Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production. I heart radio.
Speaker 1: When I joined, I didn't know anything about television. I
Speaker 1: didn't even like it. My interview was with Fred, who said, so,
Speaker 1: what kind of music do you like? And I think
Speaker 1: I said Bruce Springsteen, I'm not sure. He said, well,
Speaker 1: you're wrong, and I'll tell you why. And then about
Speaker 1: forty five minutes later, I left, not having said anything else.
Speaker 1: And the next thing I know, they were like, look,
Speaker 1: this is just a few of us. We're trying to
Speaker 1: get this thing going. If you'd like to join, And
Speaker 1: it was kind of like, how fast can I get
Speaker 1: out the door of Conde Nas and jump on this thing?
Speaker 1: Whatever it is? These people are crazy. I'm Bob Pittman,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Math and Magic Stories from the Frontiers
Speaker 1: and Marketing. This is a place where we're looking at
Speaker 1: both sides of the marketing equation, math and magic, and
Speaker 1: along the way we're gonna hear some good stories. And
Speaker 1: today we're gonna hear some really good stories from Judy McGrath.
Speaker 1: Judy is an old old Palamne. We started at MTV
Speaker 1: in those early days when we were the twenties something crowd.
Speaker 1: She has done an awful lot. She started in MTV
Speaker 1: and worked her way all the way up to CEO
Speaker 1: of MTV Networks, which included Nickelodeon a bunch of other networks.
Speaker 1: She is a role model for creatives, women and people
Speaker 1: from a little small towns in Pennsylvania. Also as a
Speaker 1: board member at Amazon, which has to be a treat
Speaker 1: into itself. Judy is well known as a magician and
Speaker 1: probably not as well known and not appreciate as much
Speaker 1: as being a pretty good mathematician too. You make some
Speaker 1: really hard business decisions as well. So I want to
Speaker 1: jump into all that, but first I want to do
Speaker 1: you in sixty seconds. Are you ready read? Do you
Speaker 1: prefer cats or dogs, beetles or stones both? Oh? No, okay,
Speaker 1: Taylor or Kanye Kanye, East Coast or West Coast Coast,
Speaker 1: MTV or v H one each one early nineties. Ah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Okay, beavas or butt head Daria. Oh
Speaker 1: that's why you're creative. You're the off beat. Okay, favorite city,
Speaker 1: New York, secret talent piano play. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: would eat for breakfast? Coffee, coffee, coffee, and more coffee.
Speaker 1: What would you eat for your last meal? Don't say coffee.
Speaker 1: I would have a peanut butter sandwich with my daughter
Speaker 1: and my husband's childhood hero, Believe it or not, Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 1: I wanted to conduct an orchestra. A favorite TV show
Speaker 1: The Americans Historical Idol, one of the Bronte Sisters, any
Speaker 1: of them? I read, Jane, are twenty five times worst
Speaker 1: fat or fashion trend you've participated in? Or that you
Speaker 1: saw an MTV super big power shouldered jackets. You looked
Speaker 1: a brain in it. By the way, what did you
Speaker 1: want to be when you were growing up? A reporter?
Speaker 1: What's one food you'd never eat? Hua gras. What are
Speaker 1: you most proud of early days of MTV? What are
Speaker 1: you listening to? Our watching right now? Listening? Oh, listening,
Speaker 1: I love listening. Oh you know slow Burn, a lot
Speaker 1: of the news ones, the Daily Vox, Bob Pittman's podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I still primarily listen to music, and that's
Speaker 1: my favorite things. Let's jump into you. Scranton, Pennsylvania. Scranton, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: small town. I went to college and still in Pennsylvania, Allentown, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: so you couldn't get out of the state. What influence
Speaker 1: did that have on you. You and I've talked about
Speaker 1: parents before in the past, and you had some fabulous parents.
Speaker 1: Tell me about how they influenced you. My dad loved music,
Speaker 1: and so growing up in a town like Scranton, let's
Speaker 1: just say the musical tastes were probably what you might
Speaker 1: expect for that old time ethnicity. But my dad loved jazz,
Speaker 1: and he played Duke Ellington and Earl Hines and Sara
Speaker 1: Vaughan and all this great stuff all the time. And
Speaker 1: he would hang over the you know, the little crappy
Speaker 1: turntable and dropped the needle and have a cigarette. And
Speaker 1: he grabbed me by my school uniform and say, listen
Speaker 1: to this. Take the a train. And I would think
Speaker 1: this is incomprehensible, speaks no sense to me, and I
Speaker 1: have no idea what this is, but he's madly in
Speaker 1: love with it. And so when I finally started bringing
Speaker 1: music home, my music Stones, you know, the Doors, the Beatles,
Speaker 1: he wanted to listen with me, which I did not
Speaker 1: want at all. But when I think about some of
Speaker 1: the things he said, he thought, dare I say the
Speaker 1: Beatles were pop crap and that the Stones were blues,
Speaker 1: you know, and that Charlie Watts was a big band
Speaker 1: drumm right, it was a way to have a relationship
Speaker 1: with him. I remember thinking later he had a passion
Speaker 1: that was separate from family and work, and I really
Speaker 1: wanted that for myself. What really motivated me, though, was
Speaker 1: I had a sense from reading like Crawdaddy and Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone and listening to music that there was a tribe
Speaker 1: of people somewhere that were my tribe and I couldn't
Speaker 1: find them where I was, and if I could find them,
Speaker 1: and if I could have a part of anything they
Speaker 1: were doing, I would be all in. And to me,
Speaker 1: that was like the dream was in New York City,
Speaker 1: which my parents, friends and neighbors felt like I was
Speaker 1: moving to Moscow or Brussels or someplace. It seemed like
Speaker 1: New York City, it's impossible. You can't do that. No
Speaker 1: one does that. So it sounds like you didn't have
Speaker 1: family connections, So how on earth did you get the
Speaker 1: Conde Nast. My mother was like definitely a feminist before
Speaker 1: her time, and it was like, go go go, you
Speaker 1: can do what you can do it. When I came
Speaker 1: to New York, I thought I cannot walk into Conde Nast.
