CNN Fears & The Ellison Era

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Hello friends, and welcome back to the Grill Room.

It is Friday, March 6th.

And today, I'm coming to you from the nation's capital,

where Puck celebrated our fourth annual First Amendment Gala

at the French ambassador's residence.

The lovely affair, as it always is, and I always get asked a lot of questions at this event.

This year, number one question was, is Barry Weiss going to be running CNN?

As you know, Paramount is on the cusp of acquiring Warner Brothers Discovery,

which would usher in a merger of CBS News and CNN.

So obviously, this begs the question.

Does that fall to Barry? And has Barry done enough at CBS News? Has she

proven herself to the Ellisons that she could be capable of running a 24-hour

global news network? Many people would look at her early months and say, no,

there's some evidence she might be turning a corner.

Julia and I are going to unpack all of that today.

And we're also going to assess the broader challenges of both broadcast and cable news

in an era when, increasingly, the value proposition of what they've done is downstream

of what's happening online on digital platforms, on YouTube, on podcasts, etc.

So, Julia and I are going to tear into all of that. It's a fascinating conversation, as always.

I hope you enjoy it. And without further ado, let's get started.

Julia,

DeMoney, how are you? I'm great. I'm in Washington, DC, as we speak.

You have to table set this better. Dylan is in this room of a hotel that he really likes,

but the hotel room walls that he's in are the most grotesque pink I've ever seen.

It's the old rigs bank, which has a storied history in Washington, DC.

And they turned it into what is actually a nice hotel and a convenient meeting spot

on this side of town, where there aren't many proximate to the hill.

But it has a storied history. And I found out when I went downstairs to go to the gym this morning

that there's a vault, like the old vault of the bank is still down there. And it's labeled

appropriately the vault. And you can't get in because it's a vault. But I just wonder,

like, what's in there now? What storied secrets are hiding in the vault of the rigs bank?

You could make this your... I'm going to get the fort wrong. It's not Fort Knox. It might

have been Fort Knox. Do you remember that moment in time when they convinced Donald Trump that there

was like tons of money under it? It started with like a conspiracy theory. And it just led to him

being like, we got to get into this fort. You could do this with the vault. I could. I'm moving to

DC. I have to tell you, as someone who covers the media, particularly the news media, I love

coming to DC because it's the one town where all the TVs are still tuned to cable news.

CNN is still on in Washington. It might have turned off everywhere else, but it's still on in

Washington. And when I get off the tarmac at DCA and like all the TVs, if you're addicted to the

news cycle, like we are, things like Twitter X, they give you this like nice and dorfine rush

because you feel like you're always connected. But it's really nice to sort of have that backdrop

on all day long, be it CNN or MS or Fox or CNBC or whatever it might be. And you can't go anywhere in

DC without that backdrop. And as someone like especially on the West Coast, I don't wake up at 3am

to watch Squawk or Morning Joe. I love having this shit on in the background.

That's a version of what my therapist would lovingly refer to as like mental illness, Dylan.

That is like Dylan's over here being like, I loved to hear about nuclear war.

No, I get what you're saying. Like I think it's interesting, you know, before we hopped on record,

Dylan and I were doing our weekly run through like what we wanted to talk about and we'll get

more into this in the show. But I wanted to check in with you because a lot of news has happened,

I mean over the last 15 months, certainly, but really like over the last few weeks,

at the outside of Paramount, outside of what we cover, just there's like a lot of news.

Like the US is seemingly at war with Iran, things are happening. And to your point about CNN,

I think there's this really nice movement back towards the slow down curation and analysis

of quickly happening moments that you cannot listen to officials on because it's coming through

in random podcasts and ex-posts that don't make a lot of sense. And I almost feel like there is this

return to the, if not six o'clock news to your point, this like, oh, there's a steadily flowing

form of information that is being torn apart by experts and journalists as opposed to the free

form stuff of the internet. And I wanted to know how you were doing because you cover the news,

so you're analytical about it and your strategic, but you also are someone who consumes the news

and you're a human being. I think that I think it's a great point. I think major geopolitical events

have a way of providing like a momentary solve to the broader declines and sort of

inertia of legacy media, particularly television media that we usually talk about. So like most of the time

what's happening on cable news is largely irrelevant in a news environment in which outlets like say

the times or the journal are leading the way. And everything on TV is downstream of that, right?

