← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
News and Deal Buzz From Inside Sun Valley’s Billionaire Summer Camp
00:33:28
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- [00:00]
Amy Poehler
Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice.
- [00:11]
Matt Bellany
Just be yourself and the guests will come. Don't be the celebrity that this is.
- [00:15]
Julia Boorstin
Their like sixth thing they're doing.
- [00:16]
Matt Bellany
I love true Crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two?
- [00:22]
Amy Poehler
Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast, so join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there, we're just trying to lighten it up a little bit.
- [00:31]
Brian Grazer
The Walking Dead Dead City now streaming exclusively on AMC plus why do you.
- [00:37]
Julia Boorstin
Want to bring back Manhattan?
- [00:39]
Matt Bellany
I hear this island's got no laws.
- [00:42]
Brian Grazer
New rules, new enemies. New York show's about to start.
- [00:48]
Julia Boorstin
You don't know what they're doing to.
- [00:49]
Brian Grazer
Nikin, Beanie, Meanie, Mighty Mo the Walking Dead Dead City Stream now exclusively on.
- [00:59]
Matt Bellany
AMC plus this episode is brought to you by Contentful Marketers. You know that feeling when your content just works? When you crush a viral trend before 10am when one tiny tweak to a landing page sends click through rates through the roof? That's contentful. Dynamic content made blissfully simple. Contentful helps you create and launch personalized experiences instantly across any digital channel. No stress, no limits, only possibilities. Come get the feels@contentful.com it is Friday, July 11th. If you're like me and you're interested in the future of media and entertainment and technology, or just a fan of 70 something white men in polo shirts and fleece vests, you're probably paying attention to the annual Allen & Co. Conference in Sun Valley. It's famously known as summer camp for billionaires. Every year, right after July 4th, the PJs arrive in Idaho and the CEOs spend a few days hearing presentations, doing meetings, occasionally even hatching a deal. Comcast started the process to buy NBC at Sun Valley Time Warner, sold to AOL back in the day based on conversations that started there. Unfortunately for them and this year, all our favorite entertainment moguls were there. Bob Iger at Disney, Ted Sarandos from Netflix, David Zaslav at Warner Discovery, even Brian Grazer, the producer, keeps getting himself invited every year. Not sure why. Plus all the tech overlords. Everyone from Tim Cook at Apple to Andy Jassy at Amazon, Sam Altman at OpenAI, and the commissioners of all the major sports leagues. Basically, anyone who matters gets an invite. And as they gather, we start to hear rumblings leak out. Last year, our guy David Zaslav he predicted that next year would be super active with media M and A. That hasn't really happened, except for Zaslav himself announcing a split of his own company. That's happening. So what was the buzz this year? The details, the themes. Who was spotted with whom? David Ellison of Skydance was there, looking pretty confident that his Paramount deal would close. Little breadcrumbs that could be the sign of much bigger things to come. That's what we're talking about today. At the center of it all is Julia Boorstin of cnbc. She's covered Sun Valley for years and was back in the mountains doing interviews with everyone from Roger Goodell of the NFL to the CEO of Clear. Today, it's the Sun Valley Buzz Report and a lot more from the ringer and puck. I'm Matt Bellany and this is okay. We are here with Julia Boorstin, who is the senior media and tech correspondent for CNBC and author of the bestselling book When Women Lead. Welcome back. It's been a while, Julia.
- [03:30]
Julia Boorstin
It's been a while. It's great to be here. Big fan of the podcast.
- [03:32]
Matt Bellany
Oh, well, I appreciate that. Thank you. So you are in Sun Valley. I'm very jealous. It's very picturesque there. You've been there all week. You've been interviewing CEOs, you've been walking the grounds. I hope you've spent some time reflecting at the duck pond. I've heard it's very beautiful there. I have not been to that portion of that resort. Give us the buzz. What are people talking about in the media, entertainment, tech world at Sun Valley?
