Colbert Exit and Late Night Future

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Law Supplies last ends june thirtieth terms at aka. mS slash collllege PC It is Monday, may eighteenth There's no such thing as a fully well rounded entertainment company Even the biggest and most successful have strengths and glaring weaknesses. Netflix is the dominant subscription streaming service, but it has no theme park business, no comic book franchises, very little sports rights. Disney has all of those, but a user interface on its streaming service that could be way better and so forth Hence the Hollywood jealousy draft That's today's show. Luas Shaws here and we're going to play a game We're going go through each major entertainment company and let them poach one thing from a rival the one thing they need the most and that they don't currently have. What would that be for Netflix? for Disney You just take it. No cost, no regulatory issues, no blowback. J snap your fingers and it's yours. Today is's the Hollywood Jealousy Draft From the Ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Belley, and this is the town Okay, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back, Lucas. How was your experience at the TV upfront? Did you get the full funnel experience? I got the full funnel experience, yes. I am now ready to talk about advertising technology with anyone and everyone. Their platforms, man. They're not just a place to put ads. They're a full service full funnel advertising solution. Yeah. Why didn't you come this year? I decided not to go. My kid had some baseball playoffs. and just decide. I've got New York trips coming up that I have to do for Puck. So didn't go Yeah. And honestly I feel great about it. You are missed, including by random people on the street who listen to the show. Oh they said, Where's Matt You know, people assume that you and I hang out. We really don't. There was someone who works at like Morgan Stanley who at almost one in the morning on Friday night, I was coming home from being with friends and he stopped me on the street. And that's where I was. Yes And you said that I was passed out in a corner of a bar down the street and go find him Exactly All right, so we are gonna go through the five Enertainment companies right now. Comcast, Disney, Netflix, Warnermount, assuming this deal goes through and Amazon Apologies to Apple, Apologies to Sony. They arere not in the top five here. and we are going to draft items. You can take anything from anywhere. No cost associated with it, no regulatory problems. this is you were running these companies and you could take one asset from one company which asset Craig Do we explain this properly? I think so. I think the one thing to point out is that once something is taken Nobody else can draft it. So if your comcast, if you steal DC from Warner Brothers, now DC is off the board and nobody else can take DC. B And then we will Assess at the end who got the most benefit. their draft. Okay. Okay. And then you guys are each going to basically bring your picks for you're basically going to be acting as CEO's together of these companies and you're going to have to argue over what you think is the best choice, but you're each going to provide your selections of what you think each company should steal if they had the opportunity. And if we agree, great. If not, maybe Craig, you decide, which is best Or I think you guys should have to fight it out and land on one Okay fine. Okay, so I'm going to give the order right now who goes first? I'm going to honor the legacy companies first and the tech companies are going to go last. So're we're going to go Disney, Comcast, Warnermount, Netflix, and last pick will be Amazon. Oh great. You picked it in the order that I thoughtought through them. so that works for me. Great. So then Disney will be first. so you guys will go one by one. you can each say If you're Disney and you could steal anything from the other four companies, what would you steal? No, it's not just the other four companies. It's from anyone in Hollywood. You can go after something that's owned by Fox or by Sony. you can get anything I have a question about this. So if I get that if I give Disney something that I can't give someone else that thing. But if Matt gives the company something, I also cannot take that. True. We want one list Okay, so we have to agree We have to agree. Okay. Yeah. And if we really don't agree, then maybe Craig will stage an arm wrestling contest or something All right, you go first, Lucas. What are you taking for Disney? If I'm Disney, I am taking a Netflix's product and engineering team. All right, I actually had Netflix's user interface and teech stack, similar. slightly different. Yes. Disney plus still on BAamTch. sameame concept, sameame concept, but but explain why becausecause Disney's biggest problem is that its streaming business is fragmented and confusing. They own four or five different services. People need to go to one place for sports, another for general entertainment, another place for family They've