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The Digiday Podcast
Meta, Netflix & FTC’s Omnicom-IPG approval + “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”’ Danielle Pistotnik
00:51:13
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- [00:00]
Tim Peterson
Foreign.
- [00:09]
Kimiko McCoy
Hello.
- [00:10]
Danielle Pistotnik
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Digiday Podcast, a show about the business of media and marketing. I'm your co host, Kimiko McCoy, senior marketing reporter here at Digiday.
- [00:18]
Tim Peterson
And I'm Tim Peterson, executive editor of.
- [00:21]
Unknown
Video and audio Digiday Media.
- [00:22]
Tim Peterson
Tim, what's up?
- [00:23]
Unknown
Kamiko, welcome back.
- [00:24]
Danielle Pistotnik
Welcome back to you as well. How was VidCon?
- [00:28]
Tim Peterson
It was okay. It was maybe the last time I go to Vidcon. At least as long as it's being held the same week. It can as can, because there just aren't as many people who go to VidCon anymore. I think it's definitely because it sounds like so many of the creators are now in south of France with you last week.
- [00:50]
Danielle Pistotnik
Yes. I actually have talked to a couple of my friends who cover the creator economy, and that's actually one of the talking points that they had is that a lot of the people that you typically see at Vidcon are now in the south of France. But I mean, it was on my end busy walking up and down the the Palais and the Croisset and every other French term to describe the heat and beat of everything that's happened in there. But it was an interesting time, I'll give it that.
- [01:17]
Unknown
Yeah. And I mean, you had a bunch.
- [01:18]
Tim Peterson
Of episodes and interviews that you did, you know, throughout the week. But coming out of it, now that you've had a couple days to kind of decompress, any big takeaways, anything that, like, stood out to you about this year's can line?
- [01:32]
Danielle Pistotnik
Yeah, the biggest thing, and our executive editor of news covered this in one of the briefings, is that I heard a lot of conversations about AI but no, like, real conversations. It more was like pitching. So, like, when I talk to folks about, like, you know, what do you make of AI conversations? This year, we are still looking for, like, use cases beyond just like helping me write some social copies. So that was an interesting thing. It felt very snake oil salesman y, I guess, rather than the usual, what takeaways did you have from VidCon that.
- [02:06]
Tim Peterson
For as much as YouTube's hit kind of this threshold where the TV screen is now the device that people are spending the most time watching YouTube among teens and 20 somethings, it's still not their primary device. I spend a lot of time during VidCon talking to the teens and 20 somethings that are walking around because they want to meet their favorite creators or do they want to eventually become creators themselves. And so what I asked almost all of them and we'll have a video on this later this week or in the next week or so. Posted to JJ's YouTube channel was how much are they watching YouTube on TV? And across the board, they were like, nah, I watch it on my phone or I watch it on my computer. One person was just like, I don't watch it on TV because I don't want my parents knowing what I'm watching. So I'm not going to watch a communal device. But then for others, that's just not what they're using it for. Tubular Labs also had a session where they presented some data, and it similarly showed mobile still is a pretty popular device for YouTube. So there's a distinction when it comes to YouTube, kind of crossing this threshold where TV is the primary screen. That's still true. I'm not saying YouTube's lying about that stuff, but I think there's just a lot more nuance to it, especially when it comes to younger viewers versus maybe someone like myself who's on, you know, the older end of things, who is watching YouTube a lot on the TV screen.
- [03:47]
Danielle Pistotnik
You know what's interesting for all of the things that we did learn from can and from VidCon is a conversation that did not come up, which was the TikTok ban, which came and went without a peep. I didn't hear anything about it on my end. What about you?
- [04:00]
Tim Peterson
No, not at all. You know, I was talking with some TikTok creators there weren't concerned about it. I mean, granted, the news had already started to come out, like earlier in the week that Trump was unlike, was likely to extend the deadline to the surprise of absolutely no one. And then I think it was on Thursday where the Wall Street Journal, at least what I saw was the Wall Street Journal report that, like, okay, Trump is in fact extending the deadline once again. I think the new deadline is September 17th. So we get a few more months of this story that fewer and fewer people seem to care about, let alone believe anything will ever come of. But, yeah, you know, TikTok, the idea of TikTok going away just seemed to be this completely distant alternate reality.
- [04:51]
Danielle Pistotnik
Absolutely. And on September 17, we will obviously timestamp and circle back once again on that topic. Uh, but before we hit there, we've got some juicy scoops and a really interesting guest this week. Uh, Tim, tell me who you talk to.