- [03:59]
Julia Boorstin
Well, first I have to say everyone is here. I don't know if there's any other event other than maybe Davos that gathers such heavy hitters, whether it's tech with Tim Cook, Andy Jassy, Satya, Nadella Media. You have Ted Sarandos, Bob Iger, all of these guys, Barry Diller, everyone's here. And they're all talking about two big things this week, AI and the economy. Politics. A lot of buzz about politics. Scott Besant, Secretary Besant spoke on the first full day of the conference. He was interviewed on stage by my colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin. And from what I hear, talking to a lot of CEOs here, they like what they heard. I heard he started off a little bit more tentative and then by the end, he was charming, he was relatable. People found him insightful and reassuring.
- [04:51]
Matt Bellany
So basically, behind closed doors, these tariffs are nonsense. Noise. Don't believe a word Trump says.
- [04:57]
Julia Boorstin
No. What I heard actually, was that people, so obviously people are worried about the economy, they're worried about tariffs. But the reassuring note that people heard from Secretary Bessant was that it's all part of a master plan and it's going to be okay. So not that it's noise, but it's part of some strategic plan and that it's not going to destroy the economy and it's going to actually end up benefiting things. And I think that people were reassured that this idea that the tariffs are going to end up in the 20 to 30% range and it's not going to be destructive. And just they heard from Besant that don't worry, we care about the economy. We don't want tariffs to bring the economy to a screeching halt. We want consumer spending to stay high and we want unemployment to stay low. And I think just hearing that reassurance about tariffs was something that helped the mood here a bit this week.
- [05:47]
Matt Bellany
Right. So you mentioned AI. Sam Altman was there. OpenAI and Bob Iger was there. Disney suing Midjourney, an AI company, for lifting its content. Allegedly. What is the interaction or the feeling amongst the media types towards the AI folks? Is it openly hostile? Are they all backslabbing? What do you hear from them when you talk to them about the perception of AI?
- [06:16]
Julia Boorstin
Well, it's worth noting for that Mid Journey lawsuit. It's not just Disney. It's Disney and Comcast together.
- [06:22]
Matt Bellany
And Brian Roberts is there as well.
- [06:24]
Julia Boorstin
Brian Roberts is here, as is Bob Iger. We have great video of them walking together. There was even a backpack. We have a great backpack between them. And they're teaming up on this lawsuit because they both have the shared interest in protecting their ip.
- [06:39]
Matt Bellany
They famously are big rivals. They do not.
- [06:41]
Julia Boorstin
Famously big rivals, yes, but they look very friendly, very congenial. Love a good Bob Iger. Brian Roberts backpack. Pat as they. As they sue Mid Journey together. I did not see MidJourney CEO here. I will tell you. Sam Altman is here. I spoke to him on the first day of the conference. He told me he's not worried about a war for talent with Mark Zuckerberg, which has been another topic of conversation here.
- [07:03]
Matt Bellany
He's not worried about that.
- [07:04]
Julia Boorstin
He's not worried about it. He thinks things are going to be great. Altman told me his relationship with Microsoft is going to be great. They're going to build better computers.
- [07:11]
Matt Bellany
Is he a weird guy? Sam Altman?
- [07:13]
Julia Boorstin
Sam Altman is really charming. I mean, he did wear very intense glasses. I don't Know if you've seen any of the photos from Sun Valley? Who's wearing these huge white sunglasses?
- [07:23]
Matt Bellany
It's like sociopath glasses.
- [07:25]
Julia Boorstin
Well, no, they were like, I thought they were smart glasses. I said, sam, are those smart glasses? Do you have weird cameras inside them? And he said, no, I hate smart glasses. So they were just high fashion glasses.
- [07:37]
Matt Bellany
That's because OpenAI does not offer a smart glasses product, I'm sure.
- [07:41]
Julia Boorstin
No. And I asked him what we should expect from his partnership with Jony. I've. Because they're going to be building some sort of hardware. He said it's not going to be smart glass. He said it's going to be. Whatever it is, it's going to be great. But he said he doesn't like smart glasses.
- [07:51]
Matt Bellany
They're going to replace your eyeballs.
