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FALL BOARD & MEMBERS MEETING
A View of the U.S. TV Business
Andrew Wallenstein
September 20, 2019 Los Angeles Andrew Wallenstein, Co-Editor in Chief, Variety WALLENSTEIN: Good to be here. I know this is the big Emmy weekend, and you’ve got probably Emmy coming out of your ears at this point. This conversation will have nothing in the Emmys about it. We’re going to really talk about the business in the most macro way. I know some of you are from overseas, and so I think this will also have a bit of an American point of view. I’m also looking forward a while, but also then opening it up to the floor. I’m not here just to preach. I actually love to learn a bit, especially about the international television business, which is obviously huge. So, looking forward to also getting some back and forth—I think this is just a really interesting time to be having this kind of conversation. You guys see it every day, the forces of change sweeping across this business are tremendous. So, what I’m going to show here, this is a bunch of slides. It’s not meant to be the entire businesses encapsulated in these ten slides. No, but what I would say is I think these are the most macro trends impacting our business right now. I think it’ll probably be some food for thought for yourselves. I’ll probably talk for 84
about half an hour, and then open it up to the floor and we’ll do some give and take. These slides are also a product of a new venture that we’re working on at Variety called Variety Intelligence Platform. It’s a new section, coming sometime next year. It’s all focused on the big picture, the big issues, the macroeconomic trends. So, keep an eye out for that. Without further ado, let’s talk about some business, right? I’ve got to start here. This is really the Wall Street perspective. I see two things when I see this, which is the more collective market cap of four companies compared to 24 media and entertainment companies. So, this is actually a bit dated. This is from August. Apple, I think, literally hit a trillion a few weeks ago when the iPhone announcement came out. I’ve even cheated a little and put Netflix over here. I think Netflix is really more of a media company than a tech company anyway. When I look at this, the two things that pop out to me are, this tells you really about the larger war going on between, let’s call it Silicon Valley and Hollywood, for the hearts and minds of a global audience. I think it’s about engagement and time spent on content and other services, and it’s also about money, whether in the form of advertising or subscription services. I think what this also tells you is perhaps the double standard at work in the economy or at Wall Street right now. If you look at the finances of these companies, it says there’s a very clear double INTERNATIONAL EMMY® 2019-2020