The State Of The Entertainment Business With Jeff Ross

(upbeat music) Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Wanna talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com/callconon. Okay, let's get started. - Hey, it's our Thursday episode. Normally, we talk to fans in this spot, but today we're gonna try something little different. I'm gonna talk to someone who I've known for 32 years, and he's definitely not a fan. (laughing) I'm talking about Jeff Ross, executive producer, extraordinaire. He and I started out together on the old late night show back in the day, and Jeff, you're the guy that understands the business of Hollywood. I don't, I'm kind of an outsider, an artist, a cruise of a Michelangelo, roaming the streets, painting his great masterpieces, head in the clouds, but you get the business. What's going on in Hollywood these days? I just wanna know, Jeff Ross, what's going on in Hollywood? How's the business? - Am I being sandbagged? - No, this is not a sandbag. This is me questioning you, what's going on in the business? The business, Jeff. I hear that studios are. - It's tough out there. What's going on? I don't know what's happening. - Well, I only hear what's happening because our world is pretty good. - Our world is good. - Our world is good. - Are we thriving in the business? - Yes. - Okay, okay. I have no idea. - Yes. - I have no idea what we're doing. - It's driving. - But what a strange world. When we started out together back in 1993, we met in April of 1993. I was 29 when I met you. Now I'm older than that. And. (laughing) - Not me. - You've somehow got 70 years older, and I have gotten even younger. But now we've got this podcast empire and I'm having a lot of fun. It's all great. - Yeah. - But if I had told you 32 years ago, we're not even gonna be working in television anymore. We're gonna be basically doing a radio show that goes over the computer. - It's crazy. - It's crazy. - It's crazy. - So that's your analysis, it's crazy. - Well, it is crazy. I mean, we have our HBO show. - Yeah, that's true. I didn't mean to discount HBO, HBO's, and we have a lot of fun with that. - Yes. - Of a good time. But again, it's a very different, I'm gonna say this. I don't think anyone's ever said this before. It's a very different landscape now. - It is. - That's a good word. - Yeah. - You talk about specifically late night or talk show? - Late night, well, you know, I think everyone's talking about late night. - That's what I think it's taken over. - That's why that's Byron Allen is taking over from for co-bear show, is that right? - Well, yeah, it's interesting. He bought the time. - Wait, what's that? What do you talking about? - In other words, he went to the show. - Byron Allen went to. - He went to CBS. He's buying the time, the time period. And he's producing his own show and selling the ads himself. I believe that's how it's working. - I didn't know that. - That's fascinating. - We could do that. We could just buy time on TV. - No, that's essentially. - Can I do it? - Essentially, CBS is like in profit because they just sold the time to him. - Well, wait a minute. So you're saying I could go back on NBC. They'd probably let me go on it like three in the morning if I bought the time. - If that. - What's that? - If that. - Okay, four in the morning. - All right, maybe. - I could give the farm report. There's nobody there left. So you could. - No, but when I get back on NBC, if, you know, listen, this is where you come in because you understand the business. You understand what kind of money our business has. Can my production company, can we buy the four o'clock time slot on NBC 4AM and create our own show and sell all that sweet advertising money that would be coming in at 4AM? - Yeah. - Is that a good business model? - Do you want me to get in the weeds on this? - Yes. - Okay. I don't think NBC controls 4AM. - Perfect. Then we can just squat there. - Squat? - You can be like, yeah. People that just, you know, in someone old hobo shows up in an apartment and just says, I'm here now and they can't get him out. - Why don't I squat? - We did do that. - What? - We did do that. - We did do that. - We did do that. - We kind of did do that for like 10 years at NBC. - All right, listen, that's terrible. We did find for them. I'm just fascinated by this new world. I don't understand it. But now you can buy a time slot. - Yeah. - You did? - It's like syndication. - It's essentially syndication. - I should go into syndication. - It's essentially what you do. - Okay, what about this? And I'm just spit balling ideas here. But this is a chance for people out there to hear our process. I think I'd be great in daytime. I think housewives would love me. I think I could buy a daytime slot. We could have a syndicated show called, and guess what? It's called Dunin! And it's got an exclamation point in like a happy face. - You don't remember. You don't remember that before we went to TBS, we took a meeting with these guys, a company that's called Deb Marmurkury. - Right. - And they wanted to do a daytime show. - Oh, remember it was a great sauce. - It was like the middle of a car accident. - It was in Rick Rosen's office, and we did take that meeting. We took a meeting and they pitched me as a daytime host. - Oh, that'd be awful. - That'd be so lovable and fun. - Oh, you said level one fun. I said it would be awful. - Why would it be awful? - Maybe not then. - Because your humor is for the wee hours of the night. - I don't know, what time people listen to the podcast? - The podcast is very well. - Your humor, your sense of humor is kind of silly and edgy and goofy. - I think Adam could look right now and see what most people listen to this podcast. - A lot of-- - Adam, why don't you jump in a mist because-- - You also have a good business perspective and you are the podcast whisperer. Does what I do translate to daytime? Should I have a daytime show? - I don't love it. - No. - Why don't you love it? - For the reasons that Zona said, I think like, I just can't imagine that demographic sitting around on their, you know, watching in their kitchen, watching what is it. - Can I say something? - Explain that demographic out. I'm say it. Let's say it. (all laughing) Go ahead. Here's what I will say. You, as you've aged, your audience has stayed very young. You have a very young, mobile digital first audience. I think that the podcast, it makes a ton of sense that you're a successful podcaster that you have a big beauty channel. - Can I say this? And I say this, I say this to Adam. - Him here. - I say this to Adam with all respect. Fuck you. (all laughing) You know what I just learned? - Fuck you. Oh, no, I'm on a roll here. Fuck you. You, how dare you tell me I've aged, first of all, have an aged at all. Second of all, my, this makes me want to shut down the podcast immediately and the HBO travel show immediately. And because I'm, I'm very reactive, I'm launching a daytime talk show. It's called Conan and it's two A's. C-O-N-A-A-N exclamation point. - Well, that saves it. - Yeah. - And it's mostly just despite me. - Yes. - Most of what I do is despite someone around me. I've done so much despite Jeff. I've done so much despite Sona. - Yeah. - And so much of my career now is about spiting you. - But what? - We own it, it's syndicated. And yes, it will do terribly, but we get to own how terribly it does. What do you think? - I actually like the idea. It's interesting that, that, no, not the idea of you are nothing to do with my totally not. No, not the idea of you in daytime. I still don't like that idea. I like this Byron Allen idea though that, that linear is now just kind of like up for sale. Like it's real estate. I'm just going by real estate on linear television. I think that's interesting. - And there might be opportunities there. - I don't think so. - Ellen, when her daytime show did something very property, which she would come out and she would dance. People know that I'm very physical and stuff like that. Here's my thing. I come out and dance and I don't stop. I dance for the entire hour. I dance the entire hour. And people come out and pitch their projects in the background and you barely hear them. And I'm rocking out the whole time. And I could get into the kind of shape where I do that for a whole hour of just dance. - And tell me housewives don't want to see that. Is that a drug? - Housewives don't want to see that. - Whoa, whoa, whoa. - I don't want to use drug or drug. - Adam, what's the two of the two of the two of the two of the three of the housewives? - Adam, what's the two of the three of the housewives? Adam, what's the two of the three of the housewives? - Those VJs do. - They're not around anymore. - Don't tell me Kurt Loader isn't still on TV. - Oh yes, I love Kurt Loader. - He might be in the rest of Nirvana. I mean, come on. You can't fool me. What am I, Rip Van Winkle? I fell asleep for 30 years. I need to know what's going on in the business. What do you counsel me to do? You're my consulieri. You're my Tom Haley. I think you should keep doing what you're doing because it's going really well. - Okay, so keep going with the podcast. - Yes, oh yeah. And daytime show, should we let that go? It's Conan with two A's and I'll go up to three A's as I have to say. Do you want to really want to do a daily show again? - Never. - Okay, then forget it. - Okay. - Who's that idea? - Wait, what if you said he did, what are you going to say? - Who are you going to say something if you wanted to do a daily show? - You know I learned being here just in the last 10 minutes. This is like the suck up room. - This is what goes on in here. Everybody sucks up the phone. - I'm not at Wardo. - Wait, suck up to him, suck up. - Not at Wardo. - You'd be great at it. You'd be great at it. - I'm not going to do it. - You're not doing it, but you said be great at it. - No. - No, no, I don't. - Did you? - You can't say one thing. You got to give Ed Wardo his props. Ed Wardo despises me and has made it very clear from day one. Just because occasionally I spill water into the electrical outlets. - You called me the sonic stallion. - Yeah, you did. - You did. Yeah, you were with an iron fist. You've killed so many of your own people. I'm just saying that he doesn't know. I get a lot of pushback in this room. - Oh good. - But I don't know what the next move is. - We've got. - Well, there is, well, you don't need a next move first of all. You can do whatever you want. - That's frightening. - And I think that we've talked about various things. and things you might want to be interested in doing of all of which are possible and you can do. - You know what, no one's ever approached me about a clothing line, which I find shocking. - Oh no, that's not true, Gavin. - No, Gavin Polone. - Gavin Polone is my own thing. - Oh, Gavin Polone is my manager. If we don't even know what Gavin's story is. - We don't know where he is. - He told me, he was a manager years ago, and I've known him longer than I've known you. - That's right. - I've known Gavin forever. And he'll come up with these ideas, but they're not grounded in anything. He didn't come to me with a proposal. He just said, you gotta sell clothes. And I think for a while, oh, it's one good idea. - Hair gel. - No, hair pomade, a pomade. - Right, right. - And I think what you're shaking your head, no? - I think it's a great idea. I just don't know that it was his idea. - Oh. - Whose idea do you think it was? You can say. - I think Liza and I both came up with it on the same day. - Okay. - Well, first of all. - But then Gavin wouldn't let it go. So that might be true. - Okay. - Gavin was pushing coffee. He was putting coffee brand. - Oh, and you know what? He was pushing it. - And when he was pushing for coffee brand, was people think you're so hopped up on coffee? They would buy the kind of coffee you're on. That was his pitch. Like you should sell ridlin' pills because people think that you're an out of control child. - There was also not to keel up at some kind of, he wanted it, he wanted it. - I thought it was a whiskey. - A whiskey, right? - Yeah. - I wish whiskey. - And I wish whiskey. - And no self-respecting, I wish it would drink what I'm drinking. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - No clothing company has come to me. - Well, no. - Not a clothing. - Okay. Well, don't say everything. - Well, it's been pitched to you. - No, but I think people probably look at the way I dress and think I want to look like him. He's like Don Draper on that. - No question. - I want to. - Okay. - How you doing there? - I think that if someone has really long legs, they'll be like, what jeans does Conan wear? - Yeah, just for the sizing? - Just for the sizing, for your proportions. - Okay, what about that? I have very, my proportions are extremely long legs. - Yeah. - Clothing that's tailored for the man who's had some sort of genetic malfunction. And has really long legs, you know? - Like big and tall, but just tall. - Yeah, just tall in the leg. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Comer Brian's tall in the leg stores. - Okay. - And it's just for people who are really long in the leg. - Yeah. - You know, in the early days. You really, this room's getting really quiet. - Speaking of your legs, in the early days of the internet and of YouTube, for a long time, and we could probably, somebody could probably look it up, the biggest clip on YouTube was you and Spanx. - Oh. - Jage, Jage, Jage, Jage's. - Yeah. - I wish it was Spanx then. - No, it was Jage's, I wore Jage's, and that was a huge-- - It was a thing. It was like a five second clip, and it was Manga's. - You should do something that is way outside of what you would normally do. - Something charitable and kind. - No, I'm saying like a makeup line. You know how like, Rihanna came up with a makeup line that had four different-- - Those things are huge. - Different complexions. Like you, if you did, if you went up against Rihanna. - You know what? - Rihanna, Rihanna, Rihanna would shitter pants if she knew I was coming after her. If Rihanna knew that Conor of Brian was coming out for the pale man in your life, you know? And it's like it covers up an eye vein. And all the stuff that I'm pitching is like, look, we all have a prominent eye vein that shows up on camera when we're doing a podcast. It's also a really specific problem. Well, this, apply this, and it gets softens it. - Do you mean your freckles? Do you have like a lot of freckles? - If you have super thin lips and beady, creepy eyes. Jeff, I think we found it. - Yeah, I think so. I think your pitch is perfect. - Yeah, it's pitch perfect. - Let's be serious back to serious for a second. We don't know, I have a question for you that you can answer. All I know is that so many people I know aren't working. So many of the writers we know, it's very hard to get work now. Yet I go home and all I see are thousands of new streaming shows. There's never been more product available to people, but my sense is that a lot of people aren't working. What's happening? I think a lot of them are made overseas, a lot of them. I'm not saying it's the entire issue, but I think a lot of them are made overseas. - But what about, so that means that writers don't write them. US writers don't write, of course writers write them, but US writers don't write them. - Wow. - American writers. - Yeah, it's crazy, 'cause that is the puzzling part, is I go home and lies and I are just flipping through. I mean, every time you turn on one of these streamers, they've got seven more shows. Yeah, you need subtitles, but there's so much product, and then you wonder, well, see, that's good. - I don't think it's the whole problem. I think things got really expensive and out of control, and in this country, in this town of all places. - We had a moment on the Oscars that was really set a lot to me, which is, we had an idea for the Oscars, where I'm backstage, and I just had this image flash. So sometimes things just come to me as an image, and one image was, when I'm coming back, when they're bumping in from commercial to come back to me, I'll be backstage, and it'll be, I'm rolling on the floor with no golden retrievers. I'm rolling on the floor with nine golden retrievers, and the band's playing, and then you hear, ladies and gentlemen, once again, your host, Conan O'Brien, and I leap up and a team of a whole bunch of people with giant lemon brushes. - Roll me really quickly, and I step out on stage, and go, hi, everybody, you know, cinematography, and it was just this quick, silly visual that I loved, and it's really interesting. One of the producers said, okay, this is gonna be incredibly expensive, and I said, really, just getting a couple of golden retrievers, and she said, well, the rule is, each dog has to be acclimated with the other dog, so they all have to live together for like two weeks before they can come on, before they can be on camera together, and if they're living together, all their handlers have to live with them, too, and she was going through all the things and how the cost got up to, I think it was gonna cost as much as baseline sticker price for like a Porsche. - It was like $30,000. - I think it was more than that. I think it was more than 30, but it was so not a Porsche, but a really good high-end. - And then I think somebody said what about puppies, and they went more expensive. - Yeah, puppies are more expensive. And basically, it's all this stuff that gets built in over time with these different rules, and I realized in that moment, we used to do things in the '90s, we used to get away with murder because we would think of an idea at 430, a really weird idea, and we would throw it out on the air, and then a lot of time goes by, and I think rules change and things. I also think in the Oscars, especially when people hear Oscars, the price goes up. - Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. - Yeah. - And, but in that moment with the Golden Retrievers, I thought, oh, this is a concrete example of something that's happening, that's making me think, I see why people go to Budapest to shoot something. - Right, yeah. - Because I see why, because, and I've heard that a lot of, I mean, we used for years for over a decade, for 11 years, we were on Warner Bros, and it was, you know, humming that things are quieter in some of these lots, than they used to be. - When we left, they were building new stages, I believe, and everything was packed, and I hear now that it's like half empty. I don't know that. - Can I say one thing? - I don't know that it's true. - I will say that happens whenever Conan O'Brien leaves a place, makes sense. NBC, pretty much collapsed after I left. - You know, but that's called the artifact. - When I leave a party? - In a way, it did. - Good luck to that party. But yeah, it's fascinating to me. The, I mean, we're joking around, but at the same time, I do accidentally have real questions, which is I, I, you know, we've now been, I got started in 1985. That's ancient history now. - Very different. - And you know what's funny? I was surfing the internet the other day, and something came up, I don't know if it was on Instagram, or maybe it was Instagram, where they know kind of what you're interested in, and they showed me a footage of a video store, like a blockbuster, and it was from 1986 or something, when I was first out here with Greg Daniels, and someone had taken a video with like a video camera of all the displays, and now it looks like the footage that I used to look at when I was a kid from the 1920s. And I realized, you know what I mean? Where people are riding around with, bring straw hats in funny. - I remember. - I'm looking at a blockbuster now, looks like, oh, that's a speak-easy, during. - 40 years ago. - It's 40 years ago, and I know that young people now see that footage and think, everyone looks crazy. We all look like we're in a floccacy goal, with padded shoulders, and we're going, "It's my, I have to rent a video so I can watch "back to the future again." You know, I'm going to go home and put this into a giant 600 pound machine and watch back to the future. - Yeah. - And then rewind