been trying to slowly integrate, you know, first Disney pllus and Hulu. they'd like to bring sports into Disney pllus. They're, you know New CO Josh Samarrow's whole thing is one Disney, which maybe involves having just one front home page for people to go to. Well, that's what remember what Ted Sandus has always said at Netflix, he'll know Disney is serious when the streaming service is just called Disney. Yeah. couple choices, right? Disney can either decide it wants to be a specialized premium kids family service or a general service and it's been sort of caught in between. But whichever way it goes, there should only be one place. You should not go to Hulu and Disney pllus. And by stealing the Netflix engineering team, they are more likely to get there. Yes I think a team that can figure out how to bring all of that into one place effectively because most people would concede that Netflix has the best product in the streaming space. And Disney does not lack for programs that people need to want to watch. Yeah. What about the super app Maybe they can help Disney achieve this super app that toomarrow wants. Well, that's it's all the same thing, right? If if there's going to be one app that can be the home for Disney I just think Netflix has generally had you been able to attract better engineers than Disney because it's Netflix and it's the tech company and it's the leader. U And and there are a whole bunch of reasons why this has been messy for Disney But the cleanest way I could think of to simplify all that was just like, okay, Netflix, your product team nowet works for us And even if they have to start from scratch and take two years, they're going to figure it out Yeah, the only other contender I had for Disney and something that Disney would like to take from another company is perhaps DC from Wmouth. Really They have Marvel. You putting all the superheroes under one roof with the consumer products and integrating Batman into the, you know, marvel stuff. You could do crossovers and time lapses and all sorts of things then I think they would they would benefit from that. But it's not close. You think there would be an antitrust review of one company owning both This is this there's no regulatory review. You're forgetting here There's no cost associated and there's no government regulation. I'm just teasing. I had a different version of that, which it doesn't compare to getting the whole product. I actually had KPop Demon hunters on the list because it was the most talked to It was the biggest kids property of last year. Okay, but that's one title. Yeah, but if Disney had had it, they would have been ready with toys, merchandise, all this stuff And I think importantly, it was very popular globally, which is an area of weakness for Disney. Yeah, I wasn't my first pick But I think one title, you know, who wouldn't want a new franchise that they could do something with because Disney has struggled to create new kids franchises. Yeah. I mean, you could argue then that Disney would like to take Spiderm Man from Sony Because then they wouldn't have to deal with, you know, just producing the movies and letting Sony reap all the distribution money. A valid contender. You can change to that one. I would take Spider Man over Kop Demon hunters any day of the week. Yeah, I would too. All right, let's move on, Craig, what are we doing next? So you guys both kind of landed on Netflix's product and engineering, Yeah. We agreed. That was boring. Yeah, yeah, we agree on that first one. Next up is Comcast. Matt, whyy don't you go first this time All right, if I'm Ccast, I am taking HBO Max from Warmount The whole service. interestnteresting. It does exactly what they need right now. They have a Ver highly non scaled service in peacock that is domestic only They do not win the awards that HBO does and they do not have the programming team that HBO does and with the Casey Bys team. HPOax is growing globally So I think that if I could if I was running Ccast and I could take one thing, I would solve the streaming problem with HBO Max. Well, we know that they wanted it, right? because they made a bid for Warner Brothers Discovery or at least for the pieces of it. And unlike Netflix, that's the key asset they want. They have a library They want that service. They need to figure out streaming. I agree with you. I just had a different streaming service, which is I think that they should have Hulu because I thought they should always have Hulu. Okay, But what is Hulu? Well, that's exactly it. They were arestic only. It doesn't solve the global problem. It fine for Comcast. Comcast has said it does not want to invest at the level that it requires to compete on a global basis Okay, but remember, this is a free draft. You get to just take it. Yes, but it's not like you then get to just get it for free forever. You actually have to invest in the product. And I think if you're comcast, And your shareholders are most concerned about your connectivity business and you don't want to have to invest billions of dollars and figuring out