- [07:53]
Julia Boorstin
That sounds uncomfortable. Anyway, so back to the media giants and AI. Midjourney is not here. The thing when it comes to the media giants and AI is we have to remember that everyone is already using visual effects that deploy AI and that's been in the works for a while. So when it comes to just general AI tools, I think there's a lot of optimism that AI is going to drive efficiencies, streamline things, shorten production times and lower production costs. One thing I heard talking to a number of executives here is that AI is not going to replace writers. Obviously there are all sorts of protections in place, but when it comes to production costs and things like prevention, previz taking a script, pre visualizing the entire thing, not in a storyboard way, but in a super high production value, really get a sense of whether or not something is going to work on screenway that's going to have a huge impact for the studios. So I did hear a lot of optimism about cost, production times coming down and that fact allowing the studios to focus their energies and their investments more on the high value work and probably actually spending more time in edit after they produce things using AI tools. So there are a number of people here, including Brian Grazer. I was just talking to him about AI and he was saying that, you know, he sees AI as a co pilot but it can't invent soul. He said it can supercharge scale. But the future isn't about replacing artists, it's about unleashing them, amplifying them. So Brian Grazer really sticking with his perspective. That is a, it's a valuable copilot.
- [09:35]
Matt Bellany
That is a very diligent and ass covering way to state the issue. I think not necessarily wrong, but I think the industry would prefer that it unfolds that way.
- [09:48]
Julia Boorstin
I think there's this question of how do you maintain creativity? There was a great article in the New Yorker recently which I was talking about with one of the media executives here about sort of how AI can have a homogenizing effect when it comes to creativity. And so having this, this conversation with this, the CEO about that, we were just talking about how it can be this great tool where you can use it for idea generation and brainstorming. So people are thinking about how they can deploy AI to really help their bottom lines at a time when there's so much pressure on costs and whether it's fighting to figure out who's going to get access to live sports content, which is another big topic here. If you're going to figure out where to put your money, you want to spend less money on visual effects and more money making sure you have the few top stars that are predictable sure things at the box office, or to spend that money on the kind of sports content that people still want to watch more than anything else.
- [10:44]
Matt Bellany
Right. So let's talk about the deal front, because David Ellison was there, the CEO of Skydance, he is in the process of trying to buy Paramount. He was not gonna go. And then he was a last minute addition. I think the fact that the Trump litigation against CBS settled was a influencing factor on whether he goes to Sun Valley. He was doing meetings. Did you talk to him? Did you hear whether people were interested in talking to him and figuring out what his vision is for Paramount?
- [11:14]
Julia Boorstin
Yeah. Interestingly, Sherri Redstone has been here many, every year for the past many years. She was not here this year. I didn't see David. I know he was here. I confirmed with various people that he was here, but he was keeping a low profile.
- [11:27]
Matt Bellany
I think he was doing a lot of meetings.
- [11:29]
Julia Boorstin
I think he was doing a lot of meetings. And I have to say, everyone I talked to here said it's like speed dating. One reason why Allen and company gets all the most powerful people across so many industries here is because it is so incredibly efficient. Everyone you could ever want to talk to, partners, potential partners, rivals. So what's interesting about this Paramount move with David Ellison is that it comes as we have these two other big moves happening in the media space. Right. You have Comcast completing its split of versant, which is CNBC's parent company.
- [12:01]
Matt Bellany
Right. And all the cable channels that they're sending off.
- [12:04]
Julia Boorstin
Yes, yes. And at the same time, you have Warner Brothers Discovery doing a similar split. Of its company into two parts. And with Paramount under new ownership and then Comcast and WBD's two splits, there's this question of what are the deals that are going to come in the next year and how will all of those pieces be rearranged and those assets sold off in chunks or even individually to create a more efficient world, Especially when it comes to the TV landscape, which is facing so many challenges in terms of Ellison. One interesting question for him is what's going to happen with CBS and the NFL? I interviewed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell here. It was a great interview. You can find it on CNBC.com and I asked him what's going to happen once this Paramount deal goes through and CBS changes ownership? Because that gives Goodell and the NFL an option to renegotiate that CBS deal.
- [12:58]
Matt Bellany
Which he is 100% going to do. Even though he said to you, oh, we're looking at all of our options and, you know, we'll decide. We have plenty of time to decide whether that's happening. He's. He's doing it.
