← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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A
This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Presenting the Diplomat the drama series returns with tested alliances, new characters and potentially catastrophic consequences. Starring actor award winner Keri Russell, Allison Janney, Rufus Sewell and Bradley Whitford. AFI raves the Diplomat ascends to the highest office in television in its third term and praises it as TV Program of the Year with outstanding writing from Deborah Kahn. Decider calls it a masterclass in storytelling. The Diplomat for your Emmy Awards consideration, This episode of the Town is brought to you by Starz's Outlander. Everything has led to this. The final chapter of the time traveling drama and cultural phenomenon, starring Sam Heughan and Catriona Balf, is only on Starz. Vogue declares Outlander one of television's greatest love stories, and the rap raves Balfe and Heughan have perfected this on screen relationship. Industry voters can access all episodes@starsfyc.com it is Monday, May 11th. Has a major media company finally grown a pair when it comes to dealing with the Trump administration? Last week, Disney fired back at the FCC in a legal filing accusing the government of chilling protected speech and trying to shape media content. This was specifically in response to the FCC's review of comments made on ABC's the View, which Disney called unprecedented. But the language was broader than just one show and said that the FCC under Brendan Carr has been acting counter to its, quote, stated goal of encouraging free speech and open political discussion. That seems pretty obvious to those paying attention. Remember, Brendan Carr recently threatened to review ABC's station licenses after Melania Trump complained about about a joke on Jimmy Kimmel, though Carr says that review is about DEI policies at Disney, not the Kimmel joke. But Carr also threatened Disney affiliates last fall if Kimmel wasn't taken off the air in relation to that Charlie Kirk joke he made. So what's going on with Disney? After all, this is the same company that paid to settle Trump's $15 million lawsuit over the George Stephanopoulos comments. And they actually suspended Kimmel last fall when station groups objected to his Charlie Kirk comments, as I mentioned. Well, one thing that's different is Disney has a new CEO, Josh Tomorrow, who took over in March, presided over his first earnings call. This past week, demaro laid out a Jerry Maguire style mission statement outlining his three pillars of Disney and how he will manage the company. Pushing back on government pressure wasn't one of those pillars, but maybe this is a new shift. We're going to get into that today with Lucas Shaw, our Monday guy, and look at tomorrow's manifesto what he's saying and what he's not saying and whether Disney is going to get more or less political moving forward. From the ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back. Lucas coming to us from New York, correct?
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B
Live from New York landed at 10 o' clock this morning after a 2am Red eye. So I'm really, really and bright eyed.
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A
Oh, excellent. The best time, the best version of
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B
you came out of the Kevin Hart roast.
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A
I know you went to the Kevin Hart roast. How was that?
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B
Roasts are fun. It was not as good as the Tom Brady roast, which surprises no one.
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A
I got that vibe immediately.
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B
The animosity between Chelsea Handler and Tony Hinchcliff was palpable and enjoyable. Chelsea Handler devoted half of her time on stage to ripping into Tony Hinchcliffe, who then came right back at her during his session. And it turns out that the Rock doing lewd jokes is not really what anyone wants.
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A
No, he's, he's moved beyond that because he's going to go. We all know he's going from that to the Moana press tour. You know, it's just doesn't, it doesn't ring true. But you are in New York this week. Up front. I am not there. I decided that most upfront presentations could be an email, so I'm going to receive the email instead of be there. Unless you're really into Lady Gaga or Brittany Broski or some YouTuber that's going to be presented like a rock star at the YouTube presentation. Not for me.
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B
I will say though, last year's upfronts was when I decided 100% that Josh tomorrow would be the next CEO of Disney.
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A
Oh, you decided. You informed the cabal of Disney insiders that you had decided he would be the CEO.
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B
It was when it became evident to me that he was going to be it, I had no hand in picking it. Apologies to James Gorman not trying to step in on your turf.
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A
Now, what made you decide that?
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B
Seeing him at the Netflix up front
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A
because he was working the room elsewhere.
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B
Why would the head of theme parks at Disney be at the Netflix up front? And he can give me some bullshit about his explanation at the time.
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A
Well, they were put, they were putting the bolt out there. Dana Walden was at the Morgan Stanley conference.
