December 3, 2025 • 37 mins
Entertainment industry veteran Charlie Collier joins Michael Kassan to unpack how Roku is transforming fragmentation into advantage – emerging as the modern “lead-in to all television,” proving interoperability beats walled gardens, and turning the home screen into a vibrant cultural canvas in its own right. Along the way, they dive into leadership philosophies, creative risk-taking, and the seismic shifts that will define who wins the next era of streaming.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. Leave everything better
than you found it. You know I'm not the only
ones saying that, but imagine you walk into every room,
you try to leave every person better than you found them.
You try to leave every situation better than you found it.
If you did that actively for a lifetime, think about
what a difference you make. I've been blessed to be
around a lot of people who act that way, and
then my job is to just try to elevate them
(00:22):
while they do it, and hopefully it can pounds.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm Michael Casson, and this is Good Company. Together we'll
explore the dynamic intersection of media, marketing, entertainment, sports, and technology.
I'll be joined by visionaries, pioneers, and yes, even a
couple of disruptors for candid conversations as we break down
how these masters of ingenuity are shaping the future of business,
culture and everything in between. My bet is you'll pick
(00:54):
up a lessen or two along the way. As I
like to say, it's all good.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Welcome back to Good Company. Today's guest has helped steer
television through every major turning point over most of the
past two decades, and he's just getting started. He's one
of the few people who's had a hand in both
the stories that define eras not just the seasons, and
the systems that carry them into millions of homes. Charlie Collier,
President of Roku Media, has spent his career championing great storytellers,
(01:24):
building bold businesses, and finding opportunity during times of change.
From the creative revolutions of mad Men and Breaking Bad
to guiding Fox through its reinvention to now helping Roku
redefine the living room, Charlie has been at the center
of television's most important shifts. What makes Charlie stand out
isn't any single leadership skill. It's the combination. He's part
(01:48):
talent scout, part strategist, part steady hand, and a business
that really slows down. He's as comfortable with writers and
actors as he is with engineers and data scientists, and
he approaches all of them the same way curiosity, respect, empathy,
and a belief that good ideas can come from anywhere.
(02:08):
At Roku, Charlie stepped into the sweet spot where Hollywood
creativity meets platform power. He saw early that the interface
itself is becoming one of the most important stages in
media and that openness, not walls, would shape the next
era of television. Today, Roku reaches over ninety million households
and is helping viewers, creators, and marketers find clarity in
(02:33):
a world that often feels chaotic. This conversation is about leadership, talent,
culture shifts, and what it takes to build something enduring
when everything around you is changing. It is my pleasure
to welcome my friend Charlie Kayer to the show. Let's
dive in.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Thank you Wow, what an introduction, and thank you for
having me. It's great to be with you.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Give us a little opening before we dive in, really
to how did Charlie Kllyer get here? In terms of
your journey.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I called the journey for me has been defined by
the people I've been fortunate enough to work with. I
started out in advertising, sales and marketing, and so many
of the leaders of brands and agencies and holding companies
then are still people I care for and work with
in my capacity at Roku today. And from there I
moved into the creative side of the business. Josh Sapan
(03:21):
and Ed Carroll at AMC Networks hired me to be
the president and general manager of AMC, and together we
worked on Madmen and Greenlit, Breaking Bad, and The Walking
Dead and Better Call Saul the Night Manager, so many
of the shows that came to define that era for AMC,
and we built AMC Studios there and when Fox sold
(03:43):
it studio to Disney, I was lucky to go work
for Lachlan Murdoch and the new Fox which we took public,
and they were so smart and curious and acquisitive that
Lachlan and John Allen acquired Gosh, TMZ and Marvis to
studios and eventually to be where I learned so much
(04:03):
about the avad business and really the power of platforms,
which got me excited about CTV. And so today I'm
excited to work for Roku, where I'm the President of
Roku Media, reporting to the founder of Roku, Anthony Wood,
who again great person, so smart and creative in different
ways than those I worked with every other step on
(04:25):
the path.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
You are a rare breed in our industry, and I
mean that genuinely. You've danced on every surface, so to speak.
You began in advertising and as you said, had the
startup bug with Jerry and Oxygen, and obviously I don't
know how many will agree with this, but for me,
(04:46):
mad Men was my first binge and so I always
look at it fondly. And being on this side of
the equation, I thought Don Draper was the coolest guy
in the world. But I liken myself more to Harry,
the media guy down on the basement with the abacus
and the bow tie. Well, Don Draper was having three
martini lunches and getting all the girls, and the guy
(05:07):
in the basement doing costs per point wasn't having as
much fun. But to that end, Charlie, it goes to
what I was saying about you. You began your careers
Harry in the basement.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
You made it up.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I don't want to say you had three martini lunches
because I've never seen.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You do that.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
But the journey you've had puts you in, as I
said in rarefied a or to have been involved in advertising,
been involved in programming, lead networks, start up, and you know,
bringing you to today with technology and Roku. There are
not many people who can tick all those boxes. So
we're going to drill into that a bit in our conversation.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, it's been really fun and I will say, you
learn something different no matter you know which platform you're
working with. But there are some universal truths about people
and storytelling and the opportunity to I always say, Pierce
popular culture. We've talked about that everywhere I've worked, and
there's nothing like it. And it came in different forms
and fashions across all of them. Really, it's really been fun.
(06:05):
I actually hear that list of places I've worked and
I think I just can't keep a job.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
There you go, Charlie. One of the things that I
think personifies you in the mind of so many at
our industry is here's somebody who has definitely made bets
on people, not just projects. You've got a reputation with
creators for trusting them taking chances, you know. And it's
one thing to take chances when you can see the
(06:32):
playlist and you know where it's going. It's another thing
to take chances when you're not fully aware of what
the outcome is, if it's not obvious, if you're really
trying something that's unique and giving it a swirl. Was
there a moment in your career when that trust perhaps
altered your trajectory In a particular show, a creator an idea,
(06:53):
a team, a concept.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Just every one of them. It's kind of remarkable. There
have been people every place I've worked, and certainly in
every storyteller that's led to a story that you've heard
of or mentioned where we absolutely it was about betting
on people and really pushing and pulling with them, and
sometimes they would say we were you know, as they say,
rowing in the same direction, and other times not, and
(07:17):
all of it turns into this great alchemy that produces
the project. I mean, Matthew Weiner deserves every ounce of
credit on mad Men, and Vince s Gilgen deserves every
ounce of credit on Breaking Bad, and my small role
in those shows I'm incredibly proud of. But it's their
vision that got those from what was in their head
(07:39):
to what was on the page to what inevitably became
popular culture. And I'm in all of them. And actually
I decided early in my career that I so appreciate people,
and I really appreciate people who do things I can't do.
There's a great quote from Oscar Wilde. I've written this,
I say this a lot. I've written this in every
notebook I've had I can remember. It goes something like this,
(08:02):
but no great artist ever sees the world the way
it is if you did he ceased to be an artist,
is the way Oscar Wiill put it. And so you
make these bets on people and situations, and you do
it with as much information as you can. But certainly
I love so many of the podcasts you've had. I
think it was Jeffrey the other day, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who
(08:23):
I don't even remember what he was talking about, but
he said the truest of all true things, which is,
we had no idea what we had, and then the
alchemy takes over, and then the people do their great work,
and then you learn from every situation and you continue
to place bets on each other.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, the bets you place you talked about matt and Madman.