- [05:06]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, so I spoke with Danielle Pistotnik, who is a talent manager at Select Management Group, which is a talent management firm that represents a lot of creators, including TikTok. Stars, particularly including a group of TikTok stars who are Mormons and got a lot of attention in 2022 and that the result of that ended up being a reality show that it's called the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are familiar with it. I know my sister was very excited when I told her I was doing this interview and she helped me to prep for the interview because I'd never watched the show. So we talked about how Danielle and the creators kind of put together this reality show that ended up on Hulu, ended up becoming a very successful show on Hulu and it just completed its second season. But we talk about like kind of there's still the challenge of getting a creator led show sold to a streaming service or a TV network. Basically getting the traditional entertainment industry on board with creators, despite all the evidence of this stuff working like, you know, Mr. Beast show on Amazon Prime Video. But then also these creators having a built in audience. I think for these ones in particular, the creators who are part of Secret Lives of More Than Wives, they have like collectively 20 million followers. So that's like a pretty good sized built in audience. And obviously a lot of those people have watched the show on Hulu. So it has translated, it has proven out. But these creators and executives like Danielle are still having to prove to traditional Hollywood that this creator driven programming does succeed.
- [06:55]
Danielle Pistotnik
Well, while that is a juicy scoop within itself, we do have three other juicy scoops that we have to get to before we get to the conversation with Danielle. We've got Meta, which considered buying perplexity, the FTC's approval of the Omnicom and IPG merger and, and finally Netflix, which is dipping its big toe into good old fashioned tv.
- [07:14]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, so the Meta one. So this is some news that came out after Meta announced a, what is it, $14.3 billion investment in scale AI, which is like an AI infrastructure company. But before Meta made this investment, it had considered reportedly acquiring Perplexity, which is interesting because like Perplexity would make a lot of sense within Meta. Like Perplexity as much as it is an AI platform, a la ChatGPT, Gemini, et cetera. It's really more of a like AI driven search news platform. Like it's pretty content based, you know, our publishing summits. A lot of publishers back in September and then again in March talked about deals they're doing with Perplexity to and the opportunity to like have links actually show up in Perplexity as a rev share program for publishers. And so I imagine there's a bunch of publishers who would have been excited by the prospect of Meta acquiring Perplexity, because then that could just expand the user base, expand the potential for revenue. But alas, was not to be. At least not yet.
- [08:26]
Danielle Pistotnik
Yeah, at least not yet. You never know. You never know. I think that the thing here that is interesting to me, it's like it kind of speaks to where Meta's standing is in the AI arms race right now. Things are moving really, really fast. And to me this kind of goes back to like Zuckerberg's M.O. which is like, if you can't beat them, buy them. Right. We saw the same thing with like, you know, the pivot to video and the like stories from Snapchat and things like that. And I feel like this may be just kind of the latest iteration of that to kind of continue to mark that standing in that race.
- [08:58]
Tim Peterson
Yeah. Although I wonder if he would be more reticent to say if you can't beat him by him, considering they have antitrust case going on when it comes to the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. And maybe that played into the decision not to acquire Perplexity. Whereas like the Scale AI acquisitions, really interesting because. Yeah, I mean you don't hear much about people using Meta AI. Granted that app only rolled out a couple months ago, if I'm not mistaken, versus like, you know, the user base for ChatGPT and for Gemini and for like Claude. But then Meta, with acquiring scale AI is really seeding itself into the infrastructure of AI. So scale AI, for anyone who's not familiar, is a company that does a lot of the data labeling for training data that then is used by the large language models. So a very important part of the process was used by OpenAI and was used by Google, both of which since Meta announced its investment in scale AI, both Google and OpenAI have been like, never mind. Maybe, maybe let's not, you know, still be feeding our data to a company that is now, you know, one of our rivals has a large minority stake in. But I don't know, it's just like a really interesting alternative path. It's more of like the B2B path for Meta, where you would expect them to do more of the consumer facing path, which they're also doing, just not as aggressively as this investment.
- [10:34]
Danielle Pistotnik
Well, yeah, and I was also going to say it kind of speaks to like, as far as like AI, again, the AI arms race, like what becomes valuable, right, for these tech companies and behemoths to Continue to take in dollars and make themselves valuable propositions for companies. I think that that's. That speaks to it for sure.
- [10:53]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, yeah. And it's also just like, I mean, the data. We've been talking about this in the ad industry for more than a decade, for decades at this point, but just kind of the importance of data. And so then Meta having, I think it was like Yahoo, who had made this analogy before, or maybe it was AOL or maybe it was Verizon when they were doing all those deals, but kind of like the consumer data is the oil, and then you acquire ad tech to have the oil rigs to then pump that oil. Meta has obviously a ton of data across its platforms. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and now scale AI seems like it's part of the rigging of systematizing that data, which at some point will just, I'm sure, help Meta's advertising business, especially as it goes, like, more and more AI driven with that advertising business. And then it becomes a question of, like, how much leverage does then Meta take away from agency holding companies who seem to be facing something of an existential crisis in terms of, like, what is their role going forward as AI takes up more and more of the work that advertisers, especially small and midsize advertisers, may have looked to agency, holding company, or agencies in general to do.
- [12:22]
Danielle Pistotnik
Which takes us to our next juicy scoop. This just in, if you will. So the IPG and Omnicom merger deal, excuse me, is on. It's been greenlit by the ftc, but obviously it doesn't come without caveats.