how to stream in Asia or Latin America, taking Hulu, which from a consumption standpoint is a bigger US service than HBOax has a big advertising business, you already owned a piece of it. You already have some of your programming on it from long term licensing deals. It's a plug and play solution for them. I don't know. I think Comcast saying that they don't want international is like when guys say, oh, I wouldn't want to date Kylie Jenner. I wouldn't want to date whatever models. She'd be too much of a handful. It's like Of course, you don't have it, so you don't want it, you say I get it. I just think that Hulu fits Like the types of programs that work on Hulu fit Comcast and the NBC Universal programming nicely It's the most developed like advertising business. Comcast is all about advertising, all about sports. I just I think it's seamless. I get with HBO Max that it's also good, but I think there's not quite as neat a brand fit. All right, so we disagree on this one. The only other one for Comcast I had also Spiderman from Sony just to give them some suuperhero content ' they have none. I had Harry Potter because they already have the theme park rights. Well, they also have Spider Man rights west or east of the Mississippi. It would They do For theme parks. That's why there's no Spider Man roller coaster in at Disney in Florida. It would allow them to unify everything and I'm just higher on Harry Potter as a property than you are. You think Harry Potter iss more valuable than Spider Man? I'm going reach across the Zoom and slap you in the face if that's true. I think it I think it's a discussion. Yeah. Oh Absolutely wrong. Spiderm Man is the number one property Hands down And it will be forever, forever Yes. No properties last forever. You do not have a child. Every kid relates to Spiderm Man and it will always be that way. Disney owned Spider Man only west of the Mississippi For theme parks. Wow. Yeah, there a there was an old deal where Universal got the license to make theme park rides based on Spider Man east of the Mississippi. Oh my God, wow.s that's wild, it's very bizarre All right, so are we gonna to have to have Craig intervene here? No, I think this is fine because one, you guys are similar. You both are basically saying streaming services and two, I doubt Hulu and HPOMax are going to come up again. so this is still kind of aligned. Well wait a second, we got to choose one though, whichich one wins? Mattis wants to be declared a victor. Yeah I think it's fine to just keep it as it is. HBO and Max and Hulu are both like streaming choices for comcast. I think that's fine. All right. All right, notot satisfying to me, but whatever Let's move on. Next up is Warner Mount, whichich I hate that's a name, but it's Warnermount. goo ahead Lucas, you can go first because Matt went first last time. I'm going to pull off of the Harry Potter illusion and just say if Warrenmount could take anything, they would take Universal Thee Parks business. I have that on my list too. This company needs to diversify beyond film and TV. It makes almost all of its money from cable networks that are dying. It streaming services are okay, but second tier The studio business is great, but it's not the main business. It's just too reliant on television U And so the best way to do that, as we've seen from Universal and Disney is theme parks I picked Universal because look, Disney has the best partarks business, but they're too wrapped up in Disney IP. It wouldn't work Universal parks are more flexible. They have Harry Potter, which is part of the Warner family. They have the Nintendo stuff. They could create a DC attraction. It'd be super easy and it would, you know I'm a big player in the experience economy right away. I one hundred percent agree with everything you said. And the thing with the universal parks is like they're only loosely branded universal. People don't have a emotional connection to the universal brand like they do the Disney brand. So you could extxtricate those parks from Universal and start populating them with Warner Brrosers IP. and it wouldn't be that big of a change put a Superman Batman overlay on some of these roller coasters. They already have the branding you can think you can you could do a game of Thrones experience of some kind It'd be, yeah,d be a no brainer. Yeah. that makes sense. The only other thing I had was Perhaps they would want the Netflix tech stack. but that's off the table. Oh, you're right. That's off the table. Damnit. I know. because I was just going to say whatever the Oracle pixie dust that David Ellison thinks he's going to sprinkle on the Warnermount service, like that's a risk. I would just go for the best but that's already off the table. I had a couple of others. but no, you had more? Yeah. Well, I had I had Disney pllus also because HBO Max service doesn't really traffic in kids content And the paramount service has Nickelodeon, but it's sort of underutilized. and I think Disney plus would do a lot for them. So I addressed that but in a different way, which was I was