I told this story on a podcast recently, so I
apologize for telling it again, but I was telling it
about you. Now I can tell it with you. My
recollection was that the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles,
when the final episode of mad Men was going to air,
you put on an amazing event here Unless Angelis and
(09:00):
it was in black and red because of the colors
of the show. And I did wear a black tuxedo
with a red pocket square, so I did take it
to the max. You did something at that event that
really blew me away. Instead of I mean, you had
the stars, you had Slattery and this one and now.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You had everybody there.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
But what you did you made the real stars, the
Craft's people. And for me as a viewer, I always
marveled at the extraordinary time Capsule mad Men represented not
just in social moras in the business, but the home,
the dress, the cigarettes, just the entire Jennise Quah and
(09:42):
you put the Craft people on the stage to celebrate them.
That's about people, that's about leadership, and I always marveled
at it because that's what was so special to me.
The storylines were great the period, but the way it
was captured was brilliant.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah and again, and it all starts with Matthew Winer there.
And I'm slightly uncomfortable with any time you say you
on any show that I was a part of, because
if you learn anything, especially working on ongoing series, there
are so many people. I mean, it is remarkable what
it takes to get to a moment like that, where
where what we call the black and Red ball and
(10:20):
by the way, the pocket squares were in the invitation.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
That's right, so I didn't have to buy one. Now
that I remember, you wear.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It well and you always do. But but I will
tell you that Black and Red Ball, Matt's vision and
everyone's attention to detail. I remember being up on stage
giving my remarks, and then we called up everybody before
Matt came up, and I was standing next to Janie Bryant,
and Jane did all the costumes for Mad. Think about that.
It was just such epic work. And she was in
(10:46):
this beautiful red dress and everyone else sort of around us.
Matt and I and others were in black tuxedos, and
she deserved to look like the bell of the ball
because if you think about what she brought to life,
she was so important to that show in every way,
and everyone, all of the crafts people and all of
the writers and all of the people on both sides
of the camera made that special. And again it starts
(11:09):
and ends with Matt's vision. That was a unique moment
in time, and he knew it, but they brought it
to life.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Charlie, you said something that caught my attention. You talked
about not being you, but being we if you will,
and the group, and I appreciate that it harkens for
me the Breaking Bad story. Breaking Bad was one of
the unique ensemble shows, and the brilliance of that show,
(11:35):
among so many things, was the development of the story,
of the character arc of watching the characters period. But
now I'm going to personalize it. So I don't know
how many of the folks that are listening to us
know this story, Charlie, But early in my career, I
was the largest franchisee of L Poyo Loco. So I'm
sharing that with our audience. Yeah, it was of you
(11:56):
on the West Coast, certainly no L Poyo Loco. And
one of the more is not embarrassing at all, but
funny moments of my relationship with Charlie Collier was speaking
of Jeffrey Katzenberg. Charlie was trying to have a Jeffrey
Katzenberg morning. He had three breakfasts.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I happened.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I happened to be the first one. His second one
was a guy named Vince Gilligan, who you just referred to.
And so Charlie decided to introduce me to Vince, and
he said, Vince, I want you to meet Michael Cassen.
He was a Poyo loco and Vince said, wait, poyos
ermanos polo. Yeah, Vince. The only challenge is Gus was
(12:32):
in the back room making crystal meth. I was in
the back room making marinate for the chicken.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So there's a difference.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
But Charlie, I don't know if you know this. A
couple of years later, I ran into Vince at another
event and he looked at me across the room and goes,
you're the chicken guy. I said, well, you know what,
I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
That's not bad, right, That's that's a pretty good reference. Well,
I'll say this. Look what was remarkable about Vince. He
used to say, oh, Charlie, we're going to.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Use the whole cow and he would, you know, do
something in an episode, you know, four or five, and
pay it off in season seven, you know, And he
really did.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
He saw this world and developed these characters, not just
him Peter Gould in the whole writer's room. I mean,
it really was a remarkable group of people looking at
the totality of the series, and actually, I'm really proud
of the fact that both Mad Men and Breaking Bad,
these great creators got to end it on their term too.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Good company will be right back after the break.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
So, Charlie, I want to bring us to today and
the state of television, the state of streaming, and the
state of culture, because I think those three weren't really
converge in a meaningful way. And you've described Roku as
the modern kind of lead into all of television and
(13:58):
in a world where we are inundated with you know, fragmentation.
And I'm a big believer if you can find something
that is fragmented and you find a way to make
it more efficient through some sort of a consolidation, there's
a winner. And in this case, I would say Roku
(14:19):
is kind of that play in terms of that moment.
How would you differentiate against Amazon, Google, Apple without playing
their game? How do you differentiate at Roku?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
You know, we do say we're the lead into television.
I like that expression very much, especially given I had
a great time in my last job as a CEO
Fox Entertainment, and I will tell you that if I
had a new show I loved and we owned it
and had, you know, an opportunity to really elevate it,
if I was lucky enough to have that in a
super Bowl year, we would premiere it after the super Bowl,
(14:55):
because that is what you use the super Bowl for.
It is the greatest lead in. But there's only one year,
and Fox is blessed to have the super Bowl every
third year and the NFC Championship Game, which is the
next biggest game that or the AFC Championship Game, and
they use it, of course to platform what inevitably they
hope will turn out to be a great hit show.
The challenge is that there aren't that many lead ins
(15:17):
left in linear television. It used to be, you know
that there were there were huge ratings all the time,
and we know through as you said, fragmentation, that it's
just not you know, I don't think anyone's doing a
one rating or close to it on average and regular
programming on any of the broadcast networks. And you know,
when when I was at Fox, we bought to be
(15:37):
and what you could see is that the platforms driving
the impressions across all of these fragmented apps and streaming services,
the platform still had scale. And so a perfect example
of why I say we're the lead into television is
you look at our home screen and it's a creative canvas.
But if you just look at the math, you've got
super Bowl sized ratings every day on the Roku home screen.
(16:01):
And then I think about it and think, Gosh, as
a programmer, how can I be the best lead in
in the world to you know, the programs that matter
to our audiences? And how can I be the lead
into television? And what's different about the opportunity of running
AMC or running Fox and then moving to Roku is
we are a publisher. We are an operating system. Roku's
(16:23):
got the largest operating system in the US. Candle in Mexico,
we got over, as you said, ninety million active accounts
and half the broad more than half the broadband households
actually get their television and come through our front door
to do so, and we see them almost every day.
And so we're a publisher, we're the operating system. And
then we have this home screen. We're the platform. And again,
(16:46):
if you know, homes with over one hundred and twenty
five million people are coming to our front door every day.
Think about that as the power of the lead in.
And it's the first place where I didn't just have
to love my own programming, you know, I can actually
send people proudly to the NFL and send people proudly
to Severance when it premieres, or or a hit show
(17:07):
that they love, or maybe a small show that we
know they love. And so the power of leading at
this scale is unmatched. There's nothing like it, Michael.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
If my mouth is right, the Roku channel is now
kind of the number two app by engagement in the US.
I mean, it's a crazy statistic.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Well, it's the number two app by engagement on our platform,
but we're the biggest platform in the US. So think
about this. Now you're asking me a question about Roku
the publisher, that's the correct your Roku channel. Like if
you look at the Niels engage, you know, obviously it's
well documented that YouTube is up there, and obviously we
know Netflix is there. But it's remarkable when you go
(17:47):
after that is Disney, then Prime Video, than Roku channel,
the largest you know, Avod service right there behind Disney
and Prime Video. It's that big. And you know, yeah,
we have as a publisher the Roku Channel, which is
over eighty thousand titles, and obviously we're because of our distribution,
we're number one in terms of fast channels we're the
(18:09):
biggest on the Nielsen Gage and the opportunity to use
that not just to help our viewers find the product
they love on the Roku channel, but also as a
platform that powers partnerships that you know, help drive subscriptions
for others. I mean what we've done for Peacock during
the Olympics, or what we'll do to help drive the
Super Bowl on to be We really take that responsibility
(18:32):
as seriously as we do promoting our own stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And speaking of that, we talk about the you know,
behemoth of Amazon and this year it can you announced
back in June, you announced the partnership with Amazon that
you know, talk about that. What does that scale enable
you to do that wasn't possible before.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I will say that, you know, just sort of a
step back for the listener and then you know, the
power of data and the power of signal is really primary.
