Netflix and WWE, a tag-team to take on all streamers?

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1:26Hello and welcome to another edition of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osman. Hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm really, really well. More importantly, I'm going to ask how are you and specifically I'm going to ask how are you because anyone who listened last week will want to know whether you tried Brooklyn Beckham's pop-up delivery service on Saturday. It was on Friday that I had the items and I chose the things that he'd made the most fuss about which is the Nanny Peggy's breakfast sandwich. As I suspected, it didn't travel well. And then what was the other one?

2:00It was a sort of long-cooked spaghetti bolognese. Again, I think that people who order pasta from delivery services are psychopaths. I was one of them. And I can tell you that that also didn't travel well. But, you know, I've partaken in a revolutionary food delivery experience. The sandwich was a disaster. the spaghetti bolognese was okay. I wonder if they'll release the numbers or say what a huge success it was. I'm afraid I haven't seen any commentary on that so far but I will be going to have a look. Well, I'm assuming as it was only two hours a night for two nights they probably sold out.

2:35I'm guessing. It would be, do you know what? I mean, it was designed to sell out, wasn't it, really? Pretty much. You know, if by the middle of Saturday they're going, no, no more calls. They go, what should we? Just Brooklyn in the corner with a whisk. Brooklyn's representative, of course, because you didn't do the cooking. Yeah, but do you know what? in a sense he did. He sprinkled his magic dust over the menu. Now what are we going to talk about this week? It wasn't very good. What are we going to talk about this week? We're going to talk about WWE the Wrestling Federation who signed a big deal with Netflix which is sort of revolutionary in lots of different ways and also you came in saying I've got a theory about it as well so I'm looking forward to hearing that.

3:14My business theories I'm sure everyone can't wait to dive into those. We've also got the Oscars nomination route over Barbie. Ryan Gosling was nominated and Greta Goeg and Margot Robbie were not nominated in the director and actors category respectively. And everybody's absolutely lost their minds on this one. And you're going to help them regain their minds. I will attempt to help people regain their minds on this one. And what else are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about the traitors. We'll talk about that at the end, just in case people still haven't seen it. So no spoilers, et cetera, et cetera.

3:44But yeah, I think we'll talk about that. But we're also going to do that for a tiny bit. But then we're also going to go back to our old friends, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, because it was his 60th birthday. Returning podcast characters, Jeff and Lauren. We're going to talk about who turned up and what went on. I'm assuming that Brooklyn Beckham did not do the catering. No, he didn't. Although the catering is interesting and we will come to it. I mean, that's a hook to keep people listening. The catering at Jeff Bezos' birthday. Yes, please. It's absurd. Anyway, the wrestling is going to Netflix.

4:15It's a 10-year,$5 billion deal to bring Monday Night Raw and other wrestling content to Netflix. This wrestling federation was basically started by Vince McMahon, who is a psychologist's dream and nightmare. In one, he has made himself a billionaire by this. He is a huge, larger-than-life character with all that implies, and we will get on to this. Now, last year, WWE merged with UFC and they created this big company called TKO. UFC is owned by Endeavor. We'll get over all these boring company names in a minute. But the new name is TKO. There are a lot of TLAs in this story. There are a lot of TLAs.

4:51That's three-letter abbreviations. Yes. There was Vince McMahon and The Rock, who has joined the board of TKO now. It means he's got his name back, The Rock, because he's been forced to trade as Dwayne Johnson ever since he left the warm embrace of the WWE. But he's now back within the fold and he's able to use his name, The Rock. He owns The Rock. He owns The Rock and he's back on the board. and they rang the bell on Tuesday at the New York Stock Exchange to open trading. So it's a kind of big, splashy merger. It is a huge deal for Netflix, but there's been a huge plot twist, which we're going to get onto in a minute.

5:22This is something we've been talking about, Richard, isn't it? It's not sport, but it's kind of sport adjacent. Sports entertainment. Sports entertainment. In fact, the WWE once went court to say that what they show is not sport. It is entertainment just in order to save an extra 10 % tax that you would have to pay if it were sport. I think that's fair enough. It's not like a Jaffa Cakes being a cake or biscuit situation. I would say WWE are allowed to say this isn't a sport. It's like ballroom dancing. It's an athletic pursuit. It's an entertainment. Athletics meets entertainment. Yeah, with crafted plot lines.

5:53But in a way, that's what has drawn Ted Sarandos, the Netflix CEO. He said that this is absolutely in our sweet spot, which is about the drama of sport. And I think he sees this as a kind of inverse of Formula One, whereas Formula One is obviously big around the world, but not very big in North America. And now Netflix have got Drive to Survive, which kind of takes you inside the seasons and the plot lines and all the things. And it's a sort of great entry point if you're trying to take the sport more global. WWE historically has been more sort of North America and they think it's sort of under-exported in terms of the global market.

6:25So this is huge for them. It's also, I mean, it's not a sport, it is entertainment. But what it is, is live, which is not something that Netflix has got into before. That's essentially what they said. We're not going to do live sport. Now, having this as a live event, and WWE has live events and could do a couple of times a week, that opens up the ad tier, which is what Netflix is slightly obsessed with. I mean, Netflix, by the way, just had their best ever quarter for subscribers. They put on 13 million subscribers in one quarter. The sole reason being the password crackdown. They said 100 million people were watching on someone else's password.

7:01But what they want to do, what they want to do for ages, and I suspect it may take a good 18 months to two years, is to introduce advertising. So you get a cheaper Netflix bundle if you pay less money. and for Netflix it's so funny how the world is turning into oh let's make television that's on a certain time of the week and have adverts in the middle of it. It's becoming linear. You're seeing a convergence between streaming and linear this year and you will see a lot more of this. And WWE is the sort of first move in that in that you can sit and watch it. It will have to have adverts in it and it's an absolute perfect thing for them.

7:35So$500 million a year which is what it's costing them actually it's a sort of lost leader for them because it will bring people and suddenly make people understand that they can bear adverts and there will be a whole group of people who will buy Netflix just for this and their Netflix experience will be won with adverts. So that for them is a huge deal as well. But what is interesting, as I said, I think it was last Tuesday, they rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. There's Vince McMahon and it's all a great big thing. Within two days, a lawsuit dropped in which Vince McMahon was accused of trafficking, rape, horrific sexual abuse and degradation that is genuinely too graphic for a family podcast.

8:15So I won't get into it. He obviously denies all of this. But the Wall Street Journal published the details of the lawsuit. Now, over this period, we already knew that he had paid millions and millions and millions in hush money to lots of different women. He has now had to resign from the board of TKO, resign from WWE. He has completely stepped back. Now, here comes my theory okay vince mcman is a monster hiding in plain sight people already knew about this he's already resigned once in i think 2022 over these type of allegations possibly involving the same um complainants it's not totally clear but people knew about this he'd already made a statement on this but he kind of nominated himself back to the board and so when they originally did the netflix deal last week i thought huh i mean i guess net you know wrestling is a law unto itself because you wouldn't imagine someone like Ted Sarandos kind of getting into bed with someone who has this much baggage because please don't tell me they don't know about this.

9:10You don't spend£5 billion and not do your due diligence. Everyone knows the kind of type of guy Vince McMahon is. Having said that, he is now out. And I think that, this is my theory again, but I think that he has been outmitted. He is a liability. It's almost like what happened at Disney with Ike Perlmutter, the guy who sort of started Marvel in its current form. These are very, very difficult sort of executives and they want to get them out so that they can have no more problems with their huge new property. Now, I think that the timing of this is so coincidental that I think he's been outmaneuvered by someone like, I don't know, maybe Ari Emanuel, who Endeavor, which owns UFC.

9:46So he owns sort of part of this merged company. And now they don't have to deal with Vince McMahon anymore. So he had sort of two days of being truly on top of the world. He's already made, he's been made a billionaire by this, but he had two days of being on top of the world and now he's completely out and it's really quite difficult to imagine to some extent wrestling without him he has created the form that in which we see it now that was a pre-done deal you think you do it but uh it has to be that i have no evidence because if vince had been in court beforehand he might not have signed the deal but he signed the deal and then was straight into court he signed the deal and like for it all to happen in one week seems to me quite extraordinary but anyway a potential enormous thorn in their side, liability, embarrassment is gone.

10:28Now, Ari Emanuel was one of the people who said at the time of the Harvey Weinstein revelations came out that, oh, Miramax, the board there should have acted a lot sooner. They must have known. Everybody knew. They should have done something about it. And he was very, very vocal about that. Now, I think it would have been pretty hard for him to get into bed. And people saying, well, I mean, you can't tell us that people don't know certain things, certain accusations have been leveled against Vince McMahon, because he already had to leave the company in a sort of slightly fake way once. So it seems to me that they have manoeuvred him that.

10:54Ari Emanuel certainly could manoeuvre anybody out. He's the guy that Jeremy Piven is based on in Entourage. Is that right? I heard a story recently from someone who works in that world saying that they hired a very senior guy at William Morris Endeavour, but he was also called Ari. And the message came down that Ari, can he start calling himself Aerie so there's not two Arries in the company? And so Ari said, okay. And so now he's called even by his family. I'm sworn to is true. I'm told it's true. But yeah, he's a real operator. This is about as big a deal as you can get in Hollywood. And it's done between a company that used to send CDs through the post and a company that we think of as just men in latex throwing each other around a ring.

11:41And it's an extraordinarily huge deal. It means a great deal for what's going to happen at Netflix in the future. It shows their direction of travel. and I think it's just I mean I love the wrestling I love it too I mean and I don't know is it worth five billion I don't know I don't know people say oh you can't believe it it's like yeah no I know you can't I mean I watch the Olympics and I sometimes think I don't think I believe any of this athletics and plenty of others will think that listen I watch the Tour de France every year and I'm very happy to I watch the Tour de France in the 90s even though you know so it's listen it has an equivalence doesn't it but Netflix by and large seem to be making there was a thing about 18 months ago saying we've had peak Netflix they're all over and just time after time they make smart decisions and do the right thing and all these other streamers are having trouble and Netflix are just going from strength to strength.

12:25Revenues are crazy. Profit is crazy. Subscriber number is crazy. As discussed here before, they have won the Screaming Wars, even if rather sweetly some of their competitors are pretending they haven't. So wrestling, sports or entertainment, Jaffa Cake, Cake or Biscuit, I know which one my Twitter will be full of after this podcast. It's a biscuit, by the way. I concur with you on this. 100 % agreed. I know it's called a cake, but Bonnie Tyler's called Bonnie Tyler, and you wouldn't get her to regret your bathroom. Would you? We should end everything on Bonnie Tyler. Always, just five minutes to Tyler.

12:57We're five minutes out from Tyler. Right. I don't know how we'll get to her in this one, but can we please talk about the Barbie Oscars, Ra? Yes, we can. I have had a total eclipse of the heart on this one, I have to tell you. There we go. She's dealt with. That's taken a lot of the pressure off. Okay, Ryan Gosling issued, the nominations come out. he is nominated Greta Gerwig is not nominated in the Best Director category and Margot Robbie is not nominated in the Best Actress category Ryan Gosling issues a statement The look of absolute sort of you look so tired Yeah I mean people are just realising that the Academy is disappointing to them I should think half of the films that have won Best Picture are the wrong choice but you know that's showbiz that's what it's like but Ryan Gosling has issued a statement saying that, you know, there is no Ken without Barbie, all this stuff.

13:50Now, he has been joined by, they've tried to drag Michelle Yeoh into it. She won by a stat just last year, presumably on some kind of mutual discrimination ticket. I've seen John Stamos. The Australian state of Victoria's police department have got involved in this. They say Margot's been robbied. And here she comes because Hillary Clinton has also tweeted on it. She said, while it can sting to win the box office, but not take home the gold. Oh, my God, here we go. Your millions of fans love you. You're both so much more than Ken Off. OK, thank you, former Secretary of State. OK, let me say two things.

14:25One, this is not about whether men... Lock her up. Lock her up. Yeah. Whether men are better than women. It is acting categories at the Academy Awards. Also, it has nothing to do with the 2016 US presidential election. And I'm confident in saying that, OK? Now, I guess the thing I do find really fascinating about this is, okay, as I say, the Academy of Disappointed People forever and ever, and, you know, how many years were Steven Spielberg's films overlooked Martin Scorsese's? You know, they never issued a statement, so the issuing of the statement is new. And I honestly, his agent, Ryan Golding's agent, would have said maybe this will look bad for you, something, you know, and this would all have been agreed, signed off.

15:07This is a high-level thing. It comes off as a little thing you've said on Instagram or Twitter or whatever, but it's not it's a high level thing so something has changed and I think it is that in this pious world allyship is regarded as more valuable to his brand financially valuable than not pissing off the Oscars which you know he's been nominated before and he could be nominated again in the old days you would have never have said anything because you're not going to annoy them you're not going to sort of you know look gracious or anything but this is the value placed now on allyship i mean i think if i'm all for ryan gosling making a statement i mean anytime there's a show you know it's like ant has been nominated and deck hasn't you know that would be an issue if any statement should have come from ryan gosling it should have been how on earth have i been nominated for best supporting actor he's great in that film but he's just ryan gosling i mean there's people doing extraordinary work out there in films around the world which would never get a look in because the Oscars is such a money game and you know everything has to be sort of promoted the fact that he's on the list of five best supporting actors is a joke is extraordinary so Barbie up for best film great which means Margot Robbie is up there for producer she's yeah she's taken home 50 million dollars because she had a massive back end on that movie as well by the way so again this feels very victimless deeply victimless and you know not being nominated for best actress I mean the five people I was looking through the list So Hula was better than her twice this year.

16:36She was better than her in the zone of interest and she was better than her in Anatomy of a Fall, okay? But also all five of the nominations are women. Yeah. I looked through the list. Yeah. So it's not like, you know, who's she knocking out? Yes. You know, it seemed... Women are getting nominated here, yeah. Director of Anatomy of a Fall is a woman and she was nominated in the Best Director category. So I really think that this is an absolutely mad row. But what people will be wanting, because the conversation online about everything that happened... But bear in mind, Barbie has been, like, I can't remember a movie that's been as good as that and getting itself talked about.

17:09Right from the minute they started promoting it, it is unbelievable. And there have been something like 120 % more posts. This was like the day after. 326 % more video views. Talking about this, all the search terms of things like, you know, Margot, Greta. I mean, if you're a financier at a studio, you'll be thinking, please, can someone snub my movie next year? I am desperate for someone to snub my movie. Because then they're putting this thing back into theatres. it's absolutely mad. As we've said before, this is a movie that is made in the service of a toy corporation, Mattel. I liked it very much.

17:42I thought that was a mess but it was very jolly and we enjoyed it. Having said that, J.Lo, they've just announced this week that J.Lo is now going to executive produce another movie for Mattel, which is Bob the Builder. J.Lo's doing Bob the Builder. J.Lo's doing Bob the Builder. So I want you to know that in two or three years, we're all going to be sitting here crying that the person who played Dizzy the cement mixer has been snubbed at the Academy Awards in probably in the best supporting category and I hope we'll be having... I cannot believe Sandra Oh was overlooked for being Dizzy. I can't...

18:13Oh you think it could be a woman? Yeah I think so don't you? I mean yeah I'm sure I'm sure they'll really reimagine the the toy property which they are making in the service of the toy corporation. Do you know what I didn't realise Dizzy was a gentleman. Well yeah they're all guys. My memory... No. Yeah. The whole gang on the board. Every single one of those pieces of hardware isn't it Wendy is a man Scoop, Muck and Dizzy Scoop, Muck and Dizzy oh yeah Lofty and Wendy joined the crew I think they're later editions because they felt like we've got to have one bird in this construction Wendy played by Margot Robbie yeah of course we'll wait to see well no they're going to have to re-gender that a little bit aren't they oh yes I mean you know best piece of hardware at the Oscars where are we going with this so J-Lo and Bob the Builder that's a marriage made in heaven isn't it well she's I think Bob is going down to Puerto Rico he's going to become involved in construction there I'm sure it'll become a deeply political movie because this is the only prison via which we are able to discuss issues in our culture now is via the prison of Mattel toys Can we fix it?

19:10Si senor I'm genuinely, listen I know you're using it to illustrate a point but I'm very much looking forward to that. Shall I tell you who I'd like to talk to about J-Lo buying Bob the Builder and about to do a big Hollywood movie? Neil Morrissey the voice of Bob the Builder Do you think he'd be dispose warmly towards this? Well, I think Neil Morrissey would quite rightly say I'm pretty good at playing Bob the Builder. And I'm a very, very respected actor. I've done Line of Duty. I've done a lot of good stuff. It's not crazy that I could be Bob the Builder. It's not crazy that I could get that instead of Jesse Eisenberg.

