The Media Odyssey

Marion Ranchet: [00:00:00] I don't see the top of your head hiding the hair. No one wants that.

Evan Shapiro: I don't know if you saw during the dance party I was doing this.

Marion Ranchet: I saw it. I loved it.

Welcome to the Media Odyssey. This is Evan Shapiro.

Evan Shapiro: And that is Marion Ranchet.

Marion Ranchet: Today we have a busy schedule. We want to talk about TikTok because we all hoped it would be banned. It wasn't, it's not. And we're going to dive into the Q4 earnings from Netflix. You know fabulous, a doozy, jury's still out.

Evan Shapiro: And then we're going to talk about MIP London, which is, we got some big news to unveil about that later in the pod. So if you're one of those people who only listens to the intro, stick around cause we're breaking some news a little bit later.

Marion Ranchet: Okay. Let's get started. So [00:01:00] TikTok. I don't know about you.

I wanted it gone. I'm not on TikTok, but I don't like this thing. I think it's a menace, but like many other social media networks, so a part of me wanted it to be gone, you know, very selfishly. Now, you know, I realized that from for brands and creators, you know, it would have been a bit of a nightmare.

You're seeing. More and more creators and brands investing on that platform. But yeah, that was, that was what I wanted deep, deep down, I have to admit.

Evan Shapiro: Okay, so my response to that is, okay, Boomer.

Marion Ranchet: There's the guy who's a bar mitzvah older than me.

Evan Shapiro: You're not on TikTok. You don't try TikTok, but you want it gone.

And, by the way, it wouldn't have been gone in France. It would have only been gone in the States.

Marion Ranchet: I know, but I would have hoped.

Evan Shapiro: So you're just wishing that it would go, despite the fact that you do not use it, you do not try it, and it would not have affected you in any way, shape, or form. Which is pretty much how I feel about everybody's opinion about TikTok.

And I understand [00:02:00] there are national security concerns here. I do not Want to try to belittle those concerns or pooh pooh those concerns. But at the same time, I think Elon Musk is a much larger national security concern than TikTok is. He, he has our space agency by the, by the cojones. He is taking money out of the government.

He is shutting down satellite usage in the Ukraine at a whim. He is attacking the Brazilian government. He's a, he is a menace and he owns the "public square" of Twitter, which I refuse to call X. And so, you know, Elon, I'm gonna do a Nazi salute

Marion Ranchet: Mm.

Evan Shapiro: At the inauguration. Yeah. And then gaslight you into thinking that I didn't do that thing I just did.

Marion Ranchet: And that I have Asperger's and for some reason that explains anything. I mean.

Evan Shapiro: Uh huh. You know, he, you know, he is, he. And by the way, then there's Mark Zuckerberg who removed [00:03:00] all moderation from from Meta platforms this week to just prove, you know, how big his schvance is. Because there's not enough masculinity in, in Meta at this point.

Meanwhile, he looks like my grandmother after a perm. So, like, you know, I understand people's concerns about TikTok, but at the same time you know, this is a bit about free speech at the same time. And so I have two minds of this. I've publicly come out there. I'm like, on one hand, I think it should be banned.

On the other hand, I don't think it should be banned. And so I'm, you know, I do think there's a level of nuance that you can bring to a conversation. And I hate that Orange Julius Caesar saved TikTok at the last moment and is going to get credit for that. But at the same time, I also think he did, and I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, the right thing, because let's take a beat here for a second.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, but don't get me wrong, yeah.

Evan Shapiro: It's been a deal to [00:04:00] save this platform, which has become, to your point, an enormous you know, business asset to small businesses in the U. S., an enormous asset to creators in the U. S., and frankly, I think one of the, one of the most important homes to original thought and creation that exists.

Marion Ranchet: To be honest, I want Twitter gone, you know, and Facebook. I'm very, you know, anti social media. I only use LinkedIn for business, you know and thought leadership. I've stayed clear of TikTok, Instagram. I could have gone to Twitter and, you know, kind of replicate my LinkedIn strategy. I did not because to the point you were making.

I don't want to feed that, that beast, right? And on top of the national concern national security concern, I have worries about, you know, health concern. And I have young kids, and I don't want them any near, anywhere near this [00:05:00] thing. So. Anywhere near Instagram and the other, so, call me a boomer but yeah.

Evan Shapiro: One of the things, one of the things I'm most happy about is that I had kids, my wife and I had kids very, very early.

