← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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- [00:00]
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 stars. Vogue declares Outlander one of television's greatest love stories and and the rap raves Balfe and Heughan have perfected this on screen relationship. Industry voters can access all episodes@starsfyc.com it is Thursday, May 14th. It's TV upfront week. Or it was. It's over now for the advertising buyers in New York that got wined and dined and subjected to hours of star studded presentations and badly written onstage banter from top executives at the networks and streamers all claiming that they deliver the biggest and most high quality audience. It's been a few years now since these streaming platforms really took over what used to be a broadcast TV phenomenon. So instead of the suspense over the NBC fall schedule, we got renewals of Netflix and Amazon shows. You've never heard of YouTube telling everyone that same line that YouTube is TV now and legitimate movie stars like Anne Hathaway at the Disney event or Michael B. Jordan at Amazon all mixed in with late night hosts and sports figures and the NFL's Roger Goodell hugging Joe Buck for some reason. Disney brought Lindsay Lohan just for the hell of it. The upfronts are a massive business, of course. Billions of dollars in ad commitments are made, though it's always been unclear to me how much all this singing and dancing really impacts how the dollars are spent across platforms at this point. All of these platforms have football. They've all got hit shows and stinkers movies from their affiliated studios and an army of in house researchers with D data proving that they're the best. So given the landscape, is it even possible to come out on top during upfronts week? I wasn't there this year. I stayed in LA and I followed along via live stream and the machine gun of press releases all week. But Rich Greenfield was. He was taking one for the town and he's here to Give us his impression of the whole thing. Today, it's the TV upfront takeaways and who ultimately won and lost the week from the ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Bellany, and this is the. Okay. We are here with Rich Greenfield, analysts, LightShed Partners, frequent TV upfront goer. First of all, welcome. Rich, thanks for coming back.
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B
Thanks for having me.
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A
Matt, first of all, congratulations for getting called on at the Disney earnings call. When was the last time that happened?
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B
It's been a very, very long time.
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A
Bob Iger famously hated you, and now there's a new CEO in town, Josh d'. Amaro. Not only did you get called on, I seem to have seen a photo of the two of you on your Instagram. Is that. Was that accurate or was that AI.
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B
That was from the upfront. That was real. You know, Josh has to recognize the stock hasn't worked in a decade. Right. New management. He's got a big opportunity. It's a huge job. Right. Like, this is one of the biggest jobs in the media world. The stock is literally flat to down over the last 10 years. What's he going to do? And I think he's open to ideas, and I think he's rethinking what are. How does he create value for shareholders? He's got to do something, you know, exciting and probably a bit different than the way it's been done in the past.
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A
That's analyst code for maybe he'll start listening to me. All right, then I feel about. Enough about your, your, your advice for Disney. Let's talk about the upfronts, because you were there. I decided this year that the entire thing could be an email, and I'm going to experience it remotely. So you can give us the color from in the room. But I would like to talk about the takeaways, and I have mine that I saw from afar. You can offer me yours, and we'll sort of go back and forth. I imagine there's going to be some overlap, but do you want to start with your first takeaway again?
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B
What was the upfront historically about? It was about selling ads for the upcoming TV season that ran from September to May on broadcast tv. Like, that's what these were about.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It is now essentially become. Especially now that you include Netflix and you include YouTube. These are essentially company promotion events.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like, they're basically. Let's talk about our entire company and everything we do and everything we create. Right. Like it's Peacock at NBC, it's Paramount. Plus, you know, they don't really do an upfront. But like each of these companies, they essentially just promote all of their resources that the company has for the entire year. And it's much less about any individual show. I mean, they showcase the shows, but it's really less about a TV season and more about, hey, why should an advertiser want to work with the Walt Disney Company? Why should an advertiser want to work with Amazon? And that's really what this has become. These are advertising pitches for the entire year rather than for a TV series.
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A
Well, because these platforms are always on and they all have ad tiers except for Apple, which does not participate. And that's why Anne Hathaway comes out and Robert Downey Jr. They are the stars of movies that will not appear on Disney, in Downey's case, until the spring of next year. Yet he's out there shilling for the company because it's all about the brand halo. And we'll get into that because I think that was the interesting thing at Disney is how many kind of general Disney stars they brought out.
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B
Okay, so take number one. That I think is the funniest part of the entire week. I think at least four companies mention the word full funnel.