19:49I think we'll see. I think they've actually already cast Bob and it is a young Latino actor. So I'm afraid I didn't know but we'll wait and see. As I say, this will become the big culture war in 2025 or 26. If Neil Morrissey doesn't get that job and then does not get nominated for an actor, I would absolutely lose my mind. By the way, America Ferreira is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Barbie. He's totally taken her thunder, hasn't he? Brian Cosme. She's like, hey, wait a minute. Sorry. But again, how is that? I don't know the Oscars. Sometimes you watch things on, you watch films and there's people who are so amazing at acting and you would just never hear their names at the Oscars.

20:26it's always just the same old gang isn't it yeah with like one new person each year they go oh you can come in yes do come and join us yeah so we're we're okay with the oscars yeah i'm i'm calm with what with the nominations excellent so um we're going to talk about traitors and lauren sanchez and jeff bezos's birthday party straight after this this episode is brought to you by state farm Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs.

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22:15Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back into the, let's say, unusual world of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, friends of the podcast. Very much friends of the podcast. It has been Jeff's 60th birthday party and Lauren has his intended, the affianced, as you know, has thrown a birthday party for him in their Beverly Hills place. Nice place. Yeah, I can imagine. I can tell you what the party was like. It was vaguely space themed because he likes space. It took him 60 years to get a character note, but he's got one now, and so everything has to be basically space themed. Like a five-year-old's birthday party.

22:50Yeah, like a five-year-old. Next year, dinosaurs. Yeah. Now, guests were welcomed by a built-out office that was an almost exact replica of Jeff's first Amazon office that was in a garage. Oh, that's a nice idea. Yeah, lovely idea. And they were served McDonald's, because he also once worked in McDonald's when it was his first job, and caviar. Whoa. McDonald's and caviar? Where are you putting the caviar? Filio caviar? I don't know. How would you do it? I'm not sure exactly about the mash-ups between the McDonald's menu, and I don't want to draw a lawsuit from the corporation. McCaviar. McCaviar.

23:27McCaviar. Lauren was in something red, 800 hours of beading and a space rocket handbag, no surprises. But it's the passenger manifest of this party that I'm quite interested in, because, OK, it has the usual billionaires, but it had. Oprah Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner a load of Kardashians lots of Jenners and slightly disappointing I have to say Jay-Z and Beyonce really yeah I mean that's covering all bases isn't it it is I mean these are celebrities that Jeff would like to know what I always find very depressing when you see things like this you used to see it with sort of Philip Green's parties as well he'd have these enormous kind of parties for his 50th 60th whatever and you'd get these celebrities who were not his closest friends.

24:14I can understand why he would want them. I certainly see why Jeff and Lauren would want them there. But don't we want something more from our great celebrities than that they want to sort of turn up to the boss of the Everything Corporation's birthday party? I mean, I suppose it is. And this is always just very depressing. I mean, it should be beneath Jay-Z and Beyonce. I'm sorry to say. I think that they just feel like they love, people like to be near power and they like to be near money. And I mean, these are not the interesting, but Jeff Bezos is not an interesting guy. He's not a sort of fun.

24:41And I find it very depressing when money dictates absolutely everything, including a sort of guest list of that, and people want to be near it. Had we been invited with our respective partners, I suspect all four of us would have gone. I'd go to just look at it. But that said, a lot of it is I wonder what Jeff Bezos' house is like. But you see it in London a lot. Celebrity and money, they have an equivalent. So very, very rich people can get access to celebrities. Yeah. And they like to get access to celebrities. It gives them a sort of glamour that they don't have. and celebrities, a certain group of celebrities, like having access to money.

25:14I see Robbie Williams is there. I mean, he is, do you know, a friend of mine was once at a wedding and anyway, he did a film of me of the couple having their first dance and they were dancing to angels by Robbie Williams and it's such a great video because then he just pans to the side and you go to the stage and it's like, oh, it's actual Robbie singing it on the stage. He can be hard as a wedding singer. That's, yeah, listen, talking of J-Lo, so when she got married in Italy about 20 odd years ago it's just after 9-11 so the entire cast list sort of said I'm not coming so almost all the guests from America pulled out they didn't want to fly and so an emergency flare went up in London around like the Groucho Club and stuff can anybody get out to Italy for J-Lo's wedding and Alexander Armstrong went to J-Lo's wedding because there was an open an invitation to anyone who was even vaguely known by anybody in London to go out and fall the seats at JLo's wedding.