The analysis is downstream of that and increasingly they can't even get the best analysts to come on

anymore. CNN, especially CBS news this week, especially these are, these are institutions that

have the resources and the infrastructure to go around the world and to take you into places where

many other journalists cannot go. And even if they can go there, they can't necessarily provide you

with like the visual register and the running, the running video footage of what's happening,

whether and that was true when Russia invaded Ukraine. That was a very big moment for television

news. And I would say it's, it's certainly true now. Although that said, it's also notable every time

one of these major international incidents happens, you can sort of measure how much institutions

like the New York Times especially have closed the Delta with TV news. You talk about the need in

a time like this for sort of expertise and context that's provided in a way that does feel more

nightly news and less like the running stream of social media. The New York Times has done a

masterful job in providing that. They're also providing it with the video element now because they're

increasingly reliant on video. And I will say like I know I write about TV news a lot.

Truly, I don't, it's not like I'm sitting around all day watching it.

But but glancing like like coming in and everyone's doing admirable work, but like but for the

journalists who are actually on the ground in the Middle East, the roundtable discussions on

MS, CNN, Fox are like are really useless now because because the experts are so available

on every other medium and every other platform. It's been really interesting to that point

just as looking at my own news habits and I watch less TV news probably than you do and I probably

pay less attention to it than you do. I actually bet that I pay less attention to it than you do.

It's interesting for my own perspective seeing how something like a run, something even you know

like we go back to October 7th and kind of what's happening with Israel and Palestine and the long

storied history there and kind of the deep expertise, you know, PhD level expertise that you'd

want from someone to really explain stuff. It's interesting going across the different spectrum

of information to understand it. Like I know I find myself like I will watch a one and a half minute

reel from let's say like a professor of you know specific history from I don't know the UK and

I'll watch that and then I will tune into CNN maybe a nine PM maybe if it's Anderson for some kind

of panel or Caitlin Collins or whoever it might be and then also like throughout the day, I don't

have CNN on but I have Hassan Piker and and acknowledging that Hassan Piker is like an extremely

you're the biggest Hassan Piker, Stan. I think I've ever met and well the thing that Hassan does

well and I think like people to the right should do this or could do this and I don't know if they

are. I don't spend as much attention. That's my own blind spot. Like Hassan just takes in news the way

I think a lot of us do where he's called like his feed is just looking through Twitter videos and

looking through tweets and responding to tweets and like fact checking things that he's seeing and so

he's doing this with his like 30 40 thousand live viewers and it's kind of like how I would go about

it if I had the time to do it and so it's fascinating in these moments when there's so much information

we talk about on this podcast having more information than we know to do with and how critically

important these different types of access that information is and how these different formats of

information play into the necessity or the need that I have for a specific type of news breakdown

in that moment. Yeah. And it's like maybe these things can all coalesce and coalign with each other

as opposed to you know, medages eating the world or Google eating the world and I'm not saying that

CNN's gonna suddenly make this massive comeback but it's your point which you've made on this

program many times before Dylan and you're spot on. It's these moments where you do want to watch

CNN. The question I always have about it and I got into it with somebody at the network earlier

this week is like I don't have any doubt that viewership is increasing on CNN at this moment.

My concern is always what happens 30 days, 60 days from now. Like what when people have kind of

shined out from it they're no longer watching massive missile strikes. And by the way,

whether a war or geopolitical conflict indoors for weeks or years, there is a very short shelf life

on the interests that US audiences have in that. Like I and particularly among partisan audiences,

my guess is that like the MS now audience was far more interested in the Texas Senate primary

than they were in the fact that like I don't know we just sort of unilaterally took out

an Iatola and started like a clusterfuck in the Middle East. Like that would seem to me to be

the bigger deal than like whether or not Taloriko is gonna defeat, you know, Kornine or whoever

it's gonna be. There is a shelf life on domestic audience interest in these things and the people

who are passionate about foreign affairs are not don't necessarily need to rely on cable news

for that anymore. I would also say the thing that people found I think David Zazlove found this

when he like you know he came in he came he took over CNN in 2022 around the time that I believe

that the Ukraine invasion was happening. And he talked a very good game about the value of CNN

and what it can do that no one else can do. And I think he probably got in there and looked at

the financials and was like oh this is really expensive. It costs a lot of money to get people

into Iran, to get you know to get people like to have people stationed in cities across the

Middle East reporting from there. There there's a whole infrastructure, a whole security apparatus.

