← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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- [00:00]
Danny Kelly
Hey, it's Danny Kelly. And it's officially fantasy football season, which means the Ringer Fantasy Football show is back with the latest news from around the NFL and everything you need to get ready for the fantasy football season. So join us at the Ringer Fantasy Football show on Spotify or on our new YouTube channel.
- [00:18]
Matt Bellamy
This episode of the Town is sponsored by Netflix. Presenting Rebel Ridge. The Critics Choice Award winner is now an Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding TV Movie. Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and the Associated Press all declare Rebel Ridge one of the best movies of the year. This episode is brought to you by Lucasfilm presenting Andor Season 2. Andor has earned 14 Emmy nominations, including writing, directing and outstanding Drama series. Vanity Fair raves that Andor is profoundly resonant. It's the best television of the year. All episodes of Andor are now streaming on Disney. It is Wednesday, August 13th. Heading into Disney's earnings reveal last week, a lot of people were worried that its parks and experiences division would take a hit due to the Trump tariffs and the new competition in Florida from Universal's Epic Universe Park. Turns out the Disney domestic parks revenue jumped 10% to $6.4 billion in the quarter that also includes the popular Disney cruise line. The international numbers were equally strong. A big reason for that can be explained with two words, Disney adults. These are grown up men and women who for the most part do not have children and yet return to the theme parks over and over again, often as annual passholders. These superfans, the Disney nerds, the addicts, whatever you want to call them, you probably know one producer, Jesse, on this show is a proud Disney adult. We'll talk to him. Disney adults have always been a powerful subset of the company's customers. Even back in the 1930s, Walt was selling Mickey watches for kids and adults. When he launched Disneyland in 1955, he said, you're dead if you only aim for kids. But recently, thanks to social media and the pandemic when the Disney fandom really transitioned online, and the fact that millennials and Gen Z are starting families later in life, if at all, Disney increasingly caters to this demo that is looking not for a way to entertain their kids, but for a mix of heavy nostalgia and escapism all wrapped up in a fantasy utopia created by a multinational media company that now charges its fans thousands of dol to share in that feeling, so successfully so that its leader, Josh d', Amaro, is now considered a frontrunner to become the company's next CEO. But who exactly is the Disney adult of today? And why Are they wielding so much power within the Walt Disney Company? There's actually a new book on the subject written by AJ Wolf, who runs several Disney related websites, including the Disney Food Blog. I have to ask her about churros especially. So I got her on the show and today it's Disney the Psychology of the Superfans and why they're More important than ever to the Disney bottom. From the Ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellamy and this is the town. All right, we are here with A.J. wolf, who is the founder of the Disney Food Blog, a very successful Internet presence related to dining at the Disney theme parks and others, and now the author of a book that I enjoy called Disney adults. Welcome, A.J.
- [03:21]
A.J. Wolf
Thank you. This is a huge honor. I love this podcast.
- [03:25]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, wow. Well, wait until we get into this and I ask you if you're a serial killer because you are a Disney adult. I have made fun of Disney adults many times. Our producer, Jesse is a full fledged Disney adult. I would like you first to define our terms here. You spend a lot of time in the book going into the kind of psychology of why so many people identify as Disney adults now and sort of the self loathing that goes on and the hatred of other Disney adults and the frustration with certain aspects of the experience. Yet as you describe it, for many people now without children, this is like a drug, it is an addiction. They are addicted to the Disney theme parks and increasingly this is big business for the Walt Disney Company as millennials have children. Later, as people are kind of shifting the way they consume culture and frankly, the way that more people kind of seek these escapes into fantasy from the real world that we're living in. So define what is a Disney adult in 2025.
- [04:37]
A.J. Wolf
So right now a Disney adult and you will read all kinds of definitions on Urban Dictionary, but how we're defining it is someone who intentionally and willingly brings Disney into their life or chooses Disney. Right. So if they're going to go to a movie, they're definitely going to consider the Disney movie. If they're going to go on vacation, they're going to consider a trip to a Disney theme park. So they're intentionally choosing it.