And what it allows us to do is partner with
Amazon to provide the largest authenticated footprint in one place
through the Amazon d DSP is a demand side platform,
and what it means is that by combining the largest
(19:12):
in Roku and Amazon's footprint together with fire, you literally
have eighty percent of the CTV marketplace available through one DSP,
and we're going to be everywhere because we have the
scale to provide really high fidelity signal.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, speaking of high fidelity, can I get an invitation
to Roku City as a new stage because I think
there's a great story to tell about doing something wicked.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Wow, see that.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I tried to make those words come together in an
interesting way, Charlie, How'd I do so?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, we had to coincide with the Wicked for good
opening Universal and Roku City came together, and Roku City
became the Emerald City and it had everything you would
expect for fans of Wicked, you know, for the first
time ever, we had flying animations and al fha Bola's
are on her broom and you've got everything that the
(20:07):
Wicked fan would appreciate. It's so appropriate because again, Roku
City is everything that's happening in film and television and
they took it over and it's not, you know, just
unique to Universal. We've been able to use this canvas
to tell stories to really illustrate and program a UI
experience in a way I don't think it's ever been
(20:28):
done before. I want this to be a platform with personality,
and I think you saw it to just by the
way you mentioned it, Michael, So thank you, Charlie.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
We're at an interesting inflection point. Nilsen recently showed streaming
has overtaken broadcast, you know, in terms of eyeballs and
time spent. What does that shift unlocked for the next
decade of TV? I mean, it's a new kind of TV.
You know. I just want to stop for a moment
and say, you know all the noise that the marketplace
(20:57):
made about Netflix a few years ago, I guess twenty
twenty three deciding to start accepting advertising, and everybody said, boy,
this is so amazing. Ah bye by I said, yeah,
you know what, I think it's just called television. Well,
I mean, it might just be where we back to
the future ourselves, because the idea of advertising surrounding programming
(21:21):
isn't a new and novel idea. But this inflection point
of streaming overtaking, what.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Does that do for Roku? You know? Uniquely?
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Sure, and I think you've touched on it, but you know,
drill in a little more.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, Well, so what you're referring to Nielsen? You know,
it was reported in September for I think the third
consecutive month vie were spent more time streaming content on
Roku powered devices than they did on broadcasts. And to me,
that's remarkable. Now. A couple decades ago before really the
words streaming was anything we all knew. And like you said,
(21:54):
you remember Madman being your first binge back when that
was happening. Anthony, our founder, he was committed this and
he's spent you know, a couple decades now making sure
that streaming was a phenomenal experience. But what he said
was all television will be streamed. And just as you
joke there that oh great, now everything has ads, it
looks like television. That I think was his point. It
(22:16):
would all be streamed, and it would be streamed and
there'd be new experiences and different experiences, but the way
you will get it will come through streaming. And again,
you know, more than half the broad bend housels in
the country do that streaming on Roku.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
And you know, Charlie, because of the explosion of platforms
and opportunities and the mission that advertisers and marketers and
advertising agencies are on to find that holy grail of
demographic magic. You know what I say, is, at least
in the younger demographic. The challenges you can't find them.
(22:50):
They have to find you.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
If you find them, it's too late. They've already moved on.
And we saw it happen with Meta. Not that their
numbers are not astounding, but I mean the numbers are
so massive that it takes your breath away. But you
know the idea of Geep, my mom and dad are
on Facebook. Now I'm not going to be there anymore.
There is truth to that, you know, from a marketer's perspective,
(23:13):
that holy grail of finding that demo that everybody prizes,
it's not that easy to do.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well, it's not that easy to do. It's one of
the reasons I believe that the platforms would win and
why I came over here, because what's interesting is if
you're the platform, you have everything. And again that notion
of being the lead into television really on the big
screen in your home. Roku has scale that then gets
you to that fragmentation. And then you said demo, I say,
(23:40):
all right, well, then we also have really high impact
precision tools for marketers. I've heard you on other podcasts
excuse me, talk about addressability and talk about you know,
obviously the pushing down the marketing funnel that is possible. Now.
I am such a believer in that, Michael. I think
the era of performance television is here. I don't think
it's actually that much of a revelation to say it,
(24:02):
but we spend so much time proving performance, and I
think if you want to talk about a seismic shift
from linear to what's happening in CTV, I look at
our ability to take what actually you mentioned meta, to
take what are digitally native marketers and actually bring them
back to television because we can prove performance.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And speaking of that, Charlie, you recently open self serve
ads API in a way, I think it's in response
to that, because the idea and I've been driving around
town lately in LA and I saw some billboards that said, gee,
you don't need to take this billboard. It's cheaper now
to buy a television ad. Well, I don't know if
it's cheaper, but it's more efficient. And you know, how
(24:43):
does democratizing TV advertising change the landscape? Because, as you
well know, Charlie, back to the platforms somewhere in the
range of I think close to eighty somewhat percent of
Meta's business is SMB. It's not the large, multi national
you know brands. It's Pete the plumber and Sally the
hairdresser down the street. By democratizing television in that way,
(25:08):
you're opening it up.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
The marketing funnel. And I assume most people who listen
to your podcast know what this is. But if you
say people have been doing television advertising for top of
the funnel marketing you know, big brands, you know, with
messages that are ubiquitous, and the goal is to push
down the funnel all the way to conversion and proof
of outcomes. I think what's interesting about the notion on
that billboard and everything you just said about SMBs or
(25:32):
small and medium sized businesses, is that the march from
the big Super Bowl spot all the way down to
a performance piece of media, whatever shape that takes, and
proving it. We have all the tools to do so.
So you mentioned our ads Manager product, which is a
self service product, and it's really a bypath that is
(25:52):
so interesting to me as a TV marketer. If you
think about it, the people you and I have known
for a long long time and tried to help build
their brands, be it marketers or holding companies or advertising
agencies and all our people in that ecosystem for many
years running the properties that I used to I would
make them promises, and the way I could fulfill on
those promises is maybe by putting their spots in the
(26:14):
shows we've discussed. But today, not only do I have
all those hit shows and all the sports and all
of that available on the platform at scale, but then
through something like our ads Manager product, you can actually
prove performance. There are so many aver thousands and thousands
of advertisers that are now digitally native, and we're welcoming
(26:37):
them to television through product like the ad Manager platform.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
We're going to hit pause for a moment, but stay
with us after the break. We've got more insights to share.
I want to bring us to the culture world and
ask you a question, because so much of our viewing
(27:04):
decisions today are being filtered through recommendation engines and you
know and the like, what elements of culture do you
think technology will never understand? And I want to preface
this by suggesting, and I did this a long time ago,
and I apologize to listeners who've heard me say it before,
but years ago I did a conversation about the loss
(27:26):
of serendipity and marketing. I always give credit to d Solomon,
who worked for me back in the day, for coming
up with that as a thought starter, because we have
all struggled for years. Not struggled, but we've all looked
for the right message at the right time and the
right context, on the right device to the right person.
Forgetting that there is a degree of creativity here and
(27:48):
surprise and delight and shock and awe. You know, don't
only find a person who's in market for a car
to send them a car ad. Find somebody who might
be entertained by a car ad or think it's beautiful
and go. You know, I didn't think I wanted a car,
but maybe I do.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
You know, the algorithm can find most things, but what
do you think about the cultural aspects that the algorithms
can't digest.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
It's a great question. You know. I'm such a fan
of John Langraft's at FX, and he has always talked
about you know, I want to walk through a city
street and be surprised by what's around the next corner.
