hey, ESPN has lost subs. And everyone freaked out because prior to that there was a whole world of tech people saying, hey, TV's going away. And the TV guys kept saying, look at our ratings. Nothing's happening. And then it started falling.
- [37:38]
Mark Lazarus
But by the way, ratings are still pretty good. I mean, our ratings are going up, I guess.
- [37:43]
Peter Kafka
Ratings. Let's say, let's. A total audience.
- [37:45]
Mark Lazarus
Total audience. Well, sub, even audience. If you think back, I'll harp on Ms. Now. In 2015, there were more subs than there are today. Right. Inarguable. But the audience for Ms. Now was half of what it is today. In primetime, we were doing about 600,000 people, two plus in primetime. And now we're doing a million too.
- [38:09]
Peter Kafka
Donald Trump had not been elected president twice.
- [38:11]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah, I mean, things change. You know, outside influences change. CNBC's audience was up this quarter. The sports property sports is finding is having a moment of audience on television.
- [38:25]
Peter Kafka
I guess what I'm getting at is do you look back and go, oh, this is the mistake we made? Or in hindsight, we should have moved faster? Or do you say, no, we did the most responsible thing possible, which was to run our businesses as best as we could until we had to get to this cliff.
- [38:42]
Mark Lazarus
I wasn't in the room for some of that time, so I can't speak to what Brian and Mike and others were thinking. Five years ago. Yeah, five years ago. But, yeah, we knew we were in a slow decline. I think what we maybe Underappreciated was how rapid would come, how broadband would. Not just broadband, but broadband, fixed wireless. Now, Starlink would change how people bring content into their homes. So I think we have, five years ago, the linear networks felt a lot better than they do today. Today, as you point out, we still spend out a ton of cash and that's going to be for the foreseeable future. Our job in this new company is to transform and transition it into a company that can withstand that and find growth and we're on our way.
- [39:42]
Peter Kafka
Are there other industries? Do you look back historically or maybe even just today we go, oh, these industries figured out they were sort of facing a similar sort of decline, but were able to leverage their cash and they're wherever they were into a new thing.
- [39:57]
Mark Lazarus
That's a good question.
- [39:58]
Peter Kafka
Yeah. Netflix is the one everyone points out and they kind of pulled it off with Netflix.
- [40:02]
Mark Lazarus
Pulled it off.
- [40:02]
Peter Kafka
They're pretty rare.
- [40:03]
Mark Lazarus
They are some of the firms that were purely accounting firms that rolled into being consultancy firms I think is another one that did that. I think back to our board chair, David Novak spun Yum Brands, which originally was Tricon, spun Yum brands out of PepsiCo to be able to deploy capital on a more focused way. So, yeah, I think there are some examples. This just happens to be what we do for a living, is what all those people talk about at cocktail parties. So it's fun for people to speculate and talk about our industry.
- [40:43]
Peter Kafka
Trust me, I'm not doing a Yum Brands podcast. Although actually, you know what a Pizza Hut Taco Bell podcast podcast would be.
- [40:49]
Mark Lazarus
There you go.
- [40:50]
Peter Kafka
Have some, would have some audience. You know, you're graded every day by Wall Street. When, when do you think it's fair to say, look, this is the right time to evaluate whether we have pulled this off or not. How long do you give yourself?
- [41:04]
Mark Lazarus
Well, I think that a fair benchmark, by the time you can spin, do all the things we have to do to set up the company, which we did a lot in one year. I think it's a three year journey.
- [41:16]
Peter Kafka
Okay, so we're a few months into it.
- [41:17]
Mark Lazarus
A few months into it. I think obviously Wall Street's not going to wait for three years. We owe them results every day and every quarter. Our advertisers aren't going to wait. We owe them results. Our distributor partners aren't going to wait. We owe them results. But I think a fair assessment of whether we've been able to make a transformation, move towards transformation for this company is three years.
- [41:42]
Peter Kafka
Okay, I'M not going to wait three years to talk to you. So we'll do this more often.
- [41:45]
Mark Lazarus
Okay? I'm ready.
- [41:46]
Peter Kafka
Thank you for coming.
- [41:47]
Mark Lazarus
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
- [41:49]
Peter Kafka
Thanks again to Mark Lazarus for coming in. Great conversation. Thanks to Charlotte Silbert for producing and editing this show. Thanks to our advertisers. They bring this show to you for free. Thank you guys for listening. Thanks for all your feedback. We will see you next week.