Speaker 1: I look like I just fell off the cold truck.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is I don't have the nerve, and
Speaker 1: she's like, go in there, do it. You know something
Speaker 1: will happen if it doesn't. Try again. She was one
Speaker 1: of these people who always said perseverance is an underrated virtue,
Speaker 1: and I think she was right about that. Interestingly, I
Speaker 1: did not have of a Double Wares product experience in
Speaker 1: Conde Nest at all. I think I did a little
Speaker 1: bit of research, and I was a big magazine fan
Speaker 1: before I get to Rolling Stone my ultimate goal. I
Speaker 1: wonder if I could possibly get in the door of
Speaker 1: one of these magazines. Is there anyway? So I made
Speaker 1: this dummy magazine. I went in and I went into personnel,
Speaker 1: as they called it in those days, and this very
Speaker 1: nice older woman really did not want to deal with me.
Speaker 1: And she said, well, there's a copy test for a
Speaker 1: magazine called Mademoiselle that you can take. And I said,
Speaker 1: would you mind telling me what the compensation is since
Speaker 1: I just literally got off the bus and she said,
Speaker 1: dere if you need to ask that question, you can't
Speaker 1: afford to work here. I went home, I took the
Speaker 1: copy test, I passed, and I walked through the doors
Speaker 1: and thought, wow, you could literally tell who worked at
Speaker 1: which magazine by what they were wearing, eating, saying, drinking
Speaker 1: and where they were clubbing. And you could pick all
Speaker 1: that up just from the lobby. So Mademoiselle, which is
Speaker 1: no more. I was kind of the smart Girl magazine
Speaker 1: at the time. You know, fran Leebowitz was a columnist,
Speaker 1: and some of the early sort of the pre Martha
Speaker 1: Steward people, Mary and Relaying, and there were just tons
Speaker 1: of people there. I made some of the best friends
Speaker 1: in my life there who eventually led me to You
Speaker 1: and MTV. And I got in there and I just
Speaker 1: would stay up till four in the morning writing and
Speaker 1: rewriting these ridiculous things like women who love men who
Speaker 1: hate women and why and models, party tips and whatever
Speaker 1: it was. I just gave it my all. I was
Speaker 1: so thrilled to be there, and I think I sucked
Speaker 1: up everything. And what I also observed was brand. I mean,
Speaker 1: those magazines have very clearly defined brands, and they do
Speaker 1: not veer off that path. Alexander Lieberman would come in
Speaker 1: and look at a display and say, that's not bog
Speaker 1: that's not Glamour, that's not mademoiselle, and he would be right.
Speaker 1: And it was that thing of learning about what is
Speaker 1: it that makes this thing important to somebody? What is
Speaker 1: that defines this versus everything else. You have a story
Speaker 1: about one of the editors that you said you wrote
Speaker 1: something and basically she said, yes, that won't do. That's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite stories that you've ever told. Well,
Speaker 1: I had a wonderful editor, Karen Andrew. I get Mademoiselle.
Speaker 1: I killed myself writing something and she called me in
Speaker 1: and she said this is really not good. And I
Speaker 1: was devastated. I mean, I thought, oh my god, I've
Speaker 1: spent my whole life trying to get a foot in
Speaker 1: this door. And then she said, you know, I think
Speaker 1: you can do this, but this is really it. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you how to construct something good,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to give you one chance to go
Speaker 1: back and do that, and then we'll take a look
Speaker 1: and if it's not good, we're going to have a
Speaker 1: very different conversation. So here's what a headline is, Here's
Speaker 1: what a grabby is, Here's what you know. The middle
Speaker 1: of the story is supposed to be. Tell him what
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell him, bla bla bla blah. So I
Speaker 1: went back. I thought out her very clear, very architectural,
Speaker 1: if you will, feedback, and also the fact that she said,
Speaker 1: I think you can do this, but I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: and um, when I turned it in the rewrites, I
Speaker 1: didn't hear from her. And then she came out and said,
Speaker 1: it's it's really good. It's very good. You got it. Wow.
Speaker 1: You know, Harvard Business Review just had a story which
Speaker 1: we sent around in the office about innovation and company
Speaker 1: culture and how you innovate. I thought of the story
Speaker 1: actually which I brought it up, and one of the
Speaker 1: things that pointed out is said that actually candor works,
Speaker 1: not niceness. She was very direct, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was the best favor someone can do for you is
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth. It felt like a real jolt.
Speaker 1: In contrast, I worked at Glamor for a while, which
Speaker 1: was a great magazine. I worked for an editor who
Speaker 1: would you turn something in, she would rewrite it, all
Speaker 1: over it and send it out to you via assistant,
Speaker 1: demoralizing learned nothing. Start to think like, why don't you
Speaker 1: just right it yourself, you know, like a Braddy twenty
Speaker 1: something would. But you know, the candor, the directness. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You've always been a great coach, and you've
Speaker 1: been thought of as a great coach, especially for creative people.
Speaker 1: Did it come from this and did you take that
Speaker 1: lesson with you? I think I definitely took that lesson
Speaker 1: with me. I don't think I'm quite as candid as
Speaker 1: Karen was. But a creative person does need guardrails and
Speaker 1: does like some sort of directional feedback. They don't just
Speaker 1: want to rubber stamp, even if they think they do.