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B
His explanation at the time was, of course we are doing, uh, I'm a big buyer of advertising. But no, it was. There were, there were just Josh was showing up in, in more of. More of the different places than she was.
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A
I saw him at the night before and I was like, hmm, what is this guy doing at the pre Oscars party? And there were a bunch of those instances, but yes. Okay, so here we are, Josh's first earnings call last week. The numbers were all pretty good. Streaming is now a double digit increase. Increased profitability business. They weren't hurt too much by the travel stuff on the parks. And then after the earnings, we got this pretty interesting move in the FCC war over the view. Disney is now pushing back pretty hard against the fcc. Are we ready to call this an about face from Disney's previous stature toward the FCC and the Trump administration?
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B
We're getting there. I don't know if I'm there yet because I want to see how the, the, the Kimmel investigation, that is apparently not a Kimmel investigation, wraps up.
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A
No, it's dei. Come on, get it, get your terms straight.
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B
But the strategy of Disney is clearly different this time. It was initially with, at least with Kimmel, like, sit back, we're not going to do anything. We're not under any pressure. So why would we overreact? And now actually going on the offensive a little bit. And I think a recognition that Trump is maybe not as scary as he seemed to be a year ago.
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A
But why is that? What has changed is this just that tomorrow has a different posture on this stuff than Bob Iger did.
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B
No, Trump is a significantly less popular president.
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A
Okay, so you think they're responding to what they see in the polling here? Because when Iger came back to Disney in 2022, one of the first things he did was deescalate the whole problem in Florida. They settled that matter, they cleaned it all up. And the goal there was to depoliticize the Disney brand. They care much more about the overall impression of the brand amongst red state people than they do about some parks, you know, financial situation around the land. In Florida then we saw the pretty repeated knee bending, kowtowing, whatever you want to call it, of Disney towards the Trump administration, settling that George Stephanopoulos case, taking Kimmel off the air briefly over the whole Charlie Kirk thing. And now once Iger is out the door and Josh Demaro is in there, we are seeing a stronger posture. So I want to know if this is a Trump thing or if this is a tomorrow thing.
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B
I think it has more to do with Trump than tomorrow. It's not just that Trump is less popular than he was, which is sort of undeniable because of the war and resistance to that and the economy. But I would also say that the case that he has made in these two are just weaker. Right. When you talk to people at Disney around the Stephanopoulos case, they didn't feel great about it. Now, maybe they were just saying that as an excuse for why they settled, but that wasn't like as open and shut a case as the 60 minutes one, which everyone agreed with.
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A
Well, most legal experts said that they would probably win.
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B
Right. And in the case of the first Kimmel situation, it also was like, again, he can do whatever he wants. And Disney taking him off the air was a bad idea. But that inflamed people in the way that this Trump thing did. The Trump people overreached and tried to manufacture outrage over this thing, and it didn't work because none of the local station owners went along with it.
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A
Yeah, well, you're talking about the recent Kimmel dust up over his fake correspondence dinner joke.
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B
The correspondence dinner where he made a joke about Melania being a widow. And it looked really bad in the context of there being a shooting at the correspondence dinner. But it was made before that happened. It wasn't the intent of the joke. Everybody got that. That wasn't, you know, something that was horribly offensive.
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A
And the national association of Broadcasters basically said, this is a dangerous precedent. We don't want to go along with this. And those are the more conservative station owners as part of that group. So that ended it. But this Trump, the Brendan Carr thing is actually not about Kimmel. We're talking now about the View. And this was the response that was filed, was in response to this effort to require equal time for politicians on programs that are not considered normal news programs. And there was an exemption for shows that like the late night shows and the View, where they could have on a politician as a guest and not worry about the equal time provisions. And Brendan Carr is basically saying, we're getting rid of that. And I think that is why Disney is being so aggressive here is because they see this as a much bigger issue than just one off bad joke, one off comedian. This is going to be a problem for them. Right, for many, many years to come if these rules go away.
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B
Well, it's the federal government telling them how to program.
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A
Yeah, exactly. And we saw what happened with Colbert. Even the specter of having to give equal time to a politician caused Colbert to take that James Talarico interview off of his show and put it on YouTube.
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B
How much of these decisions do you think or the the strategy is coming from the CEO versus the lawyer?