like, what if they just Chris Modondry from Universal and said, you're in charge of kids programming now. Go further, say you could just take illumination. Well, that's not yeah, the crazy thing about Warner Brothers and Paramount is they actually have major kids properties, right? Paramount owns Nickelodeon, which was defining cable network of that age. Warner Brothers, animation's been around for almost a centy They have leaders, you know, Warner Brothers has former Dreamworks animation guy, Bill Amashki, Suidance has John Lassader But like Neither company has seemingly prioritized kids' programming and kids' entertainment And so I don't know whether to fault sort of strategy leadership or just like if they got the infusion of no, we're like buying this studio that has been really good and we now care about kids. it would help us theatrically. It would help because it it would help us with streaming. P Illumination on a Looney Tunes movie. I mean, they are already working on a Barbie movie. I don't hasas that been announced? I know that it's happening. Illumination is doing a Barbie animated movie they would just supercharge it and any studio would be lucky to have illumination. That the other thing I thought of is They need an executive and this is not as big a I go the theme parks ten times out of ten, but like an executive with actual operating experience to help David Allllison run the company Be that was sort of like why they brought in Jeff Shell and they got rid of Jeff Shell and we all understand why. Yeah, Well you got to name one. Who would they take I couldn't come up with the right name. I mean, who is the best Studio operator right now Dononna Langley at Universal. No, But that's a different job. That is who is the best? We're talking about someone who is like a COO. Okay. notot picking the movies in TV. Correct They they should have that, right? They have a wealth of creative executives. Mike Deluca Pam like all Casey Bloyys, all Cindy Holland, all these people. Well they would argue that they have that already, but yeah, that's what I'm saying. they need someone who's going to like figure out help them cut costs and like streamline operations and structure the business and all that stuff. Yeah. Well, they would say that their CEOO, Andy Gordon is doing that, but R. And he has a lot of experience in finance, but not as an operator That's true We saw have a nameed who that person would be, but that's okay This episode is brought to you by Peacock, presenting all her fault for your Emmy consideration Sarah Snook stars in this limited series where a seemingly perfect family's world is shattered when their young son goes missing. Vulture calls it compulsively watchable, and the rap says it's an adrenaline filled psychological thriller full of jaw dropping twists and turns All her fault is streaming now only on Peacock. 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Interesting I think that That's the missing piece for Netflix They say they don't want sports rights because they're so expensive You know what? They in at the big table now. They can afford it And if they really want to supercharge, they should just go right after ESPN, take it from Disney and instantly be the number one player in sports. I like that I thought you were gonna to do because when we talked about this before, you were talking about just taking like this CBS or Fox Yeah, they could do that too. But ESBN is better. Going bigger and just saying, we'll take be a preeminent brand in sports media. Disney is flirted with getting rid of it. We'll take it off your hands happily. You guys don't appreciate what you have, blah, blah blah blah, blah. Exactly. And and they would shut down the linear channel, perhaps. And or keep it as a twenty four hour stream on Netflix. and They would have not only football They'd have college football, they'd have baseball, they'd have NBA, all the stuff that USBN. it's it's the number one aggregator of sports. Yes. They would be inheriting a lot of assets and complications that they have historically said that they don't want from a linear network to journalism to a we a different website and all of that fantasy sports. But I think the core of what ESPN has those sports rights is value. I actually went with a different Disney property. I went with Pixar. Oh, interesting. actually had I had Disney's animation unit So I was going a little bigger than that, but sure. same Look. Netflix has never really, despite Tenseorandos's ambitions, Netflix has never really figured out kids properties. likeike Kpop deemon Hunters for now is a flukey aberration.. How dare you swapped Swaped came out last weekend was number one. They have the most popular service They They are a network, but they need to act more like a studio. They do not have multiple ways to profit from their hits. And part of it is they haven't really developed franchises. And the best places to get that have been sort of Marvel and Pixar. And I think Marvel, which skews more broad based and adult They don't necessarily need, but the kids thing