And it's just you and I always talk about the economics of this business. It is it is a very

expensive proposition to do. And I think increasingly when you look across the television landscape

you're saying okay you know Barry Weiss and Tony DeCopel in but like David Murrer and Tom Yamis

stayed back. And you've got again you've got like MS now deciding like we're actually just going

to go go hard on Texas. And you've got even CNN like I was watching CNN the other day. And yes

Aaron Burnett is over there. But on the other hand like I probably watched two consecutive hours

of CNN that were entirely in studio with panelists that never threw to Tel Aviv or Aman. And it's like

okay well that that's really the one thing you have left going for you is your ability to tell

this story from on the ground. But it's really really expensive. And it's becoming increasingly

harder for these guys to do. And meanwhile like the New York Times is getting people in there and

grieving me these videos that are meeting me where I'm at which is on my phone. And they're sort of

just just as interesting if not more interesting. And I just think that's a tougher tougher dynamic

for the TV industry going forward. Yeah I think about this a lot where I was trying to find

on the ground local I guess journalists the term influencer doesn't cover just on the ground

people like people who were recording footage similar to what I've been doing for the last two

years with Palestine and Israel right like just who's there who's actually you know recording and

uploading and kind of giving that day in the lifestyle footage. And to your point I think

the New York Times is able to get some of this footage whether it's from their own reporters whether

it's from people that they're working with over there. And it doesn't have to look as TV perfect.

The whole aesthetic of not being perfect the aesthetic of authenticity goes a far longer way on

your mobile app or what you're looking for when you hold your phone versus if you're CNN and you're

trying to frame a shot even if it's not one of your own reporters it's what's the shot that's

going to create engaging and entertaining television. And I think like the question of what CNN is

and the question of what CNN can be and where it goes is kind of been on all of our minds lately

especially with this current announcement that paramount is going to come in and I guess

effectively by Warner Brothers Discovery and I know you talked to our colleagues Matt and Bill

about it and kind of looked at the financial and the entertainment side of it. I wanted to dig into

the CNN part with you and the CBS news part because I imagine this is eating up a lot of your

time these days. That's all anyone wants to talk about. Seriously we had you know Puck we had this

party at the at the French ambassador's residence on Wednesday night. Do you know how many times I

got asked like is Barry going to run CBS news. It can't really happen right. It can. It totally can.

Now I we should introduce some caveats here. First of all let's just go back. One yes the plan

and I think there's a lot David Ellison and and co have been working so hard just to get this asset

from Netflix and now they're you know sort of in the regulatory approval stage so they've only

sort of I mean they've had a lot of time to think about what they want to do with the business

and of course how many cuts they're going to make but there is also some level when you get sort of

down down the totem pole to like you know CNN and CBS where there's still some thinking that needs

to be done. So I don't think they've thought all of this through yet I think they're in the process

of doing that now. That said the operating plan is to merge CBS news and CNN obviously they will

find a lot of cost savings there too and this is something that has been thought about discussed

in one way or another under various administrations going back at least to the last century.

Like there have been various leaders at all of CNN's various owners over the years who have

thought like should we merge with CBS and it makes sense right you've got like this sort of

storied broadcast network and you've got a cable a 24 seven cable network and it's not necessarily

any different from like an NBC MSNBC tie up but I would say with like far stronger brand recognition

right in like 60 minutes in the House of Merrow and Cronkite and then CNN which is for all for

all its struggles remains like the most powerful global brand that I think exists globally in American

media. So that's the plan the question is like does what do they do with it David Ellison this week

on a call said that the goal would be to sort of make it the target audience for CNN would be the