- [13:08]
Julia Boorstin
He's going to renegotiate, or he most likely will because it makes sense. He has the option to get a lot more money out of this. Will they stick with CBS and have distribution on cbs? Likely, is what he said to me, because they like CBS as a broadcast distribution partner. But this idea that CBS's NFL rights could be in play is a really big deal for the future of cbs.
- [13:30]
Matt Bellany
Oh, the Skydance people definitely know that. And I think that they have spent the last couple years building up that relationship with the NFL. And Goodell talked about how he already has a good relationship with Skydance based on some of the documentary stuff they do together. And I think that's important because I don't see the NFL just ghosting cbs. They are going to extract some kind of benefit, some value. Right. Some value out of this. Right. That they have to renegotiate. And then in 2029, they have another right coming up to renegotiate. So I think they're gonna. They're gonna get what they want, their pound of flesh. But I don't see them abandoning cbs.
- [14:14]
Julia Boorstin
Yeah, CBS is a really important broadcast partner for them. And I think what's been interesting about watching Goodell's deal making over the past several years is how he's maintained and strengthened his relationship with the broadcasters, but also managed to create all this extra content for the streamers, specifically those Christmas Day games for Netflix this year. Goodell talked about how they have this new exclusive YouTube game, which is in the first week of the season, that's a big deal to have that game.
- [14:42]
Matt Bellany
And it's free. It's not behind a paywall.
- [14:45]
Julia Boorstin
And so he always says he's going where the viewers are, but what that means is, yeah, he has to stay on broadcast tv, but he's also figuring out how to be in all of these different platforms and how to get paid for them. I mean, talk about unlocking value.
- [14:58]
Matt Bellany
One of the other interesting things he said to you guys was they want 16 international games for the NFL and that would be a big increase. And he didn't explicitly say it, but what he wants is he wants to sell that to Netflix, right?
- [15:13]
Julia Boorstin
Yeah.
- [15:14]
Matt Bellany
Like Netflix is a potential buyer for an international package of one game a week. And it would serve the Netflix international audience air at 9:30 Eastern in the US and you know what? They're going to get it.
- [15:28]
Julia Boorstin
But what's great about this for Goodell is that he'll expand internationally, build that audience, and then not only would it be a good option for Netflix, which certainly wants more live sports, but he can also get bids from YouTube and Amazon, which also have a global footprint. So there's a real market for this value. But going back to Ellison is, I think, this question of how's he going to make the studio work? What is he going to do with these TV assets which maybe are less valuable than they were when he first wanted to buy them. The landscape has shifted so much even in the past couple of years in terms of the value continuing to move into streaming and still uncertainty around the movie industry.
- [16:12]
Matt Bellany
Well, he could put these cable assets with Versant. They could be a sister company of CNBC. You could start appearing on VH1 and MTV. You want to do the challenge.
- [16:24]
Julia Boorstin
By the way, other assets that would be a good fit were, say, the Food Network. Versant's going to have the Golf Channel. There are plenty of the assets in the Warner Brothers Discovery spin that would be useful for Versant as well. So I think a year from now, once the spins are completed, once Paramount has shifted hands over to Skydance, I think we could be looking at a very different landscape next year at Sun Valley.
- [16:51]
Matt Bellany
So you are the CEO whisperer. You do all the big interviews. When the earnings calls happen, they get off the call and then they go on cnbc and you interview them specifically. Bob Iger, you always interview him. What is the secret to getting the most out of a Bob Iger interview? He's very savvy and he knows what he's doing. He's made some missteps in the past. I think his Sun Valley interview a couple years ago during the strikes was a misstep. And I have noticed that he has not done any Sun Valley television interviews since then. What is the secret to a good interview with Bob Iger?
- [17:28]
Julia Boorstin
To me, the secret of a good interview is really doing your homework. I'm a big believer in over preparing. I've done a lot of interviews with him and Also with other CEOs right on the heels of earnings and I think having a good sense of what questions I need to get to before even knowing what the earnings are going to be and then being able to do that real time analysis of the actual numbers versus the expectations, figuring out where the shortfalls are and where the.
- [17:52]
Matt Bellany
Big wins are and the spin and what they want to talk about versus what you know you need to get out of them.