Marion Ranchet: Exactly.

Evan Shapiro: And we basically escaped. You know, we avoided the social media aspect until very late in both of my kids education lives. And so, you know, they, and we held them off from it as long as we possibly could.

So I agree with a ton of your concerns. That said, I also don't think people should be able to smoke or drink too much. I don't think people should be able to gamble in this way. Like, we can't police all of the things that we think are wrong with the world just because we disagree with how they, they're operated.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: And, and by the way, I think, you know, I was actually kicked off by of Twitter by Elon for making fun of him.

Marion Ranchet: Are you kidding?

Evan Shapiro: No. And so, you know, and I was, and I was addicted to Twitter. I was [00:06:00] hardcore addicted to Twitter and anybody who used to follow me on Twitter knows that about me. I have deleted all my meta platforms.

Marion Ranchet: You mentioned.

Evan Shapiro: I am not not on, I'm secretly on WhatsApp, although no more secretly, just because I have to communicate with people and it's a very useful tool.

Marion Ranchet: I saw you saying send me a text and yesterday I reached out to you and I said, He's still on WhatsApp.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. So, but I don't know, I understand how WhatsApp makes money, so I'm okay with that.

But I'm not, I deleted my Instagram account, I deleted my Threads account, I haven't had Facebook in five years I am on BlueSky, which is a fucking hot mess, like it is just terrible.

Marion Ranchet: From a product perspective?

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, it's a terrible product. It's just a terrible product. You can't post a video longer than one minute.

Tagging people is like an exercise in word jenga. It is just a, it is a shitty, shitty product. You know, and I don't really understand how the algorithm works there and it, I find it a burden. So yeah, I'm like you. I'm on [00:07:00] LinkedIn almost exclusively for social media. And then I post something on LinkedIn, you know, about, let's say politics, cause I do that here and there and people are like, this isn't Facebook.

I'm like, okay, boomer.

Marion Ranchet: Leave me to it.

Evan Shapiro: Everything is politics now, as TikTok proves, like, you can't separate business and politics anymore. When the heads of Twitter, Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta are all in the first row. Yeah. At the inauguration. And, and they're all throwing parties for, you know this guy, you know, business and and politics are intertwined.

Yeah. One of Trump's first moves was to set up Sam Altman as the head of the AI policy for the United States. And then he, and then now he has a department of, you know, meme coins which is only there to, to profit him. So like, these [00:08:00] things are intertwined and if you're not prepared to have conversations about governance and civics and politics on LinkedIn, hey, guess what?

Get off LinkedIn. Yeah. You're, you're not welcome. Yeah.

Marion Ranchet: So what's going to happen next? Because can he actually technically, he just extended for 75, 90 days.

Evan Shapiro: 90.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. So, who's going to invest in TikTok? That's a great question.

Evan Shapiro: I think I think that the Mr. Beast collective has a real shot.

Marion Ranchet: Really?

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, he put together a bunch of billionaires. Someone posited something really interesting to us earlier today. Netflix buys TikTok. And I predicted in my top 10 predictions of the year that Netflix is gonna open up a creator-led, free section of Netflix. By year's end. That they'll announce it by year's end.

They may not be able to have that product ready by year's end, but I think they'll announce it by year's end, most notably to serve their ad business. Because they're realizing [00:09:00] that their ad business needs a free front porch in order to operate. Also, if you look at their programming moves in the last 90 days, you know, Jake Paul slap fighting an old man around a boxing ring.

Marion Ranchet: Side men.

Evan Shapiro: He's a YouTuber. Side men being bought off of YouTube. Ms. Rachel just this week, the biggest kids entertainer on YouTube, now getting a series on Netflix. They are clearly leaning into the creator economy and they're basically just stealing YouTube's programming model.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: So I think Netflix, who is now at their all time high valuation. At

Marion Ranchet: 400.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, 400 billion, and now worth as much as Disco Brothers, Paramount. Fox, I think, and Disney combined. You know, they have the cash now to buy TikTok for 50 billion.

Marion Ranchet: So that's the question, right? So I've seen numbers floating 20 billion to 100 billion.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I don't think it's, I mean, look, you, [00:10:00] it's a, it's a seller who doesn't want to sell.