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A
Full funnel.
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B
Full funnel solution.
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A
What does that mean? I've heard funnel funnel is how you bring people in and then sell them something else.
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B
So in the case of Amazon, what Amazon's always talking about, full funnel solution is that, you know, we touch you at all parts of the journey and we actually know what, whether or not something actually sold. Right. Like we actually understand what actually got sold because we're Amazon, we sell an incredible amount of content and I mean of products.
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A
Yeah, Viewers of Reacher buy incontinence pads way more than average people. So hence your dollars are going further.
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B
It's actually even broader than that because remember, you know, Amazon now has partnerships with Roku, they have partnerships with Disney, with Netflix, with Spotify, like so they re. So their point is, is like if you buy on Amazon, if you're using Amazon as your advertising platform, you can still send ads over to Netflix, you can send ads over to Disney plus. And they're really laying, they've really laid this, the groundwork for why they are the best place to buy advertising. And you obviously see how large their advertising business has become. But it was funny to hear all
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A
the other companies who don't have that
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B
business correct talk about themselves as full funnel. And they use lots of third party data to, you know, to sort of approximate what actually happens. So it's just Funny that everyone is now trying to. Everyone wants to be Amazon in terms of being able to provide that sort of full funnel solution for brands.
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A
That must suggest that that messaging is working in the market and the ad buyers are communicating that to these salespeople.
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B
Everybody wants to actually know what ultimately happened. And I think, you know, when you look at the success of, I mean, look, look at Amazon's. I thought Amazon had a very bold plan. I mean you're. It's not just sports. It seems like they're ramping up a lot of entertainment programming. I mean, it definitely felt like there was a resurgence of ambition on the content side. It wasn't leaning as heavily on sports as they have in prior years. I felt like that was a shift in the tone of the Amazon presentation than what we've seen. But Amazon's got very, very large ambitions in advertising and they're really uniquely positioned in a way that none of these other companies really has what Amazon can bring to the table for an advertiser.
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A
Well, and Prime Video is now profitable on its own. Andy Jassy said on the most recent earnings call. And they do have new leadership on the TV side. They've got, you know, the theatrical ambitions for the movie slate. You and I can debate what the benefit there is, but it's certainly driving audience to these movies once they get to the service we've seen so far
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B
this year, the movie business is definitely doing better than, you know, it has in a long time. I mean, Amazon was struggling. We'll see how the content under new leadership on the TV side does, but obviously comes and hails from Netflix.
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A
So yeah, Peter Friedlander, he's talking about
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B
there's a really bold plan. You tie that in with sports and you tie that in with what they have in terms of data and analytics. And now this reach. Because again, it's not just about. Everyone thinks about Amazon as you reach Amazon prime. That is just such a small piece of what their reach now is. Everyone has recognized they need to work with Amazon and so that's why the Disney's, the Roku's, the Netflixes, are now all working with Amazon and, and help letting Amazon help them sell ads.
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A
Yeah. All right. For my number one takeaway, I have that legacy media embraces legacy media.
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B
What does that mean? Explain. Explain that.
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A
That means, you know, Mike Marshall at NBCUniversal said, you know, that they're. The fact that they're 100 year old broadcast network is not a weakness. It's a superpower that Josh d' Amaro At Disney said there's no other platform where like the Disney platform. And this is his quote. You can't acquire hundred years of trust. And it's almost like they know these arrows that are being shot at them all the time by these global platforms. And they are playing the trust card. You know, the YouTube stuff, they may have everything that you could ever want on YouTube, but you don't know what it is and you don't know where your ads are going to. And we are Disney, we brought up Mickey Mouse And Robert Downey Jr. You know us and buy your ads with us.
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B
It's an interesting point, Matt, and I think, actually I agree with you because what they're basically also saying that relates to this is like broadcast, the power of broadcast. Like, look at what broadcast TV can deliver. Like, they're really leaning into broadcast is really powerful. And if you want to deliver a mass audience, sure, streaming, streaming, streaming. Everyone wants to be on streaming. But if you want a mass audience, you still have to come to broadcast
- [11:10]
A
TV for sports and news. What? They don't say nothing else. That's true.