And I will say this. You know, we do a
really good job. By we, I mean our engineers and
our product people and all the people who who look
to serve the viewer. They are trying to do two things.
(28:35):
And one is too obviously, service content that we think
they're going to love and do it better than anybody
and make sure it's an experience that it is absolutely
delightful and gets through to the content you want to watch.
But Michael, there's a huge amount of surprise and delight
we want to build into that. And so, for instance,
you might have a content row that has this is
(28:56):
a random might have three tiles and two of them
are algorithmically driven to get you to things that we
think you're going to love based on what the algorithm knows,
and the third may be a complete surprise and delight
and maybe a cultural moment that was curated by a
human to put it there. And that's what this mix
of human and the algorithm I think is really powerful
(29:18):
and we're doing at scale.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Let's talk about competitive strategy as more companies or at
least some of the big players. You're a big player,
but some of the other big players obviously build wall
gardens and make those walls taller and harder to navigate.
You at Roku have always and continued to lead and
lean into interoperability. Yeah, it's a harder road, but the
(29:44):
long term advantage I think that comes from it. Can
you talk about that a little just from a corporate philosophy.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, So, look, I appreciate you saying we're a big player,
but the philosophy is different. Obviously, everyone knows who you're
speaking about that is behind a walled garden, and they
have business reasons for being there and just sheer heft
and scale and data and other advantages that they choose
that business strategy. What I think is Roku's differentiation is
(30:13):
that we have all the scale with the largest television
operating system. We have this enormous publisher platform in the
Roku channel, and of course we have all the homescreen
benefits I talked about, and I think it's going to
serve marketers and viewers.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Charlie, I want to revert to where I love to
close with the lightning round. Charlie, what's your greatest professional
fear fear?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Well, I don't spend a ton of time being fearful,
but I do think a lot about art versus commerce,
and art and commerce living together because I think that
balance is really important. I want to be excellent at
art and excellent at commerce and not err on the
wrong side when I'm trying to do the opposite. It's
(30:56):
never lost on me that great executives get offices, but
great artists get museums and they change popular culture. And
I'd always like to make sure that I am supporting
artists while I'm doing great work. So that's something I
think a lot about.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Is there a particular mentor or mentors that were early
in your career, and is there a particular piece of
advice that you could identify that one of those people,
or you know a host of those people gave you.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It's funny I get asked this quite a bit, and
I seem to go back to two people in my life.
One was a woman named Marlene Manos. Arlene Manos gave
me my first She's since it's not a video podcast,
Michael just put his hand over her heart. She is
the definition of mench When I was twenty four years
old trying to get into what at the time like
streaming now was booming cable then she took a chance
(31:48):
on me and gave me a network sales job at
a andy. She gave me great advice because she also
gave me my first management job. And it's advice I
passed every new manager, and it's begin as you intend
to proceed, and it's the advice as a new manager.
So many young people, as new managers, go to be
best friends first, or say nothing's changed. I know, I
(32:09):
was your partner yesterday and now I'm your boss. Nothing's changed.
And by definition, if that's the approach you take, three, four, five,
six months later, you're having to be the boss, and
you did not begin as you intended to proceed. It's
far better to look your friend in the eye and say, look,
there's something that's changed. Here's how we're going to go,
and it's going to be great, and here's how we're
going to operate. Let's begin this way.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I didn't handle it in that articulate of fashion, but
I always remember this when I was running a media
agency and the Walt Disney Company was our largest client,
and the account executive on my team who would have
been handling the business was stolen by our client and
taken over to be the client. And I remember saying
on Monday, her name was christ is Christy Frutenfeld, and
(32:53):
she's a great friend.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Still.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I just saw her recently. I said, wait, Christy, on Monday,
you had to suck up to me. Now on Tuesday,
I have to suck up to you. So it was
better of a reversal.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah. Well, so I like Arlen's because she was giving
good advice. And it's life advice. It's for most situations.
Beginnings you and tend to proceed, then you don't have
to change. And the other mentor I always talk about,
and I met him when I was at AMC and
he's been a friend ever since, Peter Gouber. He has
given me advice that has traveled generations. I will tell
(33:24):
you a quick story that one time my son called
me from college and he was so pleased with himself
because he had followed advice that I told him Peter
Gouber gave to me. And essentially, he was sitting at
a table, as many do in Hollywood, and in this case,
he was sitting at a table of people and someone
started talking about one of his teammates. He was an
athlete in college. And he said to the people, as
(33:48):
they were starting to get a little caddy, he said, look,
you know, you're welcome to your opinion, and it's certainly
not my opinion, So why don't we change the subject,
or if not, and you're going to keep talking about
my teammate, I'm going to go. And not only did
it change the conversation at the table, they were kind
of floored, it showed everyone what a good friend he was,
(34:08):
and it showed everyone that when they weren't in the room,
my son would have their back. And that story and
that advice came to me directly from Peter Gouber, and
he's taught me more than you can imagine, not just
about how to be a better executive and a better
creative executive, but in a case like that, how to
be a better friend. And I'm very appreciative for all
(34:31):
his guidance over the years.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I tell this little anecdote, Charlie, you know it. Ronnie
my wife when she went to camp. Peter was the
Color War general and Tara, Peter's wife, was Ronnie's counselor.
And the funny generational part of that story is, so
my wife, as I said, went to camp with Peter
and his wife, and now our grandchildren are in school together.
(34:53):
So it's a full circle. And by the way, getting
advice from Peter Guber is something that we could all
benefit from the most intelligent people that I know, So
I share that view.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So smart and so generous of spirit, and I hope
his grandkids are keeping the keeping the spirit alife.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
They are for sure, Charlie, if you could give your
younger self one piece of guidance, what would it be?
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Oh gosh, I'd say leave everything better than you found it.
That's you know, I'm not the only ones saying that,
But imagine you walk into every room, you try to
leave every person better than you found them. You try
to leave every situation better than you found it. If
you did that actively for a lifetime, think about what
a difference you make. And again, I've been blessed to
be around a lot of people who act that way,
(35:35):
and then my job is to just try to elevate
them while they do it, and hopefully it can pounds.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Charlie, I know you like music. What was your first concert?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Oh? Wow, good question. This was wasted on me. But
back in the day, my tennis coach took me to
see Bruce Springsteen on the River tour and I got
a concert tee that you know probably went down to
my ankles, and I didn't understand that I was watching
The Boss. But it was pretty cool to be at
a concert.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
I don't question, when was the last time you saw
a person or a company in this industry or not
where you look back and said, damn, I wish I'd
thought of that.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Oh gosh, Well, you know it's interesting Michael all the time,
And but I don't say I wish I thought about that.
I always watch and focus on their execution as I
think about the stories we've shared, and I know we've
been through through a lot. You know, you could have
the idea, but who can execute. I mean I could
have walked up to you with any one of the
platforms or networks I've worked at and said, here's what
(36:31):
we're gonna do. But we have Vince gilly and executing
and the team around him. We'd all get breaking that
out of AMC. Right. You got to have the idea
and you got to have the execution, and look, you
you could say, oh, I wish I thought of that. Netflix. Well,
people thought of streaming before Netflix, and certainly you know
these companies, the huge studios could have done that, but
(36:51):
would they have executed.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, Charlie Collier. I want to thank you for joining
Good Company, and I want to compliment you and I
because was considering.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
What we could have done. We kept it very clean. Charlie.
We were our good behavior. Michael, I don't know what
you're referring to, but I'm sure you put a mic
in front of both of us. I'm sure we'll be
on our best behavior. No, it's always fun to be
with you. I appreciate this, Charlie Collier, Thank you, Michael.