So you're going to have to give them, you're gonna have to sweeten the pot a little bit in order to get the Chinese government, I'm sorry, ByteDance, on board. And so you're going to have to overpay for it. And I think, you know, I think I think it's a 50 billion dollar price if it's a penny. And I think it might go as high as a hundred billion if you're, you know, going to get into a competitive bidding situation, which we are.

You've got Frank McCourt, you've got Mr. Beast, you've got Elon Musk who probably has to be considered in the poll position considering he is the first lady, I mean, advisor to the president. So. You know, you know, I think, I also think, you know, don't be surprised you know, if Meta gets a chance, like in, in a previous administration, no way does Meta get to buy ByteDance, but they could now, although the EU, the EU might have something to say about that, you know, I think Larry Ellison who is going to own Paramount soon and Oracle, that could be one.

Don't sleep on Microsoft. Remember, Microsoft [00:11:00] They offered 50 billion for it back in the day. Yeah, I remember, right? Yeah. That's when Trump wanted TikTok banned. Yeah.

Marion Ranchet: Trump 1.0. Era 1.

Evan Shapiro: Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know Microsoft is the second most valuable company in the history of humankind. They have a lot of cash on hand.

They could buy it with the change that's in the couch cushions in their executive washroom. And why do they have a couch in the executive washroom? That's really weird. But yeah, I, so, you know, there are, I think that it's hard to know who's gonna wind up with it, but I, I think the sleeper here is Netflix.

I think, I really, wasn't my idea. PASOC gave us that idea earlier today, and I think, you know, there's a good chance that that, that's a good one. I like that one.

Marion Ranchet: So I see the, the appeal and what it, what it would bring to the two and actually, I don't know if it, if it's the, at the back of last year Sarandos or Esting started talking about TikTok and how they want to use it, you know, more to actually [00:12:00] push their brand, their content et cetera.

Evan Shapiro: And TikTok is doing 6X Netflix's ad business right now.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: So, you know. You jumpstart your ad business like boom, you have an ad business.

Marion Ranchet: This is a company that's we spoke last week about companies not so much in the business of buying others, like Apple, and I feel like Netflix is there as well, right?

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, but okay, so let's, let's transition here a bit into our next topic, which is Netflix's earnings, which were stellar you know, this week. Yeah, they're not so much into buying stuff anymore, but okay. So they had a tremendous earnings report, great results net income up, you know, almost a hundred percent.

Evan Shapiro: Now remember, it's easy to grow on a very small base. So they had almost no, they had under a billion dollars of, of net revenue a year ago. And so, you know, I'm much taller than I was in kindergarten, is the number. They had 16 percent sub subscription [00:13:00] growth, they had massive revenue growth, all good numbers for them.

However, this is the last quarter they're ever going to tell us their sub numbers. You, Marion, tell me why they're going to stop reporting sub numbers. Why, why is that? All of a sudden They've decided after making subs and subs and then screening 300 million subs in their earnings report a couple of days ago.

But now we're going to stop reporting subs.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. What about engagement?

Evan Shapiro: Why is that?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. What about engagement and and, and monetization? And no, it, okay. It feels weird that this was such a big it feels like a big sendoff. So I don't know if they worked like, you know, twice as hard to gain those subs and.

Evan Shapiro: Oh, they did, Beyonce Bowl, Jake Paul, Squid Game, all in fourth quarter, all in fourth quarter.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Huh. The last time they're going to report sub numbers. Yeah, yeah. You know what? They are so good at the shiny object [00:14:00] school of business communication.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: I mean, there's never been anybody better at it. Look over here.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, yeah. They're really good at that.

Evan Shapiro: Don't look over here. Don't look over here.

Marion Ranchet: I wonder if they have Netflix socks for that 300 million mark. Cause I had the, those socks for Roku, the 50 million active account socks.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah.

Marion Ranchet: I had those. I wonder if they had the same. But yeah, when you're looking at the numbers.

Evan Shapiro: Or, or were there bonus criteria in the contracts of senior management at Netflix for hitting 300 million subscribers? Ah, possible. That's interesting. Possible, possible? Probable, and likely.

Marion Ranchet: It was the last time that they shared subscriber numbers and for the first, maybe the first time they started talking about their TAM, their total addressable market, right?

They don't, they don't speak about that that often, but it was always saying, yes, we have this big number, but there's so much more to come. We have so much more room to grow. Cause they were saying we're, you know, revenue wise, we're only [00:15:00] 6 percent of global revenues. TV viewing time, only 10%. So much is going to happen next.