- [12:36]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, yeah. The FTC being very savvy here. So the condition here, according to Reuters, which broke the news, as far as I can tell, is Omnicom ipg. The combined company can't quote entering agreements with others to steer ad dollars towards or away from publishers based on political content. Basically, Omnicom IPG can't say to clients, hey, don't advertise on X because there's a little lot of political content there. Or do advertise on CNN because there's political content there. It's very like, the word choice here is very interesting because so much of it seems oriented around political content that I wonder what the gray area is for an Omnicom IPG to be like. Well, that's not the reason we're steering dollars towards or away from this publisher. But this was obviously one of the things that a lot of congresspeople have been very up in arms about is the Idea of advertisers boycotting platforms or allegedly steering money away. X seems to be the loudest about this. Linda Yaccarina was loud about this during Cannes from what I heard.
- [13:52]
Danielle Pistotnik
I was just about to say this seems kind of like ripple effects, if you will, of what happened with like the disbandment of Garm and like, you know, accusations of steering political ad, steering ad dollars away from, you know, certain benefactors, if you will, based on, you know, an agency's decision making process. And I think this is maybe just kind of like the next peg in that conversation that you're seeing. Which is also timely because across the pond.
- [14:17]
Tim Peterson
Mm, yeah. So Reuters also reported last week allegations that a bunch of the big agency holding companies, including Omnicom and ipg, but also WPP Media, Dentsu and some others were allegedly colluding on price fixing in the Indian ad market. So which, which seemed to just like feed into concerns that there is this, I guess collusion is the only term for it, it's the only term I can think of. But that these agency holding companies are in a sort of cahoots of controlling the ad market which seems to have been the concern when it comes to X and X alleging like hey, these agencies are telling advertisers not to spend with us. That's not fair. We don't have to get into to what extent the use of ad dollars or just the decision not to advertise is or is not free speech. I would say it's free speech, but that's a whole other conversation. One thing I'm interested with this is because it's about ad dollars towards away from publishers based on political content is whether this is something that news publishers would be able to hop onto to combat like all the money moving away from them because of brand safety, brand suitability concerns. Because like political news content is political content and publishers for years have talked about advertisers aversion to being to running against political news.
- [15:48]
Danielle Pistotnik
Yeah, that is something. And like I mentioned earlier, the ripple effects, I think that's going to be another tentacle that's going to have to be kind of grappled with as we move forward. Which you know, I, I think it totally makes sense that, that publishers would jump on that very quickly given that's been a talking point or an argument point for to your point years.
- [16:09]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, I guess the always the tricky balance there is sellers generally don't ever want to be so antagonistic to buyers that they like scuttle deals. Like that's why X has been so notable because it's been so brazenly going after advertisers who it wants the money from. News publishers haven't been so brazen. But maybe this could change things. As we say too often, we'll see. And we'll also say we'll see when it comes to our next news story.
- [16:47]
Danielle Pistotnik
Yeah, I, I think that's absolutely fair. But for our last point here, let's take it back to France, where I just came from. Still suffering jet lag, but nonetheless, Netflix made a really, really big announcement about its plans to carry French TV networks while it was at can. So given you're obviously in the TV space, talk to us about your hot take there.
- [17:09]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, it's really surprising for Netflix to be like, hey, TF1, you're a French TV network. We'll carry you for you, we'll distribute our platform. That's like Netflix going to Disney or NBCU and saying, hey, let us carry ABC or let us carry NBC or Bravo or what have you. Because Netflix hasn't played in that space to this point. So it just seems like Netflix is becoming more and more of that all in one platform that it always had the potential to be, but it was always unclear how much of an appetite it had to be all things tv. And now we're seeing like, oh, Netflix seems to want to be all things TV of sports, ad supported. It's, you know, execs have talked about like, maybe there's a way into video podcasts. You know, for example, it's, you know, has shows like Ms. Rachel from who's a YouTube Creator, bringing her videos onto the platform. So it does seem to be a, it's a small step because it's just a French TV network, but potentially a, you know, giant leap out if we want to like use a Neil Armstrong paraphrase.
- [18:28]
Danielle Pistotnik
Well, yeah, it's a litmus test, right, to see kind of how this goes. And I think it almost like for anybody who was making the argument about streaming becoming like TV and just becoming like full circle, this is to me fueling that argument that we're just back at square one with, you know, Netflix kind of expanding into what it can do in terms of, like now we've got the French television, but we've also got, to your point, advertising. We've also got, you know, down the line maybe video podcasts and things like that becoming a bigger stepping stone for this platform to become a one stop shop, less of a streaming service and more of like a conglomerate. So less of a streaming platform, more of a conglomerate.