Great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
I'm Michael Casson. Thanks for listening to Good Company.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
Good Company is brought to you by Three C Ventures
and iHeart Podcasts. Special thanks to Alexis Borger Pudeo, our
executive producer and head of Content and Talent, and to
Carl Ketle, executive producer at iHeart Podcasts. Episodes are produced
and edited by Mary Doo. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
We'll see you next time.
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. Leave everything better
than you found it. You know I'm not the only
ones saying that, but imagine you walk into every room,
you try to leave every person better than you found them.
You try to leave every situation better than you found it.
If you did that actively for a lifetime, think about
what a difference you make. I've been blessed to be
around a lot of people who act that way, and
then my job is to just try to elevate them
(00:22):
while they do it, and hopefully it can pounds.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm Michael Casson, and this is Good Company. Together we'll
explore the dynamic intersection of media, marketing, entertainment, sports, and technology.
I'll be joined by visionaries, pioneers, and yes, even a
couple of disruptors for candid conversations as we break down
how these masters of ingenuity are shaping the future of business,
culture and everything in between. My bet is you'll pick
(00:54):
up a lessen or two along the way. As I
like to say, it's all good.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Welcome back to Good Company. Today's guest has helped steer
television through every major turning point over most of the
past two decades, and he's just getting started. He's one
of the few people who's had a hand in both
the stories that define eras not just the seasons, and
the systems that carry them into millions of homes. Charlie Collier,
President of Roku Media, has spent his career championing great storytellers,
(01:24):
building bold businesses, and finding opportunity during times of change.
From the creative revolutions of mad Men and Breaking Bad
to guiding Fox through its reinvention to now helping Roku
redefine the living room, Charlie has been at the center
of television's most important shifts. What makes Charlie stand out
isn't any single leadership skill. It's the combination. He's part
(01:48):
talent scout, part strategist, part steady hand, and a business
that really slows down. He's as comfortable with writers and
actors as he is with engineers and data scientists, and
he approaches all of them the same way curiosity, respect, empathy,
and a belief that good ideas can come from anywhere.
(02:08):
At Roku, Charlie stepped into the sweet spot where Hollywood
creativity meets platform power. He saw early that the interface
itself is becoming one of the most important stages in
media and that openness, not walls, would shape the next
era of television. Today, Roku reaches over ninety million households
and is helping viewers, creators, and marketers find clarity in
(02:33):
a world that often feels chaotic. This conversation is about leadership, talent,
culture shifts, and what it takes to build something enduring
when everything around you is changing. It is my pleasure
to welcome my friend Charlie Kayer to the show. Let's
dive in.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Thank you Wow, what an introduction, and thank you for
having me. It's great to be with you.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Give us a little opening before we dive in, really
to how did Charlie Kllyer get here? In terms of
your journey.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I called the journey for me has been defined by
the people I've been fortunate enough to work with. I
started out in advertising, sales and marketing, and so many
of the leaders of brands and agencies and holding companies
then are still people I care for and work with
in my capacity at Roku today. And from there I
moved into the creative side of the business. Josh Sapan
(03:21):
and Ed Carroll at AMC Networks hired me to be
the president and general manager of AMC, and together we
worked on Madmen and Greenlit, Breaking Bad, and The Walking
Dead and Better Call Saul the Night Manager, so many
of the shows that came to define that era for AMC,
and we built AMC Studios there and when Fox sold
(03:43):
it studio to Disney, I was lucky to go work
for Lachlan Murdoch and the new Fox which we took public,
and they were so smart and curious and acquisitive that
Lachlan and John Allen acquired Gosh, TMZ and Marvis to
studios and eventually to be where I learned so much
(04:03):
about the avad business and really the power of platforms,
which got me excited about CTV. And so today I'm
excited to work for Roku, where I'm the President of
Roku Media, reporting to the founder of Roku, Anthony Wood,
who again great person, so smart and creative in different
ways than those I worked with every other step on
(04:25):
the path.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
You are a rare breed in our industry, and I
mean that genuinely. You've danced on every surface, so to speak.
You began in advertising and as you said, had the
startup bug with Jerry and Oxygen, and obviously I don't
know how many will agree with this, but for me,
(04:46):
mad Men was my first binge and so I always
look at it fondly. And being on this side of
the equation, I thought Don Draper was the coolest guy
in the world. But I liken myself more to Harry,
the media guy down on the basement with the abacus
and the bow tie. Well, Don Draper was having three
martini lunches and getting all the girls, and the guy
(05:07):
in the basement doing costs per point wasn't having as
much fun. But to that end, Charlie, it goes to
what I was saying about you. You began your careers
Harry in the basement.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
You made it up.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I don't want to say you had three martini lunches
because I've never seen.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You do that.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
But the journey you've had puts you in, as I
said in rarefied a or to have been involved in advertising,
been involved in programming, lead networks, start up, and you know,
bringing you to today with technology and Roku. There are
not many people who can tick all those boxes. So
we're going to drill into that a bit in our conversation.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, it's been really fun and I will say, you
learn something different no matter you know which platform you're
working with. But there are some universal truths about people
and storytelling and the opportunity to I always say, Pierce
popular culture. We've talked about that everywhere I've worked, and
there's nothing like it. And it came in different forms
and fashions across all of them. Really, it's really been fun.
(06:05):
I actually hear that list of places I've worked and
I think I just can't keep a job.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
There you go, Charlie. One of the things that I
think personifies you in the mind of so many at
our industry is here's somebody who has definitely made bets
on people, not just projects. You've got a reputation with
creators for trusting them taking chances, you know. And it's
one thing to take chances when you can see the
(06:32):
playlist and you know where it's going. It's another thing
to take chances when you're not fully aware of what
the outcome is, if it's not obvious, if you're really
trying something that's unique and giving it a swirl. Was
there a moment in your career when that trust perhaps
altered your trajectory In a particular show, a creator an idea,
(06:53):
a team, a concept.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Just every one of them. It's kind of remarkable. There
have been people every place I've worked, and certainly in
every storyteller that's led to a story that you've heard
of or mentioned where we absolutely it was about betting
on people and really pushing and pulling with them, and
sometimes they would say we were you know, as they say,
rowing in the same direction, and other times not, and
(07:17):
all of it turns into this great alchemy that produces
the project. I mean, Matthew Weiner deserves every ounce of
credit on mad Men, and Vince s Gilgen deserves every
ounce of credit on Breaking Bad, and my small role
in those shows I'm incredibly proud of. But it's their
vision that got those from what was in their head
(07:39):
to what was on the page to what inevitably became
popular culture. And I'm in all of them. And actually
I decided early in my career that I so appreciate people,
and I really appreciate people who do things I can't do.
There's a great quote from Oscar Wilde. I've written this,
I say this a lot. I've written this in every
notebook I've had I can remember. It goes something like this,
(08:02):
but no great artist ever sees the world the way
it is if you did he ceased to be an artist,
is the way Oscar Wiill put it. And so you
make these bets on people and situations, and you do
it with as much information as you can. But certainly
I love so many of the podcasts you've had. I
think it was Jeffrey the other day, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who
(08:23):
I don't even remember what he was talking about, but
he said the truest of all true things, which is,
we had no idea what we had, and then the
alchemy takes over, and then the people do their great work,
and then you learn from every situation and you continue
to place bets on each other.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, the bets you place you talked about matt and Madman.
I told this story on a podcast recently, so I
apologize for telling it again, but I was telling it
about you. Now I can tell it with you. My
recollection was that the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles,
when the final episode of mad Men was going to air,
you put on an amazing event here Unless Angelis and
(09:00):
it was in black and red because of the colors
of the show. And I did wear a black tuxedo
with a red pocket square, so I did take it
to the max. You did something at that event that
really blew me away. Instead of I mean, you had
the stars, you had Slattery and this one and now.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You had everybody there.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
But what you did you made the real stars, the
Craft's people. And for me as a viewer, I always
marveled at the extraordinary time Capsule mad Men represented not
just in social moras in the business, but the home,
the dress, the cigarettes, just the entire Jennise Quah and
(09:42):
you put the Craft people on the stage to celebrate them.