I'm not so sure. It's going to keep growing.

Evan Shapiro: Well, so the big reason, the big reason they're, they're not gonna, I'm going to answer my own question since you refuse to, the big reason that the, they're going to stop reporting sub numbers is all of their growth over the last 24 months in subscribers came from one thing, which is the password sharing, you know, service sharing lockdown.

And, you know, there, there, if you want to share with your family members, it is so expensive to do that now. And, you know, there are, is some discontent with their subscribers over the quality of their content. I mean, I like certain shows,

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, we spoke about that, I agree.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, there's, there's sometimes you log on, you just can't find something to watch.

And I think they know that they're going to [00:16:00] start losing subscribers basically since they can no longer keep cracking down on password sharing, which is where the most of their growth has come from over the last week or months. Since that is now at an end, they know they're going to start to, the churn is going to go up.

And that and that they're going to start to lose subscribers, especially younger subscribers, which is why I think they're going to buy TikTok.

Marion Ranchet: I don't think that's the only reason. I did respond to your question. I said, focus on engagement and monetization. And I think it's also because

Evan Shapiro: We know that's bullshit, right?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. But at the same time, right, we know that what matters, so it matters to have subscribers, what matters. And especially if you're trying to build not just a premium business, but an hybrid business on which you have advertising. That, yeah, scale is important, but time spent and how you monetize that time spent is important.

So that's where I think that's, that's one of

Evan Shapiro: Their ad business has really gotten off to a dramatically slow start. [00:17:00] And, and they're, you know, it's not material. Their advertising business is not material enough for them to report the numbers. They don't report the number of ad tier scribers in their earnings, and they don't report the revenues from advertising in their numbers yet. They don't break it down. Your own CFO has said it is going to take some time before that number becomes material enough for us to report.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, they didn't seem excited about advertising. Okay, I listened to it at 11pm. Note for, for these guys, a bit earlier would be nice. For the, the European folks.

I, I was in bed listening to it. That's, that's the kind of work that we have to do. But so talking about making a bit of a, an estimate, right, on, so we've seen the numbers from Disney, 167 million monthly active users. They were really transparent, right? So they're saying behind every account, we estimate 2.6. An active user is someone who spent more than 10 seconds with us on average, you know, the last six months. [00:18:00] So if you, you apply, you know, a similar thinking. Let's just say you have two folks, maybe, behind every account. We're looking at a hundred million monthly active users for Netflix, right?

Evan Shapiro: About that. Yeah.

Marion Ranchet: Which is 30 million gross year on year.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Not so bad.

Marion Ranchet: Not so bad. No, no.

Evan Shapiro: But where are those subscribers? So, you know if you look at where their subscribers came from, they had growth in every, in every segment and every region of the world.

Marion Ranchet: We were the first 5 million. In Europe.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, but U.S., yeah, U. S. and Canada, North America is the, is the least growth of all this. Yeah. And it has been for years now.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, for years. Yeah, you have 80 million or so. We're a hundred and, over a hundred million subs in the EMEA, so.

Evan Shapiro: And this is the most important, all due respect to, well actually no respect to Europe this is the most important television market in the world, especially the most important advertising television market in the world.

[00:19:00] And they're not where they should be.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, they're increasing prices, huh?

Evan Shapiro: Right, right. Which is another reason why their return is going to go up.

Marion Ranchet: And poor Portugal. I want to know why. It's like USA, Canada, Argentina, Portugal. I'm assuming those two markets are really bad and tough to monetize on the advertising side, would be my guess.

Evan Shapiro: I also think because of the number of rich people who have bought golden visas in Portugal over the last two years.

Marion Ranchet: A lot of Americans, and my sister lives in Lisbon, no? Right,

Evan Shapiro: Exactly. That's exactly right. So a lot of American, a lot of rich people have moved to Lisbon over the last couple of years. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they are great. You know, see an opportunity there. Yeah, I just, you know, they're, they have a great business. They're the best television channel probably in the history of humankind. So I'm going to put that out there. Netflix. I've said that out loud. And they are entirely full of shit. They, [00:20:00] they just are so true.

And, and so, you know, the whole reason that they're going to stop reporting sub numbers and by the way, now everybody else is going to follow them and stop reporting.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. They're going to follow suit.

Evan Shapiro: Just going to make our analysis that much more difficult, which is the point of stop reporting subnumbers.