is really hard. and there are only a few places that know how to do it and Pixar is one of them. And so I think that would solve a lot of their problem. I would just go a little bigger and also take Disney animation because then you get frozen in Iuana. I was trying to be more specific, but yes, we can just take Disney Animation. You're right. Yeah. And the leadership, above both go with them and all of a sudden you're the number one player in kids programming. So this is basically a question, what does Netflix needs more need more kids properties and franchises or sports? Yeah The other the only other one I had was I thought maybe Netflix could take the Disney Cruise line because You can' Dbrand the theme parks out of Disney But you could Switch over the cruise lines. A Netflix cruise? Wh Who's going on a Netflix cruise the ships red and replace all the Disney stuff on the cruise with Stranger things and You know, all the different Netflix programming. I bet someday there will be a floating Netflix experiential situation. Whether they own it or not, but Disney owns this cruise line And that would be a great business for Netflix. I don't see it. No. I had two others I had two from the Warner family. One was DC because I know that Netflix has been interested in DC. They think they could do a better job with it than Warner has done. I actually think that DC would in some ways appeal to Netflix more than Marvel because they would say that Disney has exploited Marvel as well as anyone could, whereas DC there's upside. And the other is sort of the you know the murmurs about Casey Bloyys and where is he going to go from HBO? and is he going to go to Netflix? something like that. There is sort of an this is more about perception and I don't think it matters as much as the other stuff we've talked about. But if you were to create sort of a subdivision of Netflix was just like premium HBO style programming to combat this this kind of prevailing narrative that Netflix doesn't make good stuff anymore. I think it would kind of help them. I don't know. I think that's the thing they don't feel they need. No. I know that they don't think they need it. That's Yeah. And they've resisted sub brands They've had every opportunity to create sub brands on Netflix and they have chosen not to. Yeah. So They see the algorithm as the sub brand. I disagree with them, but that's what they see. So I don't think they want the HBO style programming. I think that The other thing that they might want is something like Tub be. F Fox. Yeah Have a fast channel You know, Netflix does not have a fast business and as we see the ad businesses powering all of these services, maybe Netflix would benefit from a free ad tier Yeah Or maybe would cannibalize what they're already offering with ads. Yeah. and I don't know that they want all the programming this on T be. But yeah, it's the thought Okay, where we going next Fank's got to be the tie breaker on this one. Yeah.'m so between ESPN and Pixar for Netflix, I'm going to take ESPN betweenween ESPN and Disney animation. I'm going to take ESPN. I mean Netflix just has tape up demon hunters. I'm more confident that like they can figure that out. Sports is the most valuable thing you can have right now and Netflix having Monday night football every week, Netflix having the Super Bowl, Netflix having the college football playoff and Having ESPN lets them lean into like the podcast style morning talk content, which they also are trying to get into right now and having first taken all that stuff now PTI that they can run every day during the day for people at home I think that is exactly what they want to do. You think Netflix should buy the ringer, basically. I know Lucas, you said they don't have fantasy sports. Well, they kind of do They have our show right now. How dare you? The fantasy football show. Here's the thing I'd say on that though is Netflix wanted those big sports packages They would go and bid on them, right? They All that takes is money. That's true. ESBN is renting. They have shown that they want the kids properties, they have spent a ton of money and they have not gotten what they wanted from it. Keep in mind though, this game, there's no cost associated with it. You just transplant ESPN. I'm just I'm just show I'm just talking about what they have shown that they want. Okay I think they want sports, but they are wary of participating in an arms race. will cause those sports rights to get even higher than they already are and they're dipping their toe. Eventually we all know there will be a regular football package on Netflix, But it might not be for twelve years. maybe not for a while Okay. So Craig, you're picking ESPN over Pixa. I'm picking SSPN and now last but not least we have Amazon and Lucas, you have First selection This is where I went really specific Um because I struggled with Amazon U And I sort of had a tie. so I might change my mind midway. But I sort of did a Sanda Rimme slash Taylor Sheridan type person. I think they need a showrunner who' talking about that person doesn't