- [19:08]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, well it's like the idea of like eventually it's all just going to be TV and it's like Netflix saying like actually it's all going to be Netflix. Which I also wonder how much of this is fueled by just what's been going on with YouTube because YouTube similarly has been playing in that creator sphere and kind of the online video sphere. But two years ago it overtook Netflix in terms of watch time share in the US On TV screens and has held that since then. Earlier this year, YouTube announced that like most watch time is now happening on TV screens and then it also has Sunday Ticket. It's going to have an exclusive NFL game this coming year. And so it's like moving more and more beyond just kind of that online video world. And is Netflix's biggest direct competitor at this point are becoming more of a direct competitor. And YouTube obviously also has YouTube TV, so it's already in the traditional pay TV market. Now Netflix is joining in too. So I'm really excited to just see how these two duke it out over the coming years.
- [20:19]
Danielle Pistotnik
Well, here's something you'll have no shortage of stories hopefully.
- [20:23]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, hopefully.
- [20:25]
Danielle Pistotnik
There will however be a shortage of the Digiday podcast episode for you guys next week as we will be on hiatus.
- [20:32]
Tim Peterson
But we will be back in two weeks and I'm sure we're going to have plenty of news to cover then. So that's going to be probably a pretty packed episode. But I'm also just excited about this episode because again I spoke with Danielle Pistotnik from Select Management Group, who's also an executive producer on the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which is a wildly successful reality show on Hulu that stars a group of TikTok creators. And so we talked about just how this show came to be. We get into the development process, the pitch process, how the first time it went out to pitch it didn't get sold but eventually landed on Hulu and what changed and what that indicates about the state of the programming buying market when it comes to creator led show. So I thought it was a really interesting conversation. It felt pretty timely given all things we've been seeing going on this year when it comes to this intersection of creators and and I guess established entertainment.
- [21:35]
Danielle Pistotnik
Well, with no further ado, I'll let you get to the conversation. Thanks so much.
- [21:46]
Unknown
Hey Daniel, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.
- [21:49]
Kimiko McCoy
Thank you.
- [21:50]
Unknown
Excited to have you because there's been this whole it's not like such a New trend, but it definitely seems to be an accelerating trend of more and more shows on TV networks and especially streaming services that are creator driven. It's not that new because I think it was. You've been in this space for a long time. It was what, like a decade, maybe even a little more than a decade ago when like Grace Helbig got her late night show on. I think it was like TRUTV or one of the Turner networks. And I feel like that was like the first example of like creators breaking into traditional TV and or streaming. Right?
- [22:29]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah, yeah. I mean like Jake Paul on that Disney show. Maybe. Not a lot. Not a lot at all. It's like a very, very recent thing for more mainstream.
- [22:41]
Unknown
Okay, yeah, because like Lilly Singh had her late night show for a bit with NBC. But then, yeah, in the past few years, Secret Lives, Mormon Wives, a show that you're executive producer on, that's a creator driven show. Netflix doing the deal for Ms. Rachel, bringing her YouTube videos onto its service. So it is starting to bubble up a bit more. And so I want to talk about Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and kind of how this show came to be because premiered last year, but the impetus.
- [23:14]
Tim Peterson
For this was like a couple years before that.
- [23:16]
Unknown
Was it like 2022 timeframe?
- [23:18]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah, I mean we had the idea before the said swinging scandal that I think people assume is the reason that this show was ideated in the first place. But yeah, that was 2022.
- [23:31]
Unknown
So you work at Select? Select is a talent management firm. You represent a lot of creators. Was it that the star of the show, Taylor, Frankie Paul, you were representing her first or how did you kind of come to be involved here?
- [23:46]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah, I signed Macy first. At that time she was doing a lot of content about her story, which is like incredibly moving. Her book comes out in October. People should read it. It's like brutal but very uplifting. And I thought that was like really beautiful content and very different to what people were making, especially on short form. I mean short form was like little dances and you know, a lot of ego driven. Look how hot I am for 30 seconds. And this was really novel and I thought it was awesome. And so I reached out to her. We hit it off immediately. I mean she was talking to a lot of other people. I didn't even know if I had room on my roster. But it was, I feel like a no brainer for both of us, which when those things happen in this field, it's like so lovely.
- [24:29]
Unknown
Around when was that?
- [24:31]
Kimiko McCoy
Like five years ago. A long time ago, maybe four or.
- [24:34]
Unknown
Five years ago, 2020ish TikTok boom.