But on the flip side, the way they amortize their content. Is unlike any other media company in the history of media. They amortize their content over a decade. And no, if I tried to do that when I was at Comcast or AMC Networks, they would have kicked my ass out the door, which they did anyway, but that's beside the point.

You know, their accounting, the way they report their numbers, the way they talk about themselves is incredibly untransparent and it's on purpose. And if they had to account for content the way NBCU does, the way that Disney does, the way that Fox does, their profit margins would not look the same.

And by the way, [00:21:00] everybody in the business knows this and we all kind of let them slide on it. It never comes up. No, they never get asked it by, by analysts on their earnings call. So this is me. I don't read their, I don't listen to their earnings call cause I just. It's just difficult to listen to. Yeah,

Marion Ranchet: yeah. I had, I did it. But so.

Evan Shapiro: I read the transcripts afterward. And then I read their earnings reports.

Marion Ranchet: That's what I tend to do as well. So on, on the, on the call. It was quite fascinating how they downplayed the impact of live sports in Q4. So any idea why, what's the, the reason behind that for you?

Evan Shapiro: I can give you two reasons for that. First of all, you know, remember when they weren't going to do sports and now they're doing sports. When they weren't going to do ads and now they're doing ads. I think, you know, on one hand, they really do want to kind of downplay the importance this is going to have.

And I think. They're also out there negotiating [00:22:00] for sports rights, so they don't want to kind of give the sports rights owners a reason to bulk up the price, which they're going to do anyway.

Marion Ranchet: They're going to do it anyway when you're showing, you know, biggest year ever, biggest quarter ever in terms of sub acquisition, the quarter where they had the most sports.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I also think, to be fair to them. You know, I don't think that had that big of an impact. So I, if you look at Nielsen, grain of salt, and you look at time spent with the platform over the last three years, Netflix's usage, including fourth quarter of this year, in the U. S., is flat or down.

This includes this fourth quarter where they had Swiggy, when and then you look at YouTube at the same time, by the way and it's growing up. So YouTube is the number one channel out there. This is the same story in the UK, by the way. And so I think they're, they're downplaying it because one day's worth of viewing doesn't really matter to their total [00:23:00] engagement.

It, you know, I imagine Squid Game had a substantially higher impact for them in fourth quarter than Jake Paul or Beyonce did. And also it's worth noting that the Christmas Day football games plus the Beyonce Bowl did a big number. Broke the record for live sports streaming. Again, you have to take the slap fight out of that because that's not really sports.

But, it broke the record that Peacock set a year ago for their playoff game. However, it was also close to 20 percent down from the same games on Christmas Day on CBS

Marion Ranchet: A year before. Yeah. So a few things. They're saying that they're not interested in packages, you know, regular season. There's nothing to buy.

In the U. S. anyway not much left. So I think, let's see if that changes. I see this, if it's more, you know, one offs, for sure, it doesn't do much in terms of the engagement [00:24:00] overall. So it's more of an acquisition engine, right? And you've seen data from and advertising.

Evan Shapiro: And advertising. Yeah, yeah. If you have those days, those events.

You can sell very expensive ads

Marion Ranchet: in there. Advertising, acquisition, you've seen data from folks at Antena or Ampère trying to assess, right, the the impact. And you're looking at Jake Paul, supposedly 1. 5 million subs acquired through that game. Like a third of that, closer to six 600 K for the Christmas game, which I thought was quite surprising.

But you. You'll tell me.

Evan Shapiro: Surprising low or surprising high?

Marion Ranchet: It felt low, but

Evan Shapiro: you have to understand like Netflix in the U. S. has a bigger audience and a bigger install base than basic cable. So, you know, everybody who wanted to watch that game, they had

Marion Ranchet: Netflix already.

Evan Shapiro: And I think all of the people who signed up to watch the slap fight.[00:25:00]

And of the people who signed up to watch the Beyonce Bowl and the NFL games, I imagine the vast majority of those people canceled.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. And so

Evan Shapiro: Not the vast majority, but a sizable chunk of them canceled afterwards, especially after the slap fight, because it didn't work very well.

Marion Ranchet: And

Evan Shapiro: it was a disappointing

Marion Ranchet: The challenge I think they're going to have is like, okay, I think both events, what I've seen is minor impacts outside of the US. Right? Right. Yeah. I would be surprised. I'm keen to see the data saying that it actually boosts acquisition in, in any of the European markets in a substantial way, I don't buy that. So they will see what they've seen with originals is that you got to go local and perhaps with sports even more so. We don't really care about American football.

