00:00Let's start with TikTok. As I said, this is years in the making at this point. Now that we have some sort of conclusion, would love to hear your thoughts.
00:09Well, it has been a long time. I served as CEO in 2020 and things have changed a lot since then. Back then, the administration was trying to ban the app, went into purgatory for five years and now it's come back out.
00:22So I have to say to the guys at TikTok, to my friend Sho Chu, who's the CEO now, well done. It's about time this was behind us. And I think we're all much better served as a result.
00:34And I'm always curious. I mean, I'm a power user of TikTok for better or for worse. And I'm always curious about how the user experience might change.
00:43I mean, taking a look at the details of this deal, it sounds like you're in touch, of course, with the current CEO.
00:48I mean, do you think that it'll be operated and experienced any differently now under this ownership group?
00:55Well, I don't expect the actual interface to change. It'll be fully interoperable, as I understand it, with the global TikTok outside of China, obviously.
01:02I don't expect there to be a big noticeable difference in any capacity other than I think the algorithm is going to be retrained at all, just U.S. data.
01:13And that might end up affecting some for you pages in some ways that it's really hard to predict.
01:17But I do think the table is set for this to be, for all the security issues to be resolved, for users in the United States to be very happy to use the app without any apprehension whatsoever.
01:30And I just think it'll look, it'll be roughly the same. And I think the team in the U.S. is going to see to that.
01:36I am curious, though, too. I mean, we talk about TikTok and really you can put all social media in this category.
01:40And just the changes in the way that we, I guess, access content and consume that content.
01:46And given your past roles, particularly at Disney and particularly in that sort of direct consumer business and the rollout of what is now ubiquitous when it comes to streaming,
01:55is that in competition with each other, meaning what we're seeing on that side relative to what we're seeing on the social media side?
02:00Or are they or can they be complementary?
02:03Well, I think there's a little bit of both. Honestly, that's the right answer.
02:07I think that in terms of time and attention, especially younger people, the younger cohorts in this country and around the world,
02:13tend to spend more time with vertical videos, social media entertainment like TikTok, like YouTube, like Instagram.
02:20There's a lot of time spent there. And to the extent that there's always contention and competition for people's time and attention,
02:26I think that does have a bit of an effect on traditional media, even streaming.
02:30However, the use cases are also somewhat different.
02:34Streaming services tell long form stories, traditional television length and movie length,
02:38storytelling under brands and franchises and characters and IP that people know and love from the traditional media world.
02:44That doesn't change. It doesn't completely overlap with what's happening on a TikTok per se.
02:49But I do think that over time, you're going to see just a competition for people's for people's time.
02:54There's only so many hours in the day. Yeah. So that is where these things kind of overlap.
02:58Yeah. And it's just a kind of a reminder. We had Netflix earnings earlier this week.
03:01And every quarter, they always sort of put that those clauses in that release talking about who they're really competing against.
03:07But it raises the question, too, just about the future of these larger media companies.
03:10And and we talk about, you know, obviously your past at Disney.
03:14And of course, Disney this week said they are going to finally make an announcement as to who is going to succeed Bob Iger.
03:19And my question to you isn't so much who you think it will be, but what type of person do you think it should be to lead a company like Disney,
03:27which has such a deep and revered legacy media business, but at the same time has to adapt for what is now a new, more social media forward media landscape?
03:37Look, it has to have a forward thinking, a forward looking CEO.
03:41I think both the candidates that are being talked about, Dana Wald and Josh DeMauro, both are excellent.
03:46They can fulfill the needs at Disney.
03:49You know, it's also a very highly complex operating company, especially on the theme park side where Josh DeMauro is expert.
03:55But it's also it intersects with Hollywood and and that whole ecosystem where Dana is the expert, too.
04:01So, look, I think one of them will get will get the role.
04:03Well, Disney will be well served by either one, but they both need to be really forward thinking, lean into social media, lean into short form storytelling.
04:11Like that hits a company like Disney across the board.
04:14People want to interact with entertainment programming in slightly different ways, but especially in the sports on the ESPN side.
04:20I don't think a lot of young people sit through most full of games anymore.
04:24So they they sort of ingest and enjoy sports in a different way.
04:27So it has to be changed.
04:29There has to be a leaning forward into that and embracing that new environment by whoever becomes CEO.
04:35Well, Kevin, I'll ask what Romain didn't.
04:37Who do you think will be the next CEO?
04:40Well, the good news is we're all going to find out within weeks.
04:42I think that's the time frame we're looking at here.
04:44So the years long sort of contemplation about this will come to an end.
04:49They're going to make the right choice.
04:50I think from what I've observed from the process, I think James Gorman is firmly in charge.
04:55He did a great job with Morgan Stanley.
04:59Whoever it is, it'll be done right.
05:00I think they'll try to keep both executives because, as I said, they have complementary skill sets and experiences.
05:06Be great to keep both of them.
05:07I personally don't see a co-CEO role happening there, but I do think that keeping both in the company is important.
05:13Well, speaking of sort of a large media company, I do want to get your thoughts on whatever the heck is going on for the bidding for Warner Brothers Discovery.
05:20Obviously, Netflix thinks it has the upper hand with regards to the financial terms of its offer.
05:25I think Paramount Skydance thinks it might have the upper hand with regards to some of the other issues here.
05:31When you look at what David Ellison is trying to do here and the prolonged fight that he seems to be willing to make to go after that, does that seem wise to you?
05:40I mean, who do you think would be a better steward, if you will, of Warner Brothers Discovery and its legacy?
05:46Well, that's a good question.
05:48They're stewards in different ways.
05:49If you want to think about Netflix, from their perspective, they'd love to have access, permanent access, advantage to access to all the content and all the franchises that Warner Brothers Discovery brings to the table for their streaming customers.
06:01And having HBO Max added to the Netflix subscriber base doesn't hurt either.
06:07So I think there's a good strategic rationale there.
06:10On the Paramount side, scale is all important.
06:13That's why these consolidations are happening.
06:16Scale in the face of declining revenues, which is happening because pay TV is going away in favor of streaming, which is not as profitable as an ecosystem, as an industry, when that transition from pay TV to streaming, it's causing consolidation to happen.
06:30So smaller, subscale players like Paramount need to find scale.
06:34So it's urgent for them.
06:36Also, look, I'm simply surprised that Paramount hasn't upped the ante already.
06:40At this point, you'd think that Paramount would have upped their bid to something higher than 30.
06:43My gut tells me 34, 35 is what might take it.
06:47They're reluctant to do it.
06:48There is a price at which it's too expensive, the asset, too.
06:51So I'm looking for the final stakes to be known in the next, at least in a month, not more than a month, I would expect.
07:02I do think Paramount is going to have to up their bid to be competitive here.
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