- [24:37]
Kimiko McCoy
Maybe like start of 2021. But yeah, in the beginning, I mean, maybe like two years after, TikTok really got hot. You know, I was a TikTok pessimist. I was completely wrong. So I was a little behind on that. I could not have been more wrong. But, yeah, I reached out to Macy and then she called me and she said, hey, you know my friend Taylor, her TikTok got taken down and her management company can't get it back up. Can you help her? And I got it up in, like two hours. And so Taylor came and signed with me, which was great. And then Michaela and then Whitney came over. They were at a talent management company that was not as reputable. And so I think that they, you know, I was like. I welcomed them with open arms. I liked hanging out with all of them. They're so fun to work with. And so it really did not feel like added work. It actually felt like it made my job more enjoyable. And then from there, I. I don't know, I would just be on these zoom calls with them and be on phone calls with them. And I feel like. And I talk about this all the time. Everybody thinks that them and their friend group should have a reality show. Like, you've heard it in every group of girls that you know, every single person says this. I've heard it for a decade doing what I do. And for the first time in my entire career, I had the thought that these girls should have a reality show, which was kind of ironic because I generally, like, scoffed when I would hear people say that about themselves. So we put together a deck. You know, I worked with the girls to try to find a couple other castmates, which is who you see now. And we started taking the project out, and everyone said no swinging happened. And then things changed.
- [26:14]
Tim Peterson
Okay, got it.
- [26:15]
Unknown
So I definitely want to get into taking the project out in that process. But even just going back, I feel like a decade ago, the conceived trajectory for creators was get popular on YouTube or Instagram, or maybe at that time, we could have been talking about vine and eventually break into traditional entertainment, whether it's tv, movies, streaming. But I feel like over the past handful of years or so, even I feel like talking to. I think it was someone who was working with Rosanna Pansino in 2014, 2015 timeframe, and they were just like, she's huge on YouTube. She doesn't really have ambitions to break into traditional TV and streaming. That got disproved because she did shows for HBO Max four years ago or so. But I feel like I hear more and more kind of pushback to that having to be the trajectory for creators, that a creator could just get really successful on TikTok and YouTube and like.
- [27:15]
Tim Peterson
Be satisfied with that and have a.
- [27:17]
Unknown
Lot of creative control. For this group, why did it make sense or why did they want to do a show for streaming?
- [27:28]
Kimiko McCoy
I think there's a lot of parts to this. I think the first is when I would have conversations with them or when we would have conversations with each other. The amount of shit going on in their life could not. You could not use short form content to express it. And I don't think a YouTube channel would have done it justice. I think it would have felt like a sloppy Real Housewives. I think the format of this ensemble cast on reality television streaming is tried and true. And I think that it was just very obvious that, okay, these 60 second clips don't even capture the most entertaining parts of your life and people are this intrigued by like, in my opinion, the least intriguing parts of your life. So I just don't think that like it would have worked on YouTube or worked digitally long form, especially with how much, I mean, like, especially now that I'm working on it and seeing how many people and how many resources you need to actually create a good reality show.
- [28:22]
Unknown
And so when you all decided, okay.
- [28:25]
Tim Peterson
This has to be a show, let's put together the pitch.
- [28:28]
Unknown
Packaging becomes so important. How did you figure out the packaging? Because I imagine being able to show TikTok follower accounts, that's going to help with selling a show. At the same time, there could be a stigma around, oh, creators. Do TV networks or streaming services want to be working with creators?
- [28:48]
Tim Peterson
How did you package this up?
- [28:50]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah, I mean, like, I think on the creator thing, for the first half decade of my career, if you were a creator who wanted to do something like this, you got laughed out of the room. Like we all saw it, everyone at select for, you know, the 12 years we've been around and no one else did. So it's like very nice that. I mean, I think it's been done a complete 180. I think that it was like a perfect storm of, I think like the tides were shifting of people being more interested in creator media. I think that like we also got lucky where Hollywood has become incredibly risk averse and we pitched a project that was like not only significantly more affordable to make than a scripted project, I mean reality TV and is inherently not very expensive to make, but two, it came in.
- [29:33]
Unknown
Yeah, it's more like 100,000 or a couple hundred thousand an episode.
- [29:37]
Kimiko McCoy
I mean, if you could film a good reality pilot for 20k, like it's, you know, if everyone is down and everyone really wants to do it, you can do these things for cheap. Cheap where a lot of scripted shows, it's several million dollars an episode. Right. And then you get the same viewership. So the ROI is incredibly high compared to scripted content. And two, I think these girls were not doing acting roles. They were doing what their audience wanted to see on a streaming network. So they came with like 20 million built in followers. So I feel like in the beginning, when we really started to take it out, we pitched it as like, there's this group of girls, they're Mormon, they're these young moms, they're super hot, which people don't understand. People have the same. This conceived idea of Mormons and they're. They think Amish almost, but not these women. And they're wild and some of them party, but they're also good moms. And it was interesting. Like, the whole concept is that I had initially is what you see on the screen now, which is ironic because that's not what people wanted, but that is what worked. And that's. But no one wanted it. Like, okay, nobody wanted it at all. The second the swinging thing happened, which we barely touch on, let's be honest, everyone came back and wanted the project.
- [30:45]
Unknown
Okay, I want to get to that. Like, how that changed things.
- [30:50]
Tim Peterson
Who did you first take this out to?
- [30:52]
Unknown
Like, and did you, like.
- [30:53]
Kimiko McCoy
I can't say, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. The. The nos, I don't think want to be aired out as no's. And I have good relationships with a lot of these people and I do understand where they were coming from.