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A
I think it's mostly originated by the lawyers where the lawyers are saying this could be a problem for us and the CEOs just don't care enough. Like at Paramount, what is David Ellison going to do? Like, he already canceled that show anyways with Colbert, like what, what is he going to do? Draw a line in the sand with Trump over a random Texas politician? Like, no, just put the interview on YouTube. More people will see it there anyways.
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B
Well, that's why I ask, because the the lawyer at Disney has remained the same. It's Horacio Gutierrez. And I think that the question is as much why has his approach or thinking on this changed as the change in CEO? I'm sure, like, it's totally possible that Josh just feels he can be more forceful, but I would generally assume that a veteran CEO with the kind of the stature of Bob Iger would actually be more comfortable in a political setting than a new CEO who certainly does not want to get Disney caught in any culture work.
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A
It's a good point, but Iger was also a master politician on this stuff and was also very averse to bad headlines and cared very much about their political standing. So maybe this is an indication that Demaro won't be as sensitive to this stuff, which would be a surprise because he's a parks guy, brand guy, and those are the businesses that get hurt if there's a boycott. You know, you're not going to, you're still going to watch Toy Story on Disney. But maybe you don't plan the fourth day of that Disney vacation if you're pissed off at them.
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B
Yeah. Or if the economy is in the shitter.
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A
But that's the bigger one. So that's the financial issue here. And that was a surprise to me that given the sort of K shape economy that we seem to be in, where the rich are getting richer and a lot of people are struggling. The attendance at the Disney parks did not really take a hit. It was down 1% domestically. They made up for that fact by essentially charging people more. And they brought in a new cruise line in that quarter, the Disney Adventure, which juice the numbers there. But is this is Disney out of the woods on this economy thing? Are people going to drop their cash at Disney World regardless of the state of the world?
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B
It's a great question. Is this is do are people so loyal to going to the Disney parks that that is not one of the first things that they surrender when times are tough? I mean, we're, we're too, we're not far enough into this potential economic crisis to know.
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A
No, but I have a take on this. I think that the, the price hikes and the stratification of the Disney fan has actually insulated the company more from economic problems because they are making so much more money off of the higher end fan. With all the upcharges and the line skipping and the premium experiences and the fact that it costs so much now to take a family to Disney World that you are necessarily a higher end customer. I think that is insulating them in a way that prior recessions or prior issues with the economy may have hit them harder.
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B
That would make sense of revenue, but it wouldn't necessarily explain attendance. Right. Because wouldn't attendance still be down?
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A
Well, it is down 1%, but yeah, I get what you're saying. And, and the international tourism thing I think is real where if people, and we're going to see it with the World cup. There are some signs that the World cup attendance is not what the projections said that it was going to be. And if that's the case, I think you, you have to look at the state of the world and the US's place in the world and whether people want to make a trip to this country right now.
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B
Yeah, well, when it comes to the parks, I feel like we, we got to get the full year picture right. Because between what you're talking about with America's standing in the world as well as the impact of the war in Iran on the global economy, we need sort of 6 to 12 months to really digest what it means for a company like Disney. Because people who were probably going to Disney in the first quarter of 2026, how many of them booked that trip last year?
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A
Yeah, a lot. And the cruises book up way early, early in advance.
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B
I know you wrote about it in your newsletter, but I'm curious, just as a stylistic thing, what did you make of the fact that both Disney and Paramount are now doing these Netflix style shareholder letters?
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A
Oh, I love it. They have completely copied Netflix and they're now producing these mission statement, Jerry Maguire style manifestos to declare their intentions. I don't know if Disney's gonna keep doing this. This may have just been a one time thing where tomorrow put down on paper basically everything he's been talking about for the past three to six months. And it's essentially a blueprint of what he pitched to the Disney board to get the job in the first place. But I, I'm more interested in your analysis of what he was saying and not saying. So he essentially lined up these three pillars that he says are going to guide the company. And one of them is investing in IP and creativity that breaks through, builds connections, and endures. That's the first one. The sec. A lot of corporate speak there. Second one is reaching more consumers in a more seamless, engaging way around the world.
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B
One Disney.
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A
The One Disney thing. Yes. And then the third one is using advanced technologies to power our storytelling and increase monetization and returns. That's the AI One.
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B
Right.
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A
So go to the One. What does One Disney mean to you besides something that, like, a. One of my readers emailed me. So this sounds like something that a. A facilitator at a corporate retreat would write on the chalkboard at the beginning
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B
or that a McKinsey consultant would put in a PowerPoint as part of their plan,
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A
and everyone would roll their eyes and they would go about and do the trust falls, and then they go back to meeting their quarterly earnings and their P and L. It's the prototypical Don Draper standing in front of the presentation meeting.
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B
I mean, look, Disney's strength going back to that sort of famous Walt Disney drawing is what has now become corporate jargon. The Flywheel.
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A
Right.
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B
Like all these other companies talk about it, Disney actually has it. They have parks that feed into movies and TV and vice versa, the toys. And so I think it's finding ways to more seamlessly integrate those, especially for in kind of the digital economy. But in terms of what that.
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A
Sure, but what is that?
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B
I don't know.
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A
Like, there are parts of the Disney Flywheel that, by design, do not interact with the rest. Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, does not interact with the Disney Flywheel.
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B
Poor Things is not part of the Disney Flywheel.
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A
It's all one Disney.
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B
Now, a lot of the things that they bought from Fox do not fit into the traditional.
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A
Yeah. Ryan Murphy does not engage with the Disney Flywheel.
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B
But it's some of the things that. That. That we've talked about in the past, too. It's like, okay, if you are a Disney annual passholder, shouldn't you get Disney plus for free? Or if you are a Disney plus subscriber at the park, shouldn't you get something? I think it's stuff like that. I don't. I don't. Even though we've reported and others have reported on the idea of sort of maybe creating one super app and all
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A
that, I'm not as much the super app.
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B
I'm not as much of a believer in that. I mean, they've spent, however many years just trying to integrate Disney plus and Hulu and still don't really seem to be done with it.
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A
So yeah, one of my newsletter readers emailed me and said, yeah, Disney had a super app. It was called go.com which is a deep cut joke from 25 years ago. Their website, I remember it well. We could explain to craig what go.com
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B
so I don't, I, I don't know what it actually looks. I guess investing in IP is a given. They're going to do it. Whether it'll work or not will depend on if they make the right choices.
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A
But yeah, but that also gets to the question of whether tomorrow is interested in anything other than ip. Like why is Disney making five to seven movies a year that do not serve those IP goals?
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B
But do you think between the reaching more customers and using advanced technology, which of those do you have more faith in him accomplishing?
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A
I think the technology one. I think he actually is serious about this and whether that will be an AI deal. He's basically indicating that the open AI deal was, you know, the first of many flirtations with OpenAI companies and it'll be on their terms and they will do another one soon. Whether it'll work, don't know. But the other aspect of that is bringing costs down. He has to bring costs down in the film studio in other ways. So AI is the way to do that. And unfortunately it will mean streamlining of animation, it will mean visual effects, it will mean all the things that we have talked about with people on web, ways to cut costs using AI. And he's going to lean in on that.
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B
Not a bad thing. If it leads to greater output, sure, yeah.
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A
If you can maintain the quality while increasing output, great. The problem is these movies, these Pixar movies endure because they're really well made and you can tell that all these movies are made by humans. So, you know, maybe that will mean making some of the Pixar movies outside of California. They all are made in California, which is a lot more expensive. Maybe it'll mean that they streamline all of their storyboarding and all these other ways that we hear about. But that, that, to me, that's the, the hidden behind the scenes of what tomorrow's saying. This episode is brought to you by Holiday Inn by IHG Whenever I'm traveling for work, Holiday Inn has always been my go to. And now, even more so than ever, it has a whole new energy, especially for business travelers. Spaces that feel like your living room and dining done right from breakfast to dinner and drinks. Whether you're traveling for work or getting away for a minute. It's comfort that hits different Holiday Inn. It's a new day and a new stay. Book your next day@holidayin.com all right, so to bring it back to the politics stuff, do you think this ultimately matters? I mean, this episode is brought to you by FX's the Lowdown from acclaimed Reservation Dogs creator Sterling Harjo. The series stars five time Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke as Lee Raybon, a self described Tulsa Trusorian whose fixation on the truth tends to create more problems than it solves. This gloriously off kilter NOIR is an AFI television program of the year and one of 2025's most critically acclaimed shows. The Lowdown is available for your Emmy consideration on Hulu and and Disney for bundle subscribers. I've said on this show that the legal process here is going to be annoying and there's going to be headlines every few weeks about it, but that ultimately Disney is in the right legally so they should be pursuing this and they can't worry too much about the political ramifications. Is that the correct take or is this something that they have to be considering from a macro standpoint and protecting the brand at all costs?
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B
I think that unless we've turned into Hungary overnight that you're, you have the, the correct take that.
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A
I haven't checked the headlines lately.
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B
Why there, there was just a change in leadership there, but I guess I'm referring to the past 16 years.
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A
Yeah, no, but I did see a survey last night that only 72% of people surveyed believe that there is journalism freedom in this country, which is down significantly.
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B
I think that they'll be fine as it pertains. I think they have, they have much more significant business concerns than they do political ones. You know, most of their political fights over the last few years have ultimately not proven to be problems, with the exception of Florida.
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A
That was a problem. That was a real problem.
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B
That is also because there's actually a direct tie to, between the government and the parks. And like having a good relationship with the government in Florida is important for Disney, much as it would be if they were to get in a fight with the governor of California. Right. Which they, they don't do. Well.
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A
They used to get in fights with Anaheim, but they've, they have a detente
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B
these days, try as Trump does to make Disney sort of the epicenter of the culture war sometimes. And there was, there was that moment where it worked a little bit, you know, around Light Year and, and Little Mermaid and, and some of the things that Iger came in and wanted to change. Right now it doesn't feel like a real risk for them. They have business problems. They, they don't. You know, they need to figure out the fact that ESPN is, is getting more and more expensive because of rights and what their streaming strategy is. But I don't think that they have political problems.
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A
I don't know. A lot of times it just takes one thing that lights people up. Like who would have thought that that whole Cuties movie would actually become a real problem for Netflix because all of a sudden everybody started canceling because they. Netflix is branded as pedophiles even though it was based on one poster.
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B
Yes, but that was for the most part a short lived problem. It caused a short term spike in cancellations and yes, Republican politicians like to trot it out as sign that like, you know, Netflix supports pedophilia. But that criticism doesn't seem to be reflect usage or consumption. It's not like we have a bunch of conservatives who are canceling Netflix as best I can tell.
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A
And I've heard the other side was true with Disney that when they took Kimmel off the air they saw a decent amount of cancellations from people who were upset about that.
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B
Yeah. So I mean, look to your point, who would have had Jimmy Kimmel being the source of Disney's like political problems in the year of 2026?
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A
The Man show host. Yeah, no, it's kind of unbelievable but I think if you're the new Disney CEO, you are walking on eggshells trying to figure out a path here. That's why it's so interesting that they're taking a hard line against Trump on the FCC stuff.
- [24:39]
B
He's had a very bumpy first month or two on the job, but seems to be emerging from it pretty unscathed.
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A
Yeah, I think the press strategy has been good with him and I think that the, the earnings being good is a big help. If he came into a four alarm fire, I think that would have changed the narrative. But they handled the Bachelorette thing pretty well and the OpenAI stuff and the epic games, you know, their problems that they're having there. But now it's going to get real because he's going to have to start making big decisions and that's where people will judge him. All right, thanks Lucas. Appreciate it.
- [25:13]
B
Thanks, Ben.
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A
We are back with a call sheet. Today's call sheet is brought to you by Holiday Inn by ihg, the global icon you love, but with a whole new energy and comfort that hits different than before. Craig this was supposed to be the time of year when there is no NFL news to distract us. Come on.
- [25:33]
C
No way. We, we have scheduled releases. They're announcing international games. Netflix has the Rams Niners in Australia. It's never the off season.
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A
It's. It's kind of unbelievable. Now the NFL is not only a year round obsession for viewers, it's a news obsession as well. And we got some reporting last week from the Wall Street Journal that picked up on what we've been talking about here and elsewhere is that the Murdochs are upset with more and more games going to streaming. The deals are up after the 2029 season, but the NFL wants to revisit them now because the Skydance deal gave them control of Paramount and change of control of that company allows them to revisit the contracts now. And they are hoping to get a lot more money from their existing partners because the NBA got so much money in their recent deal, they believe they're underpriced. And Murdoch is pushing back the way he knows how, with political pressure calling Donald Trump, getting the government interested in revisiting this antitrust exemption that the NFL has for their rights deals. And senators are making noise about it. Donald Trump is saying it's unfortunate that more games are going to streaming. And today we had Lachlan Murdoch on the earnings call for Fox. He says that's not true. He sort of denied his own publication. There is no tension really with the NFL. Lachlan said on the earnings call. We're partners for 30 years. We're looking forward to being partners for the next 30 years. And as we've noted before, we have four years left on our current deal.
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C
Translation, please don't leave us. Please don't go to a streamer. Don't go to Amazon or Apple or Netflix.
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A
It's always funny when a Murdoch contradicts reporting in a Murdoch publication, which is funny. I'm going to believe the Wall Street Journal on this one. I think there is very much tension here. And the problem here is that I think this is all noise. The NFL is so powerful. They are going to get what they want to get and they have strings to pull as well. And the Murdochs can bitch and moan about it, but they are up against these big global streamers. Those are the future of the NFL. Fox, unfortunately, is not. They'll ride out the linear age, but they chose to not get into the mass market streaming business. And unless they can ink a deal to put those games on ESPN or one of the other companies, maybe Netflix, for Streaming, they're going to slowly ride into the sunset on these deals.
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C
Yeah, they wouldn't feel this way if they had a giant global streaming service. Of course, it's because they're, they're a dying piece of the media landscape right now.
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A
Yeah. And unfortunately, if the NFL goes away, they die even faster. So they know that the stakes here are very high. I just don't think that any of these arguments are going to resonate. So my prediction is that the government will not be cracking down on the antitrust exemption. And Trump, he may say stuff publicly, but ultimately he will not listen to the Murdochs. He will let the NFL reopen these deals. There will be increases in rights fees. The Murdochs will just have to suck it up and then figure out what their long term plan is. Maybe they sell their streaming rights to their packages to a Netflix or to a espn. That could be an answer for them. But putting them on Fox 1, not the answer.
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C
Why would Trump care about this? When has he shown that he has a, an opinion about antitrust and protecting the sanctity of competitive negotiation?
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A
Sure. I mean, he watches television. He watches old school linear television and he thinks it's 1955 where everything should be on television. And he listened to Rupert, according to the Journal, there was a meeting in the White House, listened to him, asked questions and has an opinion. People don't like that they have to search around to different streaming services to find their game. And the NFL pushes back on that. They say that 87% of their games are still unlinear. That's a little bit misleading because they count all the Sunday games, even though markets are only watching one game, even though they're broadcasting, you know, a dozen games.
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C
But if, if a game is on Netflix or something, you still get the game on your lineal linear channels. If you live in the local market
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A
of the team, that is 100%. And the NFL has made sure that that is the case because they don't want people to not be able to watch their local team.
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C
Yes, there is a carve out for
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A
local and there is an argument to be made that the NFL is actually more accessible than other sports leagues which require cable packages. And now the streamers are in on baseball and on basketball as well. So I, I see both sides of this issue. I just don't think that there's going to be government intervention in this.
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C
Yeah, I don't, I don't think the NFL is more difficult to watch than any other sport.
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A
It's just more popular.
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C
It's just more people. I mean, the NBA playoffs are on Amazon now for, for some of the games. And I find that to be incredibly difficult that I can't just pull up YouTube TV, which is the modern version of DirecTV or something, and find the game you have to go to specifically to Amazon, which is kind of a pain in the ass.
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A
Yeah. Yeah, it is. But you know what? That's where it's going. And the government, I don't think is
- [30:38]
B
going to stop that.
- [30:39]
A
All right, that's the show for today. Today's call. She was brought to you by Holiday Inn. They kept the global icon status and upgraded pretty much everything else from refreshed rooms to dining. Done. Right, It's a new day and a whole new stay at Holiday Inn. Book today@holiday inn.com thanks to my guest, Lucas Shaw. Producer Craig Horbeck. Art Jon Jones and I want to thank you. We'll see you a couple more times this week.
- [31:03]
B
You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer@columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever.