Transcript: Free. Popular. Unprofitable

People love Tubi and Roku. But where's the money?

---

Elaine Low (00:04):

Welcome to The Ankler Podcast. I'm Elaine Low of the Series Business newsletter, here with Sean McNulty and Richard Rushfield on Thursday, October 31st. Congratulations to Dodgers fans everywhere on that World Series win. Even I tuned in for several minutes each game. It was that riveting. What about you, Richard? Did you watch any of the baseball?

Richard Rushfield (00:25):

My only sports that I watch are the Dodgers in the postseason. That's my one.

Elaine Low (00:30):

So you're actually highly educated on this topic.

Richard Rushfield (00:32):

I'm very interested and I think it was kind of the best-case scenario to, first of all, win on their home turf. To beat both New York teams is just a terrific thing, and I wish they had more teams that they could send at us for us to beat. And then to have the celebration at their stadium there and make them watch it. And then I like that we won on their mistakes, that they blew it so that it's extra painful to the Yankees fans. So I think it was just a best-case scenario. And Sean, I think you should apologize to us for having the temerity to let your teams pose as such a great team. You should have stood up at the beginning of the National League thing and said, let's just give them the trophy. We don't deserve to play in a stadium.

Sean McNulty (01:29):

I think the Fox Corporation might not have agreed with that, Richard. Skipping the games may not have worked out well for their deals, but did you send a letter, the thank you letter to the Charter corporation for the big money? They pay the Dodgers every year to afford all those players, Richard, that incredibly rich deal that they have there that no one else in the MLB has it.

Richard Rushfield (01:44):

Why shouldn't we have the most expensive team? We're the best city. We deserve it all.

Sean McNulty (01:51):

All right. You got it. Congratulations.

Elaine Low (01:52):

Sean, are you a big Yankees fan?

Sean McNulty (01:54):

No, baseball's probably the bottom of my top four sports, so I'm more of a bystander. I grew up a Met fan, so if anything, there's that. But no, I'm busy. I'm too busy watching the Giants lose to worry about baseball, so that's more my concern at this point.

Elaine Low (02:10):

Well, what about Halloween? Do you have any Halloween plans? Are you dressing up as anything this year? Like the ghost of cable past, the G4 network.

Sean McNulty (02:18):

Yeah. Is there a cord cutting...? Cord cutters go around cutting cords all the day. That'd be about the extent of it based on the Comcast earnings report today. So yeah, no, you're looking at whatever I'm wearing right now is what I got. So clearly, I look like a podcaster right now. I look like a newsletter writer. That's it. Yeah.

Elaine Low (02:34):

We should have encouraged costumes on the pod today. Now that we have a video component.

Sean McNulty (02:38):

You did not give a note to dress up, in my defense. There was no note, so that was it.

Elaine Low (02:40):

No, it would've been weird if just one of us had dressed up.

Sean McNulty (02:43):

That also might've been a problem. So yeah, I think we all chose wisely.

Elaine Low (02:47):

So I know you've had your head in earnings today, which is why I'm hosting, and you covered Comcast and Roku, and as much as our listeners would love to hear about operating income and free cash flow, I think the headline on Comcast here is the company's exploration of a possible sale of its cable TV networks. So wither the future of Bravo and my Real Housewives, Sean, what's happening here?