70% of Americans who identify as center right independent or center left. Obviously I think

there are a lot of people who look at how David has sort of cozyed up to the Trump administration

to get this deal through and looked at him putting Barry Weiss in charge at CBS and wonder if

how much the center left matters to him in that equation but anyway that's also what else was

he gonna say right like you're gonna go on public television and say like by the way well you're

gonna propaganda arm and the more telling the more telling remarks this week from from an executive

from a media executive came from Lockland Murdoch who basically identified CNN as a potential competitor

now that they were going to have a sort of editorial pivot. I think he and I think Lockland

anticipates rightly so that like the new CNN under David might be with combined with CBS might

try to encroach on their audience a little bit anyway 64 thousand dollar question does Barry get it

I've written this in one way or another multiple times over the past few weeks

she gets something akin to the job she has at CBS so long as she succeeds at CBS

obviously we've talked about it I've written about it she has had more than her fair share of

fuck ups in the first whatever it's been six months so if that if it keeps going that way then I think

what you do is you give her a sort of less influential role she still gets to be the sort of you

know spiritual advisor editorial North Star but maybe doesn't have the power to make as many

decisions as she does at CBS alternatively if she can start turning things around and I do think

that things are starting to go better for her at least as of this week then you say okay well

maybe we can give her the same role at CNN we just need someone like Tom Sbrowski the president of

CBS news but at a higher level to come in and sort of hold her hand and I'm sort of wondering I'm

not sure this is what they do but back when Barry took over CBS they courted David Rhodes the

former CBS news president who now runs Rubin Murdoch Sky in the UK and he would seem to bring a

blend of 60 minutes CBS news bonafitas coupled with the ability to oversee you know sort of more

global cable news akin network so anyway that's all in the weeds but the prospect of

Barry running a combined CNN CBS is very very real here are two questions on that I guess one question

difference either same coin actually in the scenario Mark Thompson is gone he's in a different role

and similarly to that I think we spend a lot of times and by we I mean the entertainment

side of the analysts and reporters part of the equation looking at the conversation between you know

do a Casey Blois head of HBO and Cindy Holland who's kind of head of paramount programming

do they work well together is there tension there what happens in terms of bidding on certain

shows like that is its own question from the implementation of merging these two companies

and I'm curious if like one if Mark Thompson is there do him and Barry get along or is there

is there some of this like two rocks kind of mentioned against each other creating friction or is he

just gone in the scenario you start a new in part because that's what you want to do you being David

Ellison with the direction you're going also in part because I imagine it would make the president

very happy in a lot of ways I think are you if you're asking if Mark is going I think Mark is almost

certainly gone and I'm not I don't I don't necessarily I don't necessarily see that as him

getting kicked out like I don't think Mark wants to stick around for the Barry show got it you know

marks a guy who when he came in and took over the New York Times but for the once sacrosanct

division between business and editorial he would have just stepped in and tried to run the

newsroom as well I just I think there would be too much of a clash of of egos I think one thing

that serves CBS well is that is that Tom Sibraski is willing to keep his head down and sort of take

a backseat role like there's a lot of like a hundred times a week you will read headlines about

decisions that Barry Weiss made and it's true like she's the authority she reports up to David

Ellison she at the end of the day she gets to call the shots but like so much of that Tom is involved

in and and you don't see his name in the headlines as much and I think he's probably I think he

probably would have loved to have just gotten Barry's job but I think he's probably happy to sort

of be out of the limelight and just making sure the trains run on time and how you figure out who

that person is at CNN is is going to be really hard but again like there's also a version where

maybe you know the Ellison's look at how choppy these early days at CBS have been and say like

okay well now we're talking about a global news network 20 you know global cable news network

like if you can't do broadcast you can't do this so again I think she's got more runway and I think

she has more time to prove herself but um she has to have more weeks like the week she just had

and she has to have less of the like the inside seacot screw ups or you know the the bungled roll

out of Tony DeCopel's evening news or losing Anderson Cooper so we shall see

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apply one time only offer have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life

it's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're

living a B or B plus life you don't change it you think it's good enough is it I'm Susie Welch

I host a podcast called becoming you people think okay an A plus life is not available to me

but there is a way we are all in the process of becoming ourselves listen to becoming you wherever

you get your podcasts do you have any and I realize this just happened literally this week could

be last week times a flat circle do you have any insight as to whether what the tonal shift with