- [18:00]
Julia Boorstin
Yeah, which is why you always want to know what you're. You need to get out of them before you even see what the results are. But I love doing a live interview on the heels of earnings. It's so much fun, such an adrenaline rush.
- [18:11]
Matt Bellany
I can't even imagine having to look at those reports and say, okay, what are the five questions I want to ask? I've interviewed Iger. He's very good in those situations. It's very difficult to get out of him what you want. And I always think that you do a nice job with him.
- [18:26]
Julia Boorstin
Thank you. I appreciate it.
- [18:27]
Matt Bellany
So speaking of interviewers, Charlie Rose was at Sun Valley interviewing Barry Diller. I know Charlie Rose used to do a lot of those closed door things, but he's been Persona non grata for a while after his Me Too scandal. Is he back? Is Charlie Rose back?
- [18:44]
Julia Boorstin
I mean, he's certainly back here in that he did an on stage interview. I think he has been seen here in Sun Valley since he was canceled, if I'm allowed to use that term, since he was canceled. But I don't know if he's done any onstage interviews since then. Look, he's older. I believe he's 82 now, so I don't know what his professional future holds. But interesting that he interviewed Dillard.
- [19:09]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, I always wonder because it's like he's been welcomed back by the CEO class, but that was off the record and it was not televised. And I, you know, I wonder if he has a path back to being a public person now, but I don't know.
- [19:23]
Julia Boorstin
At 82, are people really restarting their careers?
- [19:26]
Matt Bellany
I don't know. Larry David's got a new show at 78.
- [19:29]
Julia Boorstin
Oh, I can't wait to watch it.
- [19:31]
Matt Bellany
All right. Linda Yaccarino, the former NBCUniversal ads chief turned Twitter slash ex CEO, left the company this past week. You did a very famous interview with her when she took that job in which she, should we call it a meltdown. She had a very contentious interview with you. Were you surprised by this? Did you have two years as the over under on how long she would last and what is your impression of the real reason she left?
- [20:03]
Julia Boorstin
So the news broke. While I was here reporting and as I was here talking to all the CEOs about this news and I was on TV a couple times talking about it, the universal response I heard from CEOs here, many of whom either did deals with her or knew her professional especially, were, was this. I'm amazed it took this long.
- [20:22]
Matt Bellany
I know, I know. I actually, I thought she would last two years. This is about how long I thought she would last.
- [20:28]
Julia Boorstin
She had a very tough job. Yes, we did have a very bizarre interview a couple years ago at the code conference where she was unable to answer some basic questions that I asked her about the business. I asked her about the challenge of having Elon Musk act in many ways as if he were the CEO of X Twitter. She was not happy about me implying that maybe she was a CEO name only. And she made that very clear.
- [20:55]
Matt Bellany
But then she got layered. She got. When Elon merged X with his AI company, xai. Yeah, she essentially got a boss and she was no longer the CEO of the company. And I. And I think, I mean, from all the reporting I've read, that's the real reason why she left. It wasn't that Grok started spouting anti Semitic tropes. It wasn't that stuff. It was that they had a falling out that simmered over the fact that she now had a boss between her.
- [21:22]
Julia Boorstin
And Elon, she was layered. And yes, I would say it was not the most recent Grok pro Nazi comments that were posted on Twitter, or excuse me, X. Because this was a breakup between Linda and X that from what I understand, was in the works for quite some time. I think she had a really hard job.
- [21:39]
Matt Bellany
Oh, one of the hardest.
- [21:40]
Julia Boorstin
A couple years ago on stage with my colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin, Elon Musk insulted advertisers.
- [21:48]
Matt Bellany
You can say he said, go fuck.
- [21:50]
Julia Boorstin
Yourself to Bob Iger, who was sitting in the audience. Which is a very challenging thing if you are Lindy Aino trying to Negotiate ad deals with everyone on Bob Iger's team.
- [22:04]
Matt Bellany
Although they came back, Disney came back and so did the others. I think that was after they threatened to sue, citing some kind of weird anti competition thing where they were saying that you were being anti competitive if you decided not to put your ads next to hate speech. But that's a whole separate thing for Linda.