- [05:01]
Matt Bellamy
But do you have to not have children? Because that's how I define it. I have friends who go to Disney parks a lot, do the cruises and do not have children or their children are out of the house and they choose to go there even without the kid element. Is that a necessity for a Disney adult?
- [05:21]
A.J. Wolf
No, I think there are plenty of Disney adults with children. That actually like it more than their children do.
- [05:25]
Matt Bellamy
Okay. So you don't have to be a childless adult to be a Disney adult.
- [05:30]
A.J. Wolf
True.
- [05:31]
Matt Bellamy
Okay. Disney doesn't put out a lot of stats on this subject, but in the process of researching and writing the book, you did a lot of surveys about the kind of people who are Disney adults. What do the numbers tell you on what percentage of people in the parks these days are Disney adults and how that has increased, particularly since the pandemic.
- [05:57]
A.J. Wolf
So Disney adults make up about 42% of the people that I surveyed who consider themselves Disney adults don't have kids.
- [06:06]
Matt Bellamy
Wait, so wait, but that's people who do consider themselves Disney adults. So these are people that you have reached out to via your survey for this report.
- [06:16]
A.J. Wolf
Right. So they consider themselves Disney adults. 42% don't have kids, but that means a good chunk do have kids. We are seeing more adults without children in the parks than adults with children in the park.
- [06:31]
Matt Bellamy
You have a great stat about how 42% of the people who were in line to meet Buzz Lightyear were doing so without children with them. Amazing. 42%.
- [06:41]
A.J. Wolf
This is something that our team. So I have people in the parks every day on both coasts, and we wanted to do a little informal survey. So we told our team members to go to the character lines for several different characters every single day and see how many people were in line without children. And we took all that data, and Buzz Lightyear was the winner in terms of 42%. But still there was anywhere from 24 to 42% for those. For those characters that were adults without children. So you are absolutely seeing a significant percentage of Disney theme park visitors being adults with no kids.
- [07:20]
Matt Bellamy
Producer Jesse, have you ever waited in line to meet a character? Oh, absolutely.
- [07:24]
Jesse
100%.
- [07:25]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, you have?
- [07:27]
Jesse
I have.
- [07:28]
Matt Bellamy
And you have no children. I just want to be clear about that.
- [07:30]
Jesse
That is true. No children.
- [07:31]
A.J. Wolf
The other thing that I think is is really interesting when it comes to Disney recognizing this is that they just opened an adults only lounge in Epcot, which is significant real estate, to be given over to an adults only location in a theme park. So that, to me is just mind boggling that we are at that point now that this park that everybody makes fun of us because they say, oh, this is for kids. Why are you going to places for kids? Is giving prime real estate to this location that's just for adults. And literally, kids are not allowed there.
- [08:03]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah. So let's go through some of the ways that Disney has courted these adults. I mean, you could go all the way back to D23, their fan conference. You don't see as many children there as you might think. You see a lot of adults. And it's become a big, you know, Comic Con style event for the Disney fan base. You can go all the way then to the powerful presence on social media and the fact that Disney now courts influencers, creators, people like yourself. Not necessarily in the Mommy and me space, but also in the young people space, the millennial space. The people who have options for where they're going to spend their discretionary money on the weekends. And Disney is going after those people. What else are they doing? Specifically to court the adult audience with no children.
- [08:54]
A.J. Wolf
So you are seeing several locations in Disney World that have now been switched to adults only or adults only at certain times. Merchandise is a humongous.
- [09:04]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, the popcorn buckets.
- [09:05]
A.J. Wolf
The popcorn bucket merchandise in general is a giant way that Disney is courting adults. They are creating merchandise that is not for children, Literally not for children. And they are selling tons of it. And Disney adults have this weird hierarchy where the more merchandise they have, the higher status they have in the Disney adult community.
- [09:26]
Matt Bellamy
And that's not children. Those are adult collectors. Yeah. Jesse was telling me he's pissed that people go into the parks, buy all the merch and then resell it online for huge profits. Are they doing anything about that?