it. - Yeah. - And then be kind rewind. - Yeah. - Remember when we were in Finland, and somebody came up to us, we were in a party, and somebody came up to the phone, they said, "Hey, look at your shows on." - Oh, so my shows are show on a phone? - Yeah, this was like, how many years ago? - Oh, I mean, this would be 25 years ago, or something, 20 years ago? - And they were, I'm looking at, I'm like, what? - Oh, I felt back as I said, which? Oh, no! And I threw hot oil on it. on them. And then she was a witch. But it had nothing to do with her having the phone. That was completely the side. But that's good. No, I remember we were at some event for NBC and they said, we were in Washington DC and it was some event broadcasting event. And this is in the 90s and they said, we're going to show you something called HDTV, high definition TV. And they had it on a flat screen TV. And we walked up to it. It was a football game. And I was watching it. And it was the, I mean, I don't think HDTV was commercially available at the time. They were just showing us a sample of this thing that was going to be coming very soon. I remember being able to see the divots in the ground. And it blew me away. And now you watch TV, TVs that are probably a hundred times more precise than that one. And we're just like, we get so inured to this technology. Or how expensive they were when they came out and now they're like, it's like a commodity. Oh, well, you used to get a flat screen TV and people are like, oh, you're getting a flat screen. Yeah, I went to the bank and I got a co-signer and I talked to my account. I was being installed tomorrow by a team of scientists. I mean, Adam can speak to, well, it's criminal over here. Can speak to it too. When the games are on, you just have your phone and just watching games live. You know, that's huge. I mean, I've seen you many times sitting alone at a restaurant. No, these guys too. This guy does it while he's engineering the show. Yeah, remember. Oh, that's right. Eduardo, you like to watch your, well, you call it football. That's right. Yeah. But it's a, um, watch it right now. No, I'm just kidding. That would be cool. No, it's, uh, it's a whole, it's all, listen. I was just, I mean, right now, oh, well, I'm really cracked it. Things have changed. Um, yeah. But it's just stunning. You can't ever fire us. What's on? We have, you have, you have to work for until you're like 90 because otherwise we're all fucked. So you get a job that's just ridiculous. Any where else? What are you talking? No, you really have to work till you're 90. Thank you. We'll put it in writing. Um, just till you're 90. Thank you. Then I'll be 96. Do you think, Jeff, you have adapted to the new ways? Uh, I don't know. In what sense do you mean? Um, do you know how to work your phone? Do you know how to, uh, is that the baseline standard? Do you know how to work your phone? I'm saying, cause David knows full well that I don't know these things. Jeff has never had to call me to help him log into a streaming service. Like you know, well, I have had to call you for a few things. Every now and then. Yeah. Not, not, not, not a lot. Yeah. Dig a hole. By the way, very different. You better put my house on the market. Like started yelling. I had to do something. Oh, come on. It gets so dark. So fast. Well, let's let's do it. Oh, no. I bring you in here and then I expose you as a highway killer. Yeah. You know, um, these called the highway mumbler. People are disappearing on the four of five freeway. And they only find us a shoe and they hear some mumbling guilty as charged. Well, listen, so you say the state of the podcast is good. We should keep going. Yes. HBO. It's all good. I shouldn't panic. No. All right. Well, listen, but, uh, HBO loves you. They want more of whatever you want to give them. Oh, hey, well, I'm going to give them a daytime show. Oh, go ahead. Watch Conan dance for an hour as guests far behind him yell to try to be heard. Can you imagine just me and the foreground dancing and they're in the background going, the books called a time for summer. They get frustrated and walk away. They'll be great. It's three whole days. Yeah. All right, Jeff, thanks for coming in. I think you brought sanity to a very damaged ecosystem. And just for the record, Eduardo despises me and I get a lot of hate from this room. So I think it's very good. Yeah, I mean, that's our job. That's what we do. I'm happy to join in. Very happy. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian and Matt Gourley, produced by me, Matt Gourley, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and Nick Liyah, incidental music by Jimmy Vivina. Take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer Aaron Blair, associate talent producer Jennifer Samples, associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Burm, engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of Sirius XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Conin. Please rate, review and subscribe to Conan O'Brien, needs a fan wherever fine podcasts are down.