- [22:21]
Julia Boorstin
I think what's so interesting is when she was at NBC Universal, so much of her, her pitch to advertisers was that this is premium content. Not only is this safe, you know exactly what you're getting, you're paying for premium content. And don't go to Meta, which she notoriously had a sort of. Was competing with this idea of don't put your ads on Meta's platforms, put your ads on NBC where you know it's safe and premium. No Nazis for her to go from that. No Nazi pornography to go to go from that over to X, where after Elon Musk took over, they fired a lot of their trust and safety team. And they also made very conscious decisions to focus on free speech and opening the platform to make sure it was a free exchange of ideas, which means possibly far more problematic content. And so she shifted to gears to talk about how she was all about free speech and open platforms, which is just less reliable for advertisers. And when I was in Cannes just last month, people were talking about the fact that, that there are these, these threats to the ad agencies you have to advertise. There was that interview she did with Axios on stage at Canon, which she insulted the Wall Street Journal and said that she thought that their reporting about the sort of forced advertising on X was inaccurate. But people were talking about that and I was hearing from a lot of ad agencies that they were putting an incredible, that X was putting an incredible amount of pressure on them to advertise. So I think all of this adds up to a really tough position with advertisers.
- [23:55]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, it's unbelievable. I never understood that. It's like, talk about free speech. The ad buyers have free speech as well. If they choose not to put their ads next to Nazis and porn, that's their choice.
- [24:07]
Julia Boorstin
I mean, yes, I think it's just interesting looking at all the stuff she had to struggle with.
- [24:13]
Matt Bellany
So you think she did an okay job there?
- [24:15]
Julia Boorstin
I think that especially in the past, you know, six to nine months in the wake of Trump's election, if you look at the reports of ad dollars returning to X and even the fact that you see these, these advertisers reemerge on X that weren't there before. There. There has been progress in the past nine months, but I think she was. She's been in a tough situation.
- [24:35]
Matt Bellany
I don't know. I'm on X a lot for work, and I still get Cheech and Chong cannabis ads and subscribe to my YouTube where I take down the federal government and things like that. Not exactly premium.
- [24:47]
Julia Boorstin
I don't know what you're posting that you're getting that targeted ad.
- [24:49]
Matt Bellany
I think it goes to everyone. I'm certainly not posting that content, but yeah. So was this a good Sun Valley? Was this, like you mentioned, everyone was there. Weirdly, Craig and I, our invites did not arrive in time. They must have used my old Hotmail account. But was this a good Sun Valley?
- [25:06]
Julia Boorstin
Yeah, look, I think Sun Valley is an interesting conference because unlike other conferences where we have access to what's happening on the stage, in this situation, I'm outside the conference, I'm inviting people to come do interviews with me. We very much want to respect the fact that the conference is behind closed doors. And by the way, the New York Post reporter who was here got chased off the resort location because he chased after Secretary Besant.
- [25:35]
Matt Bellany
Oh, tell me more about that. Who was it? Was it Ian Moore?
- [25:38]
Julia Boorstin
No, it was. I have to check on his name here, but he wrote an article about it in the New York Post, but it was his first time here, and he didn't maybe fully understand the rules that one has to adhere to, so.
- [25:48]
Matt Bellany
So literally, he got swatted away?
- [25:51]
Julia Boorstin
Yeah, he got. He got escorted off the property, from what I could tell.
- [25:54]
Matt Bellany
Dylan Byers goes from Puck. I never found him.
- [25:56]
Julia Boorstin
Yeah, I saw Dylan here, but he's.
- [25:58]
Matt Bellany
Dylan sits in the bar, I think, and like, it's like a petting zoo. People come by and, like, talk to him and, you know, feed him a little bit.
- [26:05]
Julia Boorstin
Coffee shop. I sat with him for a bit in the coffee shop. Look, the thing about Sun Valley is that everyone's here. You can't force people to talk to you. The. It's a great opportunity to both book interviews ahead of time. People I interviewed, like Evan Spiegel or Roger Goodell. I got a great interview on TV this morning with the new head of the incoming head of the PGA Tour, Brian Rolap. First interview on CNBC since he took the job. So great opportunity to talk to people about their big picture perspectives and even folks who are in a quiet period, this is, in a way, an even better opportunity to talk big picture. And then you catch people for more casual interviews like I interviewed Sam Altman and caught David Zaslav. So it's always valuable to be here and have great admiration for Allen and Co. In terms of their ability to create such a high powered group.