- [11:15]
B
But they're basically saying if you want to get a mass audience, the only place to do it is basically sports on broadcast tv. And you're looking at, look, the ratings for NBC on broadcast are obviously dramatically higher than where they were on cable last year on tnt. Like, there's no doubt this has benefited NBA viewership.
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A
You think so?
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B
I mean, it's clear. The ratings are clear.
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A
Unclear whether it's worth the price they're paying. But yes, I agree. And NBC beat CBS for the total viewership.
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B
Amazon will tell you that their expectations for the NBA are well ahead of. They're performing ahead of their expectations for the NBA. And remember, all of us, I mean, I certainly know Lightshot, but like, I think pretty widely everyone criticized Amazon in year one for their NFL ratings, which were not great. But you look at where they are now and they've like, they are truly competitive with where Thursday Night Football was before it shifted to Amazon and was on.
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A
So, yeah, they've trained the audience to find it on prime. And I think that that is now spilling over into NBA. Although of course the executives that overpaid for NBA are going to say that everything's working out great with NBA. But I, I hear you on that. We'll see. We'll see how the overall numbers turn out. Now. It's, I think it's great for the NBA that the Knicks keep advancing and that'll be a good story for them. But all right, so give me your number two on takeaways from the upfront.
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B
It is incredible given what you just said in terms of sports. The reason these companies are successful as they are is because of sports. It's sort of amazing that they're still creating so many shows, entertainment shows for broadcast television, like you're on this train
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A
as well, that they shouldn't be doing that. I mean, they all go to streaming. I mean, this, this, this Reggie Dinkins show with Tracy Morgan just got renewed. Guarantee you that's not because of the NBC ratings. That's probably because of how well it does on Peacock.
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B
I was just, you know, like I was sitting at the NBC up front and missing a bunch of these up fronts. And you're looking at these shows and you're going, what is the viewership of these shows going to be like? And look, maybe you're right. Maybe it's just simply, hey, we'll put them on to broadcast. We know they won't perform. And then they'll be on streaming, you know, a day later and they'll help our streaming business. But I don't know, I just step back and I go, why are they doing. Why is there any. Like you even. You see all these late night hosts, they all perform at the upfronts. Like every single one of the late night hosts perform. Why does late night exist? It loses money. Like, there is no mathematical model why late night television exists. You see their news divisions get up and talk about news. The news business loses money. The national news business loses money.
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A
Well, because it powers the morning. The morning shows do not lose money. And they do have federal licenses that require them to do news programming.
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B
They have to do news locally. They do not have to do news programs. They don't have to do. There is no reason why late night television, I mean, you saw Paramount. Look, Paramount killed it. Now maybe they killed it for other reasons. We could certainly have that debate.
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A
Yeah, they're cheap.
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B
Okay, but why do you want to lose money on late night television? Like, what is the rationale for having late night television if it loses money?
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A
Yeah. And inflamed the president.
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B
To me, the reality is all of these companies cord cutting, it's not going to get better. Right. Like there's no doubt in the, you know, like has it. Is it, is the pace of decline slowing? Sure, but they are losing subscribers. This business is under pressure. They need to think about how they bring down the cost of content. Hopefully AI will help. I don't think it is yet, but I mean, hopefully over time, but they need to figure out how they make the content that's on television cheaper.
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A
The funny thing is is like part of the value of having Jimmy Kimmel is the ad buyers like him and they can trot him out every year and he does his shtick and it helps them.
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B
I don't know. I mean, I think that's a stretch.
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A
I know that's not a justification, but. But I hear that's a separate topic. 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. And it's comfort that hits different Holiday Inn. It's a new day and a new stay. Book your next day@holidayin.com are you looking
- [15:46]
C
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A
right, my next one is NFL Mania. Basically, the NFL turned into Oprah Winfrey and all of a sudden it was, you get a game, you get a game, you get three games. Netflix announced they have three more games per season. Five total. NBC, Fox, ESPN all got additional games. And this comes amid the whole battle between Rupert Murdoch and the NFL over the shift of games to streaming. First of all, there's two questions here for you. How many more times can the NFL just do this and create new windows and new games before we all become so overwhelmed by football that it starts to hurt the ratings? That's the first question. And secondly, do you think that this notion of a shift to streaming for football and is pro consumer or anti consumer?
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B
It's massively pro consumer, Matt, because, oh,
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A
you're going number two verse.
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B
All right, because you don't have to take a huge bundle.
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A
I know, but, but that's not how people think about this. All they do is they have their, their bundle. The 50 million people that are left in the bundle, they have their bundle and then when they want to watch the Thanksgiving Eve game, they got to go to Netflix. If you want to watch Thursday Night Football, you got to go to Amazon. And then there's a Peacock exclusive. And it's just, it feels to consumers like they have to get in, you know, they have to get out their guide to look to find their games. And it's just, it's, it's, there's friction there.
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B
Matt, you sound like a politician because you're wrong. I mean, in my mind, like, this is just bullshit.
- [19:01]
A
You sound like a media analyst who is very close to this and is not the average football watcher.
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B
Okay, so let's step back. Okay, let's, let's exactly do what you're just saying. So one, let's just say if you're a real football fan, you've had to have a multi channel bundle for years, right? You couldn't not have espn, Right? Like you had to have espn. You weren't giving up Monday Night Football for the last decade. So you needed Monday Night Football. Correct?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Okay, fine. So there are now more people in this country, more people with Netflix and with Prime Video than espn. More people have those two services. So this idea that you're paying extra to go watch the games on esp, on Netflix or on Amazon prime is crazy.
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A
No, okay, but, but the, my point is now you have to have them all.
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B
But you already had it. It would be one thing if you didn't have it. There's no extra cost to a consumer and thanks to streaming, especially YouTube TV, which everyone, every consumer in America should be thanking, YouTube TV now has a $65 bundle for sports that has all of the games and you don't have to pay for all the channels that you don't want. And so the cost of YouTube TV, plus a few months of Netflix and having everyone has prime video. So like, and you can actually. The prime video games. Just to be clear, if you get Twitch, the Twitch you can actually watch on Twitch every Thursday Night Football game at zero cost. It's literally free streams on Twitch. So like there's just a mismatch between it's gotten more expensive. Is it getting a little harder to find the games? I will grant you, Matt, they're not all in one place. It is definitely a bit more complicated, but the cost is actually coming down.
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A
Yes. For the 70 year old Kansas City Chiefs fan in the Midwest, they're not on Twitch. They don't even know what Twitch is. You know what Twitch is. This is why the ratings for Thursday Night Football took a few years to get to normal. Because, because nobody knew where to find the game. It just adds friction. And I agree with you, I don't think this will ultimately amount to anything. I don't think that Rupert whispering in Donald Trump's ear is going to get the federal government to intervene on behalf of these very rich media owners and pressure the NFL. The NFL has levers to pull as well. But I do think there is something to be said for the friction.
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B
The first part was can they keep doing this? And I think the answer is absolutely. And I think if you look at the most interesting thing, sort of call this three or attached to yours. But this idea of they extended Netflix out, the games that got sold, the incremental games sold to NBC and the incremental games sold to Fox are one year deals. They struck a deal through 2029 with Netflix. Well that's really interesting because the option for all of the deals, so cbs, Fox, NBC and Amazon, all four of those media rights deals. The NFL has an opt out after the 29th season. With Disney, ESPN, it's after the 2030 season. That seems very intentional to put it at 2029. So I think what the NFL is basically saying is hey, Netflix's ambitions in sports and the NFL, to your point, everybody wants to be at the NFL dinner table, the, you know, Netflix while they talk down wanting a bigger package. If you don't basically buy out the option and extend your deal through 2033. Now, all bets are off in 2029 when this option kicks in. Who knows if Netflix is going to be an aggressive bidder, but they are. There's no way 2029 for Netflix was not intentional by the league.
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A
Yeah, okay, but does this impact the NFL's ability to extract more money now? Because that's what they're. They're putting on the table is renegotiate your deal now, give us more money because the NBA got so much more money, and then we will maybe extend you through 2034.
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B
You're taking a risk.
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A
So they're using Netflix as the. As a leverage point, for sure.
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B
I think that that's my whole point. They're using Netflix, and the question is, how much risk are they willing to take in 2030 and beyond? Yeah, that's really the question. And my guess is, Matt, just playing sort of Prisoner's Dilemma, someone's going to cave and renegotiate and start the process now or this summer, because they're going to want to lock in that security. And it's probably Paramount, but we'll see. I mean, I think Paramount has a lot of reasons, given the leverage and the financial structure of this transaction that they're doing with Warner Brothers. They want as much Runway as possible for the NFL.
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A
And they're out there selling debt and bonds and stuff associated with the new company. They want security people to know that they have this asset.
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B
Correct. And there is a change of control clause. Like, there's a lot of reasons why this probably starts a process.
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A
All right, next one. Do you want to go or do you want me to go?
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B
I can still go. Okay, look, the other one, and it's the obvious, but it plays off of yours. Who is missing from the NFL game this year? YouTube.
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A
Oh, interesting. I was going to say Warner Discovery, but we haven't got to them yet.
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B
No, I mean, YouTube battling out. I mean, YouTube was going to get five games. Yeah, that was what everyone thought. It was reported. And supposedly they were at the goal line, pun intended. Yet they still have Sunday Ticket, which is a premium product. But the idea that YouTube walked away from linear games after what appeared to be a very successful game in Brazil last season, that was a big surprise from this year's upfront season that I don't think anybody saw coming a few weeks ago.
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A
Is that. Does that mean it's over? Meaning YouTube will not have a game this year? Or could there be some other game that they're going to get.
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B
Look, the NFL is a master at, you know, slicing and dicing. I mean, I think the schedule comes out today, so I, I don't believe the NFL is going to have any game on YouTube this season now. It doesn't mean next season. That couldn't change again, I just told you two of the games were one year deals with Fox and NBC. So this could certainly change for the 27, 28 season. But it certainly looks like for this season after, again, it was one game. This was the first ever game free to the world. Like truly free on YouTube. No paywall, free around the world on any device that you could access YouTube on. So it was a really big deal in expanding the reach in my mind of the league. And so I'm just surprised that they walked away.
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A
Why do you think that happened? Do you think Netflix just outbid them for those games or do you think that YouTube saw some numbers that we are not seeing outbidding? I know they have more money than anyone.
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B
I mean, you can't even say that with a straight face.
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A
I get it. No, that's. That seems insane.
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B
Correct. So was it that the league really wanted Netflix because they really want to scare the other broadcasters into renegotiating? Was it because YouTube got nervous about sort of the. Didn't want to deal with the whole Trump administration and what's going on with sort of this, you know, games moving to streaming even though this is free streaming? I honestly don't know. I have no good. I can't figure this out. I'm hoping someone listening to the town helps us understand why YouTube would bow out.
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A
Yeah, well, Neil Mohan is a listener. Maybe he can call and tell us. He did take some shots at regular TV during their presentation. It was kind of funny. I mean, he said that they don't focus group their content. He said we built the stage and empowered anyone with a story to find an audience. And I was like, okay, yeah, more like we built the stage and attached it to Google, the world's largest search engine, and let our unregulated monopoly do the rest. But whatever. They were pretty confident. That was one of my takeaways is that the confidence of YouTube is pretty overwhelming at this point. They had this whole campaign to teach everybody that they are the new tv. The Nielsen gauge numbers, all of it really, I think puts them in the driver's seat. I know you love Amazon, but It's hard that YouTube, that YouTube presentation is. It's hard to resist.
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B
It's funny how they, I mean, they Occupy what used to be, if you remember the old CBS slot, like that's where Les used to get up on stage on Wednesday evening or late Wednesday afternoon. Like that's where he would get up. And that's now a YouTube slot. And I think it, you know, look, there is no doubt YouTube is TV now. They are, you know, forget about. It's not even a younger, you know, we used to talk about it. Oh, it was young people. It's. Everybody is watching YouTube on their TV.
- [27:35]
A
The problem is, is that nobody really cares about the content outside of the people who are consuming it. Like they could have put up any of these shows or any of these people. And it doesn't really matter because for YouTube, they. It's all about the scale you're buying across shows. Although they are trying to sell packages associated with particular shows now. And if there's an audience, YouTube will find them. It's just hard to care about. In the same way that these curated services are pitching a curated slate.
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B
I know you don't care about that. Well, you know, I think it's a funny observation.
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A
The algorithm is curating. I get it.
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B
No, no, no, I was actually not going to say that. The irony of your comment is earlier in the show you made a comment of how nobody's watching the shows on linear television.
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A
On linear. But a lot of them do find audiences. That high society show, that is a pretty big audience. If you look at the most watched shows that come out via Nielsen, a lot of them are the broadcast shows that combine a small linear audience with decent streaming numbers. And all of a sudden you're getting up to 8, 9, 10 million viewers for these episodes, which is larger than many Netflix shows, there's no doubt.
- [28:49]
B
But you compare that to the scale of sort of the viewership of this content on YouTube, which is where we started this question or this comment. Like the numbers dwarf it. Like you're, you know, you, you gotta add digits to the type of numbers you're talking about. And so sure are like there's, there's obviously a very fragmented array of personalities and content, but the numbers are the numbers. I mean, again, the only thing I care about when I look at all of this is watch time and you know, I think the, the question's going to be, there's no doubt YouTube, with a massive, massive amount of content is winning. Netflix is second because they have a large amount of content.
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A
You're prepared to say YouTube is the winner of the upfront week.
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B
They're always the, They've been the Winner for like multiple years in a row now.
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A
Although you said you were impressed by Amazon.
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B
I am, because I think Amazon is really becoming. You know, I used to think that Amazon had sort of given up on sort of content outside of like that they were sort of leaning so hard on sports. You know, between doing the NFL, doing the NBA, getting into NASA. Like it felt like there was a real push. Sort of like, oh, we can't get entertainment to work. A lot of our content as you know, a lot of these things overspent didn't work. I mean, we could go into Citadel, we could go into things that weren't things that weren't working. It really felt this time like Amazon brought its A game and has really sort of figured out a far more compelling strategy and really leaning into both movies and TV in a new way. I don't know, I just walked away with that impression.
- [30:23]
A
Okay, so that leads to the loser and that gets to my final takeaway, which was the Warner Brothers discovery funeral that everybody witnessed at Madison Square Garden. I mean, I asked you yesterday if you went to Warner's and you said no, they don't matter.
- [30:40]
B
Thanks. Thanks for literally putting that on air. I appreciate that.
- [30:43]
A
Oh, it's great. I'm prepared to agree with you. I mean, they showed a Ted Turner clip. I mean they, Zaslav wasn't even there. David Zaslav didn't even show up. They had Casey Blois, who is the HBO head who has presented in the past. He did not present. They basically put it all on the ad people and they acknowledged what they called the Ellison in the room and there's change coming and this is their, their, their send off.
- [31:09]
B
No, it's true. It was definitely sad. And look, you know, all we can hope is that as this, as these brands flow into Paramount, that there's that they, you know, really invest aggressively. Because again, I come back to the crazy thing is, is when you look at all of the streaming data that's out there, how little watched all of these platforms are, you know, whether it's HBO Max, whether it's Peacock, I mean, when you see something like Tubi beating Peacock, I don't know.
- [31:38]
A
The Pit is the number one show according to Nielsen on streaming, bigger than anything on Netflix, anything on any of the other platforms.
- [31:46]
B
There is no doubt that each of these services has hit shows. Hit shows is very different than absolute watch time. This goes Back to your YouTube. YouTube doesn't have the pit. YouTube. YouTube doesn't have a Stranger Things, but they have a mass amount of engagement. It's where people go to watch content. And if you're in again, this mattered to a degree in the subscription world it certainly mattered. But in the world of advertising, it's all that matters. If you don't have watch time, you can't sell advertising. So you need more watch time. And so look, I also thought that, you know, again, there wasn't a tr, you know, the amount of content did not feel like there was a step function higher.
- [32:26]
A
Well, Netflix revealed that they now reach 250 million users each month, which is not the same as engagement and not the same as even viewership on the service. But they reach 250, which is a big increase.
- [32:39]
B
Look, their ad business is up to 3 billion. It's going to keep growing at a very rapid rate. There's no doubt every advertiser wants to be on Netflix. It's like, like you can't, how can you not be on Netflix? Like given the size and scale of where it is, you need to be there as a brand now.
- [32:56]
A
And so they're going to blurb you for sure.
- [32:59]
B
They 60% of new subscribers are taking the ad tier. Like they need advertising and to continue to re accelerate growth. They need advertising to really kick in and accelerate. There's no, it's the fastest growing part of the company.
- [33:13]
A
Before we go, give me your performer rankings from the upfronts. Is it? Give me a 1, 2, 3. Chapel Roan at YouTube, Olivia Rodrigo Disney or Diplo and Shaboozi at Amazon.
- [33:29]
B
I mean, Matt, there is no doubt. I mean again, I have three daughters.
- [33:33]
A
Don't stall. I want a ranking.
- [33:35]
B
Olivia Rodrigo definitely won the week. There is no doubt. Like the, the crowd, the reaction was unlike anything I had ever seen in an up front. Like it was, you know, it was incredible to see what the crowd did when she came on stage. Incredible.
- [33:54]
A
I agree. That's the right answer. And Chaperone second and then Diplo and Shabuzzi third. Anyone who's got a new hit out right now and you can get them on stage in an upfront like Chaperone's great, but she hasn't had an album in a while.
- [34:06]
B
Olivia is having a moment.
- [34:07]
A
I mean, all right, no one needs to hear, no one needs to hear two 50 year old men talk about Olivia Rodrigo. All right, let's, let's. Thank you very much, Rich. Appreciate you coming on.
- [34:15]
B
Thanks for having me, Matt. Thank you.
- [34:19]
A
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, this weekend is pretty boring at the box office. The new releases, there's Three of them I don't think we should even discuss. There's a Guy Ritchie movie called in the Gray, which it has Jake Gyllenhaal in it, but I don't think it's expected to do much. There's a religious movie called Is God Is. And then there is a focus movie, a kind of quasi horror movie called Obsession.
- [34:44]
D
Sure.
- [34:44]
A
None of these movies is expected to get into double digits. So why don't we talk about Michael again?
- [34:52]
D
Okay. I've, I, I will say I've heard Obsession is pretty good. And what a weird time that we're in. That's like a Guy Richie movie with Jake Gyllenhaal. It's just like, no, it's irrelevant.
- [35:00]
A
I know, it's so weird. Very weird. It's good point. But the interesting thing this weekend is the Michael question, because in the fourth weekend of release, this movie could be number one this weekend. It's going to be close. The tracking I've seen Screen Dollars has it at anywhere between 24 million and 28 million. Devil Wears product two, they have it anywhere between 22 million and 26 million. So it's going to be close. I am going to put my money on the Michael Jackson wackos out there and I believe this movie will return to number one in its fourth weekend of release. That's my sure.
- [35:38]
D
His music is soaring. There's crazy numbers about his numbers on Spotify and Apple and stuff like that. My question for you about Michael is if this movie follows the Bohemian Rhapsody track, whatever makes 800-900-A billion dollars gets Academy Award nominations in love. Do you think Jafar Jackson is going to dance and perform at the Oscars this year?
- [36:00]
A
If he's nominated for sure, I don't know that he'll be nominated. I think that the movie is a shoe in for hair and makeup and maybe some other below the line categories. But you know, the critical response to this one wasn't great. And I know it wasn't great to Bohemian Rhapsody either. And the kind of stink around Michael Jackson. There might be some hesitation to nominate anyone associated with the movie. If there's any actor who's going to get nominated, it's probably going to be either Jafar Jackson or Colman Domingo. Yeah, but we'll see. It's so early. I hate doing Oscar predictions in May because you never know what the landscape is going to be like. But I could see him being asked even though there, you know, there's not original songs in the movie so they're not going to have a nominee for song. They will probably ask him to do it. Remember the Oscars, the year of Bohemian Rhapsody? They had Queen perform. They opened the show. So they will do something if, if that movie is a big nominated movie.
- [36:56]
D
It's funny, they would probably never do this, but because of the fervor around this movie and the craziness and how much love the performance that Javar Jackson puts on, he could probably do live shows and lip sync Michael Jackson and dance and people would go, maybe.
- [37:11]
A
Listen, they're doing a K Pop demon Hunters tour and none of the talent associated with that movie is even involved yet. They're still figuring out what the creative is going to be. They just announced it. It's going to be like Disney on ice, but without the ice.
- [37:23]
D
Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I, I, I can see it. I can see people going to that, wanting to see it.
- [37:28]
A
All right, so, yeah, we are at about 600 million so far for Michael. It has not opened in Japan yet and it's expected to do extremely well there. And I think it's going to get to number one this weekend with another 25 or 6 million. This movie is well on its way to beating Bohemian Rhapsody. We'll see. Not sure if it'll get there, but we'll see. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Rich Greenfield, producer Craig Horbeck, Art Jon Jones, and I want to thank you. We will see you next week.