- [31:04]
Tim Peterson
Got it.
- [31:05]
Unknown
But was it like broadcast TV networks, cable TV networks, and streaming services, or.
- [31:10]
Tim Peterson
Did you have specific.
- [31:12]
Kimiko McCoy
We were mostly taking it out to really good production companies. There was some networks that came to us with interest that maybe weren't what we wanted, and then some that we were taking it out to that just. We didn't even hear back from. But it was mostly the top reality production companies that we were taking it out to because I can't hold the camera. We needed a good team.
- [31:34]
Unknown
I guess at the time those production companies were just used to traditional productions working with traditional talent and all of that is that they weren't used to the creator side of things. What was the hangup?
- [31:47]
Kimiko McCoy
I could tell you the feedback that we got. Which was pretty across the board. And literally I didn't order yesterday to get this feedback from one of them, specifically on a throw pillow in my house. Cause it's the biggest I told you so of my life. But everyone just said they don't see this concept sustaining past one episode of television.
- [32:03]
Unknown
Oh, yeah. Now you're finishing up the second season.
- [32:06]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah. This could go on forever. But I think that people just don't understand.
- [32:11]
Unknown
Okay, got it.
- [32:13]
Tim Peterson
Jeez. Okay.
- [32:14]
Unknown
And so then fast forward to. So that would have been 2021 timeframe when you first took it out.
- [32:20]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah.
- [32:21]
Unknown
And then 2022, the swinging scandal. We don't have to get super into that because I very much want to get into the business side of things. But could you just TL Dr. For listeners, like what that swinging scandal was. So then we can talk about how that changed things when trying to sell the show.
- [32:38]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah. I think I want to preface by saying this isn't an isolated thing to the group of girls I work with. Very hot in Utah. Swinging. I just learned this. So it's not that outlandish of a thing for their communities, obviously, for 99% of everyone else in the United States. It's really fascinating to hear about. But, yeah, some of the couples were swinging and it got out. And I think Taylor rightly so wanted to defend herself, but also be like, super honest about what was going on and clear the air. And so she went on a TikTok Live. And that TikTok, it's like the most infamous TikTok Live in the past five years. But I felt really bad for her. It was really hard for her. She, like, lost everything. So I'm happy that it was kind of able to turn into something positive.
- [33:25]
Unknown
Right. I was gonna say silver linings for sure.
- [33:27]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I wanna say, what a blessing. But then I see how it affected her mental health. So it's not at all.
- [33:34]
Tim Peterson
Right.
- [33:35]
Unknown
Yeah. But anyone who's interested in learning more, that all gets covered in the first.
- [33:39]
Tim Peterson
Episode of the show. So that's there.
- [33:41]
Unknown
But that got a lot of news coverage, which also is shown in that.
- [33:46]
Tim Peterson
First episode of the show.
- [33:47]
Unknown
And so you mentioned this scandal really bubbling up change things when it came to selling the show, like, what was it then? The people you had pitched before were now reaching back out, like, hey, wait a second.
- [34:00]
Kimiko McCoy
Actually, yeah, a lot of coming back, a lot of all of that. It was kind of yucky. But I think that's just the name of the game. But we got really lucky so when that happened, Russell J from Jeff Jenkins Productions, who's a good friend of Lisa, who is the other EP at Select on this project with me called Lisa and was like, who's looking for these girls? And, like, we could not have asked. I mean, did the beginning of the Kardashians. They did Bling Empire. We could not have asked for better partners. And they believed in it as much as us. We didn't even take it out to them in the beginning because I don't think we thought they would be as interested, but they were stoked. And within a year, which sounds like a long time, but it's really not. We had a pilot.
- [34:44]
Unknown
Was it, okay, Hulu's interested, Bam, we're going there. Blinders, or did you still talk with others?
- [34:51]
Kimiko McCoy
It was more like they're looking for the girls. We didn't really get explicit interest. It wasn't to that extent, obviously. I don't know. Like, so much of this is he said, she said, and everyone's gonna tell you they wanted it the whole time. So I don't really know. But I can tell you that, like, just from the direct communications with me, the Jeff Jenkins team was so interested.
- [35:10]
Unknown
Okay.
- [35:11]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah.
- [35:12]
Unknown
And so what's. Like, what are those next steps, like, that year process? What are the steps there for someone who works with creators or is a creator or just has an opportunity, they think, to do a show? What they would need to know in terms of what going from A to B looks like, because it doesn't seem like it's A to B so much.
- [35:31]
Tim Peterson
As it's like A to L if.
- [35:34]
Kimiko McCoy
You believe in something. And I think we did it a lot more structured and kind of a lot more typical Hollywood. But looking back, if I have another project that I really believe in that's not adjacent to this, that people don't believe in, I would just find the money and get a pilot. I think all that really matters is just get the pilot done.