CNN and I'm not talking about politically I'm just being do they try to make CNN feel more

CBS see does it kind of feel like what an HBO on top of something might be where it's like okay

well that still are you know premium news outlet it's our premium content outlet and we think

we want to keep that protected as a hub it could you know literally a tile on the paramount plus

or HBO max platform or does it start to feel much more like CBS news and there's really no coherent

difference for the viewer I mean I don't know what their strategy is there I don't know what the

right or wrong one is yeah I don't that's a very good question I mean I think all of those decisions

will be downstream of the financial decisions and I think that they will decide like okay

how can we run this operation in the leanest way possible well still maintaining

the value proposition to the bundle like of having a a new service I think you will see I think

will become a lot more boring right like you can basically chart the story of CNN if you actually

if you just if you are able to set aside the politics of the of the successive

administrations as in the successive presidents or CEOs the story of CNN is really one from like a

network that was very comfortable just being very boring and just delivering the news at a time when

that you could actually like that you could grow a business that way and then it started to decline

and then Jeff Zucker came in and said no we need to be very entertaining too and that means the

the world or at least the nation needs to have an affinity with Jake Tapper or Don Lemon or

someone like that and the I think what we're going to see under the elephants is a return to boring

and because it costs less to be boring and the truth is is they know that

you can actually create news from a studio for a lot cheaper than it has been done historically

you don't need to pay people as much I mean we're already see like Gail King so

Barry resigned Gail King which sort of had to happen because like she lost Anderson and then

if you lose Anderson and then you lose Gail and and Gail of course like had nowhere else to go and

desperately wanted to keep the job so she signed for less money now I'm not sure how much less but

it was like a very steep discount compared to what she used to be making that will be the

story for a lot of people and they will people be asked to do more with less so I think what happens

is you maintain the brands where you feel like you're sort of marquee tenpool brands you maintain

60 minutes you maintain a Jake Tapper type face for the network he's under contract they're

for a long time anyway but a lot of the sort of like whatever's happening on the network at like

2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon like that you're going to do as cheaply as possible yeah it's part of

the more I hate to use the term fascinating because inevitably what this story is at the end of

the day is a story about tens of thousands of job layoffs it's incredibly sad and infuriating

for many of us to watch play out especially as Zaz Lev takes these huge pay packages which should

somehow be illegal and it's not but the fascinating part of it when I listen to what you're saying

is that like interesting equation of if you make the news product more boring to save costs so you

cut a lot of costs and doing so but you inevitably erode your product faster the people if it's

more boring there's no reason to tune in as much as they are if people don't tune in not that you're

getting great advertising on this because it's news and but some of your advertisers flee it's not

necessarily engaging people post 60 minutes or whatever it might be like it's a fun runway question

of does cutting the cost extend the runway or does making it more boring while reducing those

costs actually make the runway shorter for the available for the time that Ellison and Barry and

other people have to like figure out what news in a post TV post linear world look like and I think

that's a really complex question well yeah and by the way it's just a microcosm of the the great

existential question that Bill and Matt and I discussed earlier which is like how do you balance

growing a business while cutting it and what David did which is at a certain point you cut so much

that you can't grow the business and that that figuring out that balance when you were carrying a

massive debt load as David as both as David did and as new David will is is a really really hard

thing to do and often in order to hit your numbers it becomes very tempting to just keep cutting

and all of a sudden like everything looks like it could go and then you realize you don't have

enough left to make it work and then this is the inherent issue by the way with the paramount WBD

Netflix hell the business as a whole Disney like none of these guys have built a great product like

Ted Turner figured out how to build a great product it was like let's use the system and we created

a cable out of it and those are great products streaming is not a fantastic business it is becoming

a good business it is becoming a profitable business but you'll get Disney you've got Disney coming

out and saying we're trying to get to 10% profit margins on streaming which is a slow growth

business for them compared to cable which was 25 to 30% profit margins up there with like oil and

gas and quickly declining and I think if you look at the Netflix component everyone I spoke to

Warner Brothers Discovery who have been there since like time Warner days right who are kind of like

exhausted by this who are like I don't know if I want to go through this again like we just did

it it's going to be more of the same under paramount they're like level of devastation then they

talk about paramount versus the little bit of hope they had when it was Netflix when it was oh

maybe you know we can actually be part of a growth company as opposed to your point a company

like paramount which is taking on 80 billion dollars with a debt they're going to have to cut the

debt I just think like this idea that you continuously cut to give yourself runway at absolutely no

investment in the growth side it's a concern now David Ellison's team would come out and you

guys talked about on the pause don't want to rehash too much of it you know he comes out he has

ownership of the company as long as he's paying the banks like he could take 10 11 12 years to make

be like we're going to invest in this product and it's going to take us 10 years to get to where we

need it to be but our stock can go to two three dollars whatever it is I don't care I'm building it

and like the only concern I have from that perspective if like that's the plan and you're going

to invest in it while cutting and who knows what that is like we spend a lot of time and this is

true on the news front too we spend a lot of time talking about Larry Ellison being the one

the wealthiest men in the world and being able to kind of bankrupt this whole thing Larry Ellison's

wealth is tied to like whether or not this AI bubble implodes and so if the AI bubble implodes and

Larry goes by the way I can't you know kickstart your 110 billion dollar acquisition of this company

that is not growing as fast as you need that you need the decade of basically saying like we're

going to invest at a loss until we figure it out David can't pay the banks he can't pay the

NFL he can't like at some point that system just completely collapses and I think like the

impact that it has on two of the most valuable new sources from a public sector opinion perspective

what impact that has on jobs for a significant portion of Los Angeles like what impact that has on

a lot of the media economics at a time when new jobs aren't being created like that to me is the

far more concerning part of it yeah then like CNN continues to like slightly erode you know

theatrical continues to slightly decline it's like yeah I mean this is going to go very wrong

it's going to go very very wrong and it it's also true that like

Zaz love about it I think with the intent to flip it if it didn't work yeah you know like he'd

kind of knew like he's a deal guy as bill is very fond of saying and so like I think from the moment

he closed the deal in 22 till the moment he made the next deal he was like he was always hunting

for the next deal the lesson theory seems to me to be very different this is like we want to see

at the table and and this is a long-term investment so yeah a lot can go wrong and the world the world

is going to change dramatically and I also just think too like you know just to sort of bring this

back down to the cable news level or the CNN CBS level is what are you really trying to do here

obviously right you're not you know I talk about like Tuesday at 2pm apologies to whoever's hosting

at that hour it could be Tuesday at 1pm that is not obviously not the game the game is like

how do you create content that is either supports the paramount HBO max combined streaming service

or how do you create something that people specifically the people want to pay for pay for that

thing that's why I think you're going to see investment in in in those sort of like tent pole

assets that CBS and CNN have yeah and that might become a lot like you know especially in terms

of streaming like you will have to sustain a 24 hour broadcast but a lot of that might become more

appointment viewing do you have to do you have to sustain the 24 hour at some point can you just say

by the way CNN to brand now it's pro it's program based and we're getting rid of the network

I don't know I think I think there's still a value proposition for people in

being able to turn it on when the news breaks that is just not and maybe that's a smaller audience

than it used to be and maybe more people are fine getting that news via push notification

but I certainly think that running to bring this entire conversation full circle that running

background noise of CNN CNN CNBC Fox whatever it is it is I think that's part of the value

proposition of a cable news brand or of a TV news brand even in a streaming ecosystem

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my room right now in this pink room in this pink room and I don't know you know I wrote this

week about so on let's see the attack starts on Saturday by the way it the other nice thing about

being in DC people really care about the new cycle you know in L.A. I was with a bunch of parents

from my kids school and it was like does are we gonna talk about the fact that we just took out

the I tolla is that not that we not but seems seems like we should be talking about so on

said that happens Saturday Sunday Tony DeCopel gets on a plane and goes to Jordan from New York

and basically what I was told is like by a matter of hours clears

gets in before they close the airspace yeah now does it matter is it significant that the anchor of

the third place broadcast nightly news show is on the ground in Aman or Tel Aviv rather than

doing it from a studio and throwing to a correspondent I don't know but what I do know is for the people

out there who still care about cable news looking up at my TV and seeing Aaron Burnett on the ground

in Tel Aviv versus the experience of seeing like watching Jake Tapper in the studio is like night

and day in terms of my engagement level it's expensive I'm not sure how much it moves the needle

but it is it is the kind of thoughtfulness it's the same way you like send Jim Cantori into like

the eye of the storm it just makes for a better product and I I for one still value it immensely

yeah it's like what we were saying earlier I mean it's they have to think about what you just said

they have to think about what is captivating television on a story that no one owns

and in 2026 is a story that younger audiences are getting first-hand shaky cam footage from an

iPhone or Samsung phone posted to Instagram and TikTok that they're getting fed to them and they're

seeing it as part of the stories that they swipe through or the reels that they scroll through and

it's just another additional content they don't need to see the slightly made up as in like the

smallest bit of makeup and and decent outfit I'm not saying that they're like just that look for

television in the perfectly frame shot with the like you know those moments of TV news that we

think about a lot where sirens are going off or there's the beginnings of an attack somewhere

and you can see the the journalists who are extremely brave right like going into stairwells

and trying to figure that out still doing the news like those are those moments that really

in rapture and audience because it feels like TV yes and I think that is the advantage that is

the advantage they have it's also their disadvantaged SharePoint Dillon from a cost perspective when

it's moving the needle less and less because someone like the New York Times or some random person

with a decent following on TikTok is posting a video that is picked up by a giant YouTuber and Twitch

streamer and like that is how people engage with it and so it's a question of like at some point

when the audience gets older which is the cable TV discussion right like once the cable TV audience

dies off to an extent is the younger is the Gen Z Gen Alpha whatever comes after Alpha

like that generation are they okay with just having the shaky cam footage as part of their YouTube

feed that is brought up by some commentator like like a Hassan who does not have advertisers but has

huge amounts of subscribers which means he can go and do this thing and he can do it from his

bedroom and that's what they like about it because he's watching footage from the ground elsewhere

and I think that's like the big question that's still going to take another 10 years 15 years to

play out especially at the broadcast level and then the time being if you have a 15 year let's say

period before this next generation of news consumers who don't really care about TV news because

their definition of TV is smaller and more authentic as opposed to more framed is that time period

enough for Barry and David and Mark or whoever to figure out a transition or do you just ride those

15 years and say we're going to get as much of this as we can before we shift what CNN and CBS is

to a tile on a streamer that does only 60 minutes or only panel shows because the definition of

what this news value was for a certain audience is no longer true for the vast majority of people

yeah and I get it I get that the panel you know the again the panel show is so much cheaper

and you need to be so many people feel they need to be cheap right now but again just going

back to how much those panel shows have become downstream of the newsmaker like what is what and

and you see this by the way with the licensing that's going on that you and I talk about all the time

that you know like MS getting a doing a McAfee style deal with the guys from pod save America

like there's a recognition in television that the conversation is happening elsewhere

I don't need you know the panelists who worked in an administration like 14 years ago

arguing around the table about things they don't really have any insight into anymore

or just like regurgitating a watered down version of what Ezra Klein said in a New York Times video

you don't need that anymore I agreed

in I want to call it 2015 maybe a little bit before 2015 when I joined CNN I think Jeff Zucker

introduced the slogan go there and it would remember even in like in the bureau in LA it was on

the wall it just said go there and it was like that's the only differentiator anymore for cable

that it has the ability to go there and if you're not going there and you're just doing those

panels like I can find better panels all over the internet any day of the week

and even those panels on the internet are being disrupted how many people do you talk to I talk

to these people every single day who produce long form podcasts let's say video podcasts or

these types of longer form online shows because that's what the YouTube algorithm of the day said

that it wanted it was prioritizing and they can bring brand deals in I think you talk to them they're

no one's watching because all the clippers are just clipping the best parts and putting on

Instagram and TikTok and getting 15 million views I have never seen an episode of Amy Polar's

podcast I've listened to every guest in that podcast right like it's that and it's that situation

with pot tape America I rarely watch a full pot tape America thing I get the highlight of what John

Favreau is saying I got it like it comes up on my feed and I think it's that moment of like

the disruption you can point this to Paramount in general and news falls under it but like the

the speed of disruption over the last 20 years I go back to 2006 2009 which was the iPhone into

the app store like ever since then that moment if you the speed of disruption and the speed to

like keep up with innovation is faster than any other point of progress in human history including

the industrial revolution including everything else and I think like cable news more than any of

this more than entertainment more than sports more than any other for the form of media cable news

feels like it's it's the hardest to get out of that antiquation and so if the idea is like go

there like that the last thing you have is you are actually in Tel Aviv or wherever you are you

are actually there and people are watching I think that has that still has a lot of power I agree

through it's far more engaging television I think there's a lot of power there for another 15 20

years and then I think there's a generation of people who are like I can watch the random person

on the internet that is then highlighted through someone else or I'm just watching them and I

subscribe to their feed and I don't need to pay for news first of all I don't have to pay for

an HBO Max or CNN so whatever it is I don't have to pay for it and it's far more engaging because

I feel like you know I'm seeing this actual person and maybe it doesn't happen I would love to be

wrong but the value of having a proper journalist in these situations is so important it's so crucial

and I just feel like for younger generations it's becoming less crucial and that is the bridge

that's impossible to figure out that's absolutely right parting question for you Julia

yeah can you recall the last time something happened in a studio like a cable news or broadcast

news studio around a table that was genuinely great engaging television

on a level on a level of like John Stewart basically take you know like taking down the crossfire

guys I like when Jake Tapper gets feisty I like when he pushes back against certain like I like when

he really gets like I remember like can you remember like there was a like I you're thinking of like

when he went against like Kellyanne Conway like is there a moment is there it just doesn't happen

anymore I've got one post-COVID I have one thing that has happened in a in a cable or broadcast

news studio and it's when Tony DeCopal and Tony Hisi Coats got into it over Israel Palestine

everything else that has been engaging or has actually caused me to sit up in my chair

has happened on YouTube or somewhere else on the internet it is not happening in the studios

of MS and CNN and even Fox do you think it's because you've talked about this on the show quite often

and I think it's an extremely insightful point do you think it's because there is still this idea

that if you're appearing on a CNN or an MS now or whatever there is a level of glamour

professionalization you have to bring versus on YouTube or Twitch you understand almost from

like a bravo vacation level that what is going to sell is that thumbnail like you need the thing

in order to bring people and you start with that 15 seconds of like here's the big fight and

then you get into it they know what they need versus I think there's an expectation of what

should be on television still yeah and I just I just don't think that TV it was ever able to

undo the muscle memory of that professionalization do you know what this do you know what the

grill room would sound like on TV like if the grill room were on CNN you know that sound like

it wouldn't sound great it would put you this it would be the ambient that would put you to sleep

there's nothing genuine about TV and they try and make a genuine and they try and do it with the

hand off and it just somehow the entire industry is screaming be authentic and almost no one on TV

figured out how to do it Dylan before we go because you have sources to see and pink rooms to get out

of we spent so much time talking about CBS and CNN because what else is there to talk about this

week really but one of my favorite little stories that happened I just want to get your 30 second

take on it yeah is that polymarket home to bets where they encourage insider trading have drawn

the line at being able to bet on whether nuclear war will break out in 2026 and do you think this

is the start of polymarket saying maybe we shouldn't let people with insider information potentially

gamble on something like nuclear warfare is this the line for the prediction markets I don't know

I I still hold by there being no line I don't know what the what the stated rationale was

I think you got it at the very least you have to get to a new administration before you get any

sort of line here okay I'm hoping I'm hoping I'm hoping the option is low I'm hoping it's down

around like seven or eight cents brother you you and I you and me brother will Jesus return to

earth that's my favorite one every year I don't know I just wanted to throw like 20 bucks on the

nicks Jesus you know that the nicks win then Jesus will return to it's it's co-related there you go

all right Julia it is a pleasure as always and we will connect next week safe travels buddy

the grill room is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with puck I'm Dylan Byers and I want

to thank my partner and co-host Julia Alexander I also want to thank the show's executive producers

puck co-founder John Kelly executive editor Ben Landy and director of editorial operations

Gabby Grossman the show is produced and edited by Molly Nugent and a special thanks to the

team at Odyssey Kelly Turner and Bob Tavador

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