- [26:53]
Matt Bellany
By the way, it was James Franey from the New York Post who was kicked out and banned from the grounds for a year. Good for him. Gotta love the New York Post. All right, Julia, thank you so much for coming by. I appreciate the time. I'm very jealous. You spent a week in a very nice place.
- [27:10]
Julia Boorstin
Beautiful here. Hope to see you very, very soon. Matt, thanks so much for having me.
- [27:16]
Matt Bellany
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, huge news yesterday for you and I both. Very, very big Larry David fans. He's coming back. HBO ordered an entitled American history sketch comedy starring and executive produced by Larry David. And with a kicker, it is also produced by Higher Ground, the Obamas.
- [27:40]
Craig Horlbeck
Do you think this is gonna be one of those co productions where Higher Ground slaps their name on it and this is a Larry David show that's a curb your enthusiasm for history or do you think Obama will actually be involved and you'll feel their influence on the show?
- [27:53]
Matt Bellany
Good question. Higher Ground is sort of a funny slash notorious company in that they do a lot of deals because the brand of the Obamas goes a long way in Hollywood. They've had more success lately than they did at the beginning when it was mostly just Netflix putting their name on documentaries. But now they have a first look at Netflix. It's not exclusive, so they can produce shows everywhere. And here they are at hbo. You know, I do actually think because it's Larry David and because Obama probably feels a little bit more comfortable, my prediction actually is I think Obama will be more involved. And I actually think because this is a history based sketch comedy show, he will appear in one of the episodes.
- [28:43]
Craig Horlbeck
Who's he gonna play?
- [28:44]
Matt Bellany
Either a president or he'll play some sort of like, you know, White House butler or something like that that is funny. Or we'll just hear his voice in some voiceover segment. The people on the show are supposed to be a mix of curb people and other people. Query whether they will invite Cheryl to return. I think her legacy's a little bit more complicated now with the RFK stuff. But I do think Obama will either appear or his voice will be heard during the show.
- [29:11]
Craig Horlbeck
Well, Cheryl could return as not the wife of Ted Danson, but the wife of RFK Jr. And they could just.
- [29:16]
Matt Bellany
Make that a sketch or they could make her play her in law. Her like mother in law or her aunt in law. Jackie O, by the way, gotta give a little shout out to Larry. I. You know, in these press releases announcing shows, there's always a fake quote from the talent where they make a joke and it's not a real quote. It's like at the trades we used to debate whether to actually run these quotes. Cause they're always so ridiculous. Larry, the grand prize winner. Now this is his quote in the press release from hbo. Once Curb ended, I celebrated with a three day foam party. After a violent allergic reaction to these suds, I yearn to return to my simple life as a beekeeper harvesting organic honey from the wildflowers in my meadow. I think that's a Meghan Markle reference. Alas, one day my bees mysteriously vanished. And so it is with a heavy heart that I returned to television hoping to ease the loss of my beloved hive.
- [30:10]
Craig Horlbeck
Is the foam party a Bezos dig?
- [30:12]
Matt Bellany
Oh, yeah, of course, of course. Excellent. No notes.
- [30:16]
Craig Horlbeck
Larry doing a history thing makes sense. He's always been a huge history buff. I'm sure this is going to be just kind of like the snl, cold open type historical sketches with much more production value, obviously. But that sounds great. It's not Curb. I probably would still wish it's Curb, but I'm happy he's back.
- [30:33]
Matt Bellany
Well, Jeff Schaefer is involved. He's a big Curb producer and they say they're going to have some noteworthy guest stars. So I'm sure a lot of them being Curb stars, they said, yeah, but I think they'll also be able to get bigger stars as well. And that's my prediction. I think Obama will be in it. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Julia Boorstin, producer Craig Horlbeck, artist Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you next week.