So yeah.

Evan Shapiro: I don't blame you. I don't care about soccer. The, I think what's interesting, you, you made this point, I think a couple of pods ago about FIFA women's [00:26:00] FIFA. And I think that'll have a substantial impact globally than, than, and I think to your point that you made back then, like, I think that's probably the smartest sports move that they made.

You know, I'm curious what they think the John Mulaney live talk show is going to do for that. I don't, I don't imagine.

Marion Ranchet: And the WWE outside of the U. S.?

Evan Shapiro: That actually will have a big effect.

Marion Ranchet: You think?

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there are a lot of people who don't have Netflix or, you know, who have been sharing Netflix accounts.

WWE is, is not the biggest audience in the world, but it is the most engaged audience. Yeah, that's true. And they really, and, and, and I can't remember who said this to me recently, and it might have been someone that we were talking to together. But I think that's, you know, WWE and I hate to break this news to fans of WWE is basically a scripted drama.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. It's entertainment. No, we haven't spoken about that, but yes, that's what most sports [00:27:00] commentators have said about that.

Evan Shapiro: It's a soap op and it's on every week.

Marion Ranchet: It works well with them.

Evan Shapiro: And every week and every week and every week and every week. So that to me as a retention and acquisition tool. Is again, I think one of the smarter things that they, that they've done is the WWE.

I think that's, you know, other than the fact that, you know, putting more money into Vince McMahon's dirty pockets is a bad thing. I thought it was a really brilliant. He's a bad dude. Like of all the bad dudes that we've talked about on this pod today, and we've talked about a lot of them.

Marion Ranchet: There's a lot of bad dudes.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. You know, and they're mostly dudes too.

Marion Ranchet: Think about that. How about, do you think they could go for a UFC? Or is it too similar?

Evan Shapiro: Well, the UFC contract is,

Marion Ranchet: Is up this year.

Evan Shapiro: I don't, yeah, so, I think they, same company, right and so and now Dana White is now also,

Marion Ranchet: No, at the White House.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, so, you know, Sarandos, who's notably [00:28:00] an Obama stan, could use a little, you know MAGA cred, and you could, putting money in Dana White's pocket could really help him get a seat to the next inauguration, if he wanted it.

I don't think Ted is a fan.

Marion Ranchet: I don't think he would. Yeah. Ted is better than that.

Evan Shapiro: What? Regulatory speaking.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: What this White House has demonstrated is if you don't pay me, you ain't getting what you want.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, if you don't pay me in Bitcoin.

Evan Shapiro: Meme coin, yeah, yeah. So, all right. So, I think we've, I think we've covered the heck out of Netflix there, and I think

Marion Ranchet: There's one more.

Evan Shapiro: I will never, ever, ever get to interview a Netflix executive live on stage, but go ahead.

Marion Ranchet: No, it's the stab they took at folks who have the distraction of having to manage.

Evan Shapiro: This why I don't feel bad about going hard at Netflix as hard as I do. They gave the most major Fuck you to traditional media in their earnings call.

They're like, these are our earnings and luckily we are not [00:29:00] distracted by running legacy media Out there. They didn't say like everybody else in Hollywood, but they basically Yeah,

Meanwhile, we're not gonna report our sub numbers anymore. Yeah, so it was like it was like Fuck you, drop the mic, slam the door, set the house on fire.

And it's a really, it was a really, I've never, I've rarely seen senior management stick up their middle finger at the rest of the, way that they did on that earnings call. Have you?

Marion Ranchet: That was entertaining. That was really entertaining. And honestly okay, fair enough.

Evan Shapiro: It was their CFO who said that, right?

Marion Ranchet: It's Ted, no?

Evan Shapiro: Was it Ted?

Marion Ranchet: I think so.

Evan Shapiro: He's also the one who stood in front of the audience at RTS, Royal Television Society, last fall and said, I believe in more transparency in television. Yeah. And I love, I am a, I, he and I used to be friends and I've done deals with him and I liked him. I genuinely like him as [00:30:00] a person.

But as a representative of their company, I just feel like they're just so full of baloney.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. But, so one thing that they shouldn't go, one of the reasons why they shouldn't go there is that the biggest weakness in their business is the fact that they only have this one business. They have nothing else.