exist You mean you mean one of those? Yeah They need a showrunner who supplies consistent hits to their demo They've replaced the executives. What they need is a hit maker. They need steady consistent programs that people actually want to watch. They need their version of the Sheridan verse. Yeah. I'll buy that I don't know if that's the one thing that I would take from another company. I mean, they could again, they could have gone after Taylor Sheridan. for the deal that he did with NBC And they didn't We don't know. Maybe they did and he chose elsewhere. The other thing I thought about was that they would take the NFL playoff packages that any of their rivals have They already have football. Yeah, but they don't have the playoffs and they really want the playoffs what What is yours that it's like some big transformation? They don't want a theme park business. No, I think they would want Marvel They would want Marvel. They've had a lot of success with the boys They have that like younger genre Demo. And they have consistent they would fall out in the boys And if they had Marvel, I think they in all those shows and they're doing theatrical movies I think that would be a game changer for Amazon. Maybe not as big as Shonda Rhimes. I don't know. I mean Shanda Rhimes will eventually get tired of this and retire Marvel is forever. Yes. Look, they bought MGM. they clearly want IP U And I think Marvel is probably an answer for a lot of people, but you're not hing it though I think it's totally fair. Look, we're basically just like picking off different parts of All this reinforces is that Disney has a lot of stuff that other people want I know. it's funny. this exercise has really made me Bigger believer in Disney. becausecause they don't have a lot of weaknesses They have a lot of stuff that people would kill to have They just need to figure out how to harness it all Yeah Craig, where where does that leave us? Well selecting between what, Taylor Sheridan or Marvel for Amazon. Yeah Both of these feel kind of underwhelming. I don't know why It's like you're paying for past performance, not future. These are I agree That's the thing I struggled with with Marvel a little bit. I mean, anyone would take it Just having all those movies on your service. twenty twenty something years of those movies will be great forever The other thing I had was another Disney business that Amazon would love is their Cumer productucts business. I mean, Amazon, the world's biggest shopping site, would probably love to control frozen and Moana and Disney brand, but they don't need to own it. They can just Well, but if they owned it, it even better. They could pump it down our throats and have it be the first thing you see when you turn on ammazon. comot Part of the problem with Amazon is that It's the only one of these companies where entertainment is not actually their main business So we're sort of picking what would make Amazon Prime videoide more appealing, but not necessarily what would tie into the larger Amazon corporate mandate because like you could argue that Amazon actually like Amazon really cares about AI, right? Andy Jassie wants to integrate AI into all workflows. And so maybe the answer is some AI technology that they don't own. or maybe Marvel works because then they can train a bunch of stuff on those characters and they own and control it. Same reason like There are occasionally those kind of crackpot theories that like, well wouldn't Google buy Warner Brothers Discovery so it could just train its AI video product on the characters? Maybe that'll happen We didn't even include Google in this All right, so Craig, where are we landing on this I guess we'll go I guessll I will just take Marvel by default because it is bigger and like you said, it lasts forever All right, so give us the recap here on the realignment that we have engineered. Sure. So Disney will be taking Netflix's product and engineering team. Comcast will be taking, let's say, HBO Max Warner Mount will be taking the Universal theme Parks business Netflix will be taking ESPN And Amazon will be taking Marvel. So you're right. Disney got pillaged here U That's okay. You know what? I think honestly though, Comcast might be the big winner here Getting HBO Max and the one hundred forty million subscribers and the programming team in that library, That's pretty meaningful for their service. What about for Amazon? Wouldn't you say they have a lack of they don't really have a voice, like execive why wouldn't they just like get Ted Sandos if they could? I had executives, but they just made a number of hires in that area. So I feel like they've picked the people that they want And it's honestly like It's never going to be that impactful because ultimately Seattle calls all the shots at Amazon. And no one executive necessarily has that big an impact. Yeah How dare you? I know. it's true. All right. Thank you, Lucas. We'll do I like this game. We got to do agencies next talent agencies. This was a success. We'll do spinoffs of this now. It' there'll be a whole multiverse