That's about people, that's about leadership, and I always marveled
at it because that's what was so special to me.
The storylines were great the period, but the way it
was captured was brilliant.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah and again, and it all starts with Matthew Winer there.
And I'm slightly uncomfortable with any time you say you
on any show that I was a part of, because
if you learn anything, especially working on ongoing series, there
are so many people. I mean, it is remarkable what
it takes to get to a moment like that, where
where what we call the black and Red ball and
(10:20):
by the way, the pocket squares were in the invitation.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
That's right, so I didn't have to buy one. Now
that I remember, you wear.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It well and you always do. But but I will
tell you that Black and Red Ball, Matt's vision and
everyone's attention to detail. I remember being up on stage
giving my remarks, and then we called up everybody before
Matt came up, and I was standing next to Janie Bryant,
and Jane did all the costumes for Mad. Think about that.
It was just such epic work. And she was in
(10:46):
this beautiful red dress and everyone else sort of around us.
Matt and I and others were in black tuxedos, and
she deserved to look like the bell of the ball
because if you think about what she brought to life,
she was so important to that show in every way,
and everyone, all of the crafts people and all of
the writers and all of the people on both sides
of the camera made that special. And again it starts
(11:09):
and ends with Matt's vision. That was a unique moment
in time, and he knew it, but they brought it
to life.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Charlie, you said something that caught my attention. You talked
about not being you, but being we if you will,
and the group, and I appreciate that it harkens for
me the Breaking Bad story. Breaking Bad was one of
the unique ensemble shows, and the brilliance of that show,
(11:35):
among so many things, was the development of the story,
of the character arc of watching the characters period. But
now I'm going to personalize it. So I don't know
how many of the folks that are listening to us
know this story, Charlie, But early in my career, I
was the largest franchisee of L Poyo Loco. So I'm
sharing that with our audience. Yeah, it was of you
(11:56):
on the West Coast, certainly no L Poyo Loco. And
one of the more is not embarrassing at all, but
funny moments of my relationship with Charlie Collier was speaking
of Jeffrey Katzenberg. Charlie was trying to have a Jeffrey
Katzenberg morning. He had three breakfasts.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I happened.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I happened to be the first one. His second one
was a guy named Vince Gilligan, who you just referred to.
And so Charlie decided to introduce me to Vince, and
he said, Vince, I want you to meet Michael Cassen.
He was a Poyo loco and Vince said, wait, poyos
ermanos polo. Yeah, Vince. The only challenge is Gus was
(12:32):
in the back room making crystal meth. I was in
the back room making marinate for the chicken.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So there's a difference.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
But Charlie, I don't know if you know this. A
couple of years later, I ran into Vince at another
event and he looked at me across the room and goes,
you're the chicken guy. I said, well, you know what,
I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
That's not bad, right, That's that's a pretty good reference. Well,
I'll say this. Look what was remarkable about Vince. He
used to say, oh, Charlie, we're going to.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Use the whole cow and he would, you know, do
something in an episode, you know, four or five, and
pay it off in season seven, you know, And he
really did.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
He saw this world and developed these characters, not just
him Peter Gould in the whole writer's room. I mean,
it really was a remarkable group of people looking at
the totality of the series, and actually, I'm really proud
of the fact that both Mad Men and Breaking Bad,
these great creators got to end it on their term too.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Good company will be right back after the break.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
So, Charlie, I want to bring us to today and
the state of television, the state of streaming, and the
state of culture, because I think those three weren't really
converge in a meaningful way. And you've described Roku as
the modern kind of lead into all of television and
(13:58):
in a world where we are inundated with you know, fragmentation.
And I'm a big believer if you can find something
that is fragmented and you find a way to make
it more efficient through some sort of a consolidation, there's
a winner. And in this case, I would say Roku
(14:19):
is kind of that play in terms of that moment.
How would you differentiate against Amazon, Google, Apple without playing
their game? How do you differentiate at Roku?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
You know, we do say we're the lead into television.
I like that expression very much, especially given I had
a great time in my last job as a CEO
Fox Entertainment, and I will tell you that if I
had a new show I loved and we owned it
and had, you know, an opportunity to really elevate it,
if I was lucky enough to have that in a
super Bowl year, we would premiere it after the super Bowl,
(14:55):
because that is what you use the super Bowl for.
It is the greatest lead in. But there's only one year,
and Fox is blessed to have the super Bowl every
third year and the NFC Championship Game, which is the
next biggest game that or the AFC Championship Game, and
they use it, of course to platform what inevitably they
hope will turn out to be a great hit show.
The challenge is that there aren't that many lead ins
(15:17):
left in linear television. It used to be, you know
that there were there were huge ratings all the time,
and we know through as you said, fragmentation, that it's
just not you know, I don't think anyone's doing a
one rating or close to it on average and regular
programming on any of the broadcast networks. And you know,
when when I was at Fox, we bought to be
(15:37):
and what you could see is that the platforms driving
the impressions across all of these fragmented apps and streaming services,
the platform still had scale. And so a perfect example
of why I say we're the lead into television is
you look at our home screen and it's a creative canvas.
But if you just look at the math, you've got
super Bowl sized ratings every day on the Roku home screen.
(16:01):
And then I think about it and think, Gosh, as
a programmer, how can I be the best lead in
in the world to you know, the programs that matter
to our audiences? And how can I be the lead
into television? And what's different about the opportunity of running
AMC or running Fox and then moving to Roku is
we are a publisher. We are an operating system. Roku's
(16:23):
got the largest operating system in the US. Candle in Mexico,
we got over, as you said, ninety million active accounts
and half the broad more than half the broadband households
actually get their television and come through our front door
to do so, and we see them almost every day.
And so we're a publisher, we're the operating system. And
then we have this home screen. We're the platform. And again,
(16:46):
if you know, homes with over one hundred and twenty
five million people are coming to our front door every day.
Think about that as the power of the lead in.
And it's the first place where I didn't just have
to love my own programming, you know, I can actually
send people proudly to the NFL and send people proudly
to Severance when it premieres, or or a hit show
(17:07):
that they love, or maybe a small show that we
know they love. And so the power of leading at
this scale is unmatched. There's nothing like it, Michael.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
If my mouth is right, the Roku channel is now
kind of the number two app by engagement in the US.
I mean, it's a crazy statistic.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Well, it's the number two app by engagement on our platform,
but we're the biggest platform in the US. So think
about this. Now you're asking me a question about Roku
the publisher, that's the correct your Roku channel. Like if
you look at the Niels engage, you know, obviously it's
well documented that YouTube is up there, and obviously we
know Netflix is there. But it's remarkable when you go
(17:47):
after that is Disney, then Prime Video, than Roku channel,
the largest you know, Avod service right there behind Disney
and Prime Video. It's that big. And you know, yeah,
we have as a publisher the Roku Channel, which is
over eighty thousand titles, and obviously we're because of our distribution,
we're number one in terms of fast channels we're the
(18:09):
biggest on the Nielsen Gage and the opportunity to use
that not just to help our viewers find the product
they love on the Roku channel, but also as a
platform that powers partnerships that you know, help drive subscriptions
for others. I mean what we've done for Peacock during
the Olympics, or what we'll do to help drive the
Super Bowl on to be We really take that responsibility
(18:32):
as seriously as we do promoting our own stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And speaking of that, we talk about the you know,
behemoth of Amazon and this year it can you announced
back in June, you announced the partnership with Amazon that
you know, talk about that. What does that scale enable
you to do that wasn't possible before.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I will say that, you know, just sort of a
step back for the listener and then you know, the
power of data and the power of signal is really primary.
