Transcript: Succession and the Cult of Iger

The storied CEO is venerated like a Silicon Valley founder. And that's a problem

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Sean McNulty (00:08):

Welcome to The Ankler Podcast. This is Sean McNulty of The Wakeup newsletter here at The Ankler, here in New York City on Thursday, September 19th. I'm joined by two people whose hors d'oeuvre consumption over the past 10 days should win its own award, Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield in Los Angeles. Richard, has your buffet appetite returned? We got many letters of both concern and encouragement from podcast listeners last week. So, what's the status?

Richard Rushfield (00:32):

I came back from Toronto thinking I might never go to a reception again.

Sean McNulty (00:38):

Your words were dire last week and everybody was a little thrown off.

Richard Rushfield (00:42):

It seemed like the end of my buffet life.

Sean McNulty (00:45):

It was like a bad breakup or something.

Richard Rushfield (00:47):

Yeah, but I'm getting back on my feet. I dipped my toe back into the pool last night. Universal had a gathering on its lot to celebrate their new buildings, a new sort of central executive area, which was very nice. They had chicken mole taquitos and these little wagyu steak…

Sean McNulty (01:08):

Richard's back. All right. Yeah.

Elaine Low (01:10):

You were out of the hors d'oeuvre game for like a week, Richard.

Sean McNulty (01:13):

Yeah, Richard, this did not last. Clearly, you're back.

Richard Rushfield (01:15):

It was a tough week.

Sean McNulty (01:16):

It was touch and go, but yeah, I had no doubt in your ability and your return, Richard, so well done. For the record here, Elaine reminded me to point out that while we are not sponsored by Johnny Walker Black like the Emmys, we are open to a deal, Elaine, right? Open to a check.

Elaine Low (01:32):

I think we're happily able to do an awkward bit of product placement in show.

Sean McNulty (01:37):

We could do it better than anybody, quite frankly. You want awkward product placement? I think the three of us would be your first call. I'm a little pissed off we didn't get the call there about that.

Elaine Low (01:47):

That bit didn't work for you, Sean? That bit didn't work for you, the awkwardly placed...

Sean McNulty (01:52):

You should have really come to us. I'm like, clearly you're going to too many professionals. That's your problem. You need to go more to the...

Elaine Low (01:58):

The singular ad in the entire Emmys that ran on for just like a minute too long.

Sean McNulty (02:04):

Yeah, that's being generous. But yes. Hey, no such thing as bad publicity, right? But Emmys seemed like they were, of course, two weeks away at this point. No need to really relive those per se, but Richard, it’s kind of an interesting moment here to look at the bigger picture in streaming, I think, and where things have kind of settled out for the various approaches, the strategies that have kind of shaken out here. I mean, for a while I think everybody was going for prestige and to be the buzzy service and have that kind of a show. And now I don't know. Everybody cares to some degree, but I think some differentiations have started to emerge here. What's on your streaming mind here post-Emmys?

Richard Rushfield (02:40):

It kind of felt like this was a valedictory Emmys for the period of prestige. I mean, the way they divided up the Emmys perfectly between...

Sean McNulty (02:54):

It was pretty neat. You broke it down in your column this week, and I was like, it hadn't dawned on me, but I'm like, yeah, funny how that kind of...

Richard Rushfield (02:59):

Yeah, with the Big Five in the prestige area and no one else. No Tubi nosing in there or anything like that. Or AMC getting in.

Sean McNulty (03:09):

Peacock even or something. Yeah.

Richard Rushfield (03:11):

Yeah. No, no. They just kept it to the major players. But yeah, I mean, it feels like we're on the verge of some kind of consolidation and we will see what we've been saying for five years now. But now it really feels like that. I mean, these situations at Paramount and Warners in particular just sort of can't go on like that. So we kind of know the beginning of what the change will look like in Paramount, but...

Sean McNulty (03:41):

Right. I mean, clearly there's a big move ahead there, but what's David Ellison going to do, right?

Richard Rushfield (03:45):

And the big question mark moves over to Warners.

Sean McNulty (03:49):

Apple's still a big question mark, I guess, Richard, but that's not in the same league as WBD by any means.