Transcript: Trump 2.0: Why Ari Wins, Studios Lose

Mergers galore? Is the news business cooked? Does anyone want what Hollywood's selling?

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Elaine Low (00:04):

Welcome to The Ankler Podcast. I'm Elaine Low, author of the Series Business newsletter, here with The Wakeup's Sean McNulty, Ankler executive editor David Lidsky and the Ankler himself, Richard Rushfield. It's Thursday, November 7th, just one day after Donald Trump was officially elected the 47th president of the United States, defeating current Vice President Kamala Harris. The mood out here in LA has been, I would say, somber to say the least, as the town digests the election results. Richard, what have your conversations been like with the industry folk over the last day or so?

Richard Rushfield (00:35):

I would say compared to 2016, where the result was rage and hysteria, that it's much more resigned and subdued. People I spoke to were kind of grim, but sort of accepting and moving on or moving forward, however that is. [On] social media, you still have some level of people sort of promising to set themselves on fire and everything, but just an air of resignation, I think, is what I felt.

Elaine Low (01:07):

Would you say there was a lot more surprise this time around? I feel like there were some pockets that were still genuinely surprised.

Richard Rushfield (01:16):

The people who-

Sean McNulty (01:18):

Who weren't here in 2016 probably.

David Lidsky (01:20):

Yeah. Well, you also had that sort of 72-hour turn starting Saturday night with the Iowa poll that I think led to a surge of enthusiasm in many corners.

Elaine Low (01:34):

My read is that there was a lot of confidence, or at least a fair amount of confidence going in, was kind of just my read on things.

Richard Rushfield (01:41):

In 2016, nobody thought it could happen. It was just impossible.

Sean McNulty (01:46):

And he lost. He didn't win the election. He won the electoral college. So in our defense on that one.

Richard Rushfield (01:53):

But it was not in the menu of possibilities that he could win, and certainly not with this electoral college thing. I didn't talk to anyone in the last two weeks that says, she's got it in the bag. We can relax. There's no reason-

Elaine Low (02:07):

I don't think anyone was relaxed.

Richard Rushfield (02:08):

I'm not even going to watch election night. I know it's so done. I think everyone knew that this was a toss up at best and the most optimistic convinced themselves it was like 60-40. But no, I don't think there was anybody who forced to give the odds would've said it was 90-10.

Elaine Low (02:31):

So Sean, yesterday in The Wakeup, you broke down the winners and losers of Hollywood, and before we get into what a second Trump-