Oscar Week: Prestige and Panic

0:00You've been there, settling in for an evening of TV only to waste half the night scrolling. Enter Fire TV. Entertainment with zero effort required. Fire TV serves up personalized recommendations from across all your apps. Not sure what to watch? Just tell Alexa Plus what you're in the mood for and she'll pull up the perfect recommendation. Problem solved. Stop the scroll, start the show. Find what you're looking for with Fire TV. Subscriptions may be required. Now, are they bringing Misty Copeland on as a rebuttal to Timmy Shalme? Or you know, I think if you would like to see it that way, that is fine. But maybe Misty Copeland will have some work for him on stage. That's some good Oscar drama we could look forward to. Welcome to Anchler, agenda. It's Wednesday, March 11. Then I'm Elaine Lowe, author of the series Business Newsletter. And I'm here with Sean McNulty of the Wake Up. Greetings from Spring in New York, Elaine. Very nice and Natalie Jarvey of Like and Subscribe. Hello, hello.

1:01We've got not one but two special guests on today's pod. Ken Basin, the former head of Business Affairs at Amazon Studios and Paramount TV. And also the author of the Business of Television who just launched his own substack on the matter. He's here to talk about the state of dealmaking in Hollywood, his take on Paramount Warner Brothers, and the next generation of lawyers and BA execs in the industry. But first, the Oscars are upon us this weekend. So we've also got the Anglers' own prestige, junkie writer and host Katie Ridge to walk us through what to expect and how it'll impact the business. So let's have her pop on first. Welcome, Katie. Hi, everybody. Happy Oscar week. Mirror hours away from getting on a plane to come meet some of us in Los Angeles. I'm so ready. It's really hot as far as I can tell. I don't like that part of it, but the rest of it I'm excited about. It's summer in LA, apparently. It's spring in New York summer in LA, yeah. So do you guys still all get excited to watch the Oscars, or is it just another part of work now?

2:02Katie has kind of worked. I don't know. I haven't put the words in your mouth, Katie, but you don't have a choice. I would say put it that way. I got this question last week. And I was like, I don't think I actually even watched the Oscars regularly before I started working and started covering the entertainment business. Why are you going to ask a party or anything? No. Wow. Wow. I can't imagine ever not watching the Oscars. There was one year where I was on maternity leave during the Oscars. And I, I mean, I love watching it and not having to like, live blog it because there's always a work component to it. But I get so excited about the Oscars. I, all these things that I think I know what's going to happen. I still have that little bit of nervousness before they open the envelope. And thinking like, what if something crazy happens? Because something crazy does happen more years than not. And everyone is so excited to win an Oscar. And so relieved to be done with the endlessness of a word season. And you can just see it in their eyes. Like half the time someone cries when giving an acceptance speech. It's just like, thank God I'm done with this. Okay. And see, yeah, you're happy for them in so many different ways.

3:02The Oscars, I mean, they mean so much to me. And I think probably always build no matter how cynical I get about covering the whole thing. Yeah, I used to host a pretty great Oscar party back in the day. And then, you know, fell by the wayside when I actually started having to go to Oscar parties and do work on Oscar night. Now, the small children in my life have prevented me from bringing it back. But I love the Oscars. They're so fun. I will say some of the magic of who's going to win has kind of dissipated. Now that I know I can just read what Katie's writing about. Like who the fronters are. But you ruined the magic form. The magic form is pretty delicious. It's a great year for that though. Because in three of the four acting categories, it truly feels like some wild things could happen. So don't worry, the excitement's there this year. Well, speaking of which, which category is ripeest for an upset, do you think? I mean, if you can count as an upset, I think supporting actress is so up in the air that anyone winning will feel like a surprise. It's been kind of evenly divided between Amy Madigan, Tiana Taylor and Wunmi Musaku in all the precursor awards that have happened

4:03beforehand. Amy Madigan had the most recent win at the actor awards, which could be in her favor. But she's not in a best picture nominee. The way that Tiana Taylor and Wunmi Musaku are. So that's usually one of the first awards of the night. And I think will be really fun because no matter who wins, they will not be breathing easy, leading into the envelope getting opened. What are you guys most looking forward to in the show? Who's hosting this year? I love it. I mean, Kona is great. He did a great job last year. So I'm always the alternative to the top of the show, then maybe there's nothing else on against the show. So I'll probably will watch the whole show. Well, Sean, it's so generous of you. There's no game on the NFL Spinal League. There's no game on the Ulan for Translate by COVID-19. There's no actual game. Unlike the Globes or things like that, they have a football on against it or something. So yeah, I'll be watching you see who advertises during the show for sure. But Kona does a great job. I mean, he did a great job last year. A great choice coming back, Katie. I think that's universally accepted from last year, I would say. Well, and they did such a great thing. They got him to sign on like two weeks after last year's Oscar. So he's been set in stone forever.

5:04They've had tons of time to get it planned, which is not always the case. I haven't looked to see if there's a call she bet on it yet, but I want there to be that I want to put money on Kona in editing himself into sinners as a dancing vampire. I just feel like perfectly tailor-made. Start a market. If I can't make any money on it, I just want to save for the record. I think that's going to happen. All right, fair enough. Are we getting a golden performance? I feel like we're getting a golden performance. All right, that's what I'm looking forward to. I have my children tune in right at that moment. They're only performing two of the nominated songs. They're doing golden. And then I lied to you, which is the big time traveling number from sinners. And they've announced that Missy Copeland, the ballerina, Shabuzy, but a guy who is chosen at the end of the movie, will all be part of it. So I think it'll be a pretty big spectacle. Maybe that's a show opener. Now, are they bringing Missy Copeland on as a rebuttal to Timmy Shalamey? Or you know, I think if you would like to see it that way, that is fine. Shalamey's been in like, I think in China, promoting the release of Marty Supreme,

6:05they're all weak and seems to be having the time of his life. So it doesn't see all the comments about ballet and opera that he made blowing up. Hopefully he's aware that he's started a war in the fine arts community, but maybe Missy Copeland will have some words for him on stage. That's some good Oscar drama we could look forward to. So according to the critics and writers that you've surveyed over at prestige, junky pundits, one battle after another is the overwhelming front runner for best picture. And sinners is kind of a distant second. They're both Warner Brothers pictures. What do you think it means that that film studio is going to have such a strong awards showing as it's getting gobbled up by Paramount's guidance right now? Like, does this become a topic of conversation at the after parties? I think it's a crazy irony that you're reward for incredible artistic success in modern Hollywood is that you then get to lay off a bunch of your employees. Like it really couldn't be a more perfect metaphor for how backwards so many of the priorities are. I mean, I would trust you guys to tell me more than me knowing it, but I would hope it means that Mike DeLuca and Pam Abde have a path forward in this Paramount future

7:07that they're capable of delivering wins like this. You know, sinners made money in addition to being a big Oscar success. I think one battle after another. I mean, Sean, you tell me I think on the aggregate we'll have made money. They're not, you know, fleshing money down the drain by supporting these outtours. And I would assume that even the David Ellison's of the world who have everything also want an Oscar. You know, that's why Ted Serrano has been pouring money into Oscar campaigns for a decade now. So I hope it bolsters them in some way that they can continue this artistic output. But mostly it just feels like a crazy shame that this is the reward they get for this. Well, if they have good lawyers, and I'm sure they do, those lawyers are probably going to David Ellison the Monday after the Oscars and making sure that their contracts are looking pretty good for, you know, whatever future employment they have at this new combined company. We always talk about Oscar bonuses being, you know, worked in a contract. Like you win an Oscar, you get paid more. This might be the most complex Oscar bonus in history of whatever happens with Warner Brothers for winning Best Picture. Oh, which one wins, yeah. Or just for like, what does Warner Brothers gain

8:08from winning an Oscar? It's probably incredibly convoluted, but I assume it's something in there. But Katie, like Paramount hasn't been in the Oscar race in a long time. So if you're going into two companies, I mean, back to your prestige point, it's like, you know, the Paramount can't and maybe they will, you know, grow into that certainly, but not a history there of being in this at all for, I don't know, 30 years with the number. And then it's happened that Rick will give it some credit from a couple of years ago. Sure. Yes, it's been a while for Paramount having kind of this level of involvement. And this is what our colleague Richard Rushfield says all the time is all these billionaires who waltz into Hollywood thinking they should make movies. They all want to just be included in these kinds of events. So presumably that remains the same here. And if your best ticket to the Oscars is Mike and Pam, then hopefully that let's stick around. Think they would keep around. Yeah, the question is maybe Katie would be, it's just will they be able to make these kinds of $90 million or that's anymore? And that's going to be, you know, in terms of like, will they stay? He's saying that he's saying the bride wasn't a great argument. Well, that doesn't the bride. Natalie, it wasn't exactly leading into this, made out of been the best, you know, people will forget about that.

9:09I'll send it later. I think they will. Will they though? Because that's a big Jesse Buckley movie here. And isn't she the front runner for Best Actress? How much do you think that the poor performance, poor reviews of that film impact things or did voting end early enough that it won't hurt her chances on Sunday night? There is a time on her tradition of talking about someone's Norbit. Does the more Norbit mean anything to you guys? That is the movie, the Eddie Murphy movie that came out as the Dreamgirls Oscar campaign was happening. Did it loosen the Dreamgirls Oscar? Who can say it did go on to get nominated for a makeup Oscar the next year, which I don't think the bride will do. No, it is there was speculation that the bride could be Jesse Buckley's Norbit, but the review embargo in that movie lifted either after Oscar voting ended or right before, they kind of carefully planned that so that it wouldn't be a torpedo, even though Hamlet is not a Warner Brothers movie. And I think big swings like that, you kind of get forgiven for it because it's not like making a lazy cash in. It's not like making a crass comedy. So I don't think it will hurt Jesse Buckley.

10:10I also don't think Timothy Shalme's war with opera will hurt him. Similar reasons of the voting window being almost done. But it does show you that you're big splashy role, like what she got in Hamlet, like those things will come along that often. A lot of times you're taking a big leap and you get the bride instead. That a lot of controversy is you're a Katie, right? Usually there's like Amelia Perez was, of course, only a year ago. That's what the gold standard will be aspiring to for years to come. There's been some, you know, some real clonkers over the years that have ever risen out of the muck, if you will. But this year seems pretty scandal free, I guess, for historical, you know, contrast. Yeah, this one was a little calmer. I mean, there was a story that came out in the California post about Josh Shaftes, the director of Marty Supreme, his behavior. On the set of a movie, he made almost a decade ago. And to me that didn't really feel like it caught fire, I think if Timothy Schell may lose his best actor, it's more for his kind of unconventional campaigning, his bravado, this personality that I think repels a lot of people and did feel very reflected by the ballet comments. I kind of felt like him

11:11telling on himself in a certain way. But yeah, the whole, you know, Timmy and the opera, Jesse Buckley hating cats. That was a whole scandal. The majority of it. That was evidence that Oscar season went on too long this year and everyone went crazy. Which is what happens every year? You get to the last few weeks. You should've been talking about it. It was for a year. Everyone runs out of gas and just starts losing their minds. So I think it's time for all of us to take a break. And maybe set him down for a little while. We'll get back to it in a few years if we want to. Can we look ahead a little bit at what all of these Oscar nominees are doing next besides Jesse Buckley in the bride? If Timothy Shalamet loses the Oscar, like he's got Dune 3 later this year, like what will we be talking about with all of these nominees, you know, in six months? Oh my God. I mean, Jesse Buckley did just sign on to make a movie with Joshua Conner who is my personal fave. So I'll be excited for that one. Jacob Allordy has a really Scott movie coming out in the summer. That's exciting. I mean, Mike Lee Jordan is directing a Thomas Crown affair remake. Which is so excited for us to watch that.

12:12He's starring in it. He's directing it. It's such a great move for him. You know, he directed Creed III, which I thought was great. And kind of a little underdiscuss for how good a job he did directing. I mean, he's grown up watching Ryan Kugler and Seth. It's like, why wouldn't you become a great director as a result of that? You know, everyone gets their Oscar bump. And then, you know, people like Selen Skarsgard and Delroy Lindo, you assume it just continued to see working all over the place. I'm really interested in what Amy Madigan is going to do next. You know, she has never stopped working, but she was kind of making increasingly small scale movies as often happens for women as they get older. You know, if she wins, but even if she doesn't, I feel like she's got a super exciting third act coming up in her career. So that's what she root for, right? And everyone can find a way to follow these things up with work that's equally exciting. I'm pretty thrilled for Emma Stone to be maybe taking a little bit of a break from the Yorgos universe and doing a rom-com with Chris Pine. One, she and Jennifer Lawrence are making a movie from Miss Piggy with Cole Skola, right? Do I remember it? You remember all those things?

13:13Correctly. Yeah, I'm number four. She's pivoting off, Natalie, that for sure. But Katie, just directly speaking, if someone were to take all of your expert picks from your podcast this week and play spaces on Kowshi, does one owe you a cut of the revenue from those winnings or how do I just want to just... Just speaking theoretically. I think you have to drop the bags of money on my doorstep. There's usually not that works. I accept your own deliveries like whatever else happens. All right, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about your cut. We'll talk about your cut. Just appreciate that. Drop it at the hotel lobby before she heads back out. Yeah, exactly. I'll bring the money bags with me to the after parties. Oh, thanks so much for joining us, Katie. Where can we watch your live commentary this Sunday? Oh, please, yeah, join me and Chris Rosen, our colleague on the Enkler's YouTube page, as well as on sub-stack. We'll be starting talking about the Oscars around six PM Eastern, three PM Pacific. We'll do some red carpet and then talk through the whole thing. So, and even if you're not watching the show, tune in at the end. We'll be kind of recapping everything. It'll be a marathon podcast session. I'll be getting dressed for an after party. It's a point in there.

14:14I'll be getting ready with me. All right. Yeah, I guess we like have to get ready with me and have Oscar commentators. What everybody wants. Multi-tasking like crazy. We got laid. So, yeah, we hopefully everyone will join us there. All right, awesome. Thanks so much, Katie. Thanks, guys. OK, time to take a quick break. But when we're back on, we'll have business affairs executive and former head of BA at Paramount TV, Ken Basin on. Spring is here and the shopping list is long. Time to make a lows run. Buy three bags, get three free. Stay green, one cubic foot garden soil. Plus, right now, members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase. Start spring off strong with these deals and more. Our best lineup is here at Lowes. Valentine 325, while supplies last. Soil offer excludes a last-gen Hawaii loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. See Lowes.com slash terms for details. Subject to change. Point booster subject to exclusions and more terms apply. One time, only offer. Welcome back to Anchor agenda.

15:19I'm Elaine Low here with Natalie Jarvey and Sean McNulty. Let's have Ken Basin join us now to talk about the current state of deal making in the industry. Now, Ken, you have an illustrious career. You've worked in BA all over town, heading up operations over at Paramount TV, at Amazon Studios, and most recently at Riot Games. So you've seen a lot. In fact, you even lived through the Viacom CBS merger during your Paramount days. And I got to ask you, what do you think the impact is of this upcoming Warner Mount merger on the day-to-day business? I mean, I think it's going to be very disruptive on the day-to-day business. There's a new anonymous sub-stack that has come out in the last week or so that purports to be from an anonymous employee inside of Warner Brothers and talking about the first town hall with David Zazlova announcing the merger in the last line if his first post is something like, OK, now we can all go back to our offices

16:20to pretend to be working and start looking at jobs. And I think there's going to be a lot of that at both companies. And I think even for those people who may feel less insecure, or less interrush to look for new jobs, times like this, you lose a lot of hours a day to people walking into each other's offices and closing the door and kind of commiserating and asking what they've heard and trying to get information. I think it's another one of the side effects that leadership often doesn't think about is, if you don't give information, people will fill in the gap with whatever information they can share with each other. And they'll dedicate a lot of the day to going to one another and finding it and sharing it. Well, not only that, but Ken, what doesn't accompany in the middle of a merger like this also just kind of slow down on the pace of deal-making anyway? Like they're not going to be making any big major strategic swings right now, right? Because they'll wait for all of those decisions to be made once the new owners are in charge. Yeah, there's an assumption that large sums of money should not be spent. Big commitment should not be made that the new ownership may or may not want to stand behind.

17:22I think if really, really large opportunities arise, there are kind of limited circumstances of major strategic transactions where a buyer and a pending deal can coordinate with the seller's people to get approval. That's often written into the terms of the merger deal of what kind of things have to be brought back and that has to comply with security's laws. But you're absolutely right, major green light commitments, major packet buys with production commitments. There's always a fear, not specific to this merger that any time a new leadership group comes in, one of the ways they're going to establish themselves is by throwing out everything that the old group did or one of the ways that they'll establish how good and smart they are is by kind of pointing out how bad all the other decisions were as a not fixed thing, as a positioning thing. And so I think there's an assumption that nobody has a mandate to make a big move because it's a lame duck administration, basically. Yeah, from a TV point of view, Ken, I mean, the film side, look, Mike and Pam may still make 14 films a year. We'll see about that. That may be a little more direct, but on TV,

18:24you're merging, you know, streamers into one, you're merging two TV groups, one of those television and paramount television to wander so much, merging ahead of staffs and in terms of business affairs and deal making policy. It's like, are we, you know, who's going to be setting our deal terms? Is it going to be the new guys? Are we going to be going by the, you know, the decades that Warner Brothers television has operated under. So like for TV, it seems like even more of a gray area, maybe more than film or even ever, than any other department perhaps. Well, I agree for the reasons you said it more. I mean, one, remember that both these organizations are fresh off their own most recent integrations, which are kind of like only pretty recently completed, especially on the paramount side. And, you know, you mentioned merging paramount television or brother's television, but we haven't talked about CDS television studios. We haven't talked about each V.O., whose team operates independently of Warner Brothers. So even within these organizations and their pass mergers, there have been kind of careful decisions that were made about what portions were pushed together and what portions were kept apart.

19:24And maybe I'm being generous by saying careful decisions were made. Decisions were made or decisions were not made and things happened and things are the way they are. And now there's a new round of decisions to be made or not made. For example, we're only a couple of years off from the combination of the Turner BA teams and the HBO team as part of the Kevin Riley to Casey Blois transformation over at HBO Max. Not surprisingly, the HBO team that went into that process came out mostly intact and certainly more intact than the Turner side that came into it. But that's one of the questions that people will also be asking. Sometimes in these situations, there's kind of a clear senior partner and a clear junior partner over the folks who kind of come in and the idea is that the other group is going to be melded into it or is a new department really going to be made? And the analogy that I kind of use is, if you are in a romantic couple and you are going to move in together, do you move into one person's apartment? Do you move into the other person's apartment? And then there's kind of power dynamics and people are sort of used to having things a certain way and doing things a certain way.

20:25Or do you say, you know what, even if it's going to be sort of more difficult in the short term, we're going to get a new place and we're going to create new habits and fill out the space and buy our own furniture and kind of make these decisions together. I think in the long run, that promotes harmony, but it's more expensive in the short term. It's more disruptive in the short term than just being like, ah, just bring over your suitcases and come over here. Right, we have plenty of room. You're going to be in the sort of auxiliary lot in like a trailer that's kind of hard on a commissary, but there's plenty of room. Well, what about the amount of debt that these two companies are going to have combined? We're looking at $79 billion net debt. How does that wind up impacting work on the ground? Does that wind up having a trickle effect on the kinds of deals that are made, the way deal making is done when you have that hanging over your head? It does. I mean, it affects available free cash flow. So one, it affects your ability to make really, really big investments. You know, huge production budgets, large licensing deals. Now, it's unclear in this case, whether that debt load will be kind of

21:26as big of a limitation as it usually is, because whatever amount of money the company needs to do in debt repayment per year, if a great opportunity arises that David and Larry are willing to put another $2 billion into, then they can put another $2 billion into it. I mean, when they paid, they get the number with $7.7 billion for UFC rights for Paramount Plus, that's not a deal that Paramount on its own books could have sustained. They were able to make that deal because they could, you know, bankroll it themselves. And so they always have this kind of escape patch, I guess, from the limitations of debt, well, we could just put more money into it if we still feel inclined and that level of committed to it. The other thing is it does, shopping kind of some smaller ways that can create some friction like payment schedules. The different streamers have very different payment schedules that they pay license fees on. Netflix is well known for having a very unfavorable payment schedule that delays money far into the future. They set it up years ago when Netflix was kind of cash poor. Didn't have large reserves, lots of debt,

22:26kind of living hand-to-mouth month to month as subscription money came in. So they were pushing license deep payments far into the future. Now Netflix could obviously pay a lot of money all at once without a lot of strain, but they've established that policy and they've got lots of leverage so they continue to do it because they can in a murder situation like this and also in a kind of high debt situation like this, studios can become much more sensitive to the cost of money. And all the more so if you're in a high interest rate environment. And so the willing is to make a deal or a make of a show might also take into account like, well, how long is it going to take us to get the money back? Even if we know that the license fee is going to equal and exceed the cost of production, are we comfortable being at a pocket $100 million, $150 million for 18 months waiting to get that check-in? Yeah, if you're an independent producer, fifth season or whatever, I'd say that's a big deal. Like the severance deal that they sold the show to Apple because it's so expensive and became like a burden almost and it can be a real thing for a lot of talk about how many independent players and television things like that

23:28and what you mentioned exactly speaks to that 100%. And for the independent players, it's not just kind of imputing a cost of money. It is the actual cost of money because if you're a fifth season or an MRC, you're generally not financing production from cash. You've got a revolving credit line with a major bank in New York. The loans are secured by the paper that you have with the network for the license and the license fees. But that is a real running interest tab. That could lead to negotiations between buyers and sellers, especially for very small buyers, the streamers will generally try to not let them be studios. But if because of a competitive situation, a small buyer gets the opportunity to recognize a studio but still has kind of difficult access to production financing or high loan terms. Sometimes the streamers will put up more money to cover the financing costs or will agree to be kind of friendlier on the payment schedule of the license fee on the assumption that if they're not, then the studio is just going to have to borrow that money

24:28and in some way pass that cost back onto the network or reduce the production value. But certainly for the big players, like a Warner Brothers or Paramount before the merger or after the merger, they're not going to get that kind of sympathy from a buyer. The attitude would be like, this is your responsibility. Can I want to go back to what you were saying about how this debt load might impact kind of big strategic deal making for Warner Mount? Before this deal, there was an assumption that the new Paramount Skydance would be pretty aggressive in deal making and as a buyer on the market. Is this their big play, is this their big deal or can we expect to see them continue to scoop up other assets and continue to grow the overall size of the company? I think there's a good chance that this is their big deal in terms of major corporate combinations and bringing on an entire operation wholesale. I could see them making significant individual IP deals and license deals, things like the South Park deal or the USC deal where they're not acquiring ownership

25:30but they're getting a really long-term license. They're getting an asset that they've got a lot of rights in or a lot of control over that makes a strategic at least for a period of time. And I think that's something that not just can happen alongside the big corporate murder friends actually but sort of has to because you've got all this scale but you still have to have fuel to pump into it. The Warner Brothers library will go a long way on that but I think the ambition goes further than that. It's also gonna be maybe to say a little bit obvious a lot easier for Paramount to continue to make big moves over the next year and a half than Warner Brothers. Warner's is effectively frozen in a lot of ways. Paramount has to make moves with an eye on the fact that Warner Brothers is coming in probably but also an eye on a small, small risk that it's not gonna come in because the regulatory process doesn't go through. But again, as long as they're willing to sort of cut fresh checks and bring more cash into the organization via the very, very wealthy owners, they have a lot more latitude to do what they wanna do. Well, what about Netflix? What do you think it does?

26:30It's new pocket full of change here. $2.8 billion break up fee. I mean, I think the blunt answer is I don't think $2.8 billion seriously moves the needle for them. I don't think there's something that they were not gonna do that they can do now or that they were on the fence about that suddenly got unlocked. I think if there are moves that they have planned over a period of a long time, months, years, I think what you see with Netflix over time is as revenue and growth start plateauing, they open up a new business or they break a rule that they said that they were never gonna break. So when the stock price crashed and growth was plateauing, it went from ads inherently not part of the streaming environment to, no, of course we're gonna do ads. It's gonna be a great experience. And I think they've got sort of their progression of the next things. And so having an extra $2.8 billion in the bank might mean you don't have to make those moves for as long. You can kind of keep the status quo going for a long while and keep deferring those major strategic shifts, each of which is potentially risky, each of which is potentially controversial,

27:31a little farther into the future. So we're not gonna see like a Netflix fast channel anytime soon then. That's a result. That's a little much. I don't think a Netflix fast channel is actually at this point like breaking any of their existing rules or breaking any of their philosophies. Once they open the door to ads, they open the door to ads and whether the ads are sort of with the subscription or without a subscription, I think they've been exploring a fast channel since before this Warner Brothers conversation started and they're gonna continue to explore fast channel after and they would continue to do that if they had won the bidding war and now that they've lost the bidding war. Well, lastly, Ken, we talked a little earlier for the series business newsletter that just went out this week about your new sub stack that you're launching, the business of television max. And you know, one thing I remember asking you is about the next generation of lawyers and BA executives in the industry and what kind of appeal there is for them to come to Hollywood versus any other kind of industry. And you made it in a little bit of a bleak comment or you were like, if I were still teaching at Harvard,

28:33I would tell them why they shouldn't join the business. I mean, what's kind of your long-term outlook on the business? Is it really that bleak and? Well, I mean, it's not a growth business is one way to put it and it's difficult to be in any environment where, you know, the overall kind of trend in the dynamic isn't building something up but kind of slowing the collapse of the walls around you. And even if the house is big and even if the house is brand, if you're spending all of your time like patching things before they fall off, it's probably a worse experience than being like in a small house that is in good shape in your building additions. You know, there's always been a wild disparity between supply and demand and the labor market and the entertainment industry. There's a lot more people who wanna do the stuff than there are jobs. I think that will continue but it's made worse when, you know, for those entry-level positions, the spots aren't clearing because people aren't having time to move up. One thing that kind of strikes me with you asking that question is we had that conversation about a week ago, I launched the subject on Monday. And within a day, I got a message from a new subscriber

29:34who said I'm a 2023 grad of NYU Business School and to School of the Arts. I've been working at an agency since the first week of the writer's strike. I've been here for three years. I'm completely discouraged that there's any room to move up. I'm going to law school. Which is a boy. You know, also a thing that I often, you know, when people say, can you talk to my cousin, might not feel about law school like cool. Number one, don't go to law school. Well, thank you for your words of wisdom, Ken. Where can we find your sub-stack? Sub-stack is at tbotmax.substack.com, tbotmax, like the business of television. I'm doing a four-part series this week on the merger of Paramount and War Brothers. Part three came out today, which begrudgingly praises Netflix for making a win-win-win situation for itself out of this deal. Whatever outcome happened, they sort of do well. But I think people will really have some fun with my Thursday posts when I make all of my David Zazlove jokes while I still can. Oh boy.

30:35Well, thank you so much for your time, Ken. Your book, The Business of Television, has been a great resource to me when I'm trying to figure out the nitty gritty of deal-making in the industry. So yeah, look forward to reading more at your sub-stack. Thank you, appreciate it. Thanks so much for joining us at Anchler Agenda. I'm Elaine Lowe, and we've been here with Natalie Jarvis, Sean McNulty, Katie Rich, and Ken Basin. Make sure you email us at podcastatthewangler.com or at Elaineatthewangler.com if you have any feedback for us. And please, leave us a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts from. All right, we'll see you next week. Hey, Sal. Hank, what's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvada, and it was so easy. Too easy. I think something's up. Shoot, tell me. They got thousands of options. Found a great car, a great prize, and I've got to deliver

31:35the next day. It sounds like Carvada just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvada. Delivery fees may apply.