Matt Belloni on the Oscars, the Ellisons, and Hollywood’s Next Chapter

14:32Matt Belloni:Yeah, I guess NFL is the big one. I think the NFL betting has permeated society in a way that everybody at least knows somebody who does it. So I think the Oscars would love if that became a thing. Now, they're not going all the way like the Golden Globes did, where the Golden Globes showed the polymarket odds on the screen, which was like the tackiest thing you could ever do for an artistic merit competition. competition but the globes are tacky and cash grabbing but the oscars have not done yet they

15:03Peter Kafka:do not have a prediction market partner give give them time so that leads me to this conversation which is normally uh when i cover the oscars it's about the television it's often about the television show and how the audience is steadily declining and what does that tell us about the state of media and monoculture and will the you know will this ever return will the oscars ever get more important. And it looks like the Academy has basically said, we've had a nice run. We're taking our ball and we're moving to the internet. So you no longer have these discussions about our declining rating. So in a couple of years, YouTube, this show is going to be a YouTube show.

15:38Peter Kafka:What does that tell us about where things are going?

15:41Matt Belloni:It tells us two things. First and foremost, the Academy needs money. YouTube was stepping up to maintain the license fee that the Academy has become accustomed to. The Academy is like a very well taken care of spouse, male or female, in a very nice bunker or mansion where all of a sudden they were potentially looking at a divorce from ABC that was paying$100 million a year for the show and offering much less. So they can either switch up the lifestyle to which they become accustomed, or they can find a new suitor. And the Oscars are so worth it to YouTube as a branding moment and to get everybody talking about how this pinnacle of Hollywood excellence is moving to the internet and moving to the home of Cat Videos and Mr.

16:34Matt Belloni:Beast. And this will be the narrative everywhere. Now, will the audience actually grow? The Academy hopes that not only will the audience get younger, it will grow worldwide because it is so accessible and everybody can watch anywhere they want. I'm not convinced of that. I think they're making a sacrifice here, doing it so soon. Eventually, yes. But in 2029, are a lot of people going to recognize and realize that you've got to download the YouTube app, put it on your TV or phone, and watch it there, or go to a website? I don't know that the older audience for the Oscars is going to do that.

17:12Peter Kafka:Yeah, I mean, YouTube says well over half their viewing now is on connected TVs. They're already there. They're the biggest platform

17:19Matt Belloni:on connected TV. But what we saw with Amazon Prime Video when the NFL moved Thursday Night Football there was that the audience for that first year after being on Fox went down. Right. And now it's back. They've figured it out. And now it's back. But that's three, four years later. So that first couple years, I think there is a contingent

17:39Peter Kafka:of people that just won't find it. And this premise that if we make it accessible around the world and we put it on YouTube and YouTube's got a very young audience, that will make the Oscars relevant again. This fixes our relevancy problem. I find that hard to believe, but also YouTube is a giant fucking platform. Maybe there's some truth to it. Maybe, but here's the thing,

18:01Matt Belloni:is that the Oscars are pretty accessible worldwide. They air in most countries. It's just the problem is a 5 p.m. or 4 p.m. show on the West Coast is the middle of the night in Europe. And you wake up in Europe and you see who won and a lot of the value of watching. It's not like the Grammys where there are performances that you kind of want to see, even if you already know the winners. The Oscars is all about the winners and the speeches.

18:27Peter Kafka:The winners, and it's also about who wore what, right? Clips. And what were interesting things and clips and that already you don't need to watch live. And the idea of seeing famous people on TV was a big deal up until the last 10 years when you can see famous people nonstop on the internet. You can't escape famous people.

18:46Matt Belloni:And the Academy is trying to rectify that. They have Amelia de Moldenburg as their ambassador doing interviews. She's a big YouTube star. They have ambassadors from various creators and stuff that they now allow into the show to try to boost their profile online. I actually do an interview with Amelia on The Town this week where we talk about how to make the Oscars younger. And she has some ideas, but like, it's just the fundamental problem with the Oscars has always been and will continue to be until the Academy changes it. They give out 24 awards, 23 or 24 awards. And until they do what the Grammys did, which was recognized, this is a television show.

19:28Matt Belloni:People want to be entertained. They don't want to see who wins the best sound award. That's going to be a problem.

19:35Peter Kafka:So maybe someone in Hollywood who knows how to make a television show could work on that with them at some point.

19:40Matt Belloni:You'd think so, but that's not the way it works. The Academy has a board of governors with 54 governors that represent the different branches, and they tried it a few years ago. They tried to take some of the awards off camera and put them on a pre-show, and everyone was up in arms, and then they didn't actually get any benefit in making the show shorter because everyone else— Right, they lost both ways. Yeah, they just went, and they still gave them out on the air. They need to do a culling. They need to say, these are the 10 awards people care about. everything else will be at a pre-show or the commercials.

20:11Peter Kafka:And that's the way it is. And the messaging from YouTube after they won this deal was, by the way, we're not going to YouTube up this show. It is going to be the show you're used to seeing on ABC. We're just going to move it over to YouTube. I understand why they both say that and probably believe that's the case, but that can't work long-term.

20:29Matt Belloni:Well, the Academy produces the show. The Academy selects the producer in consultation with the broadcast partner, but ultimately that person works for the Academy. So there's the problem.

20:41Peter Kafka:We'll be right back with Matt Bellany, but first a word from a sponsor.

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21:49Matt Belloni:Hi, I'm Brene Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop. A podcast that's a place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's gonna be fun. We rarely agree. But we almost never disagree, and we're always learning. That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday. For the last 10 years, everything in American politics has basically revolved around one man. And as a political journalist who came of age during Donald Trump's rise in 2016, I've had a front row seat.

22:28Matt Belloni:I am officially running for president of the United States. It's going to be only America first. America first.

22:40Peter Kafka:Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S.

22:43Matt Belloni:Capitol building. But is it possible to talk about politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm going to ask in our new show from Vox.

22:53Peter Kafka:The idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump-focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items. It really does feel like so reactive.

23:01Matt Belloni:You know, I think this Iran thing is also going to cause a big split in the GOP. So far it doesn't among like people who say they're MAGA voters are still with Trump. But like for the first time, you see on a major issue open opposition from the start of this war. I'm Estet Herndon. And welcome to America Actually.

23:23Peter Kafka:And we're back. You and I spent time last year talking about the notion that Netflix might buy the awards. Why didn't they? Why is it YouTube instead? They both, the argument you made for YouTube buying this, that would work for Netflix as well, right? It would.

23:39Matt Belloni:And they were interested. But first of all, Netflix already has the SAG Awards, which were renamed the Actor Awards. Not as cool. There's also a political thing within Hollywood. Netflix is already controversial within the film industry because they do not put their movies in movie theaters and give them wide releases generally. So there's a lot of people that believe that's the reason why Netflix has not won Best Picture, despite campaigning heavily for a decade now.

24:11Peter Kafka:And they're kind of stand-ins for you're mad about the way technology has changed and audiences have changed. And Netflix is the avatar of changing Hollywood. would if you're angry at it, vote against Netflix.

24:22Matt Belloni:And they've done a lot to try to fix that. I mean, Ted Sarandos is on all the boards of the Academy and he does the fundraisers and they put their awards movies in theaters. And if you want to see a Netflix movie that's up for awards, you can go to a screening most nights in LA in some movie theater, but it doesn't change the fact that people have substituted Netflix for the digital boogeyman. And if Netflix started airing the Oscars. I think that might have been a bridge too far for many Academy members.

24:56Peter Kafka:So gets us right into the thing that Netflix is also not doing, which is buying Warner Brothers. The Ellisons are going to buy that. Instead, we spent the last couple of years watching David Ellison buy Paramount and now Warner's. We're going to spend the next couple of years watching him combine those two companies. It'll be an ugly process. There was optimism at one point, I feel like last fall or people preferred the idea of David Ellison buying Warner Brothers again because they didn't want Netflix to buy it. It feels like once Netflix got it and then lost it, that that narrative is flipped.

25:28Peter Kafka:What's what's the thing people are most correctly scared about when they think about the Ellisons buying first Paramount and now Warner Brothers?

25:36Matt Belloni:I think that the thing people are scared about is simply the math. If you look at the contours of this deal, they are taking on$80 billion of debt to buy this company. And when you just went through what happened with Warner Brothers Discovery, which also took on tens of millions of dollars to combine those companies, they spent three years cutting costs. Right.

26:03Peter Kafka:And to cut down the debt, cut down the debt, cut down the debt. That was the main, that was the goal.

26:06Matt Belloni:That was the 100 % North Star, so much so that they changed the compensation structure for David Zaslav, the CEO, so that he would 100 % focus his time on cutting the debt. And to his credit, he did so. But he did so at the cost of a lot of spending that people in Hollywood are used to. And when you're combining these two storied studios, the Ellisons are already talking about$6 billion in cost cuts. That's a lot of people. Now they say that there are a lot of things. Jerry Cardinal came on my show and talked about how it's not primarily going to be employees.

26:42Peter Kafka:It's going to be better tech and we're going to save money with an Oracle cloud deal.

26:46Matt Belloni:Yes. Nobody believes that. They think that it's going to be painful. And I think they're probably right. You know, it depends what you consider to be painful. Is 20 % reduction of employees painful? You know, that's thousands of employees. This is a company combined that has more than 50 ,000, 60 ,000 employees. So that's a lot of people. So that's the first thing. And then I do think that the freak out over the tenor of CNN and CBS News and the kind of positioning of those networks, I think people are right to recognize that Ellison has a very different view of the news than the previous ownership.

27:32Matt Belloni:He is going to move those two entities rightward. He calls it towards the center, but it's going to be more like Fox News.

27:41Peter Kafka:And whether he's doing this to appease Donald Trump or because he genuinely thinks that's a good idea for a business reason or ideologically doesn't matter, that's where it's going to go.

27:50Matt Belloni:Yeah. And knowing him a little bit and knowing Ellison, I don't think he's a particularly ideological person. He's not doing this in order to create some kind of Fox News competitor because he thinks that the world needs more conservative news. I think he's looking at the market and he's saying there's one news network and cable that kicks everyone's ass. And why are they doing that? Why are they kicking everyone's ass? Because it's the one place that a center-right country can congregate around a news product that they feel reflects their sensibilities. So why not compete on that playing ground, then compete with the 10 other outlets that are espousing a left-center view?

28:33Peter Kafka:Yeah, I guess I would point him to all the other networks that are trying to compete with Fox News, that that market already exists, but... You mean like News Nation and OAN and, yeah.

28:43Matt Belloni:Yeah, there's something about Fox and the populist nature and the vibrant screen and all the things that Roger Ailes invented that does resonate. But I see why he's doing this. I also think his father is a role here, like plays a role. His father is a conservative guy, has a relationship with Trump. And the political stuff, they recognized very early that they had an in here. They've got two and a half years to be in the good graces of the government. They're going to do everything they can

29:12Peter Kafka:to exploit that relationship. Do you think there's anyone in Warner Brothers Discovery who is happy that the Ellisons got this deal? You heard a lot that, you know, it seemed like if Netflix bought them that they would more or less leave Warner Brothers Studio alone. They basically said they were going to leave HBO alone. Those guys seemed like they were pretty psyched for that. Is there any, is there anyone in that, you know, Warner Brothers Discovery is a big company. Is there anyone there? It's like, oh, I would love to work with the Ellisons or that's a better option for me.

29:41Matt Belloni:Well, first of all, the shareholders of Warner Brothers Discovery, which does include a lot of senior level employees. They got more money for their shares than they ever thought they were going to get when the stock was trading at$7 less than six months ago. But I think that for people who believe in theatrical and theatrical distribution, I think that Ellison is at least saying the right things. Now, nobody in town believes he's going to get to 30 movies a year for both studios. He's saying that Paramount and Warner Brothers will both release 15 movies a year in theaters, which would be more than both of them released last year, a lot more.

30:22Matt Belloni:But if he's committed to the theatrical experience and he doesn't do what Disney did when they bought Fox, which was just kind of neuter and downsize the Fox studio into just a label that produces a few movies a year, then that could be good. and much more so than potentially what Netflix was going to do. Now, Netflix was also saying they're going to maintain the theatrical windows. But after a couple of years, I could have absolutely seen Ted Sarandos say, you know what? We tried it. Not our model. We're going to go back to producing all of our movies for Netflix with a few big superhero movies in theaters.

31:02Peter Kafka:And I think we'll spend a couple of years speculating about, you know, is Casey Bloys from HBO going to stay? And where else would he go? and we'll see how all that pans out.

31:10Matt Belloni:I mean, they're saying the right things and I'm told that David did call Casey and a number of the top executives and say hello and tell them that they're great, which is, I guess, the first step there. But it doesn't change the dynamic because if you look at what Cindy Holland is doing at Paramount right now. Former Netflix. She's the head of streaming. Former Netflix. Former Netflix head and she's the head of streaming at Paramount. She's greenlighting a lot of shows that arguably could be considered HBO-style shows. She's, you know, this Jeremy Strong 9-11 show where he plays a firefighter.

31:43Matt Belloni:There's a number of other things. She's got the Duffer brothers. Like, I think that there's going to be conflict there, not just in who Casey reports to. He could report to David Ellison as is in his contract. But what do these platforms mean? What do they go after? Is Ellison going to take the Max part out of HBO Max? and just have them focus on the prestige of the prestige? Or is he going to let them do shows like The Pit or The Penguin or, you know, Welcome to Dairy or these more populist-style IP-driven HBO shows that they've been doing over the past year, couple years now, to try to broaden out the HBO Max brand?

32:29Matt Belloni:That's an interesting question.

32:31Peter Kafka:We'll be right back, but first a word from a sponsor.

32:44Peter Kafka:and we're back as you know one thing i am obsessed with and also obsessed with the fact that fewer people are obsessed with this is where the money is coming from and are we going to see 24 billion dollars in gulf money and again not from companies in the gulf but gulf countries saudi arabia uae Cotter were supposed to kick in$24 billion when this deal was being discussed late last year. Now, Paramount won't talk about that, at least on the record at the moment.

33:15Matt Belloni:Well, they're not. Jerry Cardinal basically says we're going to syndicate this money, meaning we're going to bring in investors, but they won't say who. And guess why? They're still trying to get this deal approved. And last thing they want is an entire street full of Democratic senators with pitchforks going after their Saudi money, even though they've already said that they're likely going to have Saudi and Qatar and Abu Dhabi money. Right.

33:40Peter Kafka:That's that's why. So my two theories were one, they just don't want to talk about it and they'll wait as long as they can. But again, you interview Jerry Cardinal and he basically said it's great to have Gulf money. If we were to have Gulf money, the positive things that are happening in the Middle East right now. It's from these sovereigns, which is a wild quote to say. And the other theory is maybe these deals actually aren't done. And maybe the fact that there is a war in the Middle East right now may make Saudis or somebody else more reticent to put money in. I'm kind of assuming that the Saudis wanted to put$10 billion into this last fall that they still want to put$10 billion.

34:17Peter Kafka:It's not very much money for them.

34:18Matt Belloni:There's been some reporting that might change. And there's also been some reporting that Tencent in China might be back in as well. I think what's probably going on with Jerry is they want to keep their options open. And even though they may have these handshake commitments from these groups, they want to potentially bring in others. I mean, some of the analysts, one of the analysts, Peter Zupino, suggested they bring in more equity investors to bring down that debt. And maybe there are others out there they can recruit now that they have more time to come into this deal.

34:51Peter Kafka:So assuming this deal goes through, it doesn't really seem to be any practical way to stop it, as far as I can tell. Maybe you think differently.

34:58Matt Belloni:The states are talking a big game, but we'll see what they do.

35:00Peter Kafka:Yeah. I mean, it seems unlikely, but you never know. You certainly don't want to prognosticate too much. And so Elizabeth Warren, people like that, people like me, will say, hey, it's pretty wild to have Saudi Arabia putting$10 billion into this company that controls CNN, et cetera. Will anyone else care? Will Hollywood care that there is golf money?

35:23Matt Belloni:You know what? I don't think so. I think that when push comes to shove, people want their projects made. And they worked with Rupert Murdoch for many years at Fox. And he was very smart. He kept it separate. Fox News was in New York. Separate leadership team. The studio was the studio. and they worked with the kind of creators that very much did not like Fox News. And I think that that will be the prevailing wisdom. Unless it becomes something that people, that stars get asked about on the red carpet or becomes embarrassing for them. Maybe it could be a deciding factor if a hot project is going to one of two buyers and one is the Ellisons, the other is someone who's not involved in this stuff.

36:14Matt Belloni:Maybe it could decide. but I don't think, first of all, there's only a certain number of buyers in Hollywood. So you've got to, you know, work with everyone if you can. And it just, people want to see their projects

36:26Peter Kafka:made. I was talking to someone who's probably going to get Saudi money and they were sort of practicing their like explanation for why they need it. And it comes down to, I want the money, but they've got a whole rap about, did they make a mistake? It was like what we saw last summer with the comedy festival. Did they make a, you know, they're, they're modernizing. They're not the country you think? And did they make a mistake when the head of Saudi Arabia had Jamal Khashoggi dismembered? Yes. Was that a big mistake? Sure. But, you know, we got to move on. And I think you'll hear versions of that.

36:55Peter Kafka:Yeah, I've heard that argument.

36:55Matt Belloni:And listen, I get it. I get it. Again, there's only a few entities that are willing to support these kinds of projects, and most of them have something that's wrong with them, whether it's a human rights thing. I mean, Hollywood was enamored with China for many years because the market was opening up and the movies would do well there. And they have their human rights issues as well. Disney does business with them, has a theme park there. The world is a complicated place. I understand that. This one irks a lot of journalists because of the nature of the mistakes, as you put it. But Jerry Cardinal doesn't have any problem with it.

37:35Matt Belloni:The money men don't have any problem with it.

37:37Peter Kafka:Mm hmm. Yeah. And their point is and his point specifically is not only do we not have a problem with the government doesn't have a problem with it. The Trump administration is is actively encouraging investment in Saudi Arabia brought all those CEOs there had the prints at the White House literally rolled out the red carpet form. So that's complaining about it is a pre 2024 thing. It sounds like his argument is. Last question for you. We had Janice Min, your former colleague slash competitor, on a few weeks ago. And I was asking her for a sort of vibe check from Hollywood. And she said it's really grim.

38:12Peter Kafka:She said, you know, Detroit-like vibes going on here between consolidation, production leaving town, a threat of AI, threat of tech in general. Want to make an optimist case for Hollywood? Anything, any green shoots that you see as the Hollywood is cooked meme overdone?

38:31Matt Belloni:I think this is a period of transition and it's going to be an extremely painful period of transition, but there are opportunities and you see them everywhere. What's going on in the creator space right now is pretty exciting. And the opportunities for people to build their own brands and creators to have not just a springboard to getting traditional deals or, you know, you, you're Markiplier and you have a following on YouTube and you use your own money from YouTube to make a movie and your fans show up and it opens to$20 million. That's an incredible success story that would never have been possible even 10 years ago in Hollywood.

39:10Peter Kafka:I mean, YouTube has been around for 20 years. We've been waiting for someone to come out of YouTube or MySpace before that and make that leap to movies and it hasn't happened. It's really interesting that it took that long. And I don't

39:24Matt Belloni:know whether that means it's going to be incredibly rare or we'll see more of it. The business is becoming more sophisticated. I mean, everyone's like, Oh, everyone in Hollywood is downsizing. That's true. But there's this entire diaspora of creator and podcast and video and micro dramas and all of these other things that have popped up around Hollywood. And the Borg of Hollywood is sort of assimilating them. The agencies now all cater to this area of the business. The studios are becoming interested. The money is finding them. So it's just a different, the definition of Hollywood is expanding.

40:02Matt Belloni:And while we're seeing the decline of the traditional studios, I think overall, once this transition period is over, you are going to see a robust entertainment industry.

40:14Peter Kafka:you did an excellent job of answering the optimism questions spoken like someone who was a successful creator himself and does newsletters and audio podcasts and then we're still doing audio only here but you're doing you moved into video so maybe maybe the future looks bright for you as well man the world needs to hang in my face you'll get better seats next year if not this year matt from puck from the town thank you for joining thank you very much thanks again to matt felony I should have him on more than once a year. I'm going to try to fix that in 2026. Thanks to Charlotte Silver, who produces and edits the show.

40:48Peter Kafka:Thanks to our advertisers who bring it to you for free. Thanks to you guys for listening. See you next week.