- [35:56]
Unknown
Got it. And what was the approach with the pilot? Was it, let's show we can do something that looks like the type of reality show people would be accustomed to, or let's try to innovate on an existing format here?
- [36:14]
Kimiko McCoy
I just think that that's a Jeff Jenkins question, really. Like, Andrea, who's the showrunner, is the person that I would ask that question to because she's like, in terms of show structure, and she's the mastermind behind it. She's a genius. I think that the thing about this show that feels different is I think inherently Just the nature of how this ensemble cast is structured. The fact that, like, a lot of it is about motherhood. Their husbands are involved. The dynamics between them. None of them drink. They're in Utah. I think a lot of those dynamics just, like, inherently create a different structure in how the show's gonna look.
- [36:54]
Unknown
Got it.
- [36:55]
Tim Peterson
Okay.
- [36:55]
Unknown
So going a year, that would be. We're now in, what, 2023 timeframe. When you do the new.
- [37:03]
Kimiko McCoy
I would have to look at my phone camera roll because it was like, there was so many periods of, like, years of waiting.
- [37:09]
Unknown
At the same time, it feels like. Because what you said 2021ish was when you started working with Macy. The show premieres in 2024, so three or so years, that doesn't feel all that long when it comes to the entertainment business, which can be notoriously slow.
- [37:29]
Kimiko McCoy
Oh, yeah. I mean, I have friends that I've talked to, and they're like, it took seven years to get the project off the ground. And I'm like, okay, I can't complain.
- [37:34]
Tim Peterson
Yeah.
- [37:35]
Unknown
And so then what's like, from when.
- [37:38]
Tim Peterson
You do the deal with Hulu to.
- [37:41]
Unknown
Then getting in, because you had the pilot, but obviously, I would think you had to reshoot a pilot for, like.
- [37:48]
Tim Peterson
The actual first episode. Cause things.
- [37:50]
Unknown
No.
- [37:51]
Kimiko McCoy
So Taylor gets arrested, obviously. And so that puts a little pause on things, just because there was a lot of unknowns about the situation itself. And obviously Hulu is owned by Disney, and Disney does not mess around, like, rightly so. Their decision was 100% correct. And so I think that it wasn't worth scrapping the pilot, because the pilot was very good. I mean, I remember the first time I saw the pilot, it was one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. So we keep the pilot. And that's why when you watch from pilot to episode two, there is that gap.
- [38:22]
Unknown
Once the show, you're in production on episodes two and out. I imagine there's something different with this show versus when Real Housewives of New York first debuted decades ago. At this point where these people are pretty active on TikTok, it seems like Reddit's a big part of the community here as well. And so a lot of this stuff is kind of getting covered live. So you have to be thinking, okay, by the time episodes go out, how are they going to feel? Not secondhand, in a way. How do you navigate that?
- [39:01]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah, we're very, very cognizant of social. Hulu has been, like, an incredible guide. And how do you walk that line? I Will say it kind of goes back to what made me want to do the show in the first place is like the 60 seconds doesn't capture what's happening in the show. Right. Like, you see these conversations on screen that I think are the highlights of the series that you just wouldn't do on TikTok. Right. You're not gonna be in a fight with your friends and pull the phone up and record it, or, you know, you're not gonna have confrontation with your family and pull it up and record it. And so I think you get these little snippets on short form. And I think it doesn't actually make the show secondhand. I think it just makes people be like, wait, what's going on here? And it's a teaser to what they're gonna see in the show. I just don't think there really is any possible way with short form media to overlap with the show in, like, a really meaningful way.
- [39:55]
Tim Peterson
Right.
- [39:55]
Unknown
Is there any guidance given from, I guess, the production team to the stars.
- [40:01]
Tim Peterson
Of the show of either, hey, save.
- [40:03]
Unknown
This for the show, or, hey, make sure that you're posting about this so that we can have it teased up for the show?
- [40:12]
Kimiko McCoy
Yes and no. I will say, I think as the show has gone on, these girls are geniuses. And I think it takes time for not to realize that, but to understand that they do know what they're doing. And while sometimes you'll see things that make you a little nervous or feel like they're giving something away, it's actually supplemental to the show. So I think, yeah, in the beginning it was maybe a bit more rigid. I think as time has gone on, I don't know if it's necessarily like one side having more trust in the other. The girls understanding more what to and to not post. I think it's more likely somewhere in the middle of, like, there's more trust and like, okay, well, when the cast does this, it actually seems to get viewer engagement. And I think the girls also realize that it is more beneficial for them to have some things kept a secret until it's on streaming.
- [41:05]
Unknown
And I imagine another difference with a show in this day and age versus a similar show in the early 2000s would be. Back then, it kind of just would have been talent gets their talent fee, and that's the extent of it. Whereas today you have creators wearing the name, image, likeness era, where creators look at all of this as their intellectual property. What's the level of ownership that the talent has when it comes to the show?
- [41:34]
Kimiko McCoy
I mean, I think everything that's very meaningful is owned by the girls. Realistically. I mean, you can go on their social media, see their partnerships, the companies that they own. Hulu is not trying to take anything from them at all. So it's been incredibly fair.
- [41:49]
Unknown
Does it create, like, a new model when it comes to talent participation in shows, especially, like, thinking of creators being involved?
- [41:58]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah, I mean, I think there's just, like, a lot more variables to consider. I think, like, a lot of the reality show to influencer pipeline generally is reality to influencer, and oftentimes they're just on one season of reality. And then, you know, on the other hand, there's the Kardashians, and that's like just a whole different can of worms. I mean, like, this is. This is their empire. So I think the rules don't necessarily apply there, but I think, yeah, we're kind of figuring it out as we go of, like, you have these two businesses that are both supplemental but also can be at odds at times. And so how do you structure that? But I think. I honestly think you could ask the Hulu team as well. I think we're doing a very good job of it, and it's been super seamless.
- [42:43]
Unknown
Yeah. Because, I mean, at this point, I was having a conversation with someone earlier this week who's younger, and so they were just like, oh, yeah, it's really interesting. You have all of these people from Netflix shows that are going off to become influencers, like Love island or Love is Blind or all of the above kind of people going off to become influencers. And it's just like, well, back in the day, we just called them reality TV stars or Bravo Liberties and all of that. At this point, what is the difference between a reality TV star versus an.
- [43:16]
Tim Peterson
Influencer versus a creator?
- [43:17]
Kimiko McCoy
In your mind, what's the difference between any kind of public figure and influencer? I was talking about this yesterday. I was like, even, like, singers who. People are obsessed with their social media. What is Addison Rae? You know, like, what is. Like, there's so many celebrities that are so good on social and so funny on social that you like, oftentimes there's an actor, singer, and you think of their socials. In addition, like, is everyone just an influencer now? Like, is the guy that cuts people's lawns and films it on TikTok announces 3 million followers lawn mowing. Is he an influencer, or is he the CEO of a business who just does good marketing? Like, I kind of think that we're in this world where Media has become so democratized that you can kind of make the argument that everybody in their own right is some sort of influencer.
- [44:01]
Tim Peterson
Right. Yeah.
- [44:02]
Unknown
No, I think it's all. Everything's a spectrum. Everything's gray.
- [44:06]
Tim Peterson
That's just the world we live in.
- [44:07]
Kimiko McCoy
I kind of like it.
- [44:09]
Unknown
I am all for it. I really like nuance, even if it doesn't fit. Really. On things like X anymore. Before I let you go. So this show has been very successful. I forget the exact metric, but it's the most successful reality TV show on Hulu, if I'm not mistaken. Or had viewership figures that were bigger than even the Kardashians.
- [44:31]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah. At least this season was. Yeah.
- [44:35]
Unknown
How has this updated kind of the blueprint for creators breaking into. I guess we can call it traditional entertainment TV or streaming and packaging a show, getting that out, getting it on.
- [44:49]
Tim Peterson
Air or on stream.
- [44:50]
Kimiko McCoy
Yeah. I think I have been thinking about this a lot because I was using examples like Abbott elementary and overcompensating and adults and English teacher as like, oh, look, we're all doing this. Right. But those are vastly different projects. I think that you look at, like, Brian Jordan Alvarez or Benito Skinner. Like, those are people that had traditional aspirations that used social media to break in. It wasn't like they were creators, and then they got famous online and became traditional celebrities. Like, they had those skill sets. Initially, they were writers and actors and comedians, and they did all the things and they just used it to showcase their traditional skills. I think to have a better shot of doing what they wanted to do in the first place, which was traditional media. I think for our project, it's obviously a little different. Right. These were influencers with influencer aspirations that it just worked out. I'm hoping that. I think, obviously, these scripted projects with these creators that are a lot more traditional focused, regardless, I think that's gonna continue. I think those shows are just absolutely crushing it. People love it. I mean, I watch it. I love Benito. So when I saw the show on my screen, I was like, immediately wanted to watch it without any context of what it was. I hope that in reality we can kind of open a door for more of this to happen. I think that there's. If you want to be famous and you are entertaining, I kind of think there's no excuse for you to have not picked up your phone and start creating content on your own. So I think it kind of just rewards people who take the initiative to be public figures if we use those people in reality projects. And I think, I mean, I think it's happening. You even watch the Love Island. Like a lot of them have followings already. Like. Granted, these aren't long running ensemble cast shows, but it's a good start.
- [46:51]
Unknown
Okay, got it. Awesome. Well, Danielle, thanks so much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed speaking with you.
- [46:56]
Kimiko McCoy
Thank you. This is fun.
- [47:03]
Unknown
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Digiday podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening. Get more from Digiday with our daily newsletter sent out each weekday morning. Visit digiday.comnewsletters to sign up.
- [47:17]
Danielle Pistotnik
Sam.