And what it allows us to do is partner with
Amazon to provide the largest authenticated footprint in one place
through the Amazon d DSP is a demand side platform,
and what it means is that by combining the largest
(19:12):
in Roku and Amazon's footprint together with fire, you literally
have eighty percent of the CTV marketplace available through one DSP,
and we're going to be everywhere because we have the
scale to provide really high fidelity signal.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, speaking of high fidelity, can I get an invitation
to Roku City as a new stage because I think
there's a great story to tell about doing something wicked.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Wow, see that.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I tried to make those words come together in an
interesting way, Charlie, How'd I do so?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, we had to coincide with the Wicked for good
opening Universal and Roku City came together, and Roku City
became the Emerald City and it had everything you would
expect for fans of Wicked, you know, for the first
time ever, we had flying animations and al fha Bola's
are on her broom and you've got everything that the
(20:07):
Wicked fan would appreciate. It's so appropriate because again, Roku
City is everything that's happening in film and television and
they took it over and it's not, you know, just
unique to Universal. We've been able to use this canvas
to tell stories to really illustrate and program a UI
experience in a way I don't think it's ever been
(20:28):
done before. I want this to be a platform with personality,
and I think you saw it to just by the
way you mentioned it, Michael, So thank you, Charlie.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
We're at an interesting inflection point. Nilsen recently showed streaming
has overtaken broadcast, you know, in terms of eyeballs and
time spent. What does that shift unlocked for the next
decade of TV? I mean, it's a new kind of TV.
You know. I just want to stop for a moment
and say, you know all the noise that the marketplace
(20:57):
made about Netflix a few years ago, I guess twenty
twenty three deciding to start accepting advertising, and everybody said, boy,
this is so amazing. Ah bye by I said, yeah,
you know what, I think it's just called television. Well,
I mean, it might just be where we back to
the future ourselves, because the idea of advertising surrounding programming
(21:21):
isn't a new and novel idea. But this inflection point
of streaming overtaking, what.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Does that do for Roku? You know? Uniquely?
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Sure, and I think you've touched on it, but you know,
drill in a little more.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, Well, so what you're referring to Nielsen? You know,
it was reported in September for I think the third
consecutive month vie were spent more time streaming content on
Roku powered devices than they did on broadcasts. And to me,
that's remarkable. Now. A couple decades ago before really the
words streaming was anything we all knew. And like you said,
(21:54):
you remember Madman being your first binge back when that
was happening. Anthony, our founder, he was committed this and
he's spent you know, a couple decades now making sure
that streaming was a phenomenal experience. But what he said
was all television will be streamed. And just as you
joke there that oh great, now everything has ads, it
looks like television. That I think was his point. It
(22:16):
would all be streamed, and it would be streamed and
there'd be new experiences and different experiences, but the way
you will get it will come through streaming. And again,
you know, more than half the broad bend housels in
the country do that streaming on Roku.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
And you know, Charlie, because of the explosion of platforms
and opportunities and the mission that advertisers and marketers and
advertising agencies are on to find that holy grail of
demographic magic. You know what I say, is, at least
in the younger demographic. The challenges you can't find them.
(22:50):
They have to find you.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
If you find them, it's too late. They've already moved on.
And we saw it happen with Meta. Not that their
numbers are not astounding, but I mean the numbers are
so massive that it takes your breath away. But you
know the idea of Geep, my mom and dad are
on Facebook. Now I'm not going to be there anymore.
There is truth to that, you know, from a marketer's perspective,
(23:13):
that holy grail of finding that demo that everybody prizes,
it's not that easy to do.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well, it's not that easy to do. It's one of
the reasons I believe that the platforms would win and
why I came over here, because what's interesting is if
you're the platform, you have everything. And again that notion
of being the lead into television really on the big
screen in your home. Roku has scale that then gets
you to that fragmentation. And then you said demo, I say,
(23:40):
all right, well, then we also have really high impact
precision tools for marketers. I've heard you on other podcasts
excuse me, talk about addressability and talk about you know,
obviously the pushing down the marketing funnel that is possible. Now.
I am such a believer in that, Michael. I think
the era of performance television is here. I don't think
it's actually that much of a revelation to say it,
(24:02):
but we spend so much time proving performance, and I
think if you want to talk about a seismic shift
from linear to what's happening in CTV, I look at
our ability to take what actually you mentioned meta, to
take what are digitally native marketers and actually bring them
back to television because we can prove performance.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And speaking of that, Charlie, you recently open self serve
ads API in a way, I think it's in response
to that, because the idea and I've been driving around
town lately in LA and I saw some billboards that said, gee,
you don't need to take this billboard. It's cheaper now
to buy a television ad. Well, I don't know if
it's cheaper, but it's more efficient. And you know, how
(24:43):
does democratizing TV advertising change the landscape? Because, as you
well know, Charlie, back to the platforms somewhere in the
range of I think close to eighty somewhat percent of
Meta's business is SMB. It's not the large, multi national
you know brands. It's Pete the plumber and Sally the
hairdresser down the street. By democratizing television in that way,
(25:08):
you're opening it up.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
The marketing funnel. And I assume most people who listen
to your podcast know what this is. But if you
say people have been doing television advertising for top of
the funnel marketing you know, big brands, you know, with
messages that are ubiquitous, and the goal is to push
down the funnel all the way to conversion and proof
of outcomes. I think what's interesting about the notion on
that billboard and everything you just said about SMBs or
(25:32):
small and medium sized businesses, is that the march from
the big Super Bowl spot all the way down to
a performance piece of media, whatever shape that takes, and
proving it. We have all the tools to do so.
So you mentioned our ads Manager product, which is a
self service product, and it's really a bypath that is
(25:52):
so interesting to me as a TV marketer. If you
think about it, the people you and I have known
for a long long time and tried to help build
their brands, be it marketers or holding companies or advertising
agencies and all our people in that ecosystem for many
years running the properties that I used to I would
make them promises, and the way I could fulfill on
those promises is maybe by putting their spots in the
(26:14):
shows we've discussed. But today, not only do I have
all those hit shows and all the sports and all
of that available on the platform at scale, but then
through something like our ads Manager product, you can actually
prove performance. There are so many aver thousands and thousands
of advertisers that are now digitally native, and we're welcoming
(26:37):
them to television through product like the ad Manager platform.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
We're going to hit pause for a moment, but stay
with us after the break. We've got more insights to share.
I want to bring us to the culture world and
ask you a question, because so much of our viewing
(27:04):
decisions today are being filtered through recommendation engines and you
know and the like, what elements of culture do you
think technology will never understand? And I want to preface
this by suggesting, and I did this a long time ago,
and I apologize to listeners who've heard me say it before,
but years ago I did a conversation about the loss
(27:26):
of serendipity and marketing. I always give credit to d Solomon,
who worked for me back in the day, for coming
up with that as a thought starter, because we have
all struggled for years. Not struggled, but we've all looked
for the right message at the right time and the
right context, on the right device to the right person.
Forgetting that there is a degree of creativity here and
(27:48):
surprise and delight and shock and awe. You know, don't
only find a person who's in market for a car
to send them a car ad. Find somebody who might
be entertained by a car ad or think it's beautiful
and go. You know, I didn't think I wanted a car,
but maybe I do.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
You know, the algorithm can find most things, but what
do you think about the cultural aspects that the algorithms
can't digest.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
It's a great question. You know. I'm such a fan
of John Langraft's at FX, and he has always talked
about you know, I want to walk through a city
street and be surprised by what's around the next corner.
And I will say this. You know, we do a
really good job. By we, I mean our engineers and
our product people and all the people who who look
to serve the viewer. They are trying to do two things.
(28:35):
And one is too obviously, service content that we think
they're going to love and do it better than anybody
and make sure it's an experience that it is absolutely
delightful and gets through to the content you want to watch.