Speaker 1: I thought about a few things. I mean, the beauty
Speaker 1: and the wonder of MTV was that it was really
Speaker 1: filled with people that I thought could not find gainful
Speaker 1: employment anywhere else. It would be somebody who had never
Speaker 1: really shot anything and just wanted to get their hands
Speaker 1: on a came and try it. And we were willing
Speaker 1: to do that, but we were willing to do it
Speaker 1: against a set of promises we were making to the fans,
Speaker 1: to the audience, to the viewers, to the consumers, to
Speaker 1: the users. So I would say absolutely, but remember, don't
Speaker 1: fall in love with your own idea. This is about
Speaker 1: someone else, not you. This is about the person on
Speaker 1: the other side. Who are they? Who are you? Trying
Speaker 1: to communicate with what's different about them today than yesterday.
Speaker 1: They're like you, but you can't make this just for you.
Speaker 1: And there are really no other rules aside from you know,
Speaker 1: no full frontal nudity. Go out there and do it.
Speaker 1: And it was so much fun to have the freedom
Speaker 1: to meet people who were far more creative than I was.
Speaker 1: I began to see I was sort of a better
Speaker 1: editor coach than I was a player. So many great
Speaker 1: people got opportunity through that company, Quirky people like Marcy Braffman,
Speaker 1: who was there when I got there, people like John
Speaker 1: Sykes who could step out there and ask anybody to
Speaker 1: do anything, you know, and just make you want to
Speaker 1: join the party. And you know Ted Demi and Mark
Speaker 1: Palings and all these great people coming in. Fred Cybert
Speaker 1: here sorry, he was the person who invented the graphic
Speaker 1: look of MTV. He came from radio. He was the
Speaker 1: promotion director to a radio station and he was in
Speaker 1: charge of the visual well exactly. And I think we
Speaker 1: were so snotty that I remember thinking like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to hire anybody who worked at an advertising agency
Speaker 1: or a television network or magazine. I mean, when I
Speaker 1: joined I didn't know anything about television. I didn't even
Speaker 1: like it. My interview was with Fred, who said, so
Speaker 1: what kind of music do you like? And I think
Speaker 1: I said Bruce Springsteen. I'm not sure. He said, well,
Speaker 1: you're wrong, and I'll tell you why. And then about
Speaker 1: forty five minutes later, I left, not having said anything else.
Speaker 1: And the next thing I know, they were like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, look, this is just a few of us
Speaker 1: were trying to get this thing going. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to join, And it was kind of like, how fast
Speaker 1: can I get out the door of Conde nas and
Speaker 1: jump on this thing? Whatever it is? So how did
Speaker 1: you get over? I had some friends who came to
Speaker 1: work for you. They said, well, they're starting this thing.
Speaker 1: It's going to be music on television and it's I
Speaker 1: don't even know what it is. It's three minute clips.
Speaker 1: And when I think about it now, I I had
Speaker 1: another kinde Nast moment that was also instructive. So many
Speaker 1: people at Conde Nast were opposed to it. It was
Speaker 1: like I was telling them I was joining the circus
Speaker 1: or something. If I had said I was, if I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be Diane Sawyer's p a or something like that.
Speaker 1: I think they would have felt they were like cable
Speaker 1: television music video clips. If you stayed here for twenty
Speaker 1: five years, you could be managing editor. I think I'm
Speaker 1: not even thinking about that. So I thought, well, if
Speaker 1: this many people think it's a bad idea, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: gonna do it. I mean, it has to be a
Speaker 1: good idea, you know. I've just found the camaraderie and
Speaker 1: the purpose and the sheer invention of something that didn't exist,
Speaker 1: so irresistible. And again on the math side of it,
Speaker 1: I was saying, I mean this with all sincerity. You
Speaker 1: had a map in the creative group. You had a plan,
Speaker 1: and the plan were promises, and I loved that. I
Speaker 1: am making a promise to you. If you sit here,
Speaker 1: I'm going to deliver something that you've been waiting for.
Speaker 1: It is the first music television network. It is exactly
Speaker 1: for you. And I thought, wow, I want my m
Speaker 1: t V. It's not distributing in Manhattan. I have no
Speaker 1: idea what it is, but those are powerful words. My
Speaker 1: in it in an era before social media and social engagement.
Speaker 1: Something for me that felt like mine and want what
Speaker 1: a powerful word, right? I want my MTV. I took
Speaker 1: that very seriously. I took those promises to heart. Twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day terrific in stereo, Not really, but
Speaker 1: you know, hey, it's mart It sounded for those ten
Speaker 1: people who did have there. I remember you saying to me,
Speaker 1: we wanted people to think it sounds better than regular television,
Speaker 1: and they did. It just felt to me like if
Speaker 1: I could marry all the things I'm interested in with
Speaker 1: these set of principles and join this crazy band of
Speaker 1: people who have no right and a lot of audacity
Speaker 1: in a firm belief that this can work, I mean,
Speaker 1: what a gift. I never looked back, not one second.
Speaker 1: You know, we used to say back then that all
Speaker 1: of us were doing jobs we had never done before. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we didn't really know what we weren't supposed to do.
Speaker 1: I saw some interview a year or so ago with
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, and the essence of it was he didn't
Speaker 1: value experience at all. He valued vision, smarts, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: and I thought about it actually said, you know, in
Speaker 1: those days, we were the twenty something crowd. You and
Speaker 1: I are the same age, not twenty something anymore, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but we didn't value experience. A matter of fact, people
Speaker 1: had experience. We thought that was some excuse for them
Speaker 1: trying to be relevant, and it was a negative. Well,
Speaker 1: now we're at this age where we are full of
Speaker 1: experience and maybe not the share creativity who once had.
Speaker 1: Do you think experience has a role that we didn't
Speaker 1: appreciate when we were in our twenties. It's hard to
Speaker 1: answer that question without stepping outside yourself. You know, as
Speaker 1: I said, like you, I never wanted to be away
Speaker 1: from young adult culture. And even if I felt like
Speaker 1: a vampire at times, I thought, you know, I need
Speaker 1: to be near this. And as I've spent time around
Speaker 1: subsequent generations from hours, I thought, oh my god, they
Speaker 1: are so much more equipped than we were two change
Speaker 1: the world. I mean, there's so many more tools, there's
Speaker 1: so much data that we never had. There's so many
Speaker 1: wonderful things about who they are. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: there's some things about our unconventional experience. I mean, let's
Speaker 1: face it, we're experienced, but we're not exactly you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't work at IBM. We didn't work at IBM.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I can still have nieces and
Speaker 1: nephews who look at me, and they're like, you know
Speaker 1: who post malone is. They assume I do, and I do,
Speaker 1: but do my friends? Now? You know, we had such
Speaker 1: a great period of being able to be young and
Speaker 1: inexperienced and devoted and into it before I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm looking at some of these smaller companies they start
Speaker 1: building corporate over structures. And I was just talking to
Speaker 1: a group. I said, so, what's your like mission, what's
Speaker 1: your vision? And they said mobile first, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean yes, but what isn't really that doesn't make
Speaker 1: me want to get up in the morning and everything
Speaker 1: is that to me? It's like, yes, but what is
Speaker 1: it about you? What do you know about that person
Speaker 1: who's going to share what you do today or listen
Speaker 1: or care or what is it about you? I started
Speaker 1: to think that my style was out of style or
Speaker 1: your style, you know that creatively, lad anything was out
Speaker 1: of style. That it was really only about left brain,
Speaker 1: It was only about math for a minute. But the
Speaker 1: truth is now you can have an incredible marriage of both,
Speaker 1: even more than we were able to. And let's face it,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I admired and valued and
Speaker 1: MTV was research. But it wasn't focus groups. It was
Speaker 1: what's going on in your life that influences you and
Speaker 1: makes you who you are and determines what you like.
Speaker 1: It was like qualitative research, right. It's as much data
Speaker 1: as we could get about who loves MTV, who might
Speaker 1: like it, who could love it some more. So that
Speaker 1: was important. That was very important. But it's not the
Speaker 1: only thing, and it can't be the dominant thing. You know.
Speaker 1: We did do a concept test of MTV, if you remember,
Speaker 1: the board of directors did not want to do this idea.
Speaker 1: So I had this idea that we would get a
Speaker 1: polster to do a concept test, and it came back
Speaker 1: really great, like I like that, I'd listen to that
Speaker 1: or watch that channel, And we used that in the
Speaker 1: board presentation and finally the board didn't say yes. Steve
Speaker 1: were also around Warners and Jim Robinson run American Express
Speaker 1: had to getting room and say yes. But I do
Speaker 1: think that little bit of research made them feel better
Speaker 1: than a bunch of twenty year old saying, hey, we
Speaker 1: got a great idea here, let us at it. Someone
Speaker 1: was talking to me about the incredible data Netflix and
Speaker 1: the fact that they used data for casting and everything else.
Speaker 1: And I said, yes, I think that is fantastic. I
Speaker 1: wish I had had it. It's incredible. But I still
Speaker 1: believe there's somebody at Netflix who read a script from
Speaker 1: the Duffer Brothers for Stranger Things. They stuck their finger
Speaker 1: up and read the Zeitgeist and said, there's some Spielbergie
Speaker 1: in nineties kind of retro thing going on. They hit
Speaker 1: pay dirt with Millie Bobby Brown, they brought one ow
Speaker 1: a rider back. They mixed up the stew of things,
Speaker 1: and the data alone will not lead you to that.
Speaker 1: So you need some people in the mix who can
Speaker 1: also just read tea leaves and take a chance. We're
Speaker 1: all looking for things that connect and work and hit,
Speaker 1: and most of them don't. But that part of it
Speaker 1: is I think essential in the mix too. Well. I
Speaker 1: think that's sort of the hard of You know me,
Speaker 1: I've used math and magic since I was in my twenties.
Speaker 1: That the research tells us what the people are like,
Speaker 1: where they're living, what their attitudes are, president tell us
Speaker 1: what to do to excite them. Research is not policy making,
Speaker 1: and I think we shared that way back when it's okay,
Speaker 1: Now I got a picture for these I got a
Speaker 1: great idea. Let's do the last weekend with Van Halen.
Speaker 1: Let's paint that house paint and get John Mellencamp to
Speaker 1: to you know, give it away. Um. And I remember
Speaker 1: listening to one of the writers sitting there one day saying,
Speaker 1: I hate my miserable life. And we made it a contest.
Speaker 1: If you hate your miserable life, sign up here, sign
Speaker 1: up here, and we'll change it. Just hold on a second,
Speaker 1: because we've got so much more to talk talk about.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after a quick break. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Mathew Magic. We're here with Judy McGrath. We were talking
Speaker 1: about creatives running companies. You're one of the few creatives
Speaker 1: that ran a very big company. How do you think
Speaker 1: a company differs when a creative runs the company than
Speaker 1: one of the business people run the company, or the
Speaker 1: lawyer or the accountant or the salesperson. You know. I
Speaker 1: was stuck in a flight once with Jerry Laybourne, who
Speaker 1: you know. The Queen Mother thought us genius Bickelodeon and
Speaker 1: she said, you know, Judy, you will never really be
Speaker 1: terrific at this until you learn to look at business
Speaker 1: as creatively as you look at creative And I really
Speaker 1: thought about that, you know, and I set out to
Speaker 1: learn how to love a piano. The business people in
Speaker 1: all of our companies are not typical business people either.
Speaker 1: You know, there's creative thinking and everything. I really do
Speaker 1: believe that I'm not one of those people that thinks
Speaker 1: of creativities for the precious few. But as I grew
Speaker 1: up through the ranks and I left just managing all
Speaker 1: those wonderful, incredible creative people that I loved, and I
Speaker 1: started to learn to fall in love with Comedy Central
Speaker 1: and Nickelodeon, and you know, I got the chance to
Speaker 1: help create a safe and wonderful place for Jon Stewart
Speaker 1: and you know, Dave Chappelle and John Oliver and Colbert
Speaker 1: and all those great people. I started to think like
Speaker 1: my job now is to sort of protect and defend
Speaker 1: the ability to create and innovate and take chances on people.
Speaker 1: The business has to be sound, you know, the business
Speaker 1: has to work. And I also always believed in know
Speaker 1: your audience. So if I'm speaking to someone who's going
Speaker 1: to be making a business decision, I need to be
Speaker 1: able to speak to them in their language and not
Speaker 1: in any way that sort of undermines or undercuts or
Speaker 1: makes it sound like I don't understand what they need
Speaker 1: to do as well. So I really came to wake
Speaker 1: up one day and realize I really enjoy being the
Speaker 1: business leader this company. Now too, were seduced. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: were seduced. We were seduced. Although I did have a
Speaker 1: funny moment. I remember saying to somebody, you know, God,
Speaker 1: we really should get on the train and go to
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and like sit down with Briant and say thank you.
Speaker 1: And they were like, what, I'm not going to Philadelphia
Speaker 1: and getting on a train and doing a sort of
Speaker 1: like no, you're missing the point though. I mean they're
Speaker 1: in this with us, right, you know, and they're funding us,
Speaker 1: They're part of the mix. I value his view. I've
Speaker 1: been around him, I've seen it. So I started to
Speaker 1: see the creativity and value in the joy and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out a business and make a business work.
Speaker 1: Obviously is going through some heavy hard times. What isn't
Speaker 1: it's battered around, it's crazy as ever. Thus, but I
Speaker 1: think everybody who works someplace feels good when the business
Speaker 1: is working. So you're trying to get shows on the area,
Speaker 1: You're trying to make programming changes, you know, the tension.
Speaker 1: You've got a seller sales head that says we need
Speaker 1: this kind of programming because that's what advertisers want, or
Speaker 1: somebody says I've got this great show and the sales
Speaker 1: head goes, that's terrible. No one wants that. What do
Speaker 1: you do? I ran into this frequently, like, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't sell south Park like guys, guys, you're not
Speaker 1: selling south Park. You're selling like young men and young
Speaker 1: women and a cultural phenomenon. They love this. They flocked
Speaker 1: to it. They it is the perfect commentary on the
Speaker 1: times we live and it's so genius. You would be
Speaker 1: so lucky to be near this. It's not about what
Speaker 1: you're going to be afraid of in south Park. It's
Speaker 1: going to be like, you want to talk to the
Speaker 1: people who love south Park. I know you do, and
Speaker 1: we've got them, and we love south Park. We'll love
Speaker 1: it for you, but I can convince you that this
Speaker 1: is exactly where you want to be, you know. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, when Jon Stewart was really rolling
Speaker 1: and every now and then somebody would say, oh God,
Speaker 1: does he have to talk to the Iranian physicists talking
Speaker 1: about nuclear I'm like, leave him alone, let him talk
Speaker 1: to whomever he wants to talk to. He's curating this show.
Speaker 1: We're on a journey with him. I don't need another
Speaker 1: person to talk to the celebrity of the day. You know,
Speaker 1: there's lots of that defend the talent and help the
Speaker 1: sales organization or the clients see that what you really
Speaker 1: want is a relationship with the fan. And the fan
Speaker 1: is coming in through this door, and you want to
Speaker 1: be near that door. You don't want to shut that door.
Speaker 1: And how often did you have to go meet with client?
Speaker 1: I did a lot of that. But you know the
Speaker 1: problem with taking me on a client it was, you know,
Speaker 1: there were a multitude of issues. Sometimes, I mean there
Speaker 1: was I only to travel, which is ridiculous. I missed
Speaker 1: so much. Just a great, great guy. And he invited
Speaker 1: me to lunch with a client for taco bell and
Speaker 1: during the lunch I said, you know, I'm really curious,
Speaker 1: like what's your Facebook strategy? And he kicked me so
Speaker 1: hard under the table. I thought I was never gonna
Speaker 1: walk again, because in his view, he didn't want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge there was anything else. I mean, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is about selling empty And she said, you know,
Speaker 1: I still believe I sell more tacos to people who
Speaker 1: were watching like Comedy Central and MTV. But I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what I'm thinking about Facebook, And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is like, this is acknowledging. I know that. You know,
Speaker 1: there's lots of other things in the world. We're all
Speaker 1: in the same media business. What are you thinking? What
Speaker 1: are you doing? So, depending on the client, I would
Speaker 1: be either a good date for the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the lunch for the nightmare date. They'd say, wow, you
Speaker 1: did a great sale for Facebook. Thank you. We won't
Speaker 1: need to see you yet, so let me jump a
Speaker 1: little bit. You're a role model for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: especially creatives always, but you've been a great role model
Speaker 1: for women. If you think about it, in the days
Speaker 1: of MTV, we're probably looking back at an extraordinary number
Speaker 1: of women very important roles. Today would be crowing about it. Probably,
Speaker 1: you know, whether you like it or not. You have
Speaker 1: been mentoring people, You've been setting an example. How do
Speaker 1: you handle that responsibility? What do you do consciously about that?
Speaker 1: You know, I can remember some things that just felt
Speaker 1: like personal milestones to me. I remember when year sitting,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the great fun things I got
Speaker 1: to do would be hang out in the rehearsals for
Speaker 1: the Video Music Awards, And I was sitting there and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, Wow, you know, we've got a female director,
Speaker 1: we have a female on stage managing the crew. We
Speaker 1: have a young woman who's the head writer. We have
Speaker 1: a young woman in charge of seating and events. But
Speaker 1: you've got women in roles that were not traditionally women's roles.
Speaker 1: They were just really good. And I do think it's
Speaker 1: incumbent on somebody who gets an opportunity, like I got
Speaker 1: to look out for underrepresented people in general. And so
Speaker 1: you know, when Beth McCarthy Miller raised her hand, was
Speaker 1: an easy like, let's let Beth direct, come on, like,
Speaker 1: she can do it. We know she can do it.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows she can do it. And I looked around
Speaker 1: and thought, wow, this whole thing is kind of really
Speaker 1: looking very different than most of the other sets that
Speaker 1: I've been on. And you know, I always felt like
Speaker 1: I worked with men who are not like typical and
Speaker 1: young employees who are not typical. So how ridiculous would
Speaker 1: it be to take a typical approach to anything else?
Speaker 1: We were up ending tradition all the time and not
Speaker 1: just for the sake of doing it, but because you
Speaker 1: get give somebody a chance, they'll knock themselves out to
Speaker 1: show you that they could really do it. And we
Speaker 1: actually talked about it back then. We said, you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody has done three or four things and they're
Speaker 1: not great, we have empirical evidence they won't be great.
Speaker 1: But if we give somebody a shot who's never done it,
Speaker 1: they could be the next Steven Spielberg exactly. And only
Speaker 1: we're gonna find out is to take a shot. And
Speaker 1: you continue to do that through your career. I'm most
Speaker 1: drawn to it. It's what happened to me, and I
Speaker 1: still feel it. At lunch with a kid yesterday, I thought,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I would hire this kid tomorrow. He's
Speaker 1: been teaching a knife throwing class, but we might be
Speaker 1: doing improv. But it was it was like, he wants
Speaker 1: to be an agent or something. I'm like, why not?
Speaker 1: Of course? You know. So now they were not twenty
Speaker 1: something and you've got experience under your belt. What are
Speaker 1: the two things that you wish someone had told you
Speaker 1: about getting old? God, Well, let's see, in spite of
Speaker 1: how old you may be, if your heart and soul
Speaker 1: are young, and youthful, don't shy away from it, and
Speaker 1: at the same time own your experience and find a
Speaker 1: way to share it when asked or even when not.
Speaker 1: Sitting next to young guy who's running a company and
Speaker 1: he was looking at a piece of piece of media
Speaker 1: and he said, that's boring, that was it, And I
Speaker 1: watched the kid who had showed it to him look deflated.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know, that's not really actionable advice
Speaker 1: my first editor who said this is what a headline is,
Speaker 1: you could say, you know, it drags in the middle,
Speaker 1: Like if I were you, I would move this piece
Speaker 1: to the back. You could try that, or you take
Speaker 1: it and go back and think about where do you
Speaker 1: think it's slow and then come back and show me.
Speaker 1: But this quick kind of like just dismissive is not
Speaker 1: going to get you really where you want to go,
Speaker 1: and he's just going to think you're a jerk, and
Speaker 1: I give up. Okay, so let's jump too. You've always
Speaker 1: done good. Rock the vote jus er lose aids awareness.
Speaker 1: How did you think about that inside of a company
Speaker 1: and how do you think of it for you as
Speaker 1: a as a person. Well, you know, inside MTV it
Speaker 1: was very interesting. I once heard Tina Fey say something
Speaker 1: about it was a panel where a bunch of women
Speaker 1: were sort of congratulating each other for different things, and
Speaker 1: someone said they were lucky, and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: women jumped on her and said, oh my god. Women
Speaker 1: always say they're lucky. Men never say they're lucky. You
Speaker 1: made your own luck. And Tina was actually very thoughtful
Speaker 1: about it, and she said, I think timing plays a
Speaker 1: role in something as well as luck and talent. So
Speaker 1: when we decided to get into you know, and certainly
Speaker 1: rock the Vote was not our idea politics Jeff air off.
Speaker 1: So Jeff was very passionate about this, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of grewn to rock the Vote. And I remember talking
Speaker 1: to Tom Freston, with whom I had an extraordinarily great
Speaker 1: creative relationship, and this was one of the rare our
Speaker 1: instances where we had a blowout. Really we really didn't agree,
Speaker 1: but I listened to what he said. He said, this
Speaker 1: is a terrible idea. It's not gonna work. This is
Speaker 1: an entertainment brand. Nobody cares about this. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: laughed out of town. We do not have permission to
Speaker 1: do this. There's nothing about us that says we should
Speaker 1: be stepping anywhere near an election or voting or any this.
Speaker 1: So I went back and I thought about it a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I thought, Okay, this is where I
Speaker 1: come into the picture. I think I grew up in
Speaker 1: an era where I thought music. One of the many
Speaker 1: things I loved about music was it's social commentary, and
Speaker 1: it is about the times we live in, and it
Speaker 1: is about everything, and it's about all the things that
Speaker 1: affect you in a very deep way. And I thought,
Speaker 1: I think there's a way to do this where it
Speaker 1: will be engaging. This was not about telling young people
Speaker 1: you need to vote. That's not the way I looked
Speaker 1: at it at all. It was saying, to people who
Speaker 1: make big decisions in this country, this is a generation
Speaker 1: that is disengaged from you, and you need to address
Speaker 1: them on their turf, their way, and we'll invite you
Speaker 1: to do that. That's your shot. It wasn't about trying
Speaker 1: to be parental or any of that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: to them, or give them boring facts or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And so we got as smart as we could get,
Speaker 1: and I think I didn't tell anybody. That's another thing
Speaker 1: I sent Tabitha store, and Tabitha went to New Hampshire
Speaker 1: and she called me at like midnight she said, you know,
Speaker 1: I got up here in like a bunch of candidates
Speaker 1: are like, what's MTV? And she said, and then a
Speaker 1: couple of them like got back off the bus, primarily
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, and said I'll talk to you. And then
Speaker 1: we were sort of off and running. And you know
Speaker 1: that partnered with incredible creative work on those rock the
Speaker 1: Vote spots, I mean Madonna wrapped in a flag, and
Speaker 1: then fast forward to you know, we're gonna throw an
Speaker 1: inaugural ball that's not official and see if anybody comes
Speaker 1: to the party, and our em is gonna play and
Speaker 1: and Vogue's gonna play. We try. I had to make
Speaker 1: it as spirited as MTV, but add a little bit
Speaker 1: of gravitas, if you will, and meaning you know, like
Speaker 1: you do matter. You are young, but you matter, and
Speaker 1: you deserve to be heard and listen to and we're
Speaker 1: going to help you. Well, it's still held up is
Speaker 1: the example of the best way to do it. So
Speaker 1: he did did a great job with it, Judy, and
Speaker 1: it was fun. It was great. Well it shows too.
Speaker 1: So let me jump to CEO MTV Networks board member Amazon,
Speaker 1: how do you contrast and compare those two roles. To
Speaker 1: have it front row seat at two phenomena in your
Speaker 1: lifetime is incredible, So I would start there. But UM
Speaker 1: board members are not operators, and that's a hard thing
Speaker 1: to learn, you know. The tendency to want to lean
Speaker 1: in and get it in is very real. You're supposed
Speaker 1: to take the long view all the time. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I love about Amazon, which is very
Speaker 1: much like we were, is that they are, as we
Speaker 1: all know, relentlessly customer focused. And they have a list
Speaker 1: of tenants and principles and they live by them and
Speaker 1: it is customer, customer, customer. And another one I like
Speaker 1: is day one. They want you to feel like this
Speaker 1: is the first day. This is a new idea. What
Speaker 1: can we do today? It's different than what we did yesterday?
Speaker 1: Hence ALEXA, you know. So I find their spirit of
Speaker 1: what can we invent is a major part of their
Speaker 1: DNA and it moves fast. So in that regard I
Speaker 1: relate very much to it. I think I'm the sort
Speaker 1: of media person among the my colleagues. It's a very
Speaker 1: small board. It's run in some unique ways. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: read this book and we're all going to discuss it
Speaker 1: and see how this doesn't happen here. Two. You know,
Speaker 1: everything they do they write as a paper that you
Speaker 1: have to think about, and when you get there to
Speaker 1: no power point, it's like, okay, any questions, let's get
Speaker 1: into it. So it's a culture that is familiar to
Speaker 1: me from the media business, which is like, let's get
Speaker 1: into it already, let's talk about it. Let's like figure
Speaker 1: out what it is and at the same time take
Speaker 1: the long view, you know, think about the customer. There's
Speaker 1: an incredible guy in the world who I love really
Speaker 1: very much who runs the Cornell Tech Center. So he's
Speaker 1: immersed steeped you knows everything about this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and he's trying to put humanities in tech together and
Speaker 1: talk about ethics in one meeting. So I sometimes feel
Speaker 1: like I'm speaking from a different Alexa than the rest
Speaker 1: of the room. He said, you know, I really agree
Speaker 1: with Judy and one thing value of talent scientists, technologists
Speaker 1: adventures or talent, and they want to know that you
Speaker 1: are hearing their idea and you like their idea, and
Speaker 1: you're going to help them nurture and foster the idea.
Speaker 1: So as much as talent attraction to me was everything
Speaker 1: coming up through MTV and Comedy Central Nickelodeon, talent is
Speaker 1: everything there as well. You know, it's like you want
Speaker 1: the best people, and those people need to think that
Speaker 1: you understand them as talent. They're really no different at
Speaker 1: the end of the day than the original VJs. You know,
Speaker 1: our talent or the musicians who absolutely, incredibly, crazily love
Speaker 1: what they're doing. They need to know that you understand
Speaker 1: that you value it. And I think that's very much
Speaker 1: a part of why, in spite of whatever you want
Speaker 1: to think or debate about it, Amazon continues to just flourish,
Speaker 1: constant invention, reinvention, focus on the best talent, focus on
Speaker 1: the best ideas, make it easy for them to do it,
Speaker 1: give them what they need to do it. I'm not
Speaker 1: afraid to make mistakes. No, absolutely not. In fact, essential
Speaker 1: I think we weren't either. There were so many. I
Speaker 1: mean they even make lists of stuff that didn't work,
Speaker 1: and they say, hey, you know, it's okay, we'll move
Speaker 1: that team over here and try something else. The worst
Speaker 1: thing is to not try. So jumping off point ALEXA
Speaker 1: Smart Speakers audio podcast sort of the new audio renaissance.
Speaker 1: What do you think about it? It was another one
Speaker 1: of those things. Dare I say, like MTV when you
Speaker 1: think like, oh my god, Yeah, that's what I was
Speaker 1: waiting for. You know, someone who can play music for
Speaker 1: me and give me the weather and the news, and
Speaker 1: is a voice and can talk to me. I think
Speaker 1: it takes into account a lot of the things we've
Speaker 1: been talking about. What makes somebody's life easier, what makes
Speaker 1: it more fun, what helps connect you to the stuff
Speaker 1: you want? Goes back to the most basic thing radio,
Speaker 1: the sound of a voice in the wilderness. That is
Speaker 1: the most human connection. So I think all those smart
Speaker 1: devices are really tapping some basic human needs. We'll take
Speaker 1: our appreciation back to Amazon. Everyone in the audio thinks
Speaker 1: Amazon has been a game changer for us. It's the
Speaker 1: new clock radio of households. Used to have a clock radio.
Speaker 1: Now it's but who cares? Now there's Amazon, Now there's Alexa.
Speaker 1: We've got to the clock radio back. We talked about countrarians,
Speaker 1: we talked about outsiders, and we were early outsiders. I
Speaker 1: think the whole MTV crew was. But today it seems
Speaker 1: like with all the startups, everybody's an outsider. So hard
Speaker 1: to find the insiders. If you want to be an insider,
Speaker 1: how the hell do you get those skills? Where do
Speaker 1: you go? The beauty of media today, whether it's a
Speaker 1: podcast or Ted Talk or whatever. You can dial up
Speaker 1: and teach yourself how to do photoshop, or listen to
Speaker 1: Warren Buffett, or go international and find someone who might
Speaker 1: have some wisdom that comes from something completely different that
Speaker 1: can inform your thinking. It's almost your respon. That's ability
Speaker 1: you can say, I'm not just gonna listen to slow Burn.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try something completely different and see what
Speaker 1: I take out of that, and it can help inform
Speaker 1: your idea and make it more likely to succeed, I
Speaker 1: would say. And yet I still find that I loved
Speaker 1: the era of magazine writers who I thought really knew
Speaker 1: something I didn't know and could tell me a story
Speaker 1: in a way that I couldn't tell it. And I
Speaker 1: still search for those voices and those people, and I
Speaker 1: think there are lots of them out there. So I
Speaker 1: think you have to search out your own contrarians. So
Speaker 1: let me jump one more place. We're in a world
Speaker 1: of this incredibly fragmented information, entertainment, everything for everybody. We
Speaker 1: ever build another cable network. Is there any audience out
Speaker 1: there that's unserved anybody looking for a linear TV channel?
Speaker 1: You know, that is really one of the That is
Speaker 1: one of the questions, seems to me. When you can
Speaker 1: have every thing, you start to want something's curated for you.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why rap caviare hit everybody like a lightning.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean when you think about radio
Speaker 1: has been around forever. When you first said I heart radio,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like I heart radio, and then I
Speaker 1: started to think about like I do love radio. I
Speaker 1: do heart radio. You know, I would someone to help
Speaker 1: me find my way through all of this stuff. I
Speaker 1: still believe there's a rule for somebody to curate for
Speaker 1: me this massive sea of choice and help me navigate,
Speaker 1: while I also have the freedom to discover on my own.
Speaker 1: So that's why you begin to trust brands, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I trust an event on iHeart Radio. I trust
Speaker 1: it's gonna have the zeitgeist in mind. I trust when
Speaker 1: I look for something on Netflix or Amazon, prim or
Speaker 1: Hulu that there's gonna be something in there. They know
Speaker 1: that I like Handmaid's Tale, and they do. They're gonna
Speaker 1: find something for me, So is there going to be
Speaker 1: another single point of entry. I mean, look, we grew
Speaker 1: up in an era where everybody was arguing about Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Now it's like there's so many different things to debate
Speaker 1: it can be overwhelming. So I still look to the
Speaker 1: curators and I still think there's probably room for an
Speaker 1: idea that none of us have thought of yet, and
Speaker 1: we're all gonna go like, oh my god, why didn't
Speaker 1: we think of that? Okay, so we're gonna end it
Speaker 1: back on Mathew Magic. Best mathematician, You know, I would
Speaker 1: say my friend Dan who started the Corneal Tech Center.
Speaker 1: Best magician, you know, not counting you, you know, I
Speaker 1: still have to give it up to early MTV, you,
Speaker 1: Tom Bob, and pretty much any musician as a magician.
Speaker 1: Thanks Judy, Thank you Bob always. Here's a couple of
Speaker 1: things I take away from this episode with Judy. It
Speaker 1: might be you to just fix your employees work yourself,
Speaker 1: but if you want them to grow, take the time
Speaker 1: to teach them. It will benefit you down the line.
Speaker 1: When advertisers are skittish of being associated with certain content,
Speaker 1: show them the relationship they want is not with the content,
Speaker 1: but with the fan who likes the content. And finally,
Speaker 1: if you want your business to up end the traditional,
Speaker 1: don't hire typical people. Judy is looking at hiring knife throwers.
Speaker 1: I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. The show is hosted by
Speaker 1: Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and
Speaker 1: wrangling are Wonderful Talent, which is no small feat. Nikki
Speaker 1: Eatre for pulling research bill plaques, and Michael Asar for
Speaker 1: their recording help. Are at to Ryan Murdoch and of
Speaker 1: course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone who
Speaker 1: helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,
Speaker 1: m