So actually, yes, maybe the others the, the linear business is a liability, not an asset. But they have other, you know, other businesses, other verticals. They do not. And so five, 10 years from now, that's going to be a problem. And other people who have a 360 strategy will give them the finger, I think.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. It all comes home to roost at some point. I was, I started my semester at NYU last night and I was talking about, I had my map on state up on screen.

Marion Ranchet: On stage,

Evan Shapiro: On stage, I love everything is a performance.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, everything is [00:31:00] a stage, even this room, even your room,

Evan Shapiro: right? You know, it's, it's very well staged.

And I said, you know, when I was your age, everybody had a Walkman and everybody had a Sony Trinitron and now Sony doesn't have a, a portable music business and doesn't really have a television business. Or they do, but let's be serious. It's not a serious business. And everything changes, you know, those who were on top today or, you know, 20 years ago, they're going to find themselves looking at a different angle you know 10 years from now.

And the amount of hubris presented in that earnings call was, you know. It's just, it will come home to roost at some point. Now, that said, I've spent a lot of time betting against Netflix in the last five years publicly. And I've, you know, not really been right all that much. So we'll see. I mean, if they have the ability to continue to pivot you know, they, you know, remember they used to [00:32:00] deliver discs through the mail.

So, you know, that this is a business that has adapted and transformed pretty well over time. That said the last major innovation. That Netflix has made was streaming.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, we spoke about that a few weeks ago. I was missing the boldness, the innovation from these guys.

Evan Shapiro: No, their boldness is now in their words as opposed to their actions.

Marion Ranchet: Okay, so we're, we're done for today but we have an announcement, right?

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, we are breaking news.

Marion Ranchet: I'm not forgetting this one right now. For those who know us, follow us you've seen us together in bars and at dinners, which says a lot about us but never on stage. Only once we were on stage, but kind of remotely.

I was on stage and you were in the back doing your keynotes at a tough time in your life. I mean, I was impressed that you still did this thing. I'm sure everyone was as well.

Evan Shapiro: So that was [00:33:00] Mipcom two years ago.

Marion Ranchet: Two years ago. Well, 18 months ago. So yeah, time flies. And so.

Evan Shapiro: So you, you were hosting, you were hosting the Fast Summit at Mipcom and I was supposed to have done that, but I got cancer, not on purpose.

And and I was in the hospital and so, yes, I presented from the hospital Memorial Sloan Kettering at, I think, 3 a. m. or 6 a.m.

Marion Ranchet: It was insane. I would not have done that.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. And that's the only time we've shared a stage until,

Marion Ranchet: Until in a month's time where we'll be in London for MIP London. So Evan, do you want to talk about that?

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, the first MIP London ever. So they moved MIP TV to London in February, which is exactly when you want to be in

Marion Ranchet: London.

Evan Shapiro: But yeah, so the first ever MIP London is the end of next month, end of February, 24th through the 27th. And we there will be doing our first Live podcast in front of an audience.

It won't be streamed live, but it will be performed live on stage at MIP [00:34:00] London on February 26th and it'll be the first time you and I have physically ever shared a stage together.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. The first of many, I'm sure. And so for anyone who wants to come, we're actually speaking at the end of the day, right?

Which means, you know, a half an hour of a pod with us, and then we'll go have. Cocktails and yeah, you'll see us at a bar again. Exactly. So we're going to be

Evan Shapiro: We're gonna be talking about the state of, you know, content, the content economy. At this moment in time, you know, who's greenlighting what, or not greenlighting what, how sports influences greenlights. The new state of production, both in the U.S. and around the world, the new economics around production, how A. I. will affect production as well. So, you know, if TV production, greenlights, and, and series and films and sports are something that you're interested in, or you just, like us. Come see us February 26th at Mipcom, our first live podcast at the first [00:35:00] ever MIP London.

Marion Ranchet: London.

Evan Shapiro: Gonna be exciting.

Marion Ranchet: Exciting. Very, very exciting.

Evan Shapiro: I love it. I'm very excited. Yeah. That'll

Marion Ranchet: be cool.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I think this was a great episode yet again, Marion, your newsletter is named

Marion Ranchet: Streaming Made Easy on Substack, join the fun.

Evan Shapiro: And my newsletter is Media War and Peace, everywhere you get your Substack newsletters, which is only on Substack.

On Substack. And thanks once again the reaction from you guys has been terrific. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you and, or you'll hear us in a week. See you next week.