But Michael, there's a huge amount of surprise and delight
we want to build into that. And so, for instance,
you might have a content row that has this is
(28:56):
a random might have three tiles and two of them
are algorithmically driven to get you to things that we
think you're going to love based on what the algorithm knows,
and the third may be a complete surprise and delight
and maybe a cultural moment that was curated by a
human to put it there. And that's what this mix
of human and the algorithm I think is really powerful
(29:18):
and we're doing at scale.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Let's talk about competitive strategy as more companies or at
least some of the big players. You're a big player,
but some of the other big players obviously build wall
gardens and make those walls taller and harder to navigate.
You at Roku have always and continued to lead and
lean into interoperability. Yeah, it's a harder road, but the
(29:44):
long term advantage I think that comes from it. Can
you talk about that a little just from a corporate philosophy.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, So, look, I appreciate you saying we're a big player,
but the philosophy is different. Obviously, everyone knows who you're
speaking about that is behind a walled garden, and they
have business reasons for being there and just sheer heft
and scale and data and other advantages that they choose
that business strategy. What I think is Roku's differentiation is
(30:13):
that we have all the scale with the largest television
operating system. We have this enormous publisher platform in the
Roku channel, and of course we have all the homescreen
benefits I talked about, and I think it's going to
serve marketers and viewers.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Charlie, I want to revert to where I love to
close with the lightning round. Charlie, what's your greatest professional
fear fear?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Well, I don't spend a ton of time being fearful,
but I do think a lot about art versus commerce,
and art and commerce living together because I think that
balance is really important. I want to be excellent at
art and excellent at commerce and not err on the
wrong side when I'm trying to do the opposite. It's
(30:56):
never lost on me that great executives get offices, but
great artists get museums and they change popular culture. And
I'd always like to make sure that I am supporting
artists while I'm doing great work. So that's something I
think a lot about.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Is there a particular mentor or mentors that were early
in your career, and is there a particular piece of
advice that you could identify that one of those people,
or you know a host of those people gave you.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It's funny I get asked this quite a bit, and
I seem to go back to two people in my life.
One was a woman named Marlene Manos. Arlene Manos gave
me my first She's since it's not a video podcast,
Michael just put his hand over her heart. She is
the definition of mench When I was twenty four years
old trying to get into what at the time like
streaming now was booming cable then she took a chance
(31:48):
on me and gave me a network sales job at
a andy. She gave me great advice because she also
gave me my first management job. And it's advice I
passed every new manager, and it's begin as you intend
to proceed, and it's the advice as a new manager.
So many young people, as new managers, go to be
best friends first, or say nothing's changed. I know, I
(32:09):
was your partner yesterday and now I'm your boss. Nothing's changed.
And by definition, if that's the approach you take, three, four, five,
six months later, you're having to be the boss, and
you did not begin as you intended to proceed. It's
far better to look your friend in the eye and say, look,
there's something that's changed. Here's how we're going to go,
and it's going to be great, and here's how we're
going to operate. Let's begin this way.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I didn't handle it in that articulate of fashion, but
I always remember this when I was running a media
agency and the Walt Disney Company was our largest client,
and the account executive on my team who would have
been handling the business was stolen by our client and
taken over to be the client. And I remember saying
on Monday, her name was christ is Christy Frutenfeld, and
(32:53):
she's a great friend.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Still.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I just saw her recently. I said, wait, Christy, on Monday,
you had to suck up to me. Now on Tuesday,
I have to suck up to you. So it was
better of a reversal.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah. Well, so I like Arlen's because she was giving
good advice. And it's life advice. It's for most situations.
Beginnings you and tend to proceed, then you don't have
to change. And the other mentor I always talk about,
and I met him when I was at AMC and
he's been a friend ever since, Peter Gouber. He has
given me advice that has traveled generations. I will tell
(33:24):
you a quick story that one time my son called
me from college and he was so pleased with himself
because he had followed advice that I told him Peter
Gouber gave to me. And essentially, he was sitting at
a table, as many do in Hollywood, and in this case,
he was sitting at a table of people and someone
started talking about one of his teammates. He was an
athlete in college. And he said to the people, as
(33:48):
they were starting to get a little caddy, he said, look,
you know, you're welcome to your opinion, and it's certainly
not my opinion, So why don't we change the subject,
or if not, and you're going to keep talking about
my teammate, I'm going to go. And not only did
it change the conversation at the table, they were kind
of floored, it showed everyone what a good friend he was,
(34:08):
and it showed everyone that when they weren't in the room,
my son would have their back. And that story and
that advice came to me directly from Peter Gouber, and
he's taught me more than you can imagine, not just
about how to be a better executive and a better
creative executive, but in a case like that, how to
be a better friend. And I'm very appreciative for all
(34:31):
his guidance over the years.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I tell this little anecdote, Charlie, you know it. Ronnie
my wife when she went to camp. Peter was the
Color War general and Tara, Peter's wife, was Ronnie's counselor.
And the funny generational part of that story is, so
my wife, as I said, went to camp with Peter
and his wife, and now our grandchildren are in school together.
(34:53):
So it's a full circle. And by the way, getting
advice from Peter Guber is something that we could all
benefit from the most intelligent people that I know, So
I share that view.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So smart and so generous of spirit, and I hope
his grandkids are keeping the keeping the spirit alife.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
They are for sure, Charlie, if you could give your
younger self one piece of guidance, what would it be?
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Oh gosh, I'd say leave everything better than you found it.
That's you know, I'm not the only ones saying that,
But imagine you walk into every room, you try to
leave every person better than you found them. You try
to leave every situation better than you found it. If
you did that actively for a lifetime, think about what
a difference you make. And again, I've been blessed to
be around a lot of people who act that way,
(35:35):
and then my job is to just try to elevate
them while they do it, and hopefully it can pounds.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Charlie, I know you like music. What was your first concert?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Oh? Wow, good question. This was wasted on me. But
back in the day, my tennis coach took me to
see Bruce Springsteen on the River tour and I got
a concert tee that you know probably went down to
my ankles, and I didn't understand that I was watching
The Boss. But it was pretty cool to be at
a concert.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
I don't question, when was the last time you saw
a person or a company in this industry or not
where you look back and said, damn, I wish I'd
thought of that.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Oh gosh, Well, you know it's interesting Michael all the time,
And but I don't say I wish I thought about that.
I always watch and focus on their execution as I
think about the stories we've shared, and I know we've
been through through a lot. You know, you could have
the idea, but who can execute. I mean I could
have walked up to you with any one of the
platforms or networks I've worked at and said, here's what
(36:31):
we're gonna do. But we have Vince gilly and executing
and the team around him. We'd all get breaking that
out of AMC. Right. You got to have the idea
and you got to have the execution, and look, you
you could say, oh, I wish I thought of that. Netflix. Well,
people thought of streaming before Netflix, and certainly you know
these companies, the huge studios could have done that, but
(36:51):
would they have executed.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, Charlie Collier. I want to thank you for joining
Good Company, and I want to compliment you and I
because was considering.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
What we could have done. We kept it very clean. Charlie.
We were our good behavior. Michael, I don't know what
you're referring to, but I'm sure you put a mic
in front of both of us. I'm sure we'll be
on our best behavior. No, it's always fun to be
with you. I appreciate this, Charlie Collier, Thank you, Michael.
Great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
I'm Michael Casson. Thanks for listening to Good Company.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
Good Company is brought to you by Three C Ventures
and iHeart Podcasts. Special thanks to Alexis Borger Pudeo, our
executive producer and head of Content and Talent, and to
Carl Ketle, executive producer at iHeart Podcasts. Episodes are produced
and edited by Mary Doo. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
We'll see you next time.
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