around the jealousy draft. I can't wait to draft who from CIA WE would They could. So we'll do that next. that next Today's call sheet is brought you by FX is the lowdown F from Sterlin Harjo, starring five time Academy Award nominee, Ethan Hawk The series follows Lee Raybon, a self described Tulsa Tusorian whose fixation on the truth tends to create more problems than it solves All right, Craig, todayoday's call should before we start a little accountability corner Last couple of weeks for call sheets, I xted the Michael movie would return to number one. I also took the under on Mortal Combat two, which did not hit anywhere near forty eight million And a little bit of accountability last week First of all, I screwed up Is God Is is not a religious movie. It is a thriller. and I hope no one heard me say it's a religious movie and went thinking that it would be an uplifting God movie. an R rated thriller, deffinitely not. and people were pissed I dismissed obsession and said it wasn't even worth giving a line on because it wouldn't get to double digits. It got to seventeen million. So wrong on that one as well. It's all right, you know, the greats sometimes the greats miss. All right, I have a shocking stat for you. Okay. What would you think the tune in was for David Letterman's final show on the late show in twenty fifteen? twenty fifteen The live plus same day number for Letterman's Final show. Things were still cooking back then. We were in the good old days and we didn't realize it. Give me a guess Can you tell me what his average viewership was or no? in thousand? I will say that it was the highest rated show since nineteen ninety four U fifteen million teen point seven six million So pretty close Yeah By contrast Stephven Colbert won the April ratings race for late night on CBS and he was averaging point eight million viewers per night Kimmel had two point four eight And Jimmy Fallon had one point two one million viewers. That's live plus seven days. So giving people a week to watch those shows. Now that is obviously on broadcasts, not on YouTube or other digital platform consumption. But pretty stark drop in late night, which explains a lot of why Colbert is going away. Even though we know that you know the politics swirling around this are not a great look The show was losing money and the ratings are just not there And the question is What will Colbert's final show this Thursday night deliver in the ratings. So he's averaging around two million. How much No, almost three million? Almost three. How much above three do you think it will get to? That's the question. They have not announced who the guests will be. He's got big guests this week. He's got Steven Spielberg. He's got David Byne he's performing with. He's got some big names lined up They have not announced who's coming on. on Thursday I can't imagine it will be a huge spike because For all of the reasons why late night is struggling, I think people will just watch this the next day on YouTube or on Instagram. how most people consume late night content. I agree. Should we set the line at like Four, five million Maybe he gets up to that number. I don't even think he will the line at five million. I'm taking the under. What about four Four seems reasonable. I think there may be a million Ly Ls out there that would tune in Let's let's set the line at four I'll take I'll take the over on four Are they advertising this? Is this going to be a big push? Yeah, it's been everywhere. The media, I mean, are you kidding Colbert' has been on this ridiculous like Exit interview media blitz for the last three months. He's done like ten of them And you know, they had Letterman on last week. He got a lot of attention. likeike there's there's a lot of buzz around this in certain circles. That's why the ratings went up in April, I think, because people are anticipating him exiting I just I think it'll be between four and five is my guess. Yeah, that probably sounds right I will still watch it probably the next day Social media or YouTube. They're not getting you They're not getting me, but I've enjoyed. I watched Julie Lou Dvevers thing on Instagram That was great. But I probably won't be tuning. It's Thursday night, right? Yes. Yeah It's funny because if it doesn't We will know How many of the late show viewers are really just people watching the local news who fell asleep? Millions Millions of seventy year olds who fell asleep Yeah, God, amazing. All right. Tod's call she was brought to you by FX's The Lowdown. This gloriously off kilter noir is an AFI television program of the year and one of twenty twenty five's most critically acclaimed shows. The Lowdown is available for your Emmy consideration on Hulu and Disney pllus for bundle subscribers. That's the show for today. I want to thank my guest Lucas Shaw, producer Craig Horbeck artitor Matt Pevick I don want to than you, We'll see a couple more times this week This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check Responssees set up required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus