Let's talk about advertising. What do you think are the
biggest challenges right now for the industry?
MS. DUBUC: We're all going to say the same
thing: measurement.
MR. COLLIER: Measurement.
MR. LANDGRAF: Yeah.
MS. DUBUC: Nielsen has got to figure out the
tablet. And they have to figure it out fast.
Do you think they are getting close?
MS. DUBUC: No. I think it's unfortunate.
MR. LANDGRAF: We're losing the ability to
calculate the audience.
MS. DUBUC: There was a recent roundup, you
know, status report of where they are, and they're not where they
need to be.
How do you combat this?
MR. LANDGRAF: We started FX Productions almost
10 years ago to own the content. A big part of our revenue stream
is still the advertising business. A big part of our revenue is
still affiliate-sales business and subscription revenue, but
ultimately, if you think about a piece of content like "Hatfields
& McCoys," anything that Charlie makes or "Fargo," something
that can generate revenue over 10 or 20 years, if you don't own it,
that revenue is going to somebody else.
MS. DUBUC: Even in the distribution, if you
don't own it, you're not going be a part of the over-the-top
[selling content to streaming services]. Ownership is critical.
MR. LANDGRAF: Our studio partnership is not
always helpful, because obviously they have a goal of maximizing
revenue, and that often means taking away from us and selling it to
somebody else. So you have to take ownership.
How important is data? What role does it play at your
networks?
MS. DUBUC: There's a big opportunity in the
cable affiliate's data, data that they're sitting on, data from
satellite operators. We're pushing very hard on getting them to
share that, not necessarily from an advertiser perspective, but
from a point of view of helping us make ourselves better.
MR. COLLIER: I'll tell you what I do think is
huge: We all know our audiences better than we did 10 years ago and
a lot of that is due to the technology. We look at the way people
travel through the ecosystem, how they come to amc.com, where they
are on Facebook, and how they're interacting with us. … And
as such, you can start to speak to them in a way that is much more
personal. We talk about shifting from a b-to-b posture to one that
is b-to-c. And that's liberating. We look at our second-screen app
certainly for "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead"… people
register so you know who they are, and when they like the
experience, they give you feedback. That is a great opportunity and
then we started to build a data infrastructure, where we are far
more b-to-c on a day-to-day basis.
MR. LANDGRAF: As much as measurement is really
important, there's a lot of hype around data right now. Way too
much money has been spent on internet video -- internet video from
an advertising basis. It's an endless repetition of the reach they
are buying from our channels. It's a small sliver of the audience
that watches a lot of video and I don't think people watch video.
When I'm on a computer, I don't watch commercials. They may be
running, there may be banner advertising, there may be commercials
running on the video site, but I've got the sound down, doing
something else. I'm just not receptive to advertising when I'm on
my computer relative to how receptive I am to advertising when I'm
watching television. … That's an example where I think we're
still providing way more value there. I think there's money
shifting, growth tends to be shifting a little bit over to the
video business because it's the hot new thing and data's the hot
new thing, and frankly I think it's a lot of baloney.
MR. COLLIER: The one place I like data is to
better know our businesses and what else viewers like besides what
we're doing, because it gives us an opportunity as marketers to
actually serve them in a way that is more personal, so we found
that to be effective. Eventually if that's scalable, that could
actually both help us as servers of creative, but also as
purchasers of creative execution as well. But I agree with you as
to the respect of advertising effectiveness. When I'm watching an
FX show and I'm on FX, I get it and there's an immersion that is
very different than waiting for that thing to skip.
MR. LANDGRAF: There's just no comparison in
reach between what ad-supported cable or broadcast can provide, vs.
any other medium. So much of the press, so much of the attention is
going into nonlinear usage, but as Nancy said, the vast majority of
consumption is happening linear.
MS. DUBUC: And even the second biggest is video
on demand. Not streaming video on demand.
What are the biggest challenges facing the
industry?
MS. DUBUC: I'll come at it from a creative
point of view. … Cable was largely built on the ability to
repeat programming, whether that was a movie, whether that was a
series, you could sample it linearly. Things don't repeat the way
they used to, so that by itself dictates just such a dramatic
increase in original programming. You also have smaller networks
doing original programming, very small networks doing scripted, I'm
not sure how they make that work. I'm still scratching my head,
going, 'How are they doing it?' But just the sheer tonnage of
what's out there, is the biggest challenge.
MR. LANDGRAF: The year "The Shield" launched
there were 30 scripted programs on premium and basic cable. Last
year, there were 180, and this year I think they'll be more than
200, and that doesn't count any scripted programming on broadcast
or any of the scripted programming now on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Yahoo. Even
Crackle is making some scripted programming.
MS. DUBUC: Microsoft.
MR. LANDGRAF: Microsoft picked up something
that I worked five years on developing, but they turned around and
they picked it up.
MS. DUBUC: The importance of being a valued and
trusted curator has never been more critical, and it's time to
really hunker down and think hard about how you convey that through
your brand. For a while, it's been certainly a ratings race and
brands have been evolving, but it's never been more critical for
our organization to make sure our brands are seen as valuable
curators to the audiences that are passionate about them.
MR. LANDGRAF: The three of us spend a lot of
time reading about the future of our industry, struggling over
strategic decisions, business contracts and windowing strategies,
but you know what? Great creative has a way of solving a lot of
those problems. You could solve every business problem if you could
just do fantastic work on the creative front. And that's hard,
that's hard to do consistently, year in, year out, and that's the
challenge of being a consumer brand -- you have to make things that
they really, really love.
MR. COLLIER: We got great response to our
upfront, and no one is mentioning our great data on multiplatform.
You know what they're talking about? They're talking about how they
met the showrunners and the talent behind the shows. The reason we
asked our talent to join us is because we know that they're center
of everything we do. I think the three of us and some other
networks notably are places where people are bringing their passion
projects and that is phenomenal. Vince [Gilligan] tells a story
about when his agent said he was going to pitch "Breaking Bad" that
day at AMC, he said, "Well, the show's about cooking, why don't you
go to the Food Network, you know they're as likely to
do it as AMC." But now people know we do this and they're trusting
us for it. And probably most people look at our job and think we're
all about branding to the consumer, but the amount of time the
three of us spend making sure that people bring us their craziest
ideas…
MS. DUBUC: Oh, it's the majority…
MR. COLLIER: We look over at A&E Networks
and we say, 'Would I have greenlit "Storage Wars?" If someone
pitched me "Pawn Stars" would I have said yes?'
MS. DUBUC: It was "Pawning History" until the
week before, and they changed the title without telling anyone.
"Pawn Stars" wasn't going to get approved at the highest level,
there was no way.