- [09:38]
A.J. Wolf
Well, yeah, Disney is doing things about that. So what they have started to do is put merchandise purchase limits. So you can only buy two of those popcorn buckets per transaction. And so those resellers will go get back in line and come back and buy more. They're walking out of the parks, these trash bags full of popcorn buckets. It's wild.
- [09:57]
Matt Bellamy
Unbelievable.
- [09:58]
A.J. Wolf
But you also see a lot of catering to this audience in food. And like I started Disney Food Blog. That's my sort of niche. When I started it in 2009, you couldn't even find the menus for the for the park restaurants online. You couldn't. You had no idea what you were in for. Now Disney is actually using food on social media to move bodies around the parks. If they need more people in a certain area of a park, they'll put a FOMO inducing food item over there. And they know that all of these people have to go there and get it for their Instagrams.
- [10:30]
Matt Bellamy
Right. Like a bratwurst that looks like Donald Duck or something.
- [10:33]
A.J. Wolf
Exactly. Oh, they should do that. Yeah, yeah.
- [10:35]
Matt Bellamy
Do you have any data on how many annual pass members have their passes solo or like with a Friend rather than with their family with children.
- [10:44]
A.J. Wolf
Disney doesn't publish annual passholder data. So I don't know how many annual passholders there are, and I don't know if those are families, if those. Those are solos or individuals.
- [10:54]
Matt Bellamy
But the annual pass cohort is a big part of the Disney adult cohort, and Disney has a complicated relationship with the annual passholders. There was that whole infamous episode where Bob Chapek, the former CEO, referred to an unfavorable mix of customers in the parks, which he got absolutely destroyed for because he was referring to the fact that a lot of the annual pass holders will go to the parks and they tend to spend less money than the family of four coming from Michigan, and they drop all their money once a year. And it was a really dumb comment because last thing you want to do is insult your most enthusiastic customers. But where are we on the relationship between Disney and its annual passholders? Would they rather still a family of four from Michigan come to the park rather than four people with annual passes?
- [11:48]
A.J. Wolf
This is an evolving story, right? Because I, back in 2021, I actually met with Bob Chapek a couple of times to sit down off the record. And that was the story. It was the family from Denver, the family from Dubuque. These folks are coming in and spending more. The yield is higher, right? So it's all about yield. It's all about the attendance numbers and what you're. The money you're going to make from those attendance numbers, right? Because Disney can't create a new park overnight. They can't increase their capacity overnight. So. So they have to make more from the people that they're bringing in. Especially when they had to recover from COVID for a long time. They're like, let's bring in the people who are gonna spend more money. And let's pause annual pass sales. You actually couldn't buy an annual pass for quite some time there right after Covid. And then what we've seen now is a flip now that consumer confidence is lower. They're seeing a lot less attendance internationally. So now you're gonna have to go back and rely on your loyal annual passholders. So now they're actually incentivizing the purchase of annual passes. You get a hundred dollars gift card if you buy an annual pass now. So it is an evolving story. It is whiplash how Disney, if Disney cares about us or not, but they don't care.
- [12:57]
Matt Bellamy
They. I mean, what are they going to do?
- [12:59]
A.J. Wolf
It depends on consumer confidence. If they are seeing other people are going to spend more, come in the parks. They don't need us. And so they're not going to incentivize us. But if they realize, oh, Epic Universe is here now, oh, we're going to turn our parks into construction zones for the next five years. Yeah, we probably need the passholders to come in and actually spend some money.
- [13:19]
Matt Bellamy
Everyone thought that Epic Universe would dent the Disney profits from the parks division, and yet we saw revenue up 10% last quarter.
- [13:28]
A.J. Wolf
I think they're very much benefiting from Epic Universe, especially, especially since their parks are a construction zone right now. They've got nothing new coming for a.
- [13:38]
Matt Bellamy
Couple of years, but then that would indicate that they would suffer. Why are people going to Disney World Resorts more now that there's this big flashy resort next door? Is that just bringing more people to Florida? And they're doing a day at Disney in a day?
- [13:52]
A.J. Wolf
It's bringing more people to Florida. And if they go to Florida, they have to go to Disney. It's the law.
- [13:56]
Matt Bellamy
Okay, so that's still the case.
- [13:58]
A.J. Wolf
I think so. I do. I think it would be very rare for folks to come in to go to Epic Universe and not then go to Disney also, because Epic Universe right now really only has a one day ticket. So what else are you going to do for the rest of your week in Florida?
- [14:12]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah. All right, so there's some other interesting stats on Disney adults. In your book, you note that 72.4% of the people who identify as Disney adults said that they first engaged with one of the parks before the age of six.
- [14:29]
A.J. Wolf
Yes.
- [14:30]
Matt Bellamy
And that gets to the psychology here. And I think that Disney is essentially selling nostalgia. They're selling fantasy and escape from reality. But for the vast majority of Disney adults, this is a connection to their youth and something that was meaningful to them when they were younger. And they are now able because people are getting married later in life, having children later in life, making money and having more disposable income before they have family obligations. They are now able to live out their childhood fantasies every weekend if they want, via Disney annual passes. And that is why we're seeing more Disney adults combined with social media. I think the fandom element on social media, the fomo, the competitive aspect of it, the ability to engage anytime, wherever you want with Disney content via your social feeds, that is contributing to the rise of the Disney adult.
- [15:25]
A.J. Wolf
And the millennial generation is the first generation who was raised with Disney movies as their babysitter. Right. That is the childhood for these millennials. That is what they grew up on.
- [15:38]
Matt Bellamy
And the heyday of the renaissance of the 90s Katzenberg movies, and the fact that all those movies are now getting redone by the current regime. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, Lilo and Stitch this year, that's a little later, but yeah, all of that. And I think generally in the ethos, there is a greater willingness in the culture to engage with essentially children's entertainment. I mean, look at comic book movies, look at adult animation, look at the market for toy collectibles and baseball cards. That's a lot of adults now too, where those were once considered children's pastimes, and starting with Gen X and now Millennials and Gen Z, the fact that people are having kids later, it's allowing us all to stay kids longer and to kind of indulge in kid, like, activities with the money that an adult makes.
- [16:31]
A.J. Wolf
Yep. It's the rise of the kid alts that is something that we talk about.
- [16:34]
Matt Bellamy
Kid alts?
- [16:35]
A.J. Wolf
Well, yeah, Kid alts.
- [16:36]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, right. That is a psychological term. You reference it in the book.
- [16:39]
A.J. Wolf
Yes. And these are people who are regularly choosing to spend their money on and their time on these pastimes that would be considered to be for children mostly.
- [16:50]
Matt Bellamy
Jesse, does that insult you when I refer to you as a kidult?
- [16:56]
Jesse
No, I know what I am. I'm okay with that.
- [16:59]
Matt Bellamy
You're okay with that. And you know, it's funny because you also AJ in the book, you get into this notion that Disney adults often don't like other Disney adults and get upset by people. Oh, I'm not that. Where does this self loathing come from?
- [17:14]
A.J. Wolf
The viral TikToks, the Reddit threads, the fact that people will put on their dating profiles. No Disney adults. You know, that is what it comes from is because as is the case with any bell curve of any community, there are going to be people at the extremes who are gonna ruin it for everyone. Right. And those are the people that are getting all the eyeballs right now on social media. So, you know, same with football fans. There are some football fans that are. Nobody wants to be those guys.
- [17:40]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, Craig. Craig. Six months a year.
- [17:43]
A.J. Wolf
Right, exactly. And so you just sort of. You say, oh, but I'm not like them.
- [17:48]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah. The fandom culture, I think, is just exacerbated this. And you know, if you can get. You can get married at Disney. $35,000 is the average price of a Disney wedding. Honestly, I thought it'd be a little more.
- [17:59]
A.J. Wolf
Which is the average price of a regular wedding too.
- [18:02]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah.
- [18:02]
A.J. Wolf
Interestingly interesting.
- [18:04]
Matt Bellamy
By the way Ron DeSantis, Disney adult, got married there.
- [18:08]
A.J. Wolf
I know he did.
- [18:09]
Matt Bellamy
I know well.
- [18:12]
A.J. Wolf
And J.D. vance was just in Disneyland, wasn't he?
- [18:14]
Matt Bellamy
Yeah, of course he was walking amongst the proletariat there at the Disney Parks. After slamming California, he's out here going there. Interesting. He chose to go to Disneyland, not Disney World.
- [18:40]
A.J. Wolf
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- [18:50]
Jesse
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- [19:39]
Matt Bellamy
Earn between $50,000 and $75,000 a year are most likely to plan a Disney vacation. People who make above 100 to 200,000 a year are the least likely to plan a Disney vacation. That's an interesting stat because it shows that the prime Disney customer is still a middle class person. But as the cost of attending the parks has gone up and up and up, it almost makes sense that more of their customers would be kind of single people without families that maybe have more disposable income that they can spend at the parks.
- [20:25]
A.J. Wolf
Yeah, and you're definitely seeing that evolve as a concern for Disney fans. Are they pricing us out? Are they just going and becoming a luxury brand? And you're seeing a lot more negativity towards Disney than you ever saw with our Disney adult community before. You're seeing them hold a grudge in a way that they never have before over prices, over the fact that Disney's taking away long term perks that have been available for annual passholders Disney Vacation Club members. We haven't even talked about Disney Vacation Club.
- [20:54]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, that is another level of fandom.
- [20:57]
A.J. Wolf
Yeah, it is.
- [20:58]
Matt Bellamy
There was a Lending Tree survey that got a lot of attention that said that 24% of people who visited Disney went into debt to do so.
- [21:07]
A.J. Wolf
Mm. Little debt, but debt nonetheless what's the.
- [21:11]
Matt Bellamy
Psychological reason for that? Is it just what I said, nostalgia combined with fantasy, or is there something else going on here?
- [21:18]
A.J. Wolf
A lot of those people in the LendingTree survey were families. So my thinking there is that you have this fomo. If your kid doesn't get to go to Disney World and everyone in his class goes to Disney World, then you're a bad parent somehow.
- [21:32]
Matt Bellamy
It's a rite of passage. And Disney has so successfully marketed itself as a necessity for families that you have to do it.
- [21:39]
A.J. Wolf
Yep.
- [21:40]
Matt Bellamy
Doesn't the Disney adult community recognize that they are simply being marketed to and being kind of exploited as a brand management product here? I have such a cynicism about being marketed to and yet the Disney people, they not only accept it, they embrace it. Like that just would piss me off. And yet they don't get pissed off.
- [22:07]
A.J. Wolf
Don't get me wrong, they'll complain online about it, but they will still go. And it's that conscious versus subconscious thing that I keep trying to figure out. And I kept interviewing people and I kept going, how do you do it, Disney? How do you make us want to sit in an online waiting room for 11 hours to give you $1,000? How in the world is that something that exists?
- [22:31]
Matt Bellamy
Let's talk a little bit about the power of this cohort of Disney adults because you argue in the book that Disney, the Disney adult reaction to the Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser, which was the cruise like experience in Florida at a hotel that was immersive and Disney put a lot of money into it and they debuted it at a very high price point, five grand or so to go for two nights. That was essentially killed by the Disney social media community that reacted negatively to to the price and to the experience and Disney was not able to recover. That is not something that would have happened in a pre social media age where they may have had a opportunity to fix the problem and appeal more to families. The Disney adults came for that one and they killed it. Right?
- [23:20]
A.J. Wolf
I genuinely believe that. I think that the Star wars fans and the Disney adults decided that they didn't like this. They decided it wasn't high enough quality and it was too expensive. And if they couldn't go, then nobody else should be able to go.
- [23:33]
Matt Bellamy
And that is interesting because it suggests that Disney is monitoring very carefully what this Disney adult community thinks of every little move that it makes and that it will specifically cater not to the families, but to this particular demo. Has the Disney adult ever had more power than right now?
- [23:56]
A.J. Wolf
No, I don't think we have. This particular community has grown so much in the last five years because you've seen the millennials come of age. You've seen that group that grew up on the Disney renaissance in the 90s and the first group who really grew up on the parks as well, which is a huge part of this.
- [24:14]
Matt Bellamy
Well, I grew up on the parks. I grew up in Southern California. My parents went to Disneyland right when it opened in the 50s, and we went once or twice a year. But it didn't turn me into a. Even though I work in this business, I'm going now once a year with my kid, but I don't have any desire to spend my weekends in that park. I think there's something particular about the millennial generation and how they were raised and the social media element that has turned them into slaves to this kind.
- [24:45]
A.J. Wolf
Of fandom, very possibly. And I talk in the book a little bit about the community itself being sort of like a church community, where you have your elders and you have the people that have slaves status in that community, and all you want to do is get more status in that community. And hobbies aren't about the hobby. Hobbies are about how it makes you feel, how it sets you apart from other people, where it gives you status and where it gives you pride. And so I think that's what you're seeing here, too, is that you've got this huge group online who are all judging each other, and so you have to kind of gain status in that community. But I really do think the Disney adult community has more power than they ever have because they understand how to wield the power of social media signific. If you look at the Parental Rights and Education act, the Florida don't say Gay thing with Bob Chapek and Governor DeSantis, that whole thing was mostly fueled by what the Disney adult community was saying and what cast members were saying online. So wielding the power of social media in a smart way can absolutely get you what you want.
- [25:50]
Matt Bellamy
What is the Disney adult community opinion of Josh d', Amaro, the head of the Parks division? He's a candidate for Disney CEO. He's been a celebrity within Disneyland and Disney World. People love him and think he's the best thing ever. They did not like Chapek. They blamed him for a lot of the cuts there. Josh has kind of hovered above all that. Is the sentiment towards him still strong?
- [26:18]
A.J. Wolf
Yeah. I mean, I think you answered your question. They love him.
- [26:21]
Matt Bellamy
But still, even among all the price hikes and the past nonsense?
- [26:25]
A.J. Wolf
Yes. And let me Say this. It's never Josh who's associated with those things in the way that Chapek was associated with those things.
- [26:34]
Matt Bellamy
Why, though, He's. He. The buck stops with him at the park?
- [26:36]
A.J. Wolf
Couldn't tell you. I. I think it is masterful marketing. It is masterful manipulation of who gets to be the scapegoat for this stuff. I think people like his image. I think they like that he seems like a cool, hip guy.
- [26:52]
Matt Bellamy
Trust me, I've met him. He's not that cool. Cool to Disney people, maybe, but. Yeah.
- [26:57]
A.J. Wolf
And I'm going to be honest with you. He seems a little bit like small wonder to me. Like a robot that they sort of like, program.
- [27:02]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, no, he's better than that. He's more personable. And, yeah, if I was Dana Walden, the other candidate, I'd be like this fucking guy. He gets to go around Disneyland and take photos with all these people and put him on social media. You know, she's just not in a job like that in the TV business. She's dealing with creators and stuff, and he's out there, you know, taking pictures with Make a Wish kids.
- [27:23]
A.J. Wolf
Well, exactly. And if you stay in a Disney World. I was just in a Disney World hotel last week, and you turn on your TV and there's a big message from Josh tomorrow. So anybody who's staying in a hotel room in Disney's gonna see his face, like, front and center.
- [27:36]
Matt Bellamy
But very smart. Very smart.
- [27:37]
A.J. Wolf
I think people really like him, and I think Disney's done the marketing to never associate him with anything negative and to always associate him with everything positive.
- [27:45]
Matt Bellamy
Well, if he gets the CEO job, that will definitely change. When a kid gets eaten by an alligator at Disney World, he will certainly be associated with it if he's CEO. All right, last question. Best food item at any Disney park anywhere.
- [28:01]
A.J. Wolf
I am probably going to go to Tokyo Disneysea, and I'm gonna get the potato churro with the demi glass dipping sauce.
- [28:13]
Matt Bellamy
Potato churro?
- [28:14]
A.J. Wolf
Yeah, it's really good.
- [28:17]
Matt Bellamy
Wow. Okay. My answer was going to be also a churro, but the regular warm churro at the Tomorrowland stand outside of the Buzz Lightyear ride.
- [28:25]
A.J. Wolf
Yep. Love them.
- [28:27]
Matt Bellamy
All right, A.J. fascinating book. Thanks for coming on the show.
- [28:30]
A.J. Wolf
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
- [28:33]
Matt Bellamy
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, are you a fan of the Kennedy Center Honors? Do you know what the Kennedy Center Honors are?
- [28:42]
Greg Horbeck
That's the appropriate question. Yes, Yes, I know what they are. I don't care in the slightest. And this is officially the most boomer. Call sheet we've ever done.
- [28:50]
Matt Bellamy
I know. Okay, so Donald Trump announced this morning that he will be hosting this year's Kennedy Center Honors, which air on cbs. It is a award show that's given by the Kennedy center, and the honorees are typically very prestigious. And this year's honoree is a little different than the past. After Donald Trump fired the former trustees of the Kennedy center and put in his own people, who then, he says, begged him to host the show. It's going to be George Strait and Kiss and Stallone. Stallone. I could see actually in normal times having gotten one of these. Gloria Gaynor, who sang I Will survive in the 70s and didn't do much else after that, and Michael Crawford, who's a big Broadway star, not huge star power there other than Stallone. But the big news is Trump says he's going to host the show himself, which leads me to want to predict the ratings for this year's Kennedy center honorees.
- [29:48]
Greg Horbeck
Why is he doing this?
- [29:49]
Matt Bellamy
Are you kidding me? Like, I know, I know he loves.
- [29:52]
Greg Horbeck
Attention and he wants whatever.
- [29:54]
Matt Bellamy
He claims that they begged him to do it. He didn't want to do it, but they begged him. It's like, are you kidding me? Of course he wants to do it. Started talking about the ratings and how his ratings are gonna be so good. And I hate to say this, but I agree with him. The ratings are going to go up, in my opinion. Last year, the Kennedy Center Honors On CBS got 4.1 million viewers live plus same day.
- [30:17]
Greg Horbeck
Who hosted that one?
- [30:19]
Matt Bellamy
It was Queen Latifah, the host, and she had a CBS show at the time. The honorees were Francis Coppola, Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval, and the Apollo Theater. Got one. So Donald Trump thought those awards were too woke, and now he's got his own people that are going to get awards and it's going to go to a country singer and is Sylvester Stallone. But I agree with Trump here. I think the ratings are going to be up 20, 30%, probably up to over 5 million.
- [30:49]
Greg Horbeck
Oh, I think easy. I think that's easily easy.
- [30:52]
Matt Bellamy
It airs around the holidays. It airs in December, like late December. So it's not typically a huge ratings thing. The ratings were better until last couple years, 2022, they had more than 5 million. But I think this is going to be a return to form with Donald Trump and all of his fans tuning in. There will probably be some newsworthy moments. This is going to be a spectacle, and I think the ratings will deliver so good. For cbs.
- [31:17]
Greg Horbeck
Give me six million. Give me six million.
- [31:19]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, you're taking six million then Great.
- [31:21]
Greg Horbeck
I am taking the over on your. You said five. It's going to go over five.
- [31:24]
Matt Bellamy
Oh, you think so? Okay, Yeah, I actually agree with you. I don't know how much over, but I think five. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, AJ Wolf, producer Greg Horbeck, artist Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you